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• February 07, 2012
• 11:09

  China Prepares to Fine Apple, Possibly Ban iPad for Trademark Abuse

  Apple will have to pay $38M USD and likely be forced to pay new licensing fees unless it can win its appeal

• 11:19

  USER-TRACKING Firefox sparks Mozilla civil war

  Devs spar over unique identifiers in MetricsDataPing code

  Mozilla coders are arguing among themselves about the open-source outfit's Metrics Data Ping project, which was designed to monitor Firefox usage metrics. Several coders in the Mozilla camp have expressed concern about how some developers are proposing the project should collect data from users of the browser.…

• 11:23

  2/7/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews

  DailyTech's roundup of hardware reviews from around the web for Tuesday
• 11:36

  Woman Ordered to Decrypt Laptop in Bank Fraud May Have "Forgotten" Password

  Ramona Fricosu's attorney says she may have forgotten the password

• 11:40

  RIM's Blackberry 10 Native SDK will be open source

  Moves further away from a closed system

  
  
  

• 11:40

  Motorola Droid 4 to launch on Verizon for $199.99

  

  The Motorola Droid 4 will be available on Verizon's network for $199.99 with a two-year contract, Motorola announced in a press release today. The smartphone carries on the keyboard tradition of its predecessor, the Droid 3, but with a much-improved design.

  The Droid 4 has a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 4-inch qHD display. An 8-megapixel camera that can record 1080p video is on the back of the phone, and an "HD" camera is on the front. The phone has a 1785mAh battery and will launch with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, "to be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich," according to Motorola.

  We handled the phone a bit at CES, and while it's still on the thick and heavy side, the sliding action was smoother and easier than the Droid 3, which had a stiff mechanism. The keyboard keys also had more travel and were easier to press, which should make for a better typing experience.

  The Droid 4 will be available in stores and online starting February 10.

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• 12:00

  Pulsed lasers make lightweight glasses out of polymers

  

  Microscopically, glasses are solids that look more like liquids—they lack a regular crystalline structure. The liquid character is no accident, since a typical glass is made by cooling a fluid rapidly. If done in the right way, this skips the usual crystallization that occurs at the freezing point of the material, leaving a disordered state. If we want to create a glass with specific properties, we need precise control over the fluid-to-glass transition, but that has proven very difficult to achieve in practice.

  To this end, Yunlong Guo et al. have developed a way to produce stable glasses made of polymers. As described in a Nature Materials paper published February 5, the resulting glasses are extremely lightweight, have a higher transitional temperature, and maintain their properties up to a higher temperatures than normal glasses. The researchers made the glasses by deposition rather than cooling, using a technique known as matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation, or MAPLE. The result is a glass built up of nanoscale globules, a material with interesting theoretical properties as well as potential applications.

  

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• 12:01

  TRENDnet home security cam flaw exposes thousands

  Just when you thought you were alone in the bath

  TRENDnet has acknowledged a flaw that meant that live feeds from its home security cameras were accessible online without needing a password.…

• 12:15

  Almost All States Sign On To Massive Mortgage Settlement

  

  Last night was the deadline for the attorneys general of each state to sign onto a massive settlement with the nation's five largest mortgage lenders, and more than 40 of the states opted to join in the pot-sharing.

  The settlement would reduce mortgages by about $20,000 for upward of 1 million homeowners and as many as 750,000 people who were foreclosed upon could see $2,000 settlement checks.

  Among the few holdouts are two of the country's largest and most populous states, California and New York, as well as Nevada and Arizona, two of the states hit the hardest by the collapse of the housing market.

  While those behind the settlement are hoping that all the states will ultimately sign on -- bringing the value of the settlement up to around the $25 billion mark -- California AG Kamala Harris says there are "significant sticking points" currently keeping the state from signing onto the deal.

  If a state decides to opt out of the settlement, its residents will not share in the benefits. The individual states could still continue to seek settlements on their own with the five lenders -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial.

  The settlement would apply only to privately held mortgages issued from 2008 through 2011.

  More than 40 states agree to nationwide foreclosure settlement [NY Daily News]

• 12:15

  Kingdoms of Amalur: A great action game in an empty, forgettable world

  

  The ubiquity of the action RPG, as an idea, is a little weird when you think about it. It's hard to think of two more disparate genres to try to combine, and usually the attempt ends up leaning too heavily toward one side of the coin or the other. Action RPGs often feel like roleplaying games that replace turn-based combat with overly simple button mashing, or like action games with some cursory, stat-building “RPG elements” thrown in toward the end of development.

  Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning manages a surprising trick, then, in creating an action RPG that feels like a full-fledged action game and a full-fledged RPG. Unfortunately, only one of those two component parts manages to stand on its own in a satisfying way.

  

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• 12:18

  Ubisoft moves DRM servers, makes some games unplayable

  Oh, DRM, how we love to loathe you. In the name of combating pirates, who don't seem the least bit deterred, you make playing games much more complicated than it really needs to be. Sometimes, you even prevent us from playing at all. Ubisoft is migrating a number of its online services to a new facility, and several games will be unplayable during the move.

  The publisher details the affected games here , and the list is a short one. On the PC, only Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 , Might & Magic: Heroes VI , and The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom will be unplayable during ...

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• 12:30

  After seizure, online gamblers try to retrieve $150 million from Full Tilt Poker

  

  After a key ruling last week, US gamblers hoping to retrieve $150 million stored with online gaming site Full Tilt Poker will have the opportunity to go after the company in court.

  In April 2011, the US Department of Justice shut down the websites of the three largest online poker companies then operating in the United States. These included Full Tilt Poker, which the Justice Department described as a "global Ponzi scheme" that assured players that their money was safe but that did not actually have enough funds to repay them. It was alleged that Full Tilt Poker credited "approximately $130 million in phantom money to US players' online accounts."

  

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• 12:31

  Cloud proves that OldSQL is still cool

  Relational lives to fight on

  Open... and Shut As the IT world scrambles pell mell into the cloud, veteran vendors like Oracle are having to figure out how to make money in an IT market that is increasingly turning its back on traditional software licensing. While Oracle has faced down challenges to its core database business before from open source, the cloud presents an even thornier problem. If the world wants NoSQL and its ilk, will Oracle be forced to capitulate?…

• 12:34

  Banks Realize Short Sales Are Better Than Foreclosure, Pay Homeowners To Sell Now

  

  It's been nearly a half decade since the housing market imploded like an old stadium packed with explosives and the ground is still rumbling from the impact. Realizing it's better to recover some money now rather than trying to get all their cash back eventually, more banks are making it easier for homeowners to unload their houses for less than what is owed on the mortgage.

  So-called short sales are traditionally a nightmare to all involved parties. Homeowners have had to jump through hoops at uncooperative banks who stubbornly insisted a buyer could be found who would be willing to pay the full amount remaining on the loan. Home buyers often balked at even making offers on short sale properties, knowing it could take months of waiting just to find out the bank didn't approve the deal.

  But according to Bloomberg, banks have come to see that it might make more sense to unload the property ASAP rather than go through the lengthy foreclosure and auction process.

  Thus, banks are now pre-approving some short sales which cuts down the amount of time it takes to close on the deal. Some banks are also forgoing their right to pursue unpaid debt and occasionally providing large cash incentives.

  Bloomberg has the story of one underwater homeowner who received a letter from JPMorgan Chase declaring, "You could sell your home, owe nothing more on your mortgage and get $30,000."

  So she took the deal and the bank sold her home for $200,000 less than what was owed on the mortgage -- and she walked away with $30K that she'll be using to move and make a deposit on the rental she'll move into once she closes later this week.

  "I wondered, why would they offer me something, and why wouldn't they just give me the boot?" she tells Bloomberg. "Instead, I'm getting money."

  "When a modification is not possible, a short sale produces a better and faster result for the homeowner, the investor and the community than a foreclosure," explained a rep for Chase.

  In the last two years, short sales have jumped from only 2% of U.S. residential transactions to 9%.

  Banks Pay Homeowners to Avoid Foreclosures [Bloomberg]

• 12:40

  Genome of extinct human relative placed on Amazon web services

  

  It has been nearly 200 years since we became aware of the Neanderthals, an extinct form of humans that once shared Europe and Asia with the modern humans. But it has been less than two years since we discovered that the Neanderthals were not the only archaic modern human around at the time. In short order, researchers in Germany produced a draft of the Denisova genome, which showed that the ancestors of some modern human populations had interbred with the Denisovans at some point in the past.

  However, the genome sequence that was published in 2010 was only a draft, which is expected to contain errors and areas of very poor coverage. The folks at the Max Planck Institute have continued sequencing away, though, and have greatly expanded their coverage of the Denisova genome; they're apparently preparing a paper to describe the expanded sequence right now. But to keep the research community from waiting for the paper to clear peer review, they've decided to release the sequence, both on the Max Planck website and through Amazon's web services. The release includes both the raw sequence itself, as well as alignments to the human and chimp genomes.

  To protect their ability to publish a paper, the Max Planck team is releasing the sequence under a license that prohibits anyone else from doing an analysis of the complete genome. But anyone interested in looking at specific genes is able to do their analysis without waiting. People interested in doing something in between these two extremes are invited to get in touch with Svante Pääbo, who is directing the work, to sort out an agreement.

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• 12:45

  Google launches Google+ developer hangouts

  Wants to get closer to developers

  
  
  

• 12:52

  Minecraft developer makes "serious" offer to fund Psychonauts sequel

  

  In the annals of video gaming, 2005's mind-bending platformer Psychonauts is right up there with Earthbound and Beyond Good and Evil in the ranks of games that have a devoted cadre of fans eagerly demanding sequels. Now, those Psychonauts fans might have a decent chance of getting their wish, thanks to an odd, indirect Internet back-and-forth involving Psychonauts creator Tim Shafer and Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson.

  

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• 13:00

  Bush Defends Auto Bailout Amid Romney Attacks

  Bush, Romney, and Obama all show some love to the bank bailouts, though -- who says we can't all get along

• 13:00

  Detroit Tax Officials Tells Squatters In Foreclosed Homes They're Welcome To Stay If They Pay

  

  It's too bad our pal Kenneth, the $16 house guy, doesn't live in Detroit, or he might've been able to keep on squatting: Tax officials in Wayne County are going to offer those living in thousands of foreclosed homes the opportunity to stay in those homes for as little as $500.

  CBS Detroit says more than 6,000 homes were foreclosed due to unpaid taxes and didn't sell at auction. The county treasurer's office would rather see those homes with occupants than sitting abandoned, so they'll negotiate with anyone living inside, including former owners.

  Wayne County Deputy Treasurer Eric Sabree said representatives from his office will make the offer on thousands of delinquent properties, with a few requirements.

  "A person must prove to us that they are bonafide residents who unfortunately, I am presuming, have been paying their rent to somebody who apparently didn't pay their delinquent taxes," he said. People can prove residence with driver's licenses or a state ID card, as well as cable or utility bills.

  Those who get to stay then must be monitored for two years to ensure that they maintain the property and pay taxes on the home -- after all, the point is keep the house from looking abandoned.

  The city of Detroit isn't putting their stamp of approval on the county tax officals' plan, and some see it as unfair on people who have never missed a tax bill.

  County Officials Giving Away Detroit Homes For $500; Taxes Must Be Delinquent [CBS Detroit]

• 13:03

  Canonical kicks Kubuntu to the kerb

  Axed KDE-based Linux distro was biz non-starter

  Ubuntu shop Canonical has withdrawn support from development of the KDE-based Kubuntu Linux desktop after seven years for commercial reasons.…

• 13:09

  Quick Note: Google Launches Chrome Browser for ICS Smartphones, Tablets

  Google brings Chrome to the mobile sector

• 13:12

  Intel Is Planning To Drop PowerVR Graphics

  There's some more exciting Intel news to report this week that will please plenty of Linux and open-source fans: Intel is planning to drop their use of Imagination Technologies PowerVR graphics within future-generation SoCs...

  
  

  

• 13:29

  Chinese company demands $38m, 'apology' from Apple

  Convoluted iPad trademark battle grinds on

  A Chinese trademark-infringement case against Apple's right to use the name "iPad" that has been rumbling along since October 2010 has taken another turn: the Shenzhen company involved in the imbroglio now wants Cupertino to be levied a $38m fine – and it wants an apology.…

  

• 13:30

  Shoppers Give Costco Highest Overall Marks Among Major Retailers

  

  Our pals-in-arms at the Consumer Reports National Research Center recently asked more than 26,000 readers to rate their shopping experiences at the nation's top retailers -- both in-store and online -- and in spite of being a members' only warehouse store, Costco came out looking the best.

  Survey respondents told CR about their 55,108 shopping experiences at Costco, JCPenney, Kmart, Kohl's, Macy's, Meijer, Sam's Club, Sears, Target, and Walmart and on those retailers' websites.

  When all the results were tallied, Costco was the only chain to earn an outstanding grade for the overall quality of its merchandise, both at its bricks-and-mortar stores and online.

  Costco also earned above-average scores in all 10 product categories, including electronic entertainment, jewelry, and sporting goods.

  Costco's website was lauded by respondents for its layout, product value and its checkout process.

  The only real downsides to the retailer's results came from below average scores for its in-store selection, the long checkout lines. Its stores were also called out for a lack of fitting rooms.

  Some other notes from the survey, which is available in the March issue of Consumer Reports and on ConsumerReports.org:

  * Not surprisingly, CR readers gave low marks to Target's revamped website for being not especially easy to use.

  * Macy's was the only chain besides Costco to receive raves for its kitchenware and personal-care products.

  * While Sears' stores and website had similar overall scores, the chain's online customer service rated lower than its walk-in service.

  * Walmart and Kmart stores scored much lower than those of other retailers. Walmart might be associated with low prices, but respondents said the product value was better at Costco and Kohl's. Kmart was the only chain to score below average for value. Kmart also received low marks for selection, service, and checkout speed.

  * 23% of the Walmart shoppers who returned an item to one of its stores the previous year reported at least one problem, significantly more than at any other retailer.

• 13:30

  6,300 wannabe astronauts flood NASA inbox

  Second-highest number of applications since 1978

  NASA has received the second-highest number of astronaut applications ever for the 21st astronaut class when more than 6,300 people signed up to be space invaders.…

• 13:36

  Google (finally) brings Chrome to Android

  

  Google is finally bringing Chrome to the Android platform. A beta release of the increasingly popular Web browser was published this morning in the Android Market and is available to users who are running Android 4. The port includes Chrome's advanced HTML rendering engine and many of the browser's popular features.

  The Chrome beta is designed to run on both phones and tablets. The tablet version of the user interface is nearly a perfect match of Chrome on the desktop, including the distinctive slanted tab design. The phone version has a more compressed interface, suitable for smaller screens, and includes the standard Chrome features such as the Omnibar and application shortcut pane.

  

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• 13:42

  Xeround's cloudy MySQL database goes freemium

  Rejiggers pricing, puffs up on other clouds

  Xeround, a startup with experience in making scalable database management systems for telcos and service providers, vaulted itself into the cloudy database business last June with the launch of its eponymous database service running atop Amazon's EC2 service. Now it is tweaking the product's packaging and pricing to make it more appealing to a larger number of customers.…

• 14:00

  Would You Shop At A Brick-And-Mortar Amazon Store?

  

  Now that Amazon played a ginormous part in moving retail storse out of the malls and onto the Internet, they might be pulling a retro switcheroo and trying things the old-fashioned way with a brick-and-mortar store in Seattle. Reverse bandwagon!

  Daily Finance says there are rumors that Amazon is readying its first retail store for a Seattle debut, perhaps in a mall to appeal to remaining mall rats and shoppers who like to see their purchases in the light of day before buying.

  So will they be selling everything that's available on the web site? Of course not, because that would be physically impossible. Instead, the trial store will feature Kindle products and accessories, along the lines of what Apple has done with its products. The boutique will also sell some book titles from its Amazon Publishing subsidiary.

  
  Would you prefer to shop at a physical Amazon store?

  Is Amazon a Mall Rat? [DailyFinance]

• 14:01

  Rambus drops $35m for Unity Semiconductor

  Cash for CMOX

  Rambus is spending $35m (£22.13m) in cash to buy Unity Semiconductor and get into the post-NAND memory business.…

• 14:15

  Woman Sues Wells Fargo For Telling Police She Was Contemplating Suicide

  

  An elderly Oregon woman has filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo, alleging that a bank employee harassed her by telling the police she was threatening suicide -- and running up a $1,055 hospital bill in the process.

  The 85-year-old plaintiff says that she fell behind on her Wells Fargo credit card payments in 2010. She eventually worked out a payment plan with the bank and all the collection calls stopped, at least until Feb. 2011.

  That's when she says she received a call from a Wells Fargo staffer who, according to the complaint, talked to her about her outstanding debt, "in a contemptuous tone stating words to the effect that you know you owe the money and 'you should just pay it.'"

  The plaintiff says that as the WF staffer "continued to badger her," she mentioned that "such harassment was bad policy, and 'could have serious consequences' including leading people to abandon their homes or even potentially committing suicide."

  She says she made it clear several times throughout the phone conversation that she was not talking about her own state of mind, but that others in a similar situation might be despondent to point of self-harm.

  According to the complaint, the caller prodded the plaintiff about whether or not she was thinking about suicide. At one point, when she assured him that she wasn't thinking about killing herself, he is alleged to have asked, "But ... if you did, how would you do it -- hurt yourself?"

  On the actually relevant topic of paying off her debt, the plaintiff says she told the caller that "she intended to continue to pay defendant Wells once per month as agreed." But this only "offended and angered" the caller.

  Not long after the call was over, a trio of police officers were knocking on the plaintiff's door, telling her that they had received a 911 call saying she had made multiple suicide threats over the phone.

  From the complaint:
  

  The police, relying on the information in the 911 call provided by defendant... forcibly took plaintiff to the local hospital emergency room, over her objections. When they arrive at the hospital police told the hospital personnel that plaintiff was suicidal.

  After being checked out by hospital staff and deemed a non-danger to herself, the woman was released, but not without being handed a bill for $1,055 because she doesn't have insurance.

  She says that when she attempted to call Wells Fargo to complain, the person she spoke to told her the original caller was not there, but when she told this employee her story about the police and the hospital visit, she alleges, "the employee laughed loudly and plaintiff could hear her calling out something like 'Hey Chuck ... that woman you called the police on got taken to the hospital by the police.' Plaintiff heard loud laughter in the collections center and the female employee proceeded to congratulate defendant... on how effective his call had been in a way that plaintiff was certain to hear."

  The lawsuit, filed against Wells Fargo and the employee, seeks $250,000 in damages for unlawful trade practices, unlawful debt collection practices, intentional infliction of emotional distress, privacy invasion, false light, and the cost of her medical bills.

  Worst Debt Collector in the World? [CourthouseNews.com]

• 14:29

  NetApp slaps down Lightning with multi-card flash flush

  Supports vMotion and DRS

  NetApp is developing a server flash storage offering that will include beefy NetApp steak and not just EMC Lightning sizzle, according to insiders in the company.…

• 14:33

  Google adds Chrome finish to Android

  Ice Cream Sandwich users only, sadly

  Google has announced a beta version of its increasingly popular Chrome browser for Android users, but only if you’re on the most current build, version 4.0, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich.…

• 15:00

  Starting A Mall-Closing Riot Won't Make Those Cool New Shoes Any Less Sold Out

  

  There is no way to go back in time and have those super neat sneaks you want be the opposite of sold out. So you know what you shouldn't do? Start a brawl that ends up closing the mall. No one wins in that situation, especially the innocent lady checking out the latest range of cinnamons in the House of Spice a few stores down, so keep your cool.

  A mall in Maryland was evacuated and shut down after crowds at Footlocker caused a melee over Nike's new Foam sneakers, says Baltimore's WJZ News.

  "Just a fight going on down there at Foot Locker. Arguments; someone said that there was knives pulled," said one mall employee.

  Police responded and moved all the customers outside. The riot-like conditions were prompted by the fact that there were 150 people trying to buy only 90 pairs of available shoes, which sold out in minutes. Cops had tried to keep conditions smooth by allowing customers in five at a time.

  Fighting over popular items is nothing new, especially as some customers try to buy up as much of something as they can, only to turn around and sell it for a profit on the Internet. But before you brawl, take a lesson from the Target shoppers in Miami who got revenge on a greedy duo for snapping up most of the Jason Wu line -- just take videos and shame them all over the Internet.

  
  Maryland Mall Evacuated & Locked Down After Sneaker Fight [WJZ News]
  

• 15:03

  HP readies next-gen servers for launch

  Looks like Xeon E5 boxes

  Server juggernaut Hewlett-Packard is hosting a shindig in Las Vegas next week with the bigwigs in its server unit, and the speculation is that the company will preview its forthcoming ProLiant G8 servers sporting Intel's "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon E5 processors.…

• 15:15

  There's More Sodium In Your Bread Than In Your Chips... Well, Maybe

  

  It's American Heart Month (some sort of Valentine's-related synergy, we suppose) so the Centers for Disease Control has issued its latest report on how much sodium -- a big contributor to high blood pressure -- we're eating and where we're getting it from.

  Not surprisingly, the biggest source of sodium in most diets is from bread and rolls, which aren't wildly high in sodium but make up a substantial portion of what we eat every day.

  Interestingly enough, according to Dept. of Agriculture numbers included in the CDC report, the 50-200 mg of sodium in a 1 oz. serving of plain potato chips may be less than the 80-230 mg of sodium in a single slice of white bread.

  Of course, very few people eat just one slice of white bread and one ounce of potato chips is just the beginning of a snack for some folks. And it also depends on the particular brands you buy. A thinner slice of bread will likely have less sodium by sheer virtue of being smaller. And flavored chips will likely mean an increase in sodium over the plain variety.

  Also of note from the CDC report:
  * About 65% of sodium eaten comes from food bought at retail stores. Another 25% comes from restaurant food.

  * Different brands of the same foods may have different sodium levels. For example, sodium in chicken noodle soup can vary by as much as 840 mg per serving.

  * Much of the raw chicken and pork bought from a store has been injected with a sodium solution.

  * Foods that are often marketed as healthy (turkey and chicken breasts, cottage cheese) can be very high in sodium.

  * Reducing the sodium Americans eat by 1,200 mg per day on average could save up to $20 billion a year in medical costs.

  Where's the sodium? [CDC]

• 15:20

  Skyrim mod tools released alongside high-res texture pack

  Bethesda included a little something extra when it released the Skyrim mod tools today: a high-res texture pack. The texture pack is available on Steam as free DLC. To get the Creation Kit, you'll need to set your Steam library to show tools instead of just games. The Creation Kit should appear on that list if you have Skyrim installed.

  Kotaku says the Creation Kit and texture pack weigh in at a hefty 3.1GB, so you might want to get an early start on downloading. Unfortunately, few details are available on the texture pack other than a note suggesting your PC exceed the ...

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• 15:33

  Quick Note: PlayBook 2.0 Calendar, "Bridge" Smartphone Control Demoed

  BlackBerries turn into free Bluetooth controllers and keyboards for RIM's tablet -- now that's more like it

• 16:00

  We Still Don't Know Why Honeybees Are Dying But They're Hard At Work Pollinating Your Food

  

  There's some new buzz about honeybees, and while not all of it is super positive -- namely, that we still can't figure out why so many of them are dying -- there are some bright spots in the latest action from the hive.

  CNNMoney says that while bees continue to mysteriously die off at a rate of 30% of captive honeybees at the end of each winter, because of efforts by beekeepers to rejuvenate those hives every summer, bees are still going about their business of pollinating your favorite foods.

  Bees do the hard work of pollinating plenty of food crops, including treats like almonds, cantaloupe, apples and blueberries, but experts say we shouldn't worry about paying more for those items at the supermarket.

  "It shouldn't be a significant item on the radar screen of consumers," said Daniel Sumner, an agricultural economist at The University of California Davis and an author of the paper "Bee-conomics." "It's not that big of a deal."

  Of course, it still is a pretty big deal in environmental terms when the fact that wild bees are also dropping dead is brought into the equation, or just flat out disappearing without leaving any tiny bee bodies around to study.

  "They could just fly away," said Kim Kaplin, a spokeswoman for the Agricultural Research Service, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "But that would be unusual because they aren't taking any of their honey with them."

  Maybe they're just sick and tired of being treated as a meal ticket and are leaving their old lives in the hive behind to join the circus or finally fulfill their dreams of climbing Mt. Everest. It's a mystery!

  Honeybee die-off shouldn't sting [CNNMoney]

• 16:00

  A fantastic introduction to Maker Spaces

  Jerry Isdale, founder of Maui Makers, sent in this great clip about their maker space. (The video is embedded above, and the Vimeo link is here.)

  The video, from TV series Self Made in Hawaii, is one of the best introductions that we have seen to maker spaces (and, really, hacker spaces in general)-- showing people working together, having fun and building awesome stuff.

  And that's exactly what maker spaces and hacker spaces are all about: There's fire art, 3D printers, and electronics, laser cutters, CNC machines, and even some fine footage of an Egg-Bot in motion.

  More information about the video is available at the Maui Makers blog.

• 16:03

  Judge denies record label's request to shutter "used" MP3 store

  

  

  A one-of-a-kind website enabling the online sale of preowned digital-music files got a major legal boost late Monday when a federal judge refused to shutter it at the request of Capitol Records.

  ReDigi, which opened in October, says it’s a modern-day, used-record store that provides account holders with a platform to buy and sell used MP3s that were purchased lawfully through iTunes. The platform’s technology does not support other digital files such as those purchased from Amazon or ripped from a CD.

  

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• 16:09

  Stratus ruggedizes VMware clouds

  Fault tolerant appliance for vCenter control freak

  Clouds have a single point of failure, and Stratus Technologies thinks it can make it some dough fixing it.…

• 16:15

  iOS companion game Infiltrator to offer bonuses in Mass Effect 3

  

  Next month's launch of Mass Effect 3 is extending past the usual PS3, Xbox 360 and PC platforms with Mass Effect Infiltrator, an iOS game that will tie in with the console and PC title to provide bonuses and unlock content.

  A number of reports from an EA promotional event in New York describe Infiltrator as a third-person shooter in which players work to free prisoners from a Cerberus base. Completed rescues in the iOS title will unlock "exclusive weaponry" and increase players' "Galactic Readiness" rating in Mass Effect 3 according to the reports, helping players to unlock the best ending in the main game. Actions in infiltrator will also affect the larger story in Mass Effect 3.

  This isn't the first time the Mass Effect series has appeared on iOS. 2009's Mass Effect Galaxy was a short, top-down shooter that offered an extremely limited tie-in reward with Mass Effect 2 when the game was completed.

  EA says Infiltrator will be hitting the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch "soon," presumably ahead of Mass Effect 3's planned March 6 launch.

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• 16:15

  Clint Eastwood Denies Political Slant In Chrysler Super Bowl Ad

  

  Last year, people around the country cheered Chrysler's ad touting the phoenix-like rebirth of Detroit and American automakers. But it's an election year, so the car company's most recent TV spot, featuring Mr. Grizzle himself, Clint Eastwood, has been attacked by some as being propaganda for the Obama administration.

  Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin was one of the first critics to come out against the spot, which use the phrase "It's halftime America," when she Tweeted "Did I just see Clint Eastwood fronting an auto bailout ad???"

  And former George W. Bush administration member Karl Rove has implied that the Obama White House actually had a hand in the ad, saying that the administration was "using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising."

  But Eastwood himself has denied any political motivation for doing the spot, saying, "It was meant to be a message just about job growth and the spirit of America. I think all politicians will agree with it. I thought the spirit was OK... I am not supporting any politician at this time."

  Fox Business has mistakenly reported that the ad was been pulled down from YouTube, when in fact it is alive and well on the Chrysler YouTube page and has already tallied more than 4.2 million views since Sunday night.

  
  Clint Eastwood: Chrysler Commercial Doesn't Mean I'm an Obama Supporter [SeattlePI.com]

• 16:19

  Spacemen urge NASA to build nuke ship for Mars trip

  Nuclear rocket engines rise from the dead

  Mars has given nuclear spacecraft engines a new lease on life, with nuke ships being named as a top priority – along with electrical propulsion – in a new report that recommends what NASA should focus on in coming years.…

  

• 16:25

  Apple trademark may hint at processing improvement for next-gen A6 processor

  

  A recent trademark application from Apple for the term "Macroscalar" may give a clue about upcoming improvements for its next-generation mobile processors. The term refers to technology Apple has been working on as far back as 2004, according to Patently Apple, and appears to refer to code optimization techniques that keep processors filled with instructions to run during otherwise repetitive loops.

  Apple applied for the trademark for "Macroscalar" in both the US and Hong Kong last week. The trademark application links the term to use with microprocessors as well as mobile devices and software. It turns out that Apple has at least four patents related to what it calls "macroscalar processor architecture," suggesting the trademark is likely connected to an improved processor for its iOS devices.

  

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• 16:38

  Ex-Acer CEO Slapped With Lawsuit for Joining Lenovo

  Gianfranco Lanci turned to Lenovo after potential employer Samsung was unable to broker settlement

• 16:54

  VMware crafts mega-controller for public clouds

  Easier provisioning for service providers, resellers

  If VMware wants service providers to dump Xen and KVM hypervisors, it has to make the job of using the VMware stack easier than the hodgepodge of usually hand-crafted tools that service providers employ and that, to a certain extent, give them their competitive advantage. Or, perhaps in some cases, a competitive disadvantage. So VMware has cooked up a special uber-controller aimed specifically at service providers, called vCloud Integration Manager.…

• 17:00

  Bank Of America Plaza Auctioned Off For Missing Mortgage Payments

  

  Bank of America Plaza, the tallest building in Atlanta, went on the auction block today, in a perfect example of things that go around you know, coming around. How does that medicine taste now, Bank of America? Your landlords missed mortgage mortgage payments and now they have to sell. We're sure that must be soo hard.

  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says landlord BentleyForbes wasn't paying the mortgage on the 55-story building, the Southeast's largest skyscraper and the biggest building in any U.S. capital city, and it was set to be auctioned today.

  BentleyForbes snatched up the tower in 2007 for $436 million, right before the real estate market went bust. They've been trying to avoid default on their main $363 million loan, to no avail.

  The history of the building's name parallels that of the merger-happy banking industry of the previous two decades. Before construction began, it was to be the C&S Plaza, named for Citizens & Southern National Bank. But before the doors even opened, C&S was purchased by NationsBank, whose name was slapped on the skyscraper. Only a few years later, that bank was gobbled up by BofA and the building underwent yet another name change.

  Anyone who nabs the tower at a discount could turn around and lease space in it for below market rent, a competitive advantage, says one expert in the field. And they can choose a newer, happier name for it! Like maybe the "Go Away Forever Recession Tower" or "Cheese Is The Best Food In The Entire World Plaza." Just a few suggestions.

  While the skyscraper isn't owned by Bank of America -- nor is BofA the building's main tenant -- but we like to think that having your name attached to a huge building in foreclosure must rankle BofA just a teeny bit. In the words of our tipster Jeff, "Is this not sweet justice?"

  Bank of America Plaza to be auctioned today [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

• 17:02

  Will Apple set up shop in Walmart warehouses?

  Sets sights on middle America

  The contrast between Apple's prestige city-centre stores and the Sam's Club warehouse chain – where budget goods are sold straight from the pallet – is sharp. But that's where Apple wants to set up mini stores to sell its gadgets.…

• 17:05

  You, me, and "science" makes three: the state of online dating

  

  Online dating has only become more ubiquitous and socially acceptable since the first sites launched in the mid-'90s: in a 2007-2009 study, 22 percent of couples surveyed formed as a result of dating websites, and it's now the second-most common way for people to meet. But a meta-analysis of online dating and psychological studies shows that while some people are successful using those services, the sites themselves oversell their benefit. There are also a number of downsides, from wrong impressions gotten from too much Internet interaction to unnecessary pickiness from an abundance of potential dates to choose from.

  The front-facing parts of dating websites often namecheck science, math, and other quantitative disciplines when describing their methods, throwing around high percentages of people matched and married, large numbers of dimensions of compatibility, and surprisingly even numbers of male and female users. Based on their iffy science, the services claim their methods are superior to offline dating. Despite the fact that "news agencies frequently parrot these claims uncritically… in awed tones," the meta-analysis says, its investigation suggests that "dating sites have failed to produce compelling evidence" for them.

  

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• 17:22

  The three patents Microsoft is hammering the Nook with—and why they may be invalid

  

  Microsoft's complaint against Barnes & Noble's Android-based Nook devices has been narrowed down to just three patents, with the US International Trade Commission having to decide whether Nook devices infringe on several patented methods of interacting with and downloading electronic documents. Barnes & Noble is also asking the ITC to declare the patents invalid because they cover obvious and trivial functionality.

  Microsoft's ITC complaint, which was filed in March 2011 and targets Foxconn and Inventec in addition to Barnes & Noble, cited five patents. One 1994 patent related to "new varieties of child window controls [that] are provided as system resources that application programs may exploit," and a 1997 patent related to how browsers load and display content in portable computers with limited display areas have since been dropped from the case.

  

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• 17:35

  Should Your Driving Record Impact Your Homeowner's Insurance?

  

  You don't need a driver's license to own a home. You don't need to own a home to drive a car. But Allstate insurance has launched a product in Oklahoma that looks at policyholder's driving records when determining their homeowner's insurance rates.

  Allstate introduced House & Home late in 2011, and for the first time the insurer is using customers' driving records to figure how much of a risk they might be around the house.

  "There is a strong correlation between auto-loss history and the likelihood of covered homeowners losses," an Allstate rep tells the Chicago Tribune. "Allstate's new homeowners product recognizes this correlation and rewards customers with good auto-loss histories with lower homeowner rates."

  So we wanted to see if you think there is a relationship between one's driving ability and the likelihood that they will file a homeowner's claim at some point:

  
  Should one's driving record factor into his/her homeowner's insurance rate?

  Allstate using driving records to set homeowners' rates in Oklahoma [Chicago Tribune]

• 17:45

  Global digirati head to Sydney

  LBI and ZINFI Tech set up shop

  New South Wales has attracted two more international digital developers to its burgeoning “Silicon Valley” styled digital economy.…

• 17:50

  Researchers boost processor performance by getting CPU and GPU to collaborate

  

  Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a technique to take advantage of the "fused architecture" emerging on multicore CPUs that puts central processing units and graphics processing units on the same chip. The technology, called CPU-assisted general purpose computation on graphics processor units (CPU-assisted GPGPU) uses software compiled to leverage the architecture to allow the CPU and GPU to collaborate on computing tasks, boosting processor performance on average by more than 20 percent in simulations.

  

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• 17:59

  AMD loses another top executive

  These are volatile times at AMD. The chipmaker has lost yet another top executive: Emilio Ghilardi, former Senior VP and Chief Sales Officer, whose departure is "effective immediately." Until a replacement is found, AMD CEO Rory Read will be taking over his duties.

  Ghilardi joined AMD in 2008 after a 25-year tenure at HP. When AMD shook up its operations in May 2009, Ghilardi was chosen to head a new ...

  Read more...

  
  

  

• 18:00

  Lasers plus a crushing magnetic field may make fusion more efficient

  

  Ever since I first heard about the idea, I have loved inertial confinement fusion. The basic concept involves blowing stuff up with lasers to get some energy, then doing it again and again as fast as possible. What more could a 38-going-on-5-year-old want? Well, what I might also want is a fusion reaction that generates more energy than you put in to it.

  One thing that lets me down about inertial confinement fusion is that the implosion that gets the fusion reaction going also acts to stop the fusion. One idea for improving the fusion reaction that has been floating around for a while is to use magnetic fields in place of lasers to increase the efficiency of the fusion burn. But until recently, no one could figure out how to make it work properly.

  

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• 18:15

  Koala food may power US Defence force

  US Navy bigwig boosting biofuel in Queensland visit

  Koalas might soon face a food shortage if the US Department of Defence pursues its interest in Australian research for the creation of biofuels from local flora.…

• 18:24

  New Fedora boss pushes for the clouds

  Robyn Bergeron takes the reins

  Red Hat has appointed former Fedora program manager Robyn Bergeron to that distro's next project leader – and she has plans to make the operating system more focused on cloud services.…

  

• 19:01

  TomTom Ticks Off Customers With Pricing Errors, Tries To Make Good

  

  Angry TomTom customers have been writing to us all day today to complain that the GPS maker had canceled orders they placed last week on the company's website.

  E-mails sent by TomTom to customers explained that the orders were being canceled due to a pricing error. Most pricing errors we hear about involve a single item with incorrect discount info. The complaints coming in about TomTom represented an entire array of products.

  So we asked TomTom what the heck happened. Here is the company's explanation:
  

  Despite our best efforts, pricing errors occasionally occur and we can confirm that on Feb. 2, 2012 incorrect prices were listed on TomTom.com in relation to our Valentine's Day sale. As a result, we will cancel orders for the mispriced units and will refund any customers who have already been charged for their original orders.

  We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our customers. The Valentine's Day promotion will continue as planned through 2/20/2012 and we're also offering affected customers an additional $20 off the promotional products (Via 1505, XL 350TM, XXL 540M WTE, GO LIVE Top Gear edition).

  The $20 discount was not enough for a few upset readers, who believe that TomTom should honor the lower price.

  As we've mentioned before, in spite of popular internet rumors to the contrary, pricing errors do not necessarily constitute bait-and-switch and sellers are generally not required to honor such mistakes.

  That being said, honoring those errors can sometimes be a good public relations move, especially if it works to retain loyal customers who will pay full price for your product in the future.
  

• 19:03

  Hong Kongers protest over end to all-you-can-eat tariffs

  SmarTone on the receiving end of user fury

  Hong Kong dwellers have staged a mini-protest outside one of the stores of SmarTone against the cellco's response to new rules from the local regulator which will force all network operators to scrap unlimited data tariffs.…

• 19:07

  Major ReactOS Release: Themes, Shell, ACPI, WiFi

  ReactOS, the open-source operating system project that's been aspiring to be Microsoft Windows NT binary compatible for more than a decade, is out with a major release -- the first in nearly one year...

  
  

  

• 19:51

  Laser boffins blast bits onto hard drive at 200Gb/sec

  Superheating drives forego magnetic write heads

  A team of scientists have published a new way of using heat to store data magnetically, which could increase the speed of hard drives over a hundredfold.…

• 20:15

  'App Economy' has created 466,000 US jobs

  Thanks to Apple, Google, Facebook...

  Although Apple may be facing mounting criticism for outsourcing its manufacturing beyond US shores, creating 700,000 jobs in China and elsewhere, one tech-industry advocacy group claims that Apple, the Android ecosystem, Facebook, and lesser lights account for roughly 466,000 US jobs in what it calls the "App Economy".…

• 20:30

  SGI to restructure (again) after fiscal Q2 loss

  Blame Europe, Xeon E5 product transitions

  It is becoming more apparent why supercomputer and server maker Silicon Graphics' former president and CEO Mark Barrenechea decided to exit stage left back in December. While the company was growing gear sales, it was heading deeper into the red ink as old machines came off maintenance and new machines await their ramps this year.…

• 21:05

  Google reportedly developing Android-powered smart glasses

  

  Much like flying cars and jet packs, wearable computing is one of those aspirational fields of technology where the current state of the art doesn't deliver the sort of experience that people have imagined for decades. An experimental project that is reportedly under development in Google's labs could raise the bar, however.

  According to a report that was published today in the blog 9to5Google, the search giant is developing a product called Google Glasses that will have a built-in heads-up display. The device, which supposedly resembles a pair of Oakley shades, is said to have an integrated transparent display for one eye and a built-in front-facing camera. The latter could be used for augmented reality applications. The device would use speech and head tilting for text input and control.

  9to5Google suggests that the Google Glasses product could soft-launch with a pilot program later this year, making the product available to a select number of testers. This would follow the model of the Chromebook launch, which was preceded by the Cr-48 test unit.

  Although the reports are still highly speculative, the concept of smart glasses is intriguing. There are some existing products in this space, but they aren't easy to purchase and are definitely not priced for a mainstream audience.

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• 21:15

  Feature: Don't panic? Windows 8 and the "ribbonification" of Explorer

  

  When Microsoft first revealed that the Explorer file manager would be outfitted with a ribbon-style toolbar in Windows 8, responses were loud, passionate, and frequently negative.

  The company recently described changes that it has made to Windows 8's Explorer in response to the feedback. These include some small modifications to the ribbon experience along with some other refinements of Explorer's new features. Though the changes themselves have been welcomed, the continued hostility toward Explorer's redesign remains.

  

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• 22:31

  Australian sports get busy with copyright special pleading

  Chewing on the government's ear

  Australia’s sports administrators, usually busy trying to steal each others’ audiences, have discovered the spirit of cooperation in the face of the Optus TV Now Federal Court decision.…

  

• 23:33

  Adobe confirms: no Flash for Chrome on Android

  

  Google issued a beta release of Chrome for Android earlier today. The browser provides support for modern Web standards and includes a number of compelling features that aren't available in the Android's default browser. One noteworthy Chrome desktop feature that isn't included in the mobile port, however, is the integrated Flash runtime.

  Adobe has issued a statement confirming that Chrome for Android does not support Flash content. The company also indicated that it does not plan to work with Google to add Flash support to the new mobile browser. Adobe will, however, continue supporting Flash in the current default Android browser.

  "Today Google introduced Chrome for Android Beta. As we announced last November, Adobe is no longer developing Flash Player for mobile browsers, and thus Chrome for Android Beta does not support Flash content," wrote Adobe's Flash Platform product manager Bill Howard.

  Adobe struggled for years to make the Flash player plugin viable on mobile devices. Though it was able to make Flash work reasonably well on Android phones, results were mixed on other systems. Due to Apple's unwillingness to allow the Flash plugin on iOS and the difficulty that Adobe faced bringing the Flash player to new devices, the plugin never achieved the same ubiquity on phones that it has historically enjoyed on the desktop.

  These setbacks caused Adobe to abandon its mobile Flash player strategy last year. The company announced that it would phase out development of its mobile Flash player plugin and not support it on new platforms. Adobe instead focused its mobile Flash efforts on developing tools for deploying Flash content as native mobile applications. It also strengthened its commitment to native Web standards and acknowledged HTML5 as the way forward for building rich mobile Web experiences.

  When Google eventually moves to replace the default Android browser with Chrome in future versions of the Android platform, devices that run the operating system will likely no longer be able to play Flash content in the browser.

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• 23:57

  Anonymous exposes e-mails of Syrian presidential aides

  

  Hackers aligned with Anonymous have exposed hundreds of e-mail messages from the webmail server of Syria's Ministry of Presidential Affairs, the support ministry for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Among the exposed e-mail messages was a set of talking points for Assad's interview with Barbara Walters in December 2011.

  A translation of the e-mail sent by Sheherazad Jaafari, a press attaché at the Syrian mission to the United Nations, to Assad aide and former Al Jazeera journalist Luna Chebel, provided helpful hints for Assad to manipulate American opinion about what was going on in Syria. The message suggested that "it is hugely important and worth mentioning that 'mistakes' have been done in the begining of the crises because we did not have a well-organized 'police force.' American psyche can be easily manipulated when they hear there are 'mistakes' done and now we are 'fixing it.'" 

  Jaafari suggested comparing what was happening in Syria to US law enforcement's response to the Occupy Wall Street protests.

  Along with the release of these e-mails, Anonymous also exposed the passwords of 78 accounts on the Ministry's servers. Of the passwords revealed, 31 were "12345" and a number were minor variations on that. Some of the other passwords in the set included:

  • iloveyou
  • 123vivasyria
  • system
  • honda2011
  • testing

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• February 08, 2012
• 1:00

  Wednesday Shortbread

  Eight is Enough

  1. DigiTimes: Vendors dropping ultrabook prices in preparation of
     second-generation models and SanDisk cuts retail product prices
  2. X-bit labs: Death of Micron's CEO may slow down consolidation of DRAM market
  3. Real World Technologies pens AMD Analyst update
  4. Raspberry Pi gets a manufacturing date and an SoC datasheet
  5. OBR-Hardware.com: Intel Haswell in QS samples...
  6. VR-Zone: AMD refreshes FirePro series at the entry level
     with V3900 and Microsoft might launch an Xbox TV
  7. dpreview's Nikon D800 hands-on preview
  8. Creation Kit Tutorial Series - Episode 1: Introduction to the Kit

  Read more...

  
  

  

• 2:00

  Ten... Freesat TV receivers

  Orbital options for the digital switchover

  Product round-up Whether you’ve cut the cord and churned away from Sky, or need to survive the digital switch-over without recourse to Pay-TV or aerial, it’s worth considering Freesat. The gratis satellite TV service matches Freeview for SD channels, and offers a smattering of high-def plus the BBC iPlayer, hardware permitting. It’s a good bet for both the cash-strapped and the locationally challenged.…

• 3:03

  Apple won't rule out all singing, all dancing iBooks on Kindle

  But they must be free. And will need an Android app

  Apple has come under fire for keeping all products of its new interactive book-making tool within its walled garden. According to a tough End User License Agreement, any iBooks created by the iBooks Author software can only be sold through the iBookstore so Apple can help itself to a 30 per cent cut.…

• 3:31

  Move over cybercrims, DDoS now protesters' weapon of choice

  Attackers swap rifles for machine guns with laser sights

  Ideological hacktivism has replaced cybercrime as the main motivatation behind DDoS attacks, according to a study by Arbor Networks.…

• 4:01

  Heathrow facial recognition tech stalled by borders fiasco

  Airport's scanner rollout to miss Olympics target

  Heathrow airport may now not get facial recognition technology at all five of its terminals in time for the Olympics as planned, according to the Financial Times.…

• 4:28

  Coke-snorting cop bots to replace sniffer dogs

  Roboplod finds could count as evidence in court

  Sniffer dogs can get tired, but fibre-optic sniffer robots don't have the same problem. And they are just as good at detecting cocaine, says Tong Sun, a professor of sensor engineering at City University London.…

• 4:59

  Yahoo sheds chairman and directors

  All change at the top

  
  
  

• 4:59

  Nokia axes 4,000, shifts smartphone manufacturing East

  Factories hit in cost-cutting drive

  Having reviewed operations at its manufacturing facilities in Hungary, Mexico and Finland, Nokia has decided to halt its assembly lines there. Smartphones will still be customised at the three sites, but the gear itself will be built in Asia.…

  
• 5:17

  NFC leader Inside Secure to IPO this month

  It's no Facebook, but it does actually design stuff

  Inside Secure has filed for an initial public offering, looking to raise almost €80m a day after it celebrated shipping 20 million chips, and signed up a major handset manufacturer.…

• 5:41

  HP may be going the server flash route

  Company won't confirm it, but the G8 looks pretty flashy

  HP's new G8 servers will sport lots of flash, according to a knowledgeable HP fan.…

• 5:59

  Huawei's super-skinny Ascend P1 S headed to China in March

  Home market gets first dibs on 0.26-inch 'iPhone-killer'

  Chinese electronics giant Huawei could be set to launch what it claims to be the world’s slimmest phone as early as next month, according to reports.…