Sam's Internet

Verizon Wireless Temporarily Blocks Some 4chan Traffic [Voices]

All Things Digital (Andrew LaVallee | Reporter, The Wall Street Journal) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:40:38 GMT

By Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Verizon Wireless said Monday that its recent blocking of parts of 4chan was caused by “potentially disruptive” traffic from the popular site.

“Our network security system found traffic from some of the 4chan web sites that were potentially disruptive of the Verizon Wireless network and could affect our customers’ use of their services,” Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for the wireless carrier, said. “Upon further investigation, and ensuring no current risk of harm, [we] are giving the green-light to all 4chan traffic.”

4chan itself wasn’t blocked, he added.

Christopher Poole, 4chan’s founder, said in a blog post Sunday that visitors who were Verizon Wireless customers reported problems reaching the site’s image boards.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Netflix to get 1080p streaming later this year (Josh Lowensohn/CNET News)

Techmeme — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:20:00 GMT

Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:
Netflix to get 1080p streaming later this year — Netflix subscribers with HDTVs and streaming boxes have something big to look forward to in the coming months. CNET has learned that the company plans to roll out 1080p streaming with 5.1 surround sound later this year.

Netflix To Stream 1080p, But What About Roku?

NewTeeVee (Janko Roettgers) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:18:22 GMT

Netfix plans to start streaming some of its VOD content in 1080p later this year, according to a CNET report. Timing, catalog size and other details of the plan aren’t public yet, and a company spokesperson told us that he couldn’t comment on any specifics. Two weeks ago, though, the company told us that it is currently streaming about 1000 titles in 720p. That’s a small percentage of the total amount of content available for streaming.

The eventual migration to 1080p isn’t too surprising. YouTube launched support for 1080p streaming at our NewTeeVee Live conference last fall, and Microsoft rolled out 1080p streaming for its Xbox Live service late last year as well. In fact, the Xbox could be one of the first devices to bring Netflix in 1080p to the TV set in the living room. Microsoft’s game console has been supporting Netflix streaming for more than a year now.

However, the move puts pressure on Roku, whose set-top boxes used to be one of the only ways to access Netflix streaming without the help of a PC. None of the Roku boxes currently available for sale support 1080p. Adding the capability to play back full-scale HD content could significantly raise the price point of the company’s devices, which currently sell for $80 to $130, depending on the configuration of the device. Chip sets capable of playing back 1080p could push the price of a Roku box closer to $200, but Roku recently announced that it plans to actually lower the price of its hardware to make it more attractive to consumers. We have reached out for Roku to comment, but haven’t heard back yet.

Related content from GigaOm Pro: Not Your Grandfather’s Streaming Video Business (subscription required)

Adobe: Flash for Mac is Getting Better -- Really! [Digital Daily]

All Things Digital (John Paczkowski) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:51:16 GMT

We are ready to enable Flash in the browser on [the iPhone and iPad] if and when Apple chooses to allow that for its users, but to date we have not had the required cooperation from Apple to make this happen.

– Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch

Apple’s (AAPL) refusal to support Flash on the iPhone–and soon the iPad as well–might not be a death knell for Flash, but it will surely hasten its decline, if Adobe’s not careful. Certainly, the fact that the iPhone’s lack of Flash hasn’t really hurt it at all suggests that Flash may not be quite as important for the Web as Adobe (ADBE) would like us all to think. And now, with some new video players ably demonstrating the promise of HTML5 — like this one — the company is clearly worried about Apple’s unflagging exclusion of Flash and CEO Steve Jobs’s recent, and quite vicious, dimissal of it. So much so that it’s publicly promising to improve its performance on Mac systems. In comments appended to a blog post about the iPad’s lack of Flash support, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch said it’s working to improve Flash performance on the Mac.

“Flash Player on Windows has historically been faster than the Mac, and it is for the most part the same code running in Flash for each operating system,” he wrote. “We have and continue to invest significant effort to make Mac OS optimizations to close this gap, and Apple has been helpful in working with us on this. Vector graphics rendering in Flash Player 10 now runs almost exactly the same in terms of CPU usage across Mac and Windows, which is due to this work. In Flash Player 10.1 we are moving to CoreAnimation, which will further reduce CPU usage and we believe will get us to the point where Mac will be faster than Windows for graphics rendering. … With Flash Player 10.1, we are optimizing video rendering further on the Mac and expect to reduce CPU usage by half, bringing Mac and Windows closer to parity for video.”

Welcome news. But will Apple suddenly reverse course and begin supporting Flash on its mobile devices simply because of it? That seems unlikely. Apple’s repudiation of Flash on the iPhone and iPad seems–to me, anyway–quite a bit like its repudiation of floppy drives in the first iMacs. It’s a move that inevitably generates great controversy and criticism, but ultimately proves to be ahead of its time.

Tell Us Your Favorite Super Bowl Moment, Win a FLO TV [CONTEST]

Mashable! (Adam Hirsch) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:48:01 GMT

What was your favorite moment during the Super Bowl? Was it the fast-paced game or the ads that got your attention?

If the ads caught your eye, which moment stood out for you? If it was the game, which play was most memorable? Why did it stick with you? We want to know!

FLO TV, which ran its “Moments” commercial as one of the Super Bowl ads this year, has provided three FLO TV Personal Televisions (value: $290 each with 6 months free service) as prizes for this contest.

To enter, leave a comment on this post telling us your favorite Super Bowl moment of 2010, either during the game or the ads. We’ll pick three winners based on the originality, humor and creativity of your comment.

Because FLO TV works in the US, this contest is US-only. The contest will run for 24 hours and winners will be notified via email by Friday February 12.

About the Prize: FLO TV Personal Television

The FLO TV is a way to watch TV on the go. Here’s how the company describes the device:

FLO TV brings live mobile TV to the small screen. The FLO TV service combines the best content, an intuitive user interface and a superior multicast network to deliver a true quality TV viewing experience for consumers. FLO TV offers full–length simulcast and time–shifted programming from the world’s best entertainment brands, including ABC, CBS, CNBC, COMEDY CENTRAL, Disney Channel, ESPN, FOX, FOX News Channel, FOX Sports, FUEL TV, MSNBC, MTV, NBC 2Go and many more.
The FLO TV Personal Television is available through Amazon.com, Best Buy and RadioShack among other leading retailers at a suggested MSRP of $199 and comes with 6 months free service, for a total retail value of about $288.94 USD.

Disclosures: FLO TV is not a Mashable sponsor or partner. Mashable and its staff receive no payment or incentives for running this contest.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Willard

Tags: contest, flo tv, moments, Super Bowl, Superbowl

Job Postings Hint at Amazon's Plans for the Kindle (Nick Bilton/Bits)

Techmeme — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:45:00 GMT

Nick Bilton / Bits:
Job Postings Hint at Amazon's Plans for the Kindle — It looks like color screens and Wi-Fi might be the next additions to Amazon's Kindle. — Last week, Brad Stone and I reported that Amazon had acquired the New York based multi-touch screen company Touchco to integrate into Lab126, the Kindle hardware division.

Where is Entrepreneurship Really Taught?

Read/WriteWeb (Dana Oshiro) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:30:00 GMT

Between Y Combinator's Startup School, the influx of seed fund incubators, the list of legendary mentor / investors and the dotcom bust's school of hard knocks, is there really any reason to go to grad school? At ReadWriteWeb we're supportive of lifelong learning and universities that coach entrepreneurs, but a recent post by Venture Hacks founder Naval Ravikant has us wondering, "What is the value in grad school?"

Sponsor

Ravikant suggests that incubators and accelerators like YCombinator and Techstars are the new grad school.

He writes, "In some ways, it's better" and includes the fact that unlike business schools, YCombinator pays entrepreneurs, allows founders to be their own boss and encourages original work.

In addition to Ravikant's points, the fact that every incubator participant is connected to advisors through a financial agreement means the group may be motivated to maintain their network and share contacts.Nevertheless, before dismissing the idea of grad school altogether, it's good to remember many of the top entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley are MIT, Harvard and CalTech grads (including some of the Venture Hacks team). Perhaps the argument here is not so much about incubators over traditional institutions, but in the fact that good mentors have a stake in your success and do not rest on the laurels of a tenured position.

As a startup entrepreneur, what is the best lesson you've ever been taught and who taught it to you?

Photo Credit: Duncan Hull

Discuss

Super Bowl Ads: Hulu’s Winners and Losers [STATS]

Mashable! (Christina Warren) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:26:03 GMT

We’ve already looked at how on-air Super Bowl advertisers fared with audiences during the Big Game, but how did online viewers react to the spots? Check out which ads were the biggest winners — or losers — with the Hulu crowd.

The 2010 Super Bowl was a big win for more than just the New Orleans Saints, CBS scored big-time, too, garnering the biggest Super Bowl audience on record, and, with 106 million U.S. households tuned in, the most-watched television program of all time. That means a lot of eyes were on the ads — both online and on-air. And now more than ever, we can ascertain almost instantly how these commercials resonated with viewers.

Similar to YouTube’s AdBlitz channel, Hulu’s AdZone features all of the nationwide Super Bowl spots and lets viewers vote, Siskel & Ebert-style (that’s thumbs-up or thumbs-down) on which ads worked and which ads fell flat. You can even see how many users from different demographics and locations liked or disliked certain ads, and you can compare those metrics with other ads.

Hulu explains the whole process in its blog, and voting continues until tomorrow night should you choose to check it out. Still, Hulu shared some of the rating charts with us (at least as they stand right now), and we think the results are pretty interesting:

Motorola clearly scored big time with its Megan Fox photo ad. Why? Not only is it the most-viewed commercial, it is the fifth most “liked” ad and the third most “disliked” ad. That’s some pretty serious buzz.

Other big winners? Doritos’ “House Rules” ad got high marks from viewers and racked up the online views. Likewise, Google’s big Super Bowl ad played well with audiences and got lots of views.

Proving that controversy does indeed lead to viewership, Focus on the Family’s Tim Tebow ad is one of the most watched, even if it is also the most disliked.

What was your favorite ad from the Big Show? Least favorite? Let us know!

Tags: ads, hulu, MARKETING, Super Bowl, super bowl as, video

Gullible Travels to the Bank [Voices]

All Things Digital (Nitrozac and Snaggy) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:20:51 GMT

By Nitrozac and Snaggy

New Update to Give Droid Multitouch

Mashable! (Barb Dybwad) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:15:21 GMT

There’s some good news and some bad news. First, the good news: sources tell Engadget that multitouch browsing will be added to the Motorola Droid in its next software update.
Multitouch was one of the most requested features on Android, at least until the Nexus One gained multitouch browsing last week.

The bad news: the update won’t add the ability to install live wallpapers, a coveted feature of Android 2.1 seen in the Nexus One.

The point of live wallpaper is essentially to let your homescreen behave like an application, making it animated and interactive. Live wallpapers have the same access to the platform functionality that apps do, giving your homescreen the ability to change dynamically and to bring relevant information to the background of your phone. There’s no word on when or even if the Droid might support live wallpaper, but it looks like it won’t be included in this upcoming update.

Other tidbits from the new build — based on Android 2.1 version 1 — include pre-installed Google Goggles experimental visual search, and versions of the news and weather widgets first included with the Nexus One.

The official word on the street from Motorola is that the new update will roll out this week, so it won’t be long now before Droid users finally get to enjoy the multitouch browsing experience their Nexus One counterparts have been privy to since last week.

Tags: android, android 2.1, droid, live wallpaper, Motorola, multitouch, verizon

The Videomakers Struggles to Satirize Reality TV

NewTeeVee (Liz Shannon Miller) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:00:57 GMT

Making fun of reality TV is low-hanging fruit, and indie web series The Videomakers, written and directed by Walter J. Gottlieb, doesn’t make much effort to change that.

Shot in Silver Spring, Maryland, the show focuses on a team of morally-dubious producers who strive to create and package programming that even Fox Reality Channel (which aired shows like Battle of the Bods) would find questionable.

To be fair, the joke is that the shows being created by aptly-named Lowball Productions are knowingly awful, but that doesn’t work without a deeper message behind the satire. For one thing, the number of women in bikinis is clearly meant to mock the way in which reality TV exploits women in bikinis, but there’s a fine line between mocking exploitation and actually being exploitative — a line that Videomakers regularly crosses simply by basking in as much female nudity as possible, without stopping to challenge some of these tropes.

The series, currently on its sixth episode, has the potential to be much better than it is — the production values are relatively solid, the actors gel together nicely despite their characters at times feeling undeveloped, and there is the occasional decent gag, such as one of the company’s in-development projects: Pets of the Third Reich. I also like the way in which the narrative is stretched out over episodes without each installment feeling incomplete; the ongoing plot threads are structured well and encourage continued viewing.

But the one exception to the show’s decent production value is when it comes to certain stunts — like the action scenes from the Top Shots series, an unconvincing tasing of one of the contestants, or a couple getting conjugal inside a coffin (while clearly both fully clothed).

If the divide between the fiction of Lowball Productions’ productions and the behind-the-scenes reality was at all clear in the show’s execution, these moments might have the potential to serve as a new source of comedy. But within the context of the show as it stands, they just make Videomakers seem amateurish. Which, for a web series about professional TV production, is less embarrassing than wearing a bikini to participate in a reality TV show — but only by a small margin.

Related Pro Content (subscription required): By The Numbers: Budget Analysis of a Web Series

What's Next For Geolocation? Apps, Apps, Apps

Read/WriteWeb (Guest Author) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:00:00 GMT

Geolocation social networks are set to be in 2010 what microblogging was in 2008 - the next big thing. Currently the space is being dominated by Foursquare, with others like Gowalla, MyTown and Loopt trailing in its wake.

While Gowalla has secured a large amount of funding, some $8.5 million, and My Town claims more check-ins than the other services, Foursquare is happily ticking along on the seed money provided by its founders (after they sold their original effort, Dodgeball, to Google), and creating a community of developers who are eager to build secondary applications. There are two reasons Foursquare is gaining so much ground over its competitors.

Sponsor

This is a guest post by Simon Salt, the founder and CEO of IncSlingers. He is a writer and blogger whose work has appeared in a wide variety of places, including Chris Brogan's Dad-O-Matic.com, American Marketing Association News and the Austin Realtor. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal on social media and is a recognized national speaker on that topic as well.

Firstly, it is available on all phone platforms. While this is also true of Loopt, the game play element of Foursquare makes it more attractive to many users. Secondly, it took the very sensible step of opening its API early on. This has generated a wave of new secondary applications.

In addition to this, it set up a developer community forum and is extremely active there, providing support, information and assistance to developers that are creating these secondary apps. Just as with Twitter, it is not just the service itself that will create demand, but the applications that run from that service.

There are hundreds of applications that run on the Twitter API now (most of which are listed at oneforty.com). It is very likely that by the end of 2010 we will see similar numbers of applications for Foursquare, and, should Gowalla and the rest open their APIs, for those services too.

The reason geolocation social networking is so popular is quite simply its ease of use. Arrive at a destination, be that your work, the gym, a coffee shop or even the grocery store, fire up the application on your phone, "check-in", and get points, badges and even increased status in the game for doing so.

As with Twitter, early adopters are the ones using the sites the most at the moment, but the services are rapidly spreading beyond the hard core. Unlike micro-blogging, you need no talent to be entertaining, informative or stylish - you simply check-in as you go about your day. You attract "friends" by doing this, or by connecting with people you already know, either online or in real life.

The Next Step: User- and Location-Focused

As with so many other early-stage social network platforms, extending the service with secondary applications is what makes the service truly useful.

At present, the secondary applications that are being developed fall into two main categories: user-focused and location-focused. A good example of a user-focused app is wheredoyougo. This service provides a heat map visual of all of a user's check-ins. Another, foursqpic allows users to upload pictures as part of the Foursquare Venue Tips section, supplementing simple text tips with visuals as well. These are great apps and certainly add to the fun and extend the functionality of the service. However, the real gains are coming in the location-focused apps. So far, the most developed of these is placewidget, which allows owners of a location to promote, via a website widget, the "Mayor" of their location on their website. Until now, any real marketing revolving around Foursquare was offline, and had to be location-specific. By bringing the ability to market both their involvement in the Foursquare community and promote a loyal customer, this widget gives a lot more power to businesses looking to leverage this type of social networking.

Foursquare recently announced it had signed two deals with media outlets. The first is an agreement with Metro, Canada's number one free daily newspaper, to have content for venues provided by the newspaper. The second is with Bravo TV, which will include Bravo Celebrity Tips and Bravo-branded badges for over 500 locations. A game is great, but a content-rich social network is something a lot more valuable.

Photo credit: Agata Urbaniak Discuss

Rumor: iPhone 4G Will Be Taller Than Predecessors [PICS]

Mashable! (Samuel Axon) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:49:28 GMT

iPhone repair shop iResQ claims that it has the front panel component of the next iteration of Apple’s iPhone, and it has posted a few photos to demonstrate a couple of ways the handset will differ from its predecessor.

If these pics are legit, then the new iPhone will actually be one-fourth of an inch taller than all of the previous three models. Presumably this is to make room for a new component — or more than one new component.

iResQ also observes that the front panel has a “reflective, mirror-like surface” near the top of the phone, and speculates that this is a relocated proximity sensor. The current iPhone’s proximity sensor is used to detect when you’re holding the phone up to your ear. If you are, it shuts off the screen to save battery life and to avoid blinding you with light.

If the reflective surface is the proximity sensor, then Apple might be planning to use the sensor for other functions as well.

If Apple is planning to launch a new iPhone this year, it will likely be announced at WWDC this June. We’ll have to wait until then to see if these photos are real. Take a look at the photos below, but remember that it’s best to pile this in with the rest of the rumors for now.

[via MacRumors]

Tags: apple, iphone

Google's Chief of Fabulous Opens a Disco — In His Penthouse

Valleywag (Ryan Tate) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:45:01 GMT

We couldn't persuade Orkut Büyükkökten to invite us to his opulent birthday-and-housewarmingparty Saturday, but we won't hold it against him. After all, Google's ambassador to the gay party scene had to fit several billionaires between his new dance poles.

Orkut, in case you've forgotten, is by far the most interesting person to work for the Mountain View, California internet company, where the technical skills are valued over all else, resulting in a (mostly) boring army of engineer droids. Orkut's the fun exception.

Sure, the Turkish programmer built Google's also-ran social network, Orkut, a.k.a. "The Facebook of Brazil." But more importantly, the San Francisco partyboy also hired strippers for his previous too-hot-for-the-Web birthday party; been gay-married by his Vogue-errific best friend Marissa Mayer; attended the opening of the local Prada; wore a fabulous sheening suit to the ballet; and is good at making everyone get dressed up and disco.

The Silicon Valley tech scene needs more of this sort of acting out, and the Valley scenesters would seem to agree: We hear Orkut's Saturday party was packed with what techies (inaccurately) call "A Listers," including billionaire Google founder Sergey Brin and very very rich person Mayer (who threw a party of her own the following day, of the Superbowl sort). Here's how one attendee put it:

According to public records of Orkut's holdings, that ten-story-high apartment building would be a posh renovated warehouse at 410 Jessie Street, on San Francisco's newly-remade Mint Plaza. That's directly across the street from the San Francisco Chronicle, the newspaper whose misfortunes some have blamed on none other than... Google.

But Orkut's guests didn't come to dance on graves. The disco-lover installed a raised dance floor, complete with poles and special lights, in his two-level penthouse, according to a source with knowledge of the place. There's also some sort of indoor waterfall, we hear. (Orkut declined to discuss his apartment or party on the phone and never sent a promised email reply.)

Pictures from the latest shindig are, alas, few and far between. Despite his direct financial interest in social networking and the free flow of information online, Orkut banned any network distribution of images from his party. we're told. Irony, that. Anyway, in the photo gallery we've mixed in pictures from an apparent pre-party in January as well as of a similar party at a different location last year. Do send us more pics if you have them. We're happy to disseminate the information Googlers refuse to spread themselves.

Apparently from Saturday's event, via friend Jen Liu's Facebook album "house warming & birthday party," uploaded 16 hours ago.

One of the dance poles going up, from a January picture of "orkut's party," again via Liu.

The dance floor again? Again from Liu's "orkut's party" album, January.

Liu and Orkut, ibid.

Orkut at a party in Jan. 2009. Via Facebook.

Orkut, center, with boyfriend Derek Holbrook, right, at a Jan. 2009 party.

Orkut at a Jan. 2009 party.

Quick trip to Brazil via private jet, anyone?

At Burning Man 2009.

Motorola: Droid update to Android 2.1 'will start to roll out this week' (Chris Ziegler/Engadget)

Techmeme — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:45:00 GMT

Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Motorola: Droid update to Android 2.1 ‘will start to roll out this week’ — We knew Android 2.1 was coming for the Droid, but we'll confess — we didn't expect it to come this soon. Motorola is now reporting via its official Facebook page that it's “happy to relay the 2.1 upgrade to Droid …

Barnes & Noble Nook on Shelves Wednesday

Mashable! (Jennifer Van Grove) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:38:19 GMT

While the Nook — Barnes & Noble’s $259 e-reader and Kindle rival — has been available for purchase online since November, it has yet to be sold in the company’s brick-and-mortar stores. Come Wednesday, however, that will all change.

The New York Times is reporting, “Barnes & Noble, the country’s largest bookselling chain, said that its Nook electronic reading device would be available for purchase in its stores starting Wednesday.”

Barnes & Noble originally made a big splash with its Nook announcement in late October, but its digital book reader has since been met with mixed reviews and suffered from stock shortage problems around the holidays.

The push to finally get the Nook in Barnes & Noble stores is likely the result of the hoopla involving Apple’s iPad. As Google is learning via lackluster Nexus One sales, consumers haven’t exactly embraced the online-only purchase model when it comes to electronics. With its physical debut coming several months prior to the iPad’s, Barnes & Noble might have an opportunity to land key sales before consumers can hold the iPad for themselves.

Tags: barnes & noble, ereader, nook

Winter Weather Storm Watch Gets Streamlined On New Accuweather Site

TechCrunch (Leena Rao) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:38:11 GMT

With the East Coast and Midwest awaiting a monster snowstorm, popular weather forecasting site Accuweather, is rolling out a timely relaunch of its site. The site, which provides up-to-date local information on weather in the U.S., is launching a beta version of the site that includes a complete redesign and a few extra user-friendly features. The new version of the Accuweather is still in private beta but will be publicly launched to the public on February 15.

On the content side, the general theme for the new version of the site is “weather for your life,” with specialized and interactive weather forecasts for Weather and Health, Weather and Travel, Weather and Home and Garden, Weather and Outdoor Activity in your area. The health-related weather interest sections include Arthritis Pain Forecasts, Asthma Forecasts, Common Cold Forecasts, Flu Forecasts, Pollen Level Forecasts and more

In terms of everyday weather forecasts, the new site features hour-by-hour, 15-day forecasts, and next month forecasts. The site also has upgraded its multimedia offerings, with detailed videos fro meteorologists and a wide range of weather maps – including radar, satellite, severe weather, forecast maps, and more. The site will be adding 600 weather-related videos every day, with local video forecasts for over 100 U.S. cities.

The layout and design of the site itself is a lot cleaner and less cluttered. The older version of the site was a virtual mash-up of information, content and advertisements. The new version has larger numbers and text, is more spaced, and is all-together more friendly on the eyes. And I’m sure Accuweather is getting better feedback from advertisers on the layout, as the streamlined version is more complimentary to serving ads on the site.

In comparison to competitor and rival Weather.com, Accuweather’s site wins the contest in my opinion, with a nice balance of content and easy-to-use web features. According to Compete, Accuweather site saw 8 million unique visitors in December whereas Weather.com saw 33.5 million unique visitors in December. While Weather.com received more traffic, Accuweather’s forecasts are syndicated to over 175,000 media sites. And with the new redesign, Accuweather could become a more attractive destination for weather forecasts.

iPhone 4G Parts are Here... (Brian/iPod Repair, iPhone Repair ...)

Techmeme — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:35:00 GMT

Brian / iPod Repair, iPhone Repair, Apple Repair:
iPhone 4G Parts are Here... And they have a couple of interesting features. — 1) The LCD appears to be factory glued to the digitizer which is more similar to the first generation iPhones than the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The digitizer can be separated from the LCD on the 3G and 3GS models …

5 Insightful TED Talks on Social Media

Mashable! (Matt Silverman) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:29:38 GMT

The 2010 Technology Entertainment Design conference will be kicking off tomorrow in Long Beach, California, bringing the leading minds of many fields together to talk shop about innovation, change, and what the future holds.

As social media has become a game changer for industries across the board, you can bet the experts at this year’s TED conference will have their sights set on peeling back the hype and getting at the core of what social technology has in store for this year and beyond.

Perhaps the best part of the TED conferences is that videos of the talks are archived and free to view right on the organization’s website. Given the wealth of insight we’re sure to see tomorrow, we thought we’d whet your appetite by highlighting a few recent and exceptional talks from TED’s past, with a focus on social media.

1. Alexis Ohanian: How To Make a Splash in Social Media

We’ll start things off with a real-life social media parable about how the biggest and most effective forces on the web usually take shape by accident. Alexis Ohanian of Reddit.com tells the quick and hilarious story of how the social web provided some unexpected help to Greenpeace in halting the Japanese whaling industry. Internet marketers take note: The meme is all powerful, and it cannot be controlled.

2. Clay Shirky: How Social Media Can Make History

In this talk, consultant, professor and author Clay Shirky discusses the unprecedented immediacy of real-time citizen journalism made possible by social media and the nearly ubiquitous access to mobile web technologies. From the election crisis in Iran to the massive earthquake that shook China in May of 2008, Shirky discusses how media is made on the ground, as-it-happens, via the social web.

3. Evan Williams: Listening to Twitter Users

With a couple of anecdotes building the ultimate social media case study, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams discusses how a little side project called Twitter became a game-changing phenomenon with the help and input of the very users who made the service a success. From innovative marketing uses to core functionality, Williams provides the evidence for what we knew all along: Users know best.

4. Stefana Broadbent: How the Internet Enables Intimacy

As social media changes our social lives, speculation has abounded for years on how the web may be disconnecting us from intimate interactions in favor of meaningless quests to rack up followers and “friends.” Not so, says Stefana Broadbent, who explains that social networks function the same way online as they do in real life. While we may have lots of friends, we only really communicate regularly and meaningfully with a handful of them, and social technologies like e-mail, texting, and tweeting allow us to do so more often across time and space.

5. Seth Godin: The Tribes We Lead

From professional sports mascots to balloon animal makers, some communities are so extremely niche that they could only properly thrive on the Internet. So argues blogger and author Seth Godin, who believes that our revolutionary new connectedness has brought human culture back to its roots, and that tribes (groups of people mobilized around a shared interest) are the present and future of all web content.

What are your favorite TED talks about social media? Which did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: future, List, Lists, social media, social networks, technology, TED, TED Talks, twitter, video

Free Music Monday: 10 Free Downloads for Your Collection

Mashable! (Barb Dybwad) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:07:46 GMT

In this week’s Free Music Monday we offer you 10 free downloadable MP3s (or the occasional full album) for your eclectic listening pleasure. If you haven’t checked out Free Music Monday before, we’re giving away free and legal tracks in honor of the #musicmonday tradition on Twitter.

We also gladly accept your submissions for Free Music Monday — please find information about how to submit your tracks or music from artists you represent at the end of this post. Now without further ado, let’s roll some tracks!

1. [DOWNTEMPO] Cosmo D’s Sauce: “Metroid (Brynstar)” — Jazzy horns and downtempo beats from one of several acts from the Brooklyn-based Smoothe Moose label and artist collective. Right-click to download this track, and grab lots more from Smoothe Moose’s mixtapes at Soundcloud. The We Love Video Game Music sampler featuring this track is also embedded below for streaming and download.
Smoothe Moose Mixtape #3 – We Love Video Game Music by smoothemoose
2. [OPERA] The Knife: “Colouring of Pigeons” — It’s The Knife like they’ve been heard before. Right-click to snag a track from the electro-opera the brother and sister duo were commissioned to compose, Tomorrow, In a Year, based on the infamous Charles Darwin text The Origin of Species. The digital release on the 92-minute opera is out now, with the two-CD physical album to arrive March 1.
3. [STONER ROCK] Ancestors: “The Ambrose Law” — If you like Sabbath-influenced progressive rock, right-click to check out this track from L.A.’s Ancestors. [via Stoner Rock]
4. [ELECTRONICA] Four Tet: “Essential Mix” — Almost two hours’ worth of mixes and remixes are included in this set from UK’s Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet. Download the entire set from Soundcloud or from the streaming player below.

Essential mix (January 2010) by Four Tet
5. [ROCK] Martha and the Muffins: “Don’t Say Anything” — To get your free download from the recently released new album Delicate (their first studio release in 18 years), head on over to MatM’s site to sign up for the mailing list and get a copy of “Don’t Say Anything” from these Toronto-based rockers.
6. [INDIE] Thunderhawk: “King Basement” — Get your right-click on to snag a track from the forthcoming VI release from Indianapolis’ Thunderhawk, slated to drop in March. Check out more about the band on their MySpace page and at Standard Recording.
7. [EXPERIMENTAL] Primary Colors of Sound: “bAg” — Chill, downtempo beats characterize this experimental electronic outfit, who offer a free download of the track “bAg” along with several others on their iLike artist page.
8. [GUITAR ROCK] Gary Reynolds and the Brides of Obscurity: “Three Angels” — Songwriter, guitarist and Electrokitty Studios owner Gary Reynolds has embarked on an ambitious plan to release a new track per week and a full-length album every month in 2010. New tracks go up every Monday, and you can always download the latest on Gary and the band’s website. This week’s track is “Three Angels,” described as “religion and spacemen done to a Zeppelin style groove and a nice backwards guitar solo.”
9. [DUBSTEP] Derivate: “L2 (Beto Narme’s Dense Subspace Remix)” — Netlabel Sublime Porte from Istanbul offers this remix (right-click to download) of Derivate’s recent EP, Lagrange Points I. You can also download the release in its entirety at Sublime Porte, plus follow the label for future releases on Twitter.
10. [SINGER/SONGWRITER] GarageSpin: “Spinning Daydream” — This track about “embracing all experiences in life, good and bad” from singer/songwriter and music blogger Mike B, recording and blogging as GarageSpin, is available for the low cost of your right-click. Snag another free track and free stream from the GarageSpin Music page.

As always, thank you for tuning in to Free Music Monday! If you like this feature, please help us out by sharing it with your music-loving friends. You can always find the latest edition of this feature by hitting up the Free Music Monday tag page, so please check back. We’ve appended the list of past Free Music Mondays at the end of this post in case you missed any of the back catalog.

Big thanks to everyone for the great submissions we’re getting. If you sent us tracks and we haven’t featured them yet, stay tuned for a future Free Music Monday. If you’d like to submit tracks for yourself or an artist you represent, give us a shout at barb AT mashable DOT com. Be sure to send us an MP3 or two we can use (no more than 25MB file size total please) or send us a link to listen to tracks you’re willing to provide as a free download. Thanks everyone!

P.S. Bonus tip: They’re not “free” but they are low cost — be sure to check out Amazon’s 100 albums for $5 through February.

Free Music Monday Back Catalog

- Alternative Rock Edition
- Covers, Remixes, and Mashups Edition
- Electronica Edition
- Free Downloads for Your Ears (Feb. 1, 2010)
- Fresh and Free Downloads (Jan. 25, 2010)
- Hip-hop Edition
- Labor Day Edition
- Live Edition
- Rock and Pop Edition
- Singer-Songwriter Edition
- Video Edition
- Your Submissions Edition
- Your Submissions, All Downloads Edition
Tags: downloads, free music monday, mp3s, music

Apple Surveying iPhone Developers’ Happiness With The App Store

TechCrunch (MG Siegler) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:01:04 GMT

Last year, there was no shortage of developers who were complaining about Apple’s App Store. The situation got so heated that no less than Apple senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, got personally involved with a number of developers having issues. Since then, the complaints seem to have died down quite a bit, but Apple is still on the case.

The company has started sending out a survey to iPhone developers asking about their experience with the program. While the long survey covers a range of things, the majority of the questions are about the application review process, and developers’ overall happiness with the program.

Examples of questions asked include:

Please rate your level of satisfaction with each of the following aspects of the Application submission process (using iTunes Connect).

Please rate your level of satisfaction with each of the following aspects of the application review process (using iTunes Connect).

Please rate your level of satisfaction with the length of time it takes to get updates available on the App Store.

Apple asks you to answer with: “Very dissatisfied,” “Somewhat dissatisfied,” “Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied,” “Somewhat satisfied,” “Very satisfied,” or “Don’t know.”

They also ask, “What one thing could Apple do to make the iPhone Developer Program better?” and give you a text box to write anything you want. A few months ago they certainly would have gotten some interesting responses there.

Sometime around the first of the year, Apple made some changes to the App Store approval process that drastically sped things up for many developers. In fact, a number of developers noted that approval process wait time went from two weeks (or worse) to just a couple of days in some situations. There have also been reports of improved communication from the app review team.

It seems likely that Apple staffed up its app review team and also provided them with better training and instructions over the past few months. Still, if the App Store continues to grow at its blistering pace, it’s hard to imagine that things won’t get bogged down again. So during this time of relative peace, it’s smart for Apple to survey its developers to fine tune the system.

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Apple

App Store

iPhone

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VMware Partner Exchange 2010: What happens in Vegas Comes to your Enterprise

Read/WriteWeb (Mike Kirkwood) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:00:00 GMT

If you're releasing products integrated into the VMware ecosystem, you're likely enjoying enjoying the Las Vegas Strip this week. VMware Partner Exchange 2010 kicked off at the Mandalay Bay hotel today, and it is the place to learn about the current state of affairs and how to quantify tangible benefits of virtualization for partners and customers.

We've found that the virtualization layer is becoming a key place to launch enterprise products. All of this momentum is being translated in how to more effectively sell virtualization into the enterprise - and VMware isn't holding back in building the relationships to sell into the channel.

Sponsor

So, we ask, is the virtual layer the new platform for delivering value to the enterprise? If so, what tangible benefits are being offered today?

First an analysis of the momentum. According to this release from VMware , despite the down economy there has been 60% increase in participants this week from counties all around the world. What happens when we crunch the language in that release? We find that "partners", "exchange", "customers", "network", "cloud", and "desktop" are the most important subjects.

Using those ideas, let's condense that statement into our own words: Virtualization partners are exchanging information on how to win customers by leveraging the network and cloud to reach the desktop.

At the partner exchange, there are early previews of next-generation products and programs as well as in-depth technical training. The conference agenda is packed with sessions including practical training and a host of supported discussions from over 50 sponsors, including HP, IBM, Intel, Cisco, Netapp and EMC.

Looking through the sessions, several things stand out. First, networking and storage are merging together. Second, security is catching up - quickly - to support and define how virtualization and cloud applications are deployed and managed for business-critical applications. VMware is being baked into partner go-to-market strategies and product releases. There is more partner surface area and more angles for sales. All of this bodes well for virtualization.

Are VMware partners building an ecosystem that makes you want to move faster with your deployment of business-critical applications? What is missing?

Discuss

Win A Mentoring Session With Founders Of Digg, Flickr, Mint, Ning, Slide Or Zynga

TechCrunch (Erick Schonfeld) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:40:00 GMT

Are you a budding Web entrepreneur who would like some pointers or advice from seasoned company founders? MayField Fund and First Round Capital are sponsoring a raffle to give away mentoring sessions with the founders of Digg (Jay Adelson), Flickr (Caterina Fake), Mint (Aaron Patzer), Ning (Gina Bianchini), Slide (Max Levchin), and Zynga (Mark Pincus).

The raffle will take place at a private event in Silicon Valley with space for 100 attendees on March 1. But you can win a ticket for the event by applying here. The event and raffle are free, but the 100 attendees in the running will be selected beforehand by partners at Mayfield and First Round.

Winners of the raffle do not get to become Best Friends Forever with the founders. But they will get one intense mentoring session each.

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First Round Capital

Mayfield Fund

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Barnes & Noble's Nook Finally Limps Into Stores. Too Late? [MediaMemo]

All Things Digital (Peter Kafka) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:30:11 GMT

Remember the Nook? Last fall, when e-reader race was largely defined by Amazon, Barnes & Noble’s device seemed like it might make a bit of noise: It had an interesting-looking two-screen approach, and — crucially — the bookseller could sell the gadget at its own stores, giving it a brick-and-mortar advantage that Amazon couldn’t counter.

That was way back in October, though, and since then production delays have slowed the Nook’s entry into the market. The devices were hard to buy online for the 2009 holiday season. And they haven’t been available at all in stores — you could talk to a store rep about one, and if you were lucky you got to fondle one, but that’s it.

Now Barnes & Noble (BKS) says that starting Wednesday, the $259 device will be available in the “majority” of its 775 US stores.

Better late than never. But not a lot better.

Barnes & Noble’s problem, of course, is that in the last couple weeks the e-reader market has been completely redefined, at least among the chattering classes: It’s now Amazon’s Kindle (AMZN) vs. Apple’s iPad (AAPL).

It’s still theoretically possible for Barnes & Noble — and Sony (SNE), for that matter, as well as Plastic Logic and the other would-be competitors to elbow their way in here, since the e-book market itself is still pretty young.

But they better move very, very fast. Even if they offer devices that are as good or better than Apple’s or Amazon’s, they’ll be hard-pressed to combat the other huge advantages those two have over the rest of the pack — established e-commerce relationships with a huge customer base.

Give Your Index Finger A Rest With Facebook’s New Photo Slideshows

TechCrunch (Jason Kincaid) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:20:12 GMT

Since the dawn of Facebook’s Photos feature, users have been tasked with the not-so-terrible burden of having to manually click through every photo in an album. Sure, you can also hit the arrow key on your keyboard to jump to the next picture, but even that repetitive task could send you inching down the treacherous path toward carpal tunnel syndrome. Now, there’s a way to view hundreds of photos without lifting a finger: a new Facebook Prototype lets you turn these photo albums into slideshows. You can activate the prototype here.

The new feature was released as a Facebook Prototype some time last week, and it’s about as basic as they come. After activating it, you’ll find a ‘Play’ button nestled between the ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’ navigation buttons in the photo viewer. Clicking it will turn the album you’re currently viewing into a slideshow, displaying a new photo every five seconds. That’s it. There apparently isn’t any way to change the frequency of the photo changes, and there aren’t any fancy transitions like you’ll get from iPhoto. But hey, you don’t have to click any more.

Facebook Prototypes are similar to Google Labs, in that they allow the social network to showcase some of the pet projects and unfinished features created by its engineers. Prototypes launched in September at TechCrunch50, and have since spawned some compelling new features, including a Mac desktop notifier, an improved photo uploader, and even a measure of Gross National Happiness.

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Facebook

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