Author: Serkadis

And now, for the hopelessly devoted HP homeboy, we present a trio of lust items. The new hotness on the converitble tablet front — the TouchSmart tm2 — is ready for shipping in exchange for nearly $950, and will endow your life with a 12-inch capacitive multitouch display, a somewhat senescent SU7300 1.3GHz ULV processor, and 3GB of DDR3 memory. Should you dare to stray into higher price ranges, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4550 discrete graphics and an SU9600 CPU are also available. Alternatively, you can splash $929 on the 15.6-inch dv6t, which now comes with a 2.4GHz Core i5-520M as standard, as well as free upgrades to 3GB of RAM and 320GB in storage. Graphics options here range up to an NVIDIA GeForce GT 320M with 1GB of onboard memory. Finally, the dv7t matches its smaller sibling’s upgrades but asks for $999 for the base spec, which includes a 17.3-inch display with a 1600 x 900 resolution. So there you have it, something for pretty much everyone.

HP brings out TouchSmart tm2 tablet, upgrades dv6t and dv7t with Core i5 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Peter Mannino stopped 31 shots as they beat the Peoria Rivermen 3-1 at Allstate Arena for their season-high sixth win in a row.

The Wolves moved into sole possession of fourth place in the AHL West Division heading into the All-Star break, up from sixth just five days ago.

Matt Anderson scored the opening goal from his knees 3 minutes, 40 seconds into the first period, and Tim Stapleton made it 2-0 19 seconds into the second period.

Stapleton’s goal puts him in a three-way tie for third in the AHL with 19, just behind the Wolves’ only All-Star, Brett Sterling, who leads
the league with 22.

“Stapleton is playing above AHL standards,” Wolves coach Don Lever said.

Mannino improved to 11-3 on the season while lowering his goals-against average to 1.94.

“Mannino was seeing the puck very well,” Lever said.

By Patrick Boylan

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

Valentine’s Day is shockingly not that far away, so what perfect time for the newest Paul Frank iPhone cases to arrive. The Paul Frank Colored Hearts Julius Case for iPhone 3GS and Paul Frank Be My Valentine Silicone Case for iPhone are perfect presents for the special love in your life. Both have a pinkish hue and are also decorated with hearts with the adorable Julius smack right in the middle of the case. Both cases are durable and will give you access to necessary ports. Each one retails for $34.95 and are available only at the Apple Store.

Well apparently the Japanese will not be riding any trains in the New York Subway system anytime soon since according to a new study, they can barely stand the noise level in their own local subway system. However, pushing, shoving or not giving up seats to the elderly or pregnant women – they have no problem with. A local survey was recently conducted by the Association of Japanese Private Railways that showed Japanese riders would appreciate if conversations were kept low, cellphones were turned to vibrate, and the volume of Mp3 players were lowered.  Apparently applying make-up is considered worse that being drunk on the train in this survey as well….Do I detect sexism here?! The last irritation on the survey was aimed at moms or dads who bring their kids in strollers onto a crowded train. The survey was based upon the responses of 4200 people. I guess these folks wouldn’t appreciate the typical homeless guy singing or the break-dancers on the rush hour trains either in NYC.

[Via Yahoo News]

According to internal sources, the New York Times may soon be charging users for its online content.

In a move that would bring the publication parallel to the Wall Street Journal, NPR, and the Financial Times, the New York Times seems to have settled on a system that would allow online readers to sample a certain amount of content before being prompted to subscribe. This decision would be a landmark in the ongoing cultural debate on whether online content should be free or not and could represent another fundamental shift in how users expect to access and consume news, depending on which news organizations follow suit.

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NPR’s membership system, the WSJ’s walled-garden system – which left some parts of the site free and others available only to paying subscribers – and the Financial Times’ system of metered access, with a certain amount of free content allowed per user, were are reportedly considered by the NYT, doubtless the nation’s flagship newspaper.

This news also comes in the wake of a stern statement from media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who recently took umbrage at and announced his intentions to block search engines’ indexing news media content. In November of last year, Murdoch said that News Corp sites will begin charging users for access to content around June 2010, at which time content will be de-indexed from all search engines.

According to sources at the paper, the decision to make New York Times content available on a paid basis could be made within days, announced with in weeks, and executed in a few months.

As the American economy slowly emerges from the depths of a crippling recession – and as old-school news organizations begin to cope realistically with the demands of modern media – one can’t fault the Times for taking such a step. The world-class coverage it provides and the journalists and photographers it employs certainly can’t be sustained on advertising revenues alone, especially as print circulation (with higher ad rates) decreases and more readers turn to online versions (which much lower ad rates).

What do you think – Will the Times truly begin charging online readers for access to content? And if so, will more print/online hybrid publications follow suit? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

To read more ReadWriteWeb coverage of newspapers’ struggle in the 21st century, check out our Newspapers and Journalism archive.

Discuss

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The news this past week that Google would cease the censorship of its search results in China, and could well be forced to entirely halt operations in the country as a result, is quite simply one of the most interesting stories to come along in the tech sphere in a long time. The reality is that it’s not just a tech story; it spills into the world of international politics and beyond. And it could have wide-reaching ramifications far into the future. Did I mention there was hacking involved and potential espionage?

There are just so many angles to this story, and nearly everyone seems to have an opinion. Two of those we covered earlier in the week included Sarah’s take that Google’s actions were more about business (or a lack thereof) for the company in China. Paul, meanwhile, was quick to dampen the cheers from Silicon Valley that Google was doing the right thing, arguing they’re four years too late for this new stance to have any moral weight. Mike followed this up with a comment on the post, “The problem with un-censoring now is that it further reinforces that the decision was the wrong one from the beginning, and that they knew full well it was wrong even when they made it.” All of that rings true. But I disagree.

My position is a simple one that is twofold: it’s never too late to do the right thing. And it’s never wrong to do the right thing.

The people hooting and hollering immediately following Google’s post on the matter may have been being a bit naive about some of the causes behind this move, but that doesn’t make their immediate reaction that this is great news, any less true. Should Google have made concessions to China four years ago, veering off from their “don’t be evil” philosophy? No. But that’s easy to say when you’re not trying to run a company that grew from a project in a garage to a multi-billion dollar business with users all over the world and public shareholders looking at the bottom line.

Many accounts have Google’s initial China decision boiling down to CEO Eric Schmidt convincing co-founder Sergey Brin that it was the right thing to do for the business. Further, there was apparently talk that with a foothold in China, Google would be in a better position to change things from the outside in. That argument, along with point 8 in Google’s “Ten Things Philosophy” (The need for information crosses all borders), may have convinced him to cede points one (Focus on the user and all else will follow.), four (Democracy on the web works.), and six (You can make money without doing evil.) Without making the filtering concessions, Google simply would have never have been allowed to operate in China.

Obviously, the outside in approach to changing things didn’t work as well as Google may have hoped, but it may not have been a total disaster either. After all, while Google may not have had a strong foothold in the Chinese search market from an overall perspective, indications are that they did have a very solid hold of the better educated, young elite class in China. Those are the same users that are likely to one day be running some of the most powerful technology companies in the country. And they’re apparently not happy about the prospect of losing the ability to use Google. Are they going to overthrown the Communist government? Not likely. But they could add significant pressure in the push to open things up more.

The sad fact of the matter is that while Google may have wrongly bent to China, so too have many companies in the past. And those companies are still doing it. And many more will in the future. Google no longer is, and assuming they stick to their word, no longer will. Again, no matter the reason, and no matter the timing, that means something.

And it especially means something coming from a company as big and as powerful as Google. Rival Yahoo has already come out in support of Google’s new stance, and that’s despite their substantial ownership in the large Chinese Internet company Alibaba (which criticized Yahoo’s praise of Google). And so has no less than the White House. It’d be nice to see Microsoft come out in support as well (especially since their software is apparently to blame for the hacking), but they’re not doing that. But thanks to Google’s new stance on the matter, they’ll be criticized for it more than they would have been in the past. Google’s position may not hold the moral high ground, but it is shaking things up, and that matters more.

Also, I don’t care who you are or what your current market share is, it takes balls to walk away from China’s 1.3 billion potential customers and fast-moving economy.

With technology, and the Internet in particular, becoming more integral in all of our daily lives, this entire situation could be just a sliver of what’s to come. One blog post from one Internet company has ignited a debate that’s really one we should have never stopped having. And it’s now being played out in a type of information warfare ranging from China all the way to the White House (think it’s any coincidence that China restored text messaging service in Xinjiang today after some six months of blackouts).

Google did the right thing. And as long as they keep doing the right thing, the “why” will continue to matter less. And hopefully it will send the more important message to other companies: it’s never too late to do the right thing.

[photo: flickr/pamhule]

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The BlackBerry Presenter device allows you to control a PowerPoint presentation wirelessly using just your BlackBerry phone. At CES 2010 we were able to hang with Ryan Biden, RIM Product Manager for the BlackBerry Presenter device, as he gave us a test drive. Aside from simply wirelessly displaying and controlling a PowerPoint presentation from your BlackBerry, you can also set a presentation to loop on its own once the Presenter has it cached, and walk away. We give you a full demo of the BlackBerry Presenter in this episode.

A big thank you to Bing for sponsoring Gear Live’s CES 2010 coverage.

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“Consensus is pretty strong that last week’s oral argument on the Comcast/BitTorrent argument in front of the DC Circuit was an unmitigated disaster for the FCC,” wrote pro-net neutrality advocate Harold Feld in his blog for Public Knowledge on Wednesday. “So much so that it appears that the D.C. Circuit may actually strip the FCC of any authority to ‘regulate the internet’.”

The remark came as the Federal Communications Commission hears final comments on its proposals to strengthen the FCC’s Internet nondiscrimination rules. Hanging over that proceeding is Comcast’s suit against the agency for its 2008 Order sanctioning the ISP for throttling BitTorrent P2P streamers. The aforementioned consensus is based on observer and newspaper reports about oral arguments in the case, which took place at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals last Friday.

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DES MOINES, Iowa — Josh Young scored 18 points and Adam Templeton finished with 17 points and 14 rebounds as Drake defeated Illinois State 69-59.

The Bulldogs (8-11, 3-4 Missouri Valley) took command of the game early then held on in the closing minutes.

Osiris Eldridge scored 26 points, all in the second half, to lead the Redbirds (13-5, 4-3).

Drake, which never trailed, took a 16-6 lead on a 3-pointer by Templeton with 7:31 left in the first half and led by double digits the rest of the way.

The Bulldogs were up 35-15 at halftime and then scored the first five points of the second half for their largest advantage, 40-15.

Illinois State put together runs of 10-1 and 9-3 in the second half but couldn’t get any closer than 12 until the final minute.

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

Another batch of new shows this week.  24 gives us four hours of Jack on Sunday and Monday, several returning shows and a few new ones as well.

Don’t miss the Ultimate Guide to the 2010 Winter TV Season Premieres with free downloads by premiere date & by show name!  I’ve updated this guide with some additions and network changes.

                  SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND premieres Friday on Starz

NOTE: All Times are Listed for EST

Sunday, January 17

Human Target (8pm on Fox– Available in HD) – A new series on Fox.  This will be followed up on the 20th with the same episode re-aired.  The series follows the cases of a unique bodyguard/private detective who interferes with murder attempts by impersonating the intended victims to draw the killers fire.  I’m curious about this one and will have it on my favorites list to check out later.

The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards (8pm on NBC – Available in HD) – Ricky Gervais hosts one  the more popular awards shows highlighting TV and Movies

24 (9pm on Fox-Available in HD) – The two-hour premiere of 24.  Will be followed up on the 18th with the two-hour, part 2 of this one.  CTU is back and so is Jack.  Early reports are that this first two hours will continue to confirm that the 24 writers are completely back on track.  It should be good.

Monday, January 18

One Tree Hill (8pm on CW – Available in HD) – Season 7 returns for a few more episodes and then goes back in hiding until 4/19

24 (8pm on Fox-Available in HD) – The next two hours of 24 unfolds (part 2 of the 4-hour premiere).

Life Unexpected (9pm on CW – Available in HD) – A new series on CW

The Buried Life (10pm on MTV) – A new realityTV series on MTV

American Pickers (9pm on History) A new series on the History channel that follows professional trash “pickers” as they dig through junk piles, abandoned barns and other places for hidden treasure.  Hmm.

I’m In The Band (7pm on Disney XD – Available in HD) – A new musical sitcom with Logan Miller starring as a teen who helps a group of aging rockers known as Iron Weasel make one last stab at the big time.

Benjamin Latrobe: America’s First Architect (10pm on PBS – Available in HD) A special that profiles the architect who worked on buildings such as the U.S. Capitol, White House & Baltimore Basilica

Tuesday, January 19

90210 (8pm on CW-Available in HD) – Season 2 returns

Melrose Place (9pm on CW – Available in HD) – Season 1 returns

Millionaire Matchmaker (10pm on Bravo) – Season 3 premieres

White Collar (10pm on USA – Available in HD) – One of the better new shows from the Fall returns for the second half of its first season in a new timeslot

Wednesday, January 20

Meteorite Men (9pm on Science – Available in HD) – A new realityTV show on USA

Thursday, January 21

The Deep End (8pm on ABC – Available in HD) – A new drama/comedy series about young lawyers at a high-powered LA law firm.  This one has been promoted heavily and is on Mrs GeekTonic’s list of shows to check out. 

Supernatural (9pm on CW – Available in HD) – Season 9 continues

Burn Notice (10pm on USA – Available in HD) – Season 3 returns with 7 more episodes.

Friday, January 22

Smallville (8pm on CW – Available in HD) – season 9 returns

Dollhouse (9pm on SyFy – Available in HD) – The two-hour series finale is here at the end of season 2.

Caprica (9pm on SyFy – Available in HD) – The prequel to Battlestar Galactica.

Say Yes to the Dress (9pm on TLC) – season 4 premiere

Spartacus: Blood & Sand (10pm on STARZ – Available in HD) – A new series on Starz – I’d check it out if I had Starz.

State of the Union (10:30pm on Showtime – Available in HD) – Season 3 premiere

La La Land (11pm on Showtime – Available in HD) – a new series on Showtime

Saturday, January 23

The Pregnancy Test (9pm on Lifetime) – A made-for-TV-movie where a cyber-journalist investigates an “outbreak” of teen pregnancies.

Sunday, January 24

No new premieres

If you follow GeekTonic just for the TV Premieres and news, you’ll want to click Here If You Would Like to Get a Regular E-mail for GeekTonic TV Premieres & News

The 3.4-magnitude earthquake struck Sunday afternoon. It was centered in Guizhou province, 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of the capital Guiyang, according to a report from the Guizhou Earthquake Bureau.

The earthquake triggered two landslides in separate locations, burying and killing at least seven people instantly with large boulders that tumbled down the mountain, said Tian Xiang, a bureau spokesman.

One person remains missing and nine others are in a local hospital, two with serious injures, Tian said.

Dozens of police officers were sent to the disaster zone, according to the report.

Guizhou, like other provinces in southern China, is a quake-prone region and borders Sichuan province, where a magnitude-7.9 quake in May 2008 left almost 90,000 people dead or missing.

The earthquake was not registered on the US Geological Survey Web site as of Monday morning.

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

Aliph knows how to do good design. Its hot-selling Jawbone Bluetooth headset has won awards and seen great sales. Now the company is launching a new model of Bluetooth headset, dubbed Jawbone Icon, with an emphasis on intelligent audio processing.

This fourth-generation model will feature jewelry-like styles for women and cool gear for men. It also has more intelligence built into it, such as whispering into your ear when you have four hours of battery life or just 10 minutes left. It will sell for $99, a smaller price than its previous versions.

Aliph is also launching a beta test of its first software platform, MyTALK, which lets users personalize the Jawbone Icon to their own tastes. You can, for instance change the voice of the automated attendant that tells you who is calling. The caller ID voice — which lets you hear the name of a caller without diverting your eyes from the road while driving — can be a sultry female voice or that of a male acting like a rogue spy. The whole idea is that this just isn’t a cheap Bluetooth headset. It’s supposed to be evolving toward “wearable computing,” said Travis Bogard, an executive director at Aliph, in an interview.

Aliph was founded in 1999 by Alexander Asseily and Hosain Rahman to work on advanced noise cancellation technology. Touting “military grade” voice clarity, Aliph launched its first Jawbone Bluetooth headset in 2006, selling it at the hefty price of $120 when everything else sold for $40.

The company billed its headset as sounding even better than listening directly to a phone. The better sound comes from having three microphones built into the device. It also has a sensor that feels the movement of your jawbone and correlates that with your speech. Digital signal processing takes the data, strips out the noise, and then reproduces the sound. The noise is stripped out even when the user is silent. Aliph says the speech that comes through is more intelligible, letting you hear the difference between a “p” sound and a “b” sound.

Aliph followed up with a smaller version in 2008. The third-generation headset, the Jawbone Prime, arrived in April, 2009. The models all relied on a noise-cancellation technology dubbed Noise Assassin, which lets you hear in noisy areas such as airports. And the Jawbone models became the best-selling Bluetooth headsets at retailers such as Verizon Wireless and Best Buy. The company’s surveys showed four out of five people preferred using Jawbone with a phone over using only a cellphone itself.

The new design has buttons that let you do everything while the headset is on your ear. You don’t have to be looking at it to turn it on or off, and you can tell if it is on or off via the LED light or a blue color indicator that shows when it is in the on position. You can reprogram it to talk to you in French, German or Spanish. The MyTALK software also lets you customize a button to link directly to a service of your choice, such as free directory assistance, voice-to-text-message, and voice dial. If you use the headset with an iPhone, the iPhone will display a meter that shows how much battery is left in your headset.

Altogether, there are six designs ranging from the Hero (right) for men to the Bombshell (pictured at top) for women (though they all look fairly gender neutral). The device is smaller and lighter (eight grams) than its predecessors. And the sound quality is better too. The new Noise Assassin technology can effectively cancel wind noise by 2.5 times. Talk time is about 4.5 hours and standby time is around 10 days. It can charge 80 percent of its battery in 35 minutes.

Today, it is available at Verizon stores and Aliph’s web site. It will soon be available at Apple, AT&T, Best Buy Mobile and other cell phone stores nationwide. It will be available overseas starting in March. The mytalk.jawbone.com site is invitation-only at the moment.

The company’s competitors include chip maker Audience, whose high-quality noise cancellation chips are used in phones such as the Google Nexus One.

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Turns out that leak we saw of the Jawbone Icon was for real after all, but it was only one of the six designs straight out of Aliph’s oven: (clockwise from top left) The Thinker, The Rogue, The Hero, The Ace, The Catch and — our favorite — The Bombshell. While these are the smallest and lightest Jawbones ever, Aliph has managed to cram in an allegedly improved NoiseAssassin and simultaneous dual-phone linkage, along with an onboard ‘AudioApp’ which vocally broadcasts battery level and caller ID. If you prefer a visual indication, the Icon also does a battery gauge on the iPhone — a first on a non-Apple Bluetooth headset — and apparently “Apple’s aware of this” so a firmware update shouldn’t kill this Palm Pre-style. We’re digging the MyTALK website — currently in beta — where you can pick and install other AudioApps and DialApps (for the multifunction button; e.g. voice dialing, free directory assistance and voice-to-SMS) onto the Icon, and both will be free except for some DialApps which require subscription. Oh, and there are seven earbud sizes plus an earloop to keep everyone happy too. When you’re done with picking, hit the Verizon stores for the initial launch today and pony up $99.99. Press release and video walkthrough of the MyTALK website after the break.

Continue reading Aliph Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset launched in six lush flavors (Update: video!)

Aliph Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset launched in six lush flavors (Update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Si el New York Magazine está en lo cierto, en las próximas semanas vamos a tener anuncio de regreso al pago por la versión de internet del New York Times. ¿Qué cambian respecto al antiguo modelo del que dieron marcha atrás? Esta vez no se trataría de una versión completamente cerrada, sino de una estrategia similar a la de Financial Times: para cada usuario hay una cierta cantidad de artículos accesibles al día o al mes; una vez superada esta cifra, el resto es de pago.

NYT lleva mucho tiempo especulando con su regreso al cobro por acceso como una forma de mejorar los ingresos en al red, y lo que hagan va a ser muy relevante por el liderazgo que ejercen en el resto del sector. En contraposición a las ideas de Murdoch, NYT apunta a que pague el lector final más que los nuevos intermediarios y busca un equilibrio entre visibilidad (en buscadores, enlaces) y sumar ingresos a los que obtiene por publicidad. New York Magazine también apunta a que con el presunto tablet de Apple podría haber un acuerdo de contenidos, de forma que se cobrase por nuevas experiencias y no sólo por el contenido de siempre. 2010 va a ser un año en el que muchos medios tradicionales van a intentar resolver la ecuación entre tráfico, ingresos publicitarios, costes altos y pérdida de visibilidad si empiezan a cobrar en contraposición a posibles ingresos sin la certeza de que esa fórmula exista.