Author: Serkadis

We were digging through the user guide for the Nexus One and came across something that we hadn’t seen reported elsewhere.  You know that nifty little feature that comes with Android 2.1 where you can speak instead of typing?  Pretty cool, right?  Did you know that in order to use it, you need a data connection available?  Neither did we. Now to be fair, this probably doesn’t affect too many people as 3G and EDGE networks practically blanket the country.  There are however going to be holes and instances where this feature won’t work.  Google does bill the feature as “experimental” so we can’t really complain.  We’re surprised it doesn’t say “beta” anywhere near the  feature.  All kidding aside, maybe a little more upfronted-ness would have been nice.

You might ask yourself what is the benefit of having it work this way?  Well, since it’s being given back to the cloud, the algorithms and special formulas being used can get constant updates without pushing out incremental releases of Android.  It’s probably tied to the same system that that helps transcribe your voice mails in Google Voice and help you with GOOG-411 calls.  Kinda smart if you ask us.

Anyone else have a chance to look through the guide?  Find anything else cool?  Hit us up in the comments.

Do you hate plugging things into the wall? How about typing your name into some fields? Hoo boy, have I got a deal for you! Target is willing to do these arduous tasks for you for a mere $99.

Yes, ninety nine fucking dollars. To hook up an Xbox or a PS3 that cost you a bit more than twice that. It’s though a third party called Zip Installation, who somehow stays in business despite offering such idiotic and overpriced services. Seriously, who is paying for these things? And do they realize that they’re being ripped off once the tech is in their house and they watch them spend 5 minutes doing the most basic of tasks before asking for a check? [Kotaku]

Philips line of notebook accessories include notebook sleeves, a Notebook Cushion Speaker, several models of USB speakers, a Bluetooth- enabled mouse that can be used without a surface, a webcam with cable management and direct YouTube upload. The notebook sleeve consists of  a soft cushion for your lap with a stable hard top that allows you to use the sleeve as a tray. The extra Heat Protect layer prevents overheating by allowing good air flow and also stops your lap from getting too hot. A storage pocket and hidden handle makes it easy carry the sleeve and your accessories. For protection it is lined with a suede-like material and has a rounded, rubberized zip to help protect your notebook’s surface. Available in April 2010 for between $40-$50. Here is the rest of the line.

The Notebook Cushion Speaker has a flat top and built-in speakers for optimal sound quality.  The soft cushion not only makes things more comfortable for long usage, but also helps prevent over-heating of your lap. We all know what that feels like towards the end of watching a 2 hour movie or a long day of work on the laptop. Available in April 2010 for $80.

Sometimes laptop speakers just don’t cut it for listening to music.  The portable Notebook SoundBar is and easy to use accessory with a single USB cable that can either be clipped to the top of your notebook screen or free standing.  The cable neatly wraps around the SoundBar for storage and it comes with a carrying pouch, making it easy to slip into your your pocket! The Philips Notebook USB Speakers are compact, with low power consumption, simple USB plug and cable management, and are perfect for boosting your bass. Soundbar available in April 2010 for $49.99 and the Notebook USB Speakers $24.99

Notebook Bluetooth Mouse has 360 TouchControl. A flat surface is not necessary for this mouse, you can navigate comfortably wherever you are.  The touch sensor gives you the freedom to move in all directions, and it comes with an integrated USB cable for battery recharging.

The Philips Notebook Presenter will make professional presentations easy as cake. Wireless, intuitive and featuring gestural control, this presenter is not only a laser point to guide the audience through your charts, but it works like a mouse in the air. Easy to use with well-designed buttons, just switch to mouse mode and you can control all your files on the projector without going back to your notebook. This intuitive control works with MAC and PC, and no software is needed- you just plug in the nano dongle and you’re ready to go. Available in April 2010 for$89.99. For more information on all the products visit Philips.

With the North American International Auto Show starting in Detroit next week, the editors at Cars.com took a look at 10 current or planned new car introductions they believe can help turn the Big Three around in 2010 and beyond.

“Despite the poor shape of the domestic auto industry, we do see some signs of hope from the Big Three,” said Cars.com Editor in Chief Patrick Olsen.

“A string of model introductions and redesigns could bring them back to solvency and beyond if done well — or mean disaster if they don’t win over consumers.”

Here’s a look, automaker by automaker, at the cars to watch from the Big Three.

Ford Motor Co.

Ford Fiesta: A feisty import from Europe could erase memories of the last U.S. version of the Fiesta. If you’re old enough to remember it, you might recall an econobox with a festive name, but poor reliability.

Ford’s new version claims to get around 40 mpg, and the Euro version that we drove has a great interior to boot. Its price starts just north of $13,000, which sure helps in the current economy; it could build a new generation of Ford fans from teens and 20-somethings.

Ford Taurus: While the Fiesta could make a big splash with its quality and high mileage, in reality, Ford needs a car like this to appeal to Baby Boomers looking to downgrade from expensive luxury makers and still generate profits.

The Fiesta’s dirt cheap price likely means a narrower profit margin. The Taurus, though, has a name with equity and enough extra features that could make it a big moneymaker for Ford.

Despite its sharp looks, the Taurus’ cramped cockpit may put off some family shoppers, although Ford’s ridiculously powerful EcoBoost engine could make dads overlook the tight fit.

Boomers will appreciate the huge trunk that can store more golf bags than the car can carry passengers. Could the Taurus be the once and maybe future king of sedans? Ford sure hopes so.

Ford Explorer: Speaking of nameplate equity, the Explorer practically invented and owned the SUV segment during the 1990s.

It’s moving to a unibody platform, which should help it drive more like a car and get more carlike mileage.

Although the SUV category has slumped, a new Explorer could help cement Ford in the family car business, where it has seen modest success with the Flex and the Edge. It’ll go head-to-head with Jeep’s revamped Grand Cherokee.

What’s Missing: Ford hasn’t given the Escape compact SUV a full redesign since it debuted in 2000, and it doesn’t hold up well to new entries like the Hyundai Tucson and Chevy Equinox.

Yet it’s one of the best-selling vehicles in the country. Ford better not drop the ball on this like it did with the Taurus two generations ago.

Chrysler

Jeep Grand Cherokee: Chrysler is wise to kick off its rebirth with a unibody family hauler that has an advanced off-road system to satisfy the broadest swath of consumers.

But given its recent history, the Cherokee’s mileage is likely to lag its competitors despite an estimated 11 percent gain in mileage — and Chrysler desperately needs to solve the reliability problem that has dogged the Grand Cherokee for years. Still, the Cherokee is one of only two new models for Chrysler next year.

It needs to sell well to help get Chrysler to the rest of its recovery plan. However, even well-executed redesigns or new models like the Nissan Murano and Ford Edge have not been huge successes.

Fiat 500: Chrysler today doesn’t have a single model that gets better than 31 mpg; will this small car, already popular in Europe, give the company enough cache to get young buyers into the shop?

Once there, will those shoppers even look at anything else on the showroom floor?

The company plans to start selling the 500 in January 2011 at “salons” in select urban dealerships. While it could become as successful as the Mini Cooper, that level of sales volume won’t be enough to help Chrysler pay off its government debt, much less reach profitability.

Chrysler 300: Whereas the Fiat 500 might not pave the road to cash flow, the 300 may.

This style-centric rear-wheel-drive sedan helped revive Chrysler in the early 2000s, and it’s getting a redesign for the 2011 model year. Like the Taurus for Ford, the 300 could provide plenty of profit margin, along with a huge cabin.

Mileage could be a concern, but with an improved interior expected and lots of space, the 300 could win back fans of flashy looks while the masses focus on value.

What’s Missing: The Fiat 500 may make a splash in the subcompact market, but Chrysler needs a successful compact car that the Dodge Caliber never was. The company also can’t figure out the vital compact SUV market with various entries that are either too small – Jeep Patriot – or too big — Dodge Nitro.

General Motors

Chevy Equinox/Traverse: These are two cars masquerading as one entry on our list, but these models are already in production, have sold well and made the brand a true innovative player in the family car market.

The Traverse is now the top large crossover, beating out Toyota’s Highlander and Honda’s Pilot for a few months now. The Equinox has a top-class cabin and class-leading gas mileage.

Chevy Cruze: Like Ford with the Fiesta, the Cruze is GM’s effort to get a 40-mpg small car on the market. Although the Cruze is more a competitor for Toyota’s Corolla or the Honda Civic, where the Fiesta goes up against the subcompact Toyota Yaris and the Honda Fit, among others.

For GM, there’s a PR move behind this car as well. Now owned in part by U.S. taxpayers, GM sees the Cruze as a shot at making its case that they can build a desirable, fuel-efficient car, proving that the federal bailout was worth the money and effort.

The company’s current compact, the Cobalt, has the best fuel mileage in the class and has not been a success.

Chevy Volt: A lot rests on the Volt. Could the electric-gas hybrid be GM’s opening shot in the electric-car wars, or will it be outmoded the moment it arrives?

It’s reasonable to ask why consumers would pay upward of $40,000 for a car that gets great mileage when they can buy another car that gets great mileage for closer to $20,000, say the Toyota Prius or Honda Insight.

Of course, there’s a halo effect that GM will expect from having the Volt in its lineup, and federal tax credits should chop a hefty $7,500 off the Volt’s MSRP. The next question for GM: How long till your plug-ins make it to market?

What’s Missing: There are plans for a new Chevy Aveo subcompact, but the current generation shouldn’t even be in the consideration set of shoppers who can pick up a new Toyota Yaris or Nissan Versa. Chevy needs to get a new Aveo on the market quickly or lose domestic shoppers to Ford’s Fiesta.

About Cars.com

Cars.com is the leading destination for online car shoppers, offering credible, easy-to-understand information from consumers and experts to help buyers formulate opinions on what to buy, where to buy and how much to pay for a car.

With comprehensive pricing information, side-by-side comparison tools, photo galleries, videos, unbiased editorial content and a large selection of new- and used-car inventory, Cars.com puts millions of car buyers in control of their shopping process with the information they need to make confident buying decisions.

Launched in June 1998, Cars.com is a division of Classified Ventures, LLC, which is owned by leading media companies, including Belo (NYSE: BLC), Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI), Tribune Company and The Washington Post Company ( WPO).

O trailer do filme A-Team (Esquadrão Classe A) foi acidentalmente espalhado na Internet, podem ver aqui um pouco daquilo que o filme promete.

WebTuga – Trailer do filme “A-Team”

A number of smartbooks are floating around CES, and after spending much of the day looking at them, talking about them, and using them, several things are clear. Vendors are eager to exploit the power of ARM chips and Linux to deliver great devices with novel features and long battery life at low cost, and they’re succeeding. But their success will depend on raising the level of polish and the smoothness of the user experience, something that’s lacking in the models on display here at CES.

Lenovo Skylight

The most-awaited smartbook here is the Lenovo Skylight, which uses Qualcomm’s celebrated Snapdragon ARM chip and runs a custom version of Linux. It’s got a 9″ 720p screen, advertises ten hours of battery life with the 3G running, which is likely, even accounting for exaggeration, to exceed current Atom netbooks by a wide margin. It will sell for $500 before contract, and is virtually certain to be carrier-subsidized by AT&T, the launch carrier.

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PPCGeeks member and LG eXpo owner junkyard12320 has managed to hack together a video out cable for the LG eXpo.  Unfortunately he did not include instructions on this feat, so Junkyard, if you are out there, why not pop over and give us the blow by blow.

Via Youtube.com

Using a cloud computing service may sound enticing, but you better consider how that data can be moved around if you want to switch to a different provider.

It’s a big problem that now has the attention of Vint Cerf, who is calling for standards to define how customer data gets passed between different cloud service providers.

Cerf, Google’s chief Internet evangelist, is one of those legends of the tech world, up there with people like Steve Wozniak. He is one of the co-designers of the TC/IP protocol. He is one of those few who had this idea way back when of hooking computers together to create a network. Today we call that network the Internet.

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So you listen when Cerf gets up to speak and says that it’s like 1973 out there when it comes to cloud computing data portability.

According to InfoWorld, Cerf said major cloud service providers like Amazon, Google and IBM have no real form of interoperability. Cerf spoke Thursday night at the Churchill Club in Menlo Park, Ca.

“We don’t have any inter-cloud standards,” Cerf said. “The current cloud situation is similar to the lack of communication and familiarity among computer networks in 1973.”

People will want to move data around. They may have multiple cloud service providers. They may want to use different cloud service providers as an interconnected network. Moreso, customers will simply want to move data from Cloud A to Cloud B.

Cerf went on to say that the industry needs to develop protocols and standards to make this all happen. It’s important to note that Google, Cerf’s employer, obviously has a stake in how this all pans out.

We went to Aardvark to ask about this issue.

What can you do right now to avoid getting locked into one cloud service provider?

Marc Limotte, director of engineering at Feeva Technology, writes:

“The obvious problem is that the difficulty in switching limits consumer choice and therefore competition. You can’t “vote with your feet”, if you can’t walk away.

This is common in IT, though. It’s never been easy to switch from one enterprise package to another, or from one hosting facility to another.

The data isn’t even the worst of the problem. In most cases, you can at least get an extract (even if it is terabytes of data), and perform a load in to some other system. The more complex issue is when you architect your solution to take advantage of a vendor’s proprietary services (e.g. the data store in Google App Engine, or the Amazon’s SQS). Not that you shouldn’t use these features… they’re useful, just be aware that they start to limit your options is you want to someday move away from that platform.

My suggestion… make sure you know how to export your data. And try and use your own interfaces in front of custom services. that way if you want to move, you just have to write an adapter, and not a complete re-architecture.”

Discuss

Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC) will release its fourth quarter 2009 financial results on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010, before the market opens.

The company will hold a conference call at 10 a.m. CST that same day, hosted by Dustan E. McCoy, chairman and chief executive officer, Peter B. Hamilton, senior vice president and chief financial officer, and Bruce J. Byots, vice president – corporate and investor relations.

The call will be broadcast over the Internet at brunswick.com.

To listen to the call, go to the Web site at least 15 minutes before the call to register, download and install any needed audio software.

Security analysts and investors wishing to participate via telephone should call (866) 831-6224 (passcode: Brunswick Q4). Callers outside of North America should call (617) 213-8853 (passcode: Brunswick Q4) to be connected.

These numbers can be accessed 15 minutes before the call begins, as well as during the call. A replay of the conference call will be available through midnight CST Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010, by calling (888) 286-8010 or (617) 801-6888 (passcode: 87644274).

The replay also will be available at brunswick.com.

About Brunswick

Headquartered in Lake Forest, Ill., Brunswick Corporation endeavors to instill “Genuine Ingenuity”(TM) in all its leading consumer brands, including Mercury and Mariner outboard engines; Mercury MerCruiser sterndrives and inboard engines; MotorGuide trolling motors; Attwood marine parts and accessories; Land ‘N’ Sea, Kellogg Marine, Diversified Marine and Benrock parts and accessories distributors; Arvor, Bayliner, Bermuda, Boston Whaler, Cabo Yachts, Crestliner, Cypress Cay, Harris, Hatteras, Kayot, Lowe, Lund, Maxum, Meridian, Ornvik, Princecraft, Quicksilver, Rayglass, Sea Ray, Sealine, Triton, Trophy, Uttern and Valiant boats; Life Fitness and Hammer Strength fitness equipment; Brunswick bowling centers, equipment and consumer products; Brunswick billiards tables and foosball tables.

For more information, visit brunswick.com.

Filed under: Etc., Government/Legal, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep

If Chrysler is looking to gain any one thing from its new parents at Fiat, it’s engine technology. Specifically, the Pentastar will be enlisting its Italian overlords to supply direct injection systems, turbocharging, and Fiat’s Multiair variable valve technology, along with new dual-clutch transmissions. Chrysler claims all of this technology is going to boost the overall fuel-efficiency of its vehicles by 25 percent between now and 2014, with over 80 percent of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles getting new mills in the process.

To that end, Chrysler has finally announced the details of its new powertrain lineup, including two small-displacement four-cylinders and a new V6.

On the four-pot front, Chrysler will begin fitting one of two new 1.4-liter four-cylinder engines on future models: a naturally aspirated version kicking out 100 horsepower (at 6,750 rpm) and 95 pound-feet of torque (at 4,250 rpm), as well as a turbocharged variant that churns out 170 hp (at 6,750 rpm) and 170 lb-ft of twist (at 3,000 rpm). In keeping with its Italian ancestry, Chrysler has dubbed these new mills “Fully Integrated Robotized Engines” and each features Fully Variable-valve Actuation (FVVA) – what we’ve come to know as Multiair across the Atlantic. Chrysler maintains that both engines offer a 10 percent reduction in emissions and fuel consumption while putting out between 10- to 15-percent more power than its outgoing mills.

A larger displacement, 2.4-liter inline four with Multiair will also come to market, putting out 190 hp (at 6,000 rpm) and 175 lb.-ft of torque (at 4,200 rpm), and along with the new trio of four-cylinders, Chrysler announced specs on the new Pentastar V6. Displacing 3.6 liters and putting out 280 hp (at 6,400 rpm) and 260 lb-ft of torque (at 4,400 rpm), the new six will see similar fuel consumption and emissions reductions and will be fitted to the all-new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee later this year.

In 2010, Chrysler says that it will begin to equip its mid-size vehicles (D-segment) with a new six-speed Dual Dry Clutch Transmission (DDCT), that improves fuel economy and can handle up to 260 lb-ft of torque. Expect to see the new tranny making its way into the next-generation Sebring and Chrysler’s new crossovers.

And if all that wasn’t enough, Chrysler announced its intentions to bring a hybrid Ram 1500 market this year, along with working with the Department of Energy to build a small test fleet of plug-in Rams and minivans, including an electric delivery van for fleet use in 2011 or 2012. All the details are available in the press release after the jump.

[Source: Chrysler]

Continue reading Chrysler releases details on Fiat-infused fours, new V6

Chrysler releases details on Fiat-infused fours, new V6 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If your natural reflex when the weather gets rough is to tweet about it, that reflex can now help the National Weather Service do its job better thanks to a new Twitter storm reporting program.

The NWS has always solicited severe weather reports from the public. After all, no amount of technology can ever be a substitute for an accurate report of what’s actually happening on the ground. Because of the new Twitter geolocation API and the increasing number of applications that support it (TweetDeck for iPhone is the latest to add geotagging support), it’s become very simple for the public to submit severe weather reports and for the NWS to pinpoint where they happened.

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How does it work? According to the program’s documentation, a system monitors Twitter for tweets starting with the hashtag #wxreport. These tweets are then plotted on a Google map using the tweet’s geolocation information, or in cases where the geotag data is not available, an approximation of the reporter’s location within the tweet using the format WW [location] WW. Finally, the report is relayed to the appropriate NWS field office for use by the office’s meteorologists in a variety of ways, including possible inclusion in an official storm report.

It’s not just the NWS that could benefit, either. The public already will be more informed simply by watching the #wxreport tag, regardless of whether one of those reports is released in an official storm report. Sites such as Weather Underground, which already hosts an extensive network of citizen-owned weather stations, could further integrate these reports into its own products. Media outlets monitoring Twitter for storm information can use the tweets in their own reporting; The Weather Channel already does a good job of this.

You can see some of these reports in action today. Check out the Twitter search for #wxreport to see how much snow fell from a winter storm that’s hit much of the U.S. We can’t help but wonder what this search will look like once spring rolls around and the severe weather season kicks off. Hopefully, the NWS has the tools in place to handle a high volume of tweets and an effective way of dismissing hashtag spam and other Twitter nuisances.

The National Weather Service program demonstrates how powerful geolocation on Twitter can be, and we can’t help but wonder what else will be created with geolocated tweets. Look for even more creative uses of geolocation throughout 2010.

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Devices and gadgets are always being designed on a large scale. But what is more interesting is when such simple gadgets are actually integrated into choicest art forms. Astrid Krogh is one such designer who has understood the need of integrating a simple photovoltaic panel that would have otherwise been lying dully on a roof, into a pretty looking curtain. This curtain called ‘Suntiles’ made of woven solar plates not only collects energy to generate power but also block sunlight and heat. Simple and a well executed concept it definitely is, no doubt.

[Re-Nest]

Filed under: Software

Exciting news for Mac-using Chrome lovers: the latest dev-channel build of Google Chrome (finally) includes support for extensions, among other new features. Similar to Firefox Add-ons, Chrome Extensions allow 3rd-party developers to add new functionality to the browser. There’s a decent collection of Extensions available already at Google’s Extensions Gallery, although not all of them will work with the Mac version. Interested developers can dive into the documentation on creating new extensions.

Additional features include built-in support for bookmark syncing, as well as the ability to “pin” tabs with just their favicon showing. It seems like a big jump in bringing the Mac version of Chrome up to feature parity with other platforms, which is great to see. Remember, these features are in the bleeding-edge dev channel, you won’t find them (yet) in the main (likely more stable) beta download.

Side note: there’s a continuing issue with Chrome on my MacBook Pro where most common web fonts show up garbled. It’s only (apparently) fixable by restarting the font server (atsutil server -shutdown) before launching, but returns soon after. It might be related to FontAgent Pro, or maybe something horribly wrong with my font cache (which has been cleared and rebuilt with no results), I’m not sure. Until this one is fixed, I’m starting Chrome with a shell script that stops and then pings the font server before launching Chrome. It’s not a pretty solution, and I sincerely hope I see a fix for this one soon. If you’ve got a solution, sound off in the comments!

[via Lifehacker]

TUAWGoogle Chrome for Mac (finally) gets Extension support originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Trading the Odds has done detailed trading studies of the S&P500 around key U.S. holidays. It opens the door to trading the S&P500 SPDR ETF. Awesome stuff, would be interesting to hear any potential criticism though. Here are some examples:

New Year’s Day: Buy at the end of trading on the first day of the year, then sell at the end of trading on the following day.

Trading Odds: Interesting to note that setup 1 (going long on the close two sessions before the New Year’ Day) and setup 3 (going long on the close the session immediately following the New Year’ Day) show excellent long-term historical results (Profit Factor and Winning Percentage, with t-score exceeding the +1.645 mark for statistical significance), but only setup 3 stood the test of time with respect to the last 20 years (the most recent session on Dec. 31 confirmed those negative odds).

First conclusion with respect to the market model: The model will take a long position on close of the first session of a new year.

Washington’s Birthday: Short at the close of trading right before Washington’s Birthday, then close the short at the end of trading on the following trading day.

Trading Odds: Interesting to note that form a long-term and intermediate-term historical perspective, the session(s) immediately preceding Washington’s Birthday/Presidents’ Day show a negative bias.

Third conclusion with respect to the market model: The model will not take a long position on close of the the session(s) immediately preceding Washington’s Birthday/Presidents’ Day (at least if the market doesn’t show any other requirements met, e.g. significantly oversold market conditions).

Continue to the entire trading study here >>>

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Goldman Loses Its Top Quant
• Top Goldman Quant: Quant Trading Is Dead
• Quants Can Get Stimulus Money

Google’s (GOOG) Nexus One, Palm’s (PALM) Pre, and Motorola’s (MOT) Droid each ship with an LED flash beside their cameras, and the next iPhone may as well. That’s the word from AppleInsider, which claims some insight into the next iteration of Apple’s (AAPL) iconic device. “People familiar with Apple’s initiative” tell the publication that the company has been ordering up “ tens of millions “ of LED camera flash components for delivery this year, presumably with the intent of building them into the next generation iPhone and iPod touch. I’ve no confirmation of this myself, but it certainly seems plausible and, given the lousy photos the iPhone takes in low-light situations, more likely an inevitability.

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By Lauren Goode, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is in Las Vegas to take a look at all the technology that’s being showcased this week at CES. He sat down with The Journal to talk about which gadgets he’s looking forward to seeing, why he thinks 2-D-to-3-D video processors are a “cheat,” and what exactly he was thinking when he compared 3-D to LSD.

The Wall Street Journal: What are you looking forward to seeing at CES this year?

Mr. Cuban: Anything 3-D-related, anything cellphone-related, but I’m particularly interested in seeing what types of products are being made for interactive television. Also, I’m curious what companies’ plans are for DTV spectrum, what happens if the FCC takes it back, what if they don’t take it back, and what kind of opportunities that would present.

I always like to walk through the small booths, just to see if there’s something that surprises me. Maybe they couldn’t afford a big booth, but they have something really interesting. I won’t spend a ton of time going through the big ginormous companies other than to visit friends.

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By Edwin Colfax

Texas has seen more than its share of controversy surrounding forensic science in recent months.

Most recently, the Houston Chronicle reported that an audit of the Houston Crime Lab’s fingerprint division identified problems in more than half of the 548 cases selected for review. The problems discovered were serious enough to lead the authorities to require that more than 4000 violent crime cases from the past six years be reanalyzed—a process that no doubt will be very costly for the city of Houston. According to the Chronicle, the Latent Prints Comparison Unit suffers from “significant deficiencies with staffing, a lack of proper supervisory review, inadequate quality control, technical competence inconsistent with industry standards, insufficient training and inadequate standard operating procedures.” The Houston Police have confirmed that a criminal investigation into misconduct by at least one employee of the fingerprint unit has been opened. In addition to the shoddy work that was done, the unit faces a backlog of some 6000 cases.

These revelations come at a time when a much-needed review of forensic oversight in Texas has been postponed indefinitely.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission had been planning a series of “roundtable” events around the state at which criminal justice stakeholder groups would discuss a recent critical report by the National Academies of Science (NAS), Improving Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, and the implications of the report for forensic science in Texas. That report identified a number of significant shortcomings in the nation’s forensic science system that threaten to undermine the accuracy and integrity of forensic evidence in our courts, including issues of training, bias, resources and a lack of independence and oversight. These same issues are at the heart of the evidence debacle in Houston.

This critical review of the Texas forensic system is on hold because of the Forensic Science Commission has found itself at the center of yet another forensic controversy surrounding its investigation into false arson evidence used against Cameron Willingham, who was executed in 1994. Governor Rick Perry, who turned down a clemency request that included a leading expert’s report that the trial evidence was scientifically invalid, abruptly replaced four commissioners just two days ahead of a meeting at which they were to hear from the state’s arson expert, whose findings confirm that the forensic evidence could not support a finding of arson. That meeting was cancelled by Perry’s new chairman, who is delaying any further action pending the adoption of new rules and policies for the commission he says are needed.

If there could be any doubt that there is an urgent need to act on the NAS report, it was erased by the latest revelations from the Houston Crime Lab. One of the questions that the Commission’s roundtables could be addressing is why Texas law explicitly exempts fingerprint analysis from forensic oversight. Most forensic evidence is only admissible in Texas courts if it is analyzed by an accredited lab, but that is not the case with fingerprints. The latent prints unit in Houston was not accredited, though other divisions in the lab were. While only the beginning of quality assurance, accreditation at least requires some baseline for good quality control policies and management practices (though it does not provide much in the way of ongoing oversight and monitoring of the actual work being done in the labs).

In fact, much fingerprint processing is not associated with a crime labs at all, which is part of the reason Texas law explicitly exempts it from the accreditation requirement. Latent prints forensic work also does not fall under the purview of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, the mission of which is very narrowly applied to investigating allegations of forensic negligence or misconduct in accredited forensic labs. This means that a huge portion of forensic evidence is largely unregulated in Texas.

Texas must recognize that there are serious gaps in its system of forensic oversight. These problems have resulted in innocent people being imprisoned for many years, and they have impeded our ability to convict criminals. The Willingham case raises troubling questions about how forensic methodologies should be validated, and how new scientific developments should be communicated within the criminal justice system. The fingerprint problems encompass many flaws, and show the need for independent laboratories, more robust ongoing oversight, and higher standards for analyst training and certification, among other reforms.

Texas must also recognize that relying on private accreditation programs is an incomplete solution, and that the mission of the Forensic Science Commission is defined in an overly narrow and reactive way. The changes needed are complex and structural—independent laboratories, a commission empowered to set and enforce meaningful quality standards for starters—but we will not be able to meet the challenges until we start the sort of comprehensive review that the Forensic Science Commission had planned. In the meantime, it remains to be seen how many criminal investigations were damaged by the failures in Houston, how many crimes went unsolved, and how many victims might have been denied justice because of a lack of forensic oversight and accountability.