Filed under: Sex, Love & Relationships
Ever wondered why men and women are drawn to certain scents? Judy Dutton, author of How We Do It: How the Science of Sex Can Make You a Better Lover, explains the role your nose plays in choosing a partner.
Q: What role does scent play in … Read more
As semiconductor manufacturers continue to push down the size of their products’ wiring, a number of research labs have started looking into whether they can simply take the process to its logical conclusion: a transistor made from a single molecule. A number of these items have been demonstrated, and they do manage to control the current flow through the molecular transistor, but they do so through a variety of tricks that have nothing in common with the methods used for the semiconductors in our electronics. In today’s issue of Nature, an international team reports producing the first voltage-gated molecular transistors.
The basic principle behind a transistor is simple. All it needs is two electrodes, a source and a sink, and a gate that controls the flow of current between them. In semiconductor transistors, the gate contains a semiconductor and another electrode: raising or lowering the voltage in this electrode controls whether current can flow across the semiconductor between the source and sink.
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While many were surprised that the first few grants of broadband stimulus money did not go to the telco lobbyist boondoggle known as Connected Nation, you knew it had to come eventually. There were cases where Connected Nation was given deals despite being more expensive and having less experience. Or, in the case of Minnesota, the governor just decided the state should go with Connected Nation, before a state task force (appointed by the governor to explore this issue) could even weigh in.
So it should come as no surprise that (right before the holidays) it’s been announced that a big chunk of broadband stimulus money is going to Connected Nation (including, of course, in Minnesota). It’s a really sweet boondoggle. The operation was set up by telco industry lobbyists, with the claim that it will accurately map broadband penetration (an important factor in figuring out a broadband plan). But, rather than actually mapping the data, and actually revealing the details, Connect Nation basically hides and obfuscates the data in a way that protects the telcos. Aren’t you glad that your taxpayer money is now being used to support this effort?
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Along with many other people, I’ll spend hours flying with young children this holiday season to visit family and, like many parents, I’d do anything within reason to keep my young children busy on a crowded airplane.
The iPod Touch offers the best options for young kids.
I’m a big fan of old-fashioned analog activities—books and crayons—but they’re not enough when you’re cooped up for six hours on a plane. In advance of a cross-country flight on Wednesday, my two kids and I spent several days trying out the most versatile and convenient gadget—offering movies, games and other electronic media—for keeping us entertained.
We looked at Apple’s iPod Touch, a Sony PSPgo and a Nintendo DSi. Sony and Nintendo have updated their PlayStation Portable and DS game players with features aimed at going beyond traditional gaming. Apple is been promoting the iPod touch’s game capabilities.
Nintendo has done a lot to push the boundaries of gaming, with the Wii and other products. But the $169.99 DSi isn’t the entertainment Swiss army knife the iPod Touch and PSPgo are. It doesn’t play movies, for example—a big minus for my 2-year-old son, who is too young to be patient with most games.
It’s still a fun game-player, though, with popular titles for young kids, including two that are big with my 6-year-old daughter: the Nintendogs virtual pet and Pokemon adventure games, which run about $30 a title. One big change Nintendo made to the DSi is the addition of two cameras that are used in fun games, like the ones that put a player’s photo alongside other characters. One simple camera application lets you distort and doodle on images.
Nintendo and Sony also have followed the lead of the App Store—Apple’s online clearinghouse for iPhone and iPod Touch software—by letting users download software directly to the DSi and PSPgo over a Wi-Fi connection. It is more convenient than keeping track of a lot of external game cartridges and discs. Compared with the more than 100,000 titles in the App Store, however, Nintendo’s DSi Shop is sparsely stocked. It had only two free applications and about 90 titles, mostly costing $2 to $8.
One free DSi titles, Flipnote Studio, was a huge hit with my 6-year-old. It let her create an electronic version of an old-fashioned flip book, where you animate sketches by flipping pages. The DSi has only 256 megabytes of built-in storage, good for about a dozen games, though users can expand that with a storage card.
With the $249.99 PSPgo, Sony got rid of the old proprietary disc format for movies and games used in older PSP models, replacing it with 16 gigabytes of built-in flash storage onto which users can download games, movies and other content. The change allowed Sony to make a sleeker device with controls that slide away under its crisp color display.
The iPod Touch is still slimmer and easier to tuck into a pocket. A model with eight gigabytes sells for $199, while one with 32 gigabytes sells for $299.
The PSPgo’s display is slightly wider than that on the iPod Touch, but isn’t touch-sensitive. Still, the PSPgo and iPod Touch are fine for watching movies. They’re more convenient on airplanes than fumbling with a laptop and DVDs. And users can wirelessly download movies and games onto the PSPgo from Sony’s online PlayStation Store. I found it faster, though, to do the transaction on my PC over a wired Internet connection, and load the material onto the PSPgo over a USB cable with Sony’s version of Apple’s iTunes application, called Media Go. Media Go runs only on Windows.
Prices for movies on the iTunes and PlayStation Stores were mostly the same at $14.99 for new releases and $9.99 for older ones. Rentals are $3.99. Both stores had a similar selection of new releases, but the PlayStation Store lacked some kid titles that were on iTunes, such as “Toy Story.” There is also a directory of free podcasts on iTunes that makes it easy to download free videos to the iPod Touch, including kid-friendly material such as NASA space-shuttle landings and “Sesame Street” clips.
Games for PSPgo tend to be more intricate than those for iPod Touch, but that comes at a price. While Sony sells cheaper games, many are in the $19 to $30 range. I liked an adventure game called “Little Big Planet” starring a character called Sack Boy—for $39.99.
That price is steep compared with all the inexpensive and free content on the App Store for the iPod Touch. My kids liked a lot of it: a free dress-up game called “Dress Chica” and a $1.99 snowball-fight game called “Grinchmas.” My son particularly loved a free, beautifully illustrated short book called “Voodoo Doll’s Halloween Story.” My 6-year-old spent hours with a free math-drills program.
I found the iPod Touch offers the best entertainment options for young kids at bargain prices. And that is a gift for parents.
Email [email protected]. Walt Mossberg is on vacation.
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Video livecasting service Qik’s long-awaited iPhone app has reportedly been approved by Apple and will appear in the iTunes App Store today.
It’s getting late in the business day here in Apple’s time zone, and the app hasn’t appeared yet, but maybe the App Store staff work IT hours and will put it up tonight.
TechCrunch reports that the app will be named Qik Live when it appears, not to be confused with the current app Qik for 3GS, which cannot stream live video.
Qik Live’s addition will mean there are two very popular platforms on which Apple and AT&T will allow iPhone users to transmit live video streams onto the Internet. Ustream Live Broadcaster was the first, appearing in the store on December 9th. Ustream says that since the app became available, the number of concurrent live streams running through their servers has increased tenfold.
Previously, streaming live video was possible only on “jailbroken” iPhones that had been hacked to end-run Apple’s restrictions. Apple added live video capability to the new iPhone 3G S model in July, but until this month no apps that streamed video were approved and placed in the App Store.
Apple’s approval process is a notorious puzzlebox. No sources have stepped forward to explain why the change in what seemed to be a no-streaming policy, and why now.
Ustream countered Qik’s news today by emailing around a press release announcing a limited-access beta test of a higher quality streaming app, dubbed Ustream HQ Live Broadcaster. Ustream promises picture quality comparable to that of basic Web streaming, by which they mean “resolutions beyond 640×480 at up to 30 frames per second.”
Well, we know Qik on Android already reliably streams 720×480 pixels at 24 frames per second, so I think we need someone who really knows their livestreams — i.e. not me — to do a head-to-head test of Qik vs Ustream once both apps are available. I’ll be glad to blog it.
You can request a copy of Ustream’s beta version of the HQ app by mailing [email protected].
[Images: Qik, Ustream]
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We may soon see Apple’s long-rumored, yet-to-be-announced tablet computer. It looks like chief executive Steve Jobs has plans to demonstrate the product on-stage in January.
A source told The Business Insider that Apple has asked application makers to create apps for a demonstration next month. Those apps need to support full-screen resolution, suggesting an iPhone- or iPod Touch-style device with a larger screen — i.e, a tablet. At the same time, the Financial Times reports Apple has rented a stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for several days in late January. You do the math.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicted today that there’s a 50 percent chance that Apple will announce the tablet next month. If that happens, he said the device will probably go on sale later that quarter.
The tablet has been the hot topic around Apple for months and months now. Whenever Apple holds an event, everyone wonders, “Will we see the tablet?” It’s supposed to be the focus of chief executive Steve Jobs, after he returned from a health-related absence.
An Apple tablet would certainly face plenty of competition, including Hewlett Packard’s Dreamscreen, the controversial JooJoo (formerly the Crunchpad), and even a super-cheap tablet from the One Laptop Per Child project. But if Apple does demonstrate the tablet, I’m sure of one thing — it will look really, really cool.
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Ingredients:
4 cups of brussels sprouts, cleaned and halved from end to end
1 cup ham, diced
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/4 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper
2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese, grated, reserve 1 tsp. for garnish
Preheat oven to 400′
Toss the brussels sprouts, ham, olive oil, black pepper and cheese together on a large sheet pan. Make sure everything is in a single layer and roast for about 20 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 425′ for an additional 10 minutes of cooking. Garnish with the remaining teaspoon of cheese.
Nutrition Facts
4 Generous Servings
Amount Per Serving
Calories 140.5
Total Fat 8.0 g
Saturated Fat 2.1 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.8 g
Monounsaturated Fat 4.4 g
Cholesterol 21.2 mg
Sodium 513.0 mg
Potassium 457.0 mg
Total Carbohydrate 9.0 g
Dietary Fiber 3.3 g
Sugars 1.9 g
Protein 9.9 g
I wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays! I will return on Monday with a new recipe for you all!
Eat, live and enjoy life!!!
Chef Barrae
Managing group expenses can be a messy thing. Pestering your friends and roommates to pay up is a chafe, and creating a joint bank account takes a lot of work and can be far too permanent. But maybe there’s something in the middle. To that end, WePay, a startup that’s trying to make group money management simple, has raised a $1.65 million seed round from August Capital and angels including former Intuit CTO Eric Dunn, as was first reported by Scott Kirsner at Boston.com. The company had participated in the Y Combinator program this summer.
WePay, which is currently in private beta but expects to open up in early 2010, acts like a bank account but in reality is a service built on top of prepaid Visa cards. As compared to predecessors like Buxfer and BillMonk, WePay has built a group money management platform that users can actually pay bills with, rather than simply tracking IOUs.
WePay CEO Bill Clerico said the company is trying to make it as easy to set up a WePay account as it is to create a Facebook group or an Evite. Of course, since money is involved, you have to prove who you are by inputting your social security number and other information. Then you can invite new members to your group, who can pay for expenses with credit cards and even paper checks. You (aka the treasurer) then pay for your group expenses (rent, utility bills, what have you) using a debit card, paper check or online transfer.
Clerico said WePay has thousands of beta users and three (soon to be five) employees. The company makes revenue by charging either a 3.5 percent levy on funds transferred or 50 cents per transaction. WePay doesn’t actually hold any money itself, but works with The Bancorp Bank on the backend. Users don’t receive interest on the funds they store in their accounts.
For now, if you’d like to try WePay, sign up to get in line for a beta invite on the landing page, or find a friend you can owe money to who’s already using it.
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It’s not often that you hear about a startup still in deep stealth that has over 40 employees and backing from some of the biggest names in the valley. But that’s exactly the case for Santa Clara-based Kakai, which was founded in May by Chegg founder Osman Rashid. The company has recently closed a $7.5 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Josh Kopelman (First Round) and Ron Conway. Marc Andreessen will be joining Kakai’s board. This brings Kakai’s total funding to $9.35 million, after a $1.85 million Series A earlier this year led by Rashid himself and Mike Maples.
Very little is known about Kakai at this point. It was cofounded by Rashid and engineer Babur Habib, who has spent time working on both semiconductors and software at Intel, Philips, and Exponent. The company has been rumored to have something to do with electronic readers, but all reports are vague. I did manage to dig up the following from an old job listing, which seems to be in line with those rumors:
“Kakai is a stealth-mode start-up developing an innovative Linux-based, portable consumer electronics product (details available through non-disclosure agreement).”
Rashid isn’t talking. He does say, though, that we’ll likely be hearing much more from the company come late March. He also says the 40 person company is actively hiring top technical talent.
Don’t bother looking at Kakai’s homepage for more information. It has no details, and appears to have been designed to look as drab as possible.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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Looks like Amazon has decided to go on holiday vacation early, and invited all of its customers to go along with it. Amazon and Amazon Web Services seem to be down, and people are noticing it.
This is bad news for any companies relying on Amazon’s cloud services. Many startups use Amazon Web Services to host files in the cloud including images and other key content. And it isn’t the first time this has happened (though its competition isn’t much better).
And, of course, those looking for extremely last minute holiday gifts are out of luck.
We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment, and we’ll update you on the status of Amazon.
Update: Amazon looks to be back up from here. Is it up for you?
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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The drumbeat for HD 3D continues to pick up the pace, and with broadcasters around the globe pushing forward 2010 plans to bring 3D home HDMI has updated the course of its latest 1.4 spec to ensure compatibility between displays and boxes. Quite simply, existing cable and satellite hardware isn’t going to be held to the same requirements as Blu-ray and videogame equipment rocking the 3D sticker and expecting compatibility with displays on the way, since they won’t be passing the same high quality, high bandwidth dual-stream 1080p images anyway. Additionally, some broadcasters are pushing for HDMI to officially support “Top/Bottom” 3D transmissions they plan to use, which sacrifice resolution while saving bandwidth by shoving left/right images into a single frame. While that should add an entirely new angle to the line counting and claims of “HDLite” (get ready for 3DLite) all viewers can do is wait to hear when or if their hardware will get a software upgrade to 3D (like the one we expect will allow the PS3 to play 3D Blu-ray discs) in the months and years to come, once there’s a standard everyone can adhere to of course.
HDMI 1.4 spec getting freshened up in preparation for broadcast 3D originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Homebrew dev BlazerRazer has released a new version of Remote Touch DS, a handy app that allows you to control your mouse, keyboard and manage your media files via your Nintendo DS. The latest update includes lot’s
We may soon see Apple’s long-rumored, yet-to-be-announced tablet computer. It looks like chief executive Steve Jobs has plans to demonstrate the product on-stage in January.
A source tells The Business Insider that Apple has asked application makers to create apps for a demonstration next month. Those apps need to support full-screen resolution, suggesting an iPhone- or iPod Touch-style device with a larger screen — i.e, a tablet. And Apple has rented a stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for several days in late January, according to the Financial Times.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicted today that there’s a 50 percent chance that Apple will announce the tablet next month. If that happens, he said the device will probably go on sale later that quarter.
The tablet has been the hot topic around Apple for months and months now. Whenever Apple holds an event, everyone wonders, “Will we see the tablet?” It’s supposed to be the focus of chief executive Steve Jobs, after he returned from a health-related absence.
An Apple tablet would certainly face plenty of competition, including Hewlett Packard’s Dreamscreen, the controversial JooJoo (formerly the Crunchpad), and even a super-cheap tablet from the One Laptop Per Child project. But if Apple does demonstrate the tablet, I’m sure of one thing — it will look really, really cool.
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Filed under: Hardware, Hacks, Odds and ends, iMac, Mods
Have you ever wondered why the coffeemaker in your kitchen doesn’t have a subwoofer attached to it? Us too! And if you’re going to put a sub on there, you might as well include a Mac mini, right? And when you really think about it, isn’t the only case worthy of holding all that stuff an iMac DV? It just makes sense.
That’s why, we’re guessing, tinkerer Klaus Diebel put together this incredibly useful device that will make your coffee, play some thumping tunes, and do your computing tasks as well. He tells us it was something like that — he really enjoyed the look of the gumdrop iMac, and has experimented with it a few times, creating both a mailbox and a birdhouse from the computer’s case. And this one just sort of snowballed — when he found that the Mac mini’s optical drive slot fit perfectly with the iMac’s slot, without any alterations at all, it had to happen.
And we’re glad it did. The iMac is an exceptional little computer with a very distinctive form factor — if you have to put a coffeemaker in the thing just to keep it on your desk, so be it!
TUAWCombination Mac mini, coffeemaker and subwoofer stuck in an iMac originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This year’s release of Firefox 3.5 gave us a lot of reasons to like it, but its extensibility remains everyone’s favorite feature. These add-ons and theme tools were the most popular in the year gone by.
This list is culled from a straight listing of the most popular posts that offered a Firefox extension for download in 2009. We’re not including posts about configuring Firefox, or even our own hand-rolled Firefox add-on packs—even if they were pretty popular, too. Let’s get to the good stuff.
One of the greatest things about Firefox is that its development happens way out wide in the open. When the design workers start coming up with preliminary sketches of a new release, anyone can peek at them and even compile them into a theme, which does just what the headline suggests.
Windows Vista and 7 feature some fairly nice looking transparency effects, but if your primary browser doesn’t use them, it can feel a bit disconnected. All-Glass Firefox v2 tweaks your browser to look just, well, proper in its fancy-pants surroundings.
You can speed up Firefox by cleaning up its fragmented database, and the Vacuum Places Improved 0.3 extension automates that admittedly pain-in-the-butt process.
Google Redesigned, a multi-site suite that trades Google’s blue/white/minimal look for a darker, sleeker feel, kepts improving its transformative powers this year, adding a host of improvements in its 3.0 release, and later releasing a new version with GReader Redesigned for the RSS hounds.
“I’m having SUCH a bad day—the cleaning lady TOTALLY left her Pine Sol smell all over my bed linens!” That, my friends, is why clever JavaScript tweakers created the Dislike extension.
Many of the pictures and illustrations you find across the web aren’t in their original form—and many can be had at better, perhaps more wallpaper-worthy sizes. The TinEye extension makes it a simple right-click maneuver to search out similar copies of any image you come across.
Sometimes, great stuff has to be hosted on public download services, because the file—or the attention it’s getting—is just too much for our meek little personal sites. And the download sites often make it as painful as possible to grab those files. SkipScreen acts as an automated intermediary, jumping through the necessary hoops and entering the key presses required.
This neat little extension, winnter of the Extend Firefox 3.5 contest, utilizes lots of Firefox’s built-in features, like geo-location and the extension framework, to offer wary laptop users a way to nuke their personal data, passwords, and history if necessary, track where their machine is logging on after a theft, and cull all kinds of data from the thief. FireFound is, in other words, a smart thing to install if your laptop ever leaves the home.
A lot of helpful stuff is tucked away in Firefox’s about:config menus. Gui:config brings them into focus and offers a graphical way to manage them. As the How-To Geek puts it, it’s amazing that this isn’t something being considered for mainstream distribution in the browser.
(Windows only): Firefox is decently light with memory on startup, but extensions and plug-ins drag it down as you actually use it. Memory Fox monitors Firefox’s memory use and, once it reaches your pre-set limit, whips it back into shape.
(Windows only): Well, the headline and picture kind of say it all about Daum Blue, but it’s worth noting that beyond looks, it’s also a fairly customizable, and looks even better on Vista and Windows 7 systems.
Sure, kind of anathema for this site’s stated mission, but giving your mind a break at work has real mental benefits, even if your boss doesn’t think so.
If you’re likely to do more at a web site than just simply bookmark it, UrlbarExt is like a Leatherman for your AwesomeBar. Head to a site’s root, search the site on Google, and do much more from a small array of address bar buttons.
Another headline that pretty much says it all. We weren’t a big fan of Xmarks‘ new “discovery” features, but its growing reach into Chrome and other browsers make the former Foxmarks’ expansion a good thing.
Given the recent legal crackdown on BitTorrent-centered sites, magnet links (explained here) are increasingly popular. Magnetiser makes it easy to track down a working torrent link to grab the file you’re looking for.
It must be mentioned that, beyond smooshing together Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader into one neatly-arranged Gmail page, Integrated Gmail also customizes every niggling detail of those combined apps, making it worth the try-out, even if you think you like your Google spaces separated into different tabs.
Omnibar is one of the clever ways Firefox can make itself into a Google Chrome clone, and we love that kind of openness ’round here.
If you’re always looking at online purchases and wondering if you could save more before pulling the trigger, Invisible Hand affirms your hunches for you, dropping down and showing lower prices wherever it can find them.
Mozilla’s future-facing automation and shortcut engine, Ubiquity, continued to get awesome-r in 2009.
We dug the idea of permanent, favicon-only tabs when a helpful reader explained it to us, but the App Tabs extension took a multi-step process and made it far more simple.
Not seeing your favorite add-on released in 2009 here, or covered anywhere at Lifehacker? Can’t believe your favorite app doesn’t get more attention? Let’s hear all about it in the comments.
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Harmonix
They share the holiday spirit with us in Rock Band fashion.
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Filed under: Motorsports, Coupe, Performance, Europe, Lotus
After a 15-year hiatus, Lotus is coming back to Formula One, and to commemorate its return to the top tier of motorsport, the Hethel crew is creating yet another special Exige inspired by the Type 72 that dominated F1 in the Seventies.
Like nearly every other limited edition Lotus released in the last few years, the Exige S Type 72 is little more than a repainted, kitted-up version of its midship masterpiece. The supercharged, 1.8-liter inline four remains unchanged, putting out 220 horsepower and allowing the two-tone coupe to sprint to 60 in 4.5 seconds and on to a top speed of 145 mph.
A set of carbon fiber ProBax sport seats swathed in black microfiber with contrast stitching ties in with the exterior’s gold wheels and emblems, while standard twin oil coolers and an adjustable front anti-roll bar round out the mechanical upgrades.
Lotus has slated 20 Type 72s for sale in the UK, with another 20 destined for markets outside of the mainland (no word on U.S. distribution), each carrying a price tag of £35,995 or 40,332 euro. Not cheap, but then again, how do you put a price on nostalgia?
Gallery: Lotus Exige S Type 72
Continue reading Lotus celebrates return to F1 with Exige S Type 72
Lotus celebrates return to F1 with Exige S Type 72 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We’d like to say thanks to this week’s GigaOM sponsors:
