Category: News

[Thanks, Joe]

Google Nexus One support page goes live, quickly dies again originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In case there was any sliver of doubt that the so-called LX610 Lotus Elite from LG was a real device ready to fill the original Lotus’ unusually wide shoes on Sprint, feast your eyes on this: a giant billboard covering the side of a Las Vegas hotel pimping the Chocolate Touch, the eXpo, and — yes, that’s right — the Lotus Elite. To be fair, there’s no name mentioned here, but we’ve got a feeling it’s right considering the rest of the intel has ended up panning out. Stay tuned.

LG Lotus Elite’s appearance on a billboard suggests it’s probably real originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tila Tequila (real name: Tila Nguyen), 28, confirmed the tragic news on her Twitter Monday evening:

“Everyone please pray 4 my Wifey Casey Johnson. She has passed away. Thank u for all ur love and support but I will be offline to be w family”

See this touching tribute to other celebs who passed away before their time

Johnson was also mother to a three year-old girl, Ava. Johnson adopted Ava in Kazakhstan in 2007, but the little girl is now in the custody of Johnson’s mother, Sale Johnson, in Manhattan.

Tila spoke to UsMagazine.com Dec. 22 about her relationship with Johnson. “She’s just the most beautiful person I’ve ever met.” The reality star said they gotten engaged “a couple weeks ago,” and that she planned to adopt young Ava.
Socialite CASEY JOHNSON has died, aged 30.
The body of the heiress to the Johnson & Johnson empire was discovered on Monday morning (04Jan10) in Los Angeles.
The tragic news comes just weeks after Johnson was arrested for grand theft.
She hit the headlines in December (09) when bisexual reality TV star Tila Tequila announced she was engaged to Johnson.
Details about the heiress’ death were not available as WENN went to press.

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Ooh hello! Photo Rumors has come across what appear to be the specs of Panasonic’s six newest cameras along with their pictures. And they’re as lovely as can be.

The line up includes the Lumix FP1, FP3, F3, FH3, and FH20—a bunch of ugly names for some pretty decent cameras—several of which boast that they’re ultra-compact and include an “advanced Venus Engine IV image processor.” Check Photo Rumors for more on the specs and check back here for more once we check these babies out at CES. [Photo Rumors]

I don’t know what’s going on over at Samsung, but as PMPs die, you’ve got to come up with some way to differentiate your product—and I guess a see-through screen is as good a way as any.

Samsung’s PMPs are among the best out there—I love the P3—but their design has been only slightly quirky in the past. All the crumbly gingerbread cookie widgets in the world wouldn’t compare to the utter Korean weirdness going on in the IceTouch (which recalls the SE Pureness) and the MyFit.

The IceTouch is a 16GB player with a 2-inch AMOLED touchscreen, but what a freaking weird touchscreen it is. First, it looks like it has a sliding blue sheath of some kind that covers the touchscreen. Why? Who knwos? But Samsung didn’t stop there—the screen is transparent. The player itself isn’t made of plastic or metal, but tempered glass, and features Samsung’s usual sound enhancements and top-of-its-class video compatibility. It also has (eep) a brand of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI called Sweep. You might remember TouchWiz from when it thoughtlessly murdered any hope the Omnia II had. Samsung’s PMPs have mostly escaped TouchWiz’s sinister, all-reaching grasp, and hopefully the IceTouch survives as well.

Pricing and availability haven’t been announced yet. [Samsung]

IceTouch 16GB Transparent AMOLED Touch-Screen MP3 Player

In addition to the full-color transparent AMOLED touch screen, the IceTouch features a high-performance CPU and Samsung’s own “TouchWiz Sweep” interface, which is designed to provide a comfortable grip and give users new options for interacting with their player.

Audio purists will appreciate the device’s new 5.1-channel sound enhancement technology and support for the MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, AAC, M4A, WAV and MP3HD audio codecs, and video hounds will love being able to playback MPEG4, WMV, H.264, Xvid and Divx files. The player also continually analyzes and adjusts audio levels to reflect the producer’s intended sound.

The AMOLED screen casing is constructed using a dual-injection molding process and tempered glass and results in a smooth, durable and scratch-proof surface that is aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable to the touch. The IceTouch, which comes in white, can also be individually customized through separately sold color skins in pink, blue, purple and gray.

The MyFit is a pretty good idea taken unexpectedly to the extreme. A workout player, sure, that’s a good idea. But wait, this doesn’t just count calories, it measures your fat and forcibly tells you to drink water.

The MyFit is an 8GB workout player, and while it likely won’t be cheap or durable enough to displace the Sansa Clip+ as my workout player of choice, it’s definitely more feature-packed. It has fat and stress sensors, a customizable exercise management program that selects music based on workout, calorie counter and jogging control—all great. But it also has a water intake manager to tell you when to take a water break, and something about “smoking cessation,” presumably to yell at you for smoking. How does it know if you smoke? Who knows? As a PMP, it’s got the usual attributes, including an FM radio and decent codec support. It’ll be available sometime in the first half of 2010, and no price has yet been announced. [Samsung]

MyFit Wellness Promoting MP3 Player

As the world’s first portable media player to integrate wellness management tools, such as stress and body fat levels and customized workout guides, MyFit helps users achieve wellness while enjoying their favorite music tracks. MyFit transcends basic playback of music and videos and enters the realm of wellness information and monitoring. Its unique features reflect the functional and stylistic nature of music enthusiasts while incorporating important applications and information for a fully-customizable device that encourages a healthy lifestyle. Music can be collected into a jogging playlist and a simple Tapping Control Jogging mode makes it easy to change to the next song without interrupting a workout.

Breaking ground with the world’s first fat and stress sensors located on the top of the player, MyFit measures a user’s wellness indicators and contains an exercise management program to keep people on target with their fitness goals. A built-in accelerometer automatically tracks calories burned while jogging, and users can record their caloric consumption per meal with the included food calorie database. Additional wellness applications built into the MyFit include a water intake manager and smoking cessation utility.

But more than helping to make consumers healthier, MyFit is a full-featured portable music player that features an FM radio tuner and Samsung’s DNSe 3.0 sound enhancement technology, which helps to overcome the inefficiencies and limitations of compressed audio files and generate a more realistic stereo sound. Media playback includes high quality compressed and lossless audio formats, such as MP3, WMA, OGG, and AAC, as well as MPEG4 and WMV video formats.

My favorite books have something very special between their pages: Inscriptions and autographs. Unfortunately, that special quality can’t be replicated with ebooks or readers. Not exactly, at least, but Danie Ware has an idea that might almost work.

Danie Ware, a PR gal for comic book store Forbidden Planet, describes her plan to capture the collectible nature of old-fashioned books with readers as follows:

Removable, collectable vinyl covers – plain, a selection of colours, maybe they can be stylised by your favourite art toy designer – but ultimately, they’re there to collect signatures. Take one to a Convention, keep it on you, it protects your Kindle, it looks cool – and you get to show off all the autographs/sketches you’ve collected.

Clever idea, but then you’re left with a shelf full of book covers and at that point you might consider collecting regular books again. It’s a workable solution, but still not perfect. How will autograph collectors cope in the age of ebooks? Or will they just never make the jump from paper to e-ink? [Danie Ware via Futurismic]

Photo by UggBoy

In 1995 the Garden Writers Association of America initiated the Plant A Row for the Hungry (PAR) 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Over the last 15 years of PAR, gardeners in the U.S. and Canada along with plenty of volunteers have made donating over 14 million pounds of produce possible.

The Plant A Row program encourages gardeners to grow an extra row in their personal garden or community garden plot then donate that row to local soup kitchens and food pantries serving the homeless and hungry. You can plant any foods you like in your row then simply deliver the harvest to a local food agency in your area.

Businesses can take it one step further and sponsor PAR, contribute “in-kind” donations or even organize a company-wide PAR campaign. Individuals can also organize bigger efforts in their community with the local campaign brochure.

Right now, many garden companies are supporting the 2010 campaign with special seed deals. Territorial Seed, for example is giving away one free “plant a row” package of carrot seeds with all 2010 purchases. Check with other garden and seed shops to see if they’re offering free seeds as well.

Visit Plant A Row for the Hungry for more info.

Post from: Blisstree

Plant A Row for the Hungry Campaign

State-versus-state competition is unhealthy

Editor, The Times:

Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon lays out a case for Washington being more business friendly to create jobs [“How to keep Washington jobs from flying south — again,” Opinion, Jan. 3]. To do this he suggests less costly unemployment insurance for businesses.

Thank goodness the state Legislature repealed such reductions in 2005 or the many using that insurance now would be in far more desperate circumstances. I challenge Reardon to work federally and to not enlarge the already toxic state-against-state competition.

He says Washington ought to be the cheapest state for business and not the most expensive. That’s an untenable moving target! What if the thinking got bigger? What if federal law started to end the South Carolina versus Washington kind of battles for business?

Maybe relocating businesses ought to pay the state they threaten to depart — perhaps reinvesting tax credits accrued — the way a baseball team must compensate a competitor when it acquires a player from that team. Maybe what business is already doing ought to influence how to level the playing field so that no state, and I mean no state, is left adrift.

— Rev. Bill Kirlin-Hackett, Bellevue

Federal statute worsens problems

Why is it that all of the public officials who get media space or time to decry what Aaron Reardon refers to as “Washington jobs from flying south,” without exception, neglect to even mention the transcendent federal statutory abomination that provides corporate management with the irresistible motivation to move south? The fact that Reardon uses the word “south” in the headline of his article suggests that perhaps he does not understand that the phrase he should use is “right-to-work state.”

Section 14(b) of the Taft Hartley Act is a 44 word provision that was inserted into the act in 1947 by a group of conservative Republicans and Dixiecrat Democrats whose motives were merely to inhibit the growth of the American Labor Movement. Since 1947, 14(b) has morphed into a terribly unfair advantage that allows each state to enact a law that guarantees to employers an employment environment where compensation will be low, benefits minuscule and employees will have no enforceable rights.

It is urgent that a debate be ignited to illuminate the harmfulness of Section 14(b) and the feasibility of its repeal.

— Daniel M. Mahoney, Mercer Island

Obvious step: Obama needs to fulfill $2 billion promise

Thank you for Hal Bernton’s story about Julia Bolz and her struggle to help Afghan girls get an education [“Building a future for girls amid war,” page one, Jan. 3]. The story ends with the haunting quote: “Now, what do we do?”

Given that there are more than 75 million primary-school-aged kids and more than 225 million secondary-school-aged kids around the world who are not in school, the first step seems obvious. Saudi Arabia has been happy to fund Madrassas — religious schools teaching radical fundamentalism and developing Jihadists. While the President has committed 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion, he has yet to fulfill his promise to begin a Global Fund for Education at a cost of just $2 billion.

That fund would be supported by the developing world and help bring education to kids — particularly girls — who currently have no chance for education and no hope for the future. This would be money well spent and a chance to make a long term difference in the communities and countries benefiting from educated children.

— Bob Dickerson, Seattle

Seattle children educated as well

Thanks for the excellent article about Julie Bolz and her efforts to build schools in Afghanistan. As a parent of two children who became involved in Julie’s project through her collaboration with Coe School, I can tell you that the children in Afghanistan are not the only ones being educated through her efforts. Seattle children have been fundamentally changed by knowing Julie and the students in Afghanistan she has introduced them to.

Despite Julie’s efforts, it remains difficult for our children to comprehend that 75 million children around the world have never set foot in a primary school and may never will. Afghanistan is a prime example of the ways in which a largely uneducated population is easily recruited for terrorist activities and the country stagnates economically without an educated work force.

It is in the United States’ best interests to fund primary education and we can do so by creating a Global Fund for Education, much like the fund that has been successful in coordinating efforts of developed nations to address the AIDS epidemic. Funding global education isn’t a matter of charity. It’s about creating the kind of stability that allows our children — and all children — a chance to coexist and prosper.

— Marsha Hedrick, Seattle

Overcrowded classrooms a problem

Hal Bernton’s compelling article makes the case why a Global Fund for Education is needed. In my visit to Kenya this fall, I observed many classrooms with 60 to 80 students.

During the election campaign, President Obama pledged to budget $2 billion for a Global Fund for Education and catalyze a global movement. This focus on education is critical if we are serious about eliminating poverty, extremism and injustice.

— Linwood Carlson, Seattle

Apparently the University of North Dakota thinks that you should spend four years in flight school and then never actually get off the ground. That’s because they’re offering a new degree in flying UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles.

The four-year undergraduate program already enrolled its first 12 students and there’s even talk of a graduate program being started up. Whatever happened to plain ol’ regular pilot school? [Discovery via Pop Sci]

Want a one stop access point for all those extended control panel settings in Windows 7? Well, it’s easy: just use CrunchMode*.

“CrunchMode” is really easy to set up: just create a new folder and then rename it to CrunchMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} and then double click it and you’re rocking. This trick won’t work on 64-bit Vista, but it works like a charm on all the different versions of Win7.

[via HardOCP]

*To be fair, “CrunchMode” is just what we call it. The code is the important part, so you can call it whatever you like, like “IDDQD” for instance.

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Short version: An elegant, functional, and attractive mouse, best suited for those with normal-sized or smaller hands. Aficionados may crave more buttons or a non-ambidextrous design, but the Xai does just fine without. Like other SteelSeries products, it’s a bit expensive, but you knew that.

Features:

• High-sensitivity laser sensor
• Ambidextrous design
• On-mouse configuration (with LCD)
• Built-in memory for five profiles
• MSRP: $90

Pros:

• Simple, comfortable design
• On-mouse configuration can be handy
• Tracks great

Cons:

• Ambidextrous design can lead to accidental button presses
• Wish it had more than “high” and “low” sensitivities to configure
• Not suitable for larger hands

Full Review:

The fun thing about mice is that there are so many of them. From the tricked-out megamice like Logitech’s MX Revolution and Razer’s Mamba to the slim and elegant Arc Mouse, there’s a huge range to choose from. The Xai sits comfortably in the middle, being a sort of secretly fancy mouse clad in a modest body.

Back to basics

Almost exactly a year ago, at CES, I saw a milled body prototype of this mouse. SteelSeries’ Kim Rom explained that they were going back to basics, and were seeking a kind of fundamental mouse shape. I think they’ve succeeded; the gentle arc and symmetrical design of the Xai are pleasing to both the eye and the hand. While some people will understandably prefer a strongly handed design like the G500 or Imperator, there is something about keeping things basic that is appealing to me. It reminded me of my old Intellimouse 3.0, which I adored.

The downside of the design, a shortcoming the Xai shares with all its ambidextrous ilk, is that a button that is perfectly placed for your thumb will necessarily be in danger of being pressed by your grasping fingers on the other side. Whether you want to disable the buttons or just be careful about it is up to you, but it’s something to consider. If you absolutely need more than four buttons within easy reach, you’d better take other mice into consideration. I find too many buttons counterproductive, but that’s just me.

The buttons are extremely sensitive, and it took me a while to adjust after using the G500 and Mamba, which have a much deeper click. It led to a few accidental selections here and there, but

Semi-freedom from drivers

The configuration of the mouse can be done mostly in the mouse itself, via the little LCD on the bottom. You can switch profiles, set your high and low sensitivities, and adjust the settings like FreeMove and ExactAim, which are movement adjustment settings that reduce jitter and such, if you’re into that. It’s not exactly quick and easy to configure, but it’s all on-mouse and you don’t have to worry about drivers. If you want to set up macros and customize buttons, however, you’ll need the actual configuration app. The number of commands built in is a bit small (no double click? no minimize window?) but you can easily create those and others in the robust macro editor.

It can be a bit time consuming to test out lots of different combinations of these things. I don’t like anything interfering with my mouse’s movements so I knew to put them all at zero, but you’ll find there are more than enough settings to keep the tweaker in you occupied.

One thing that I did not actually try out, but which sounded fun, is trying pro gamers’ mouse configurations. The idea is great: you download the profiles used by champ gamers and try their settings. Maybe it’ll make you a better player, maybe you’ll just be entertained, but it’s a fun idea and I’d encourage people to try it out.

Tracks great, less filling

It’s getting to the point with mice that tracking is pretty much expected to be excellent, so I won’t waste your time here. The Xai tracks very well. I tested it on one of their thin, hard mouse pads as well as on a cloth Razer Goliathus, and lastly on my desk, which is brushed but reflective steel. No problems on anything. The sensor is placed dead center on the mouse; I prefer it forward and to the left a bit, but since it’s ambidextrous they had their hands tied.

The thing I found myself wishing was more sensitivity settings. There’s something to be said for the simple high-low switch, and of course you can configure those settings to a very precise degree, but sometimes you feel like you want something in between. What if I need to do some pixel-by-pixel movements in an image editor? I can’t just zoom down to super-low sensitivity like with a Razer mouse. I’d have to switch profiles or something.

An all-around contender

I like the Xai. It’s compact, elegant, unpretentious, and effective. While I personally prefer a wireless, right-handed device, I found the straightforward design of the Xai refreshing, and of course its performance is beyond reproach. At $90 it’s a bit expensive, though it’s far from the most pricey out there. While for a real tweaker I have to recommend going with one of the many mice with more bells and whistles, the Xai is really an excellent choice for almost anybody.

Product Page: SteelSeries Xai

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It’s the New Year, and it’s time to gear up for all those games pushed back to 2010 instead of being released in 2009. But before all of that, we’re kicking off the year with