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We’ve all grown accustomed to Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads and their hilarity, but if rumors prove to be true, we can all say goodbye to everyone’s favorite anti-PC commercials. The stars of Apple’s clever little TV tidbits are Justin Long and John Hodgman.  Long, during an interview with AV Club, was asked about the future of the ads, and he replied with:

“You know, I think they might be done. In fact, I heard from John, I think they’re going to move on. I can’t say definitively, which is sad, because not only am I going to miss doing them, but also working with John.”

Long’s answer isn’t solid evidence that the ads are no more, but it is a good indication of what to expect.  The ads were witty and could make you chuckle the first hundred times you saw them, but just like any commercial, they grew stale (just like Apple’s “There’s an app for that,” FreeCreditReport.com, and eTrade’s baby spots).  With other companies nipping at Apple’s heels, I’m sure they’re ready to retaliate and they probably have a few ads set to chop and hack at Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, and Google/Android.

I’m curious to see where Apple takes it, and how creative they get this time.  Will they go simple again, or will they make something more visually pleasing, like the DROID commercials?   What would you like to see from them?

Via BGR

Late last night, we put up a post debunking the idea going around the Bloggerdom that the iPhone OS 4.0 Beta had already been jailbroken, because, well, it hadn’t.

But now it has.

MuscleNerd, a member of the notoriously wonderful iPhone DevTeam, pushed the above video out to YouTube this morning. What you’re looking at: that’s a VNC server running on iPhone OS 4.0, allowing MuscleNerd to remotely connect, view, and control it via his computer. Even with iPhone OS’ new found multitasking abilities, that’s something the iPhone just can’t do by default.

There’s little reason to doubt the authenticity of this video; MuscleNerd is amongst the most established members of the iPhone hacking community, and isn’t really known for messing around.

While it’s exciting to see, remember: this is Beta software. Apple’s presumably leaving whatever security holes they know about open in the Beta for the same reason the development team isn’t releasing the details of their most recently discovered exploits (including this one) until iPhone OS 4.0 is available to all: it’s a game of cat and mouse. The mouse doesn’t want to tell the cat where he’s hiding his cheese, and the cat doesn’t want the mouse to know whether or not she already knows.

The speculation on who will replace Justice John Paul Stevens was going on long before he sent his resignation letter to President Obama Friday. In fact, the topic of Obama’s second high court nomination came up during the battle over his first.

“It wouldn’t at all surprise me if some of the very same people were back in the Oval Office,” White House Chief of Staff David Axelrod said when asked about the next Supreme Court nomination while Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination was still pending before the Senate.

Those same people would include federal appellate court judge Diane Wood, Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. In recent months most attention has been focused on Wood and Kagan.

Wood is well known in legal circles for her strong opinions on the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. She was also part of the faculty at Chicago Law School when Obama taught Constitutional law. She is also very familiar to Stevens who is responsible for overseeing the Seventh Circuit and is a Chicago native. Though that connection would unlikely be a decisive factor into her selection.

Kagan is the former dean of the Harvard Law School and is well-regarded for her performance there in controlling a fractious faculty and reaching out to conservatives. She has already successfully navigated through the Senate Confirmation process to become Solicitor General. Kagan is also something of an unknown entity because she has never been a judge and as a result has a thin paper trail of past positions.

Of course, the president is free to select anyone he wants and speculation will likely run rampant in the weeks to come. Here is how we assess the possible selections:

TIER ONE:

Diane Wood, Judge Seventh Circuit

Elena Kagan, Solicitor General

TIER TWO:

Merrick Garland, Judge DC Circuit COA

Leah Ward Sears, Former Chief Justice of Georgia Supreme Court.

Kathleen Sullivan, Professor and former dean of Stanford Law School

Cass Sunstein, Former Chicago & Harvard Law Professor, leads Obama Administration’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Pam Karlan, Stanford Law professor

Janet Napolitano, Secy DHS

Jennifer Granholm, Michigan Governor

 

TIER THREE:

Rosemary Barkett, Judge 11th Circuit

Fortunato Benavides, Judge 5th Circuit

Christine Arguello, U.S. District Court Judge Denver

Ruben Castillo, Judge USDC Northern District of Illinois

Karen Nelson Moore, Judge 6th Circuit

Jose Cabranes, Judge 2nd Circuit

David Tatel, Judge DC Circuit COA

Deval Patrick, Massachusetts Governor

Marsha Berzon, Judge 9th Circuit

Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General

Charles Ogletree, Law Professor Harvard Law School

Kim Wardlaw, Judge Ninth Circuit

Seth Waxman, Former Solicitor General. Lawyer at Wilmer Hale

Harold Koh, Former Dean Yale Law School–Counsel to State Dept.

Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary

OBAMA’S COURT OF APPEALS NOMINEES

Judge David Hamilton, 6th Circuit

Judge Andre Davis, 4th Circuit

Judge Gerard Lynch, 2nd Circuit

Judge Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr., 3rd Circuit

Judge Beverly B. Martin, 11th Circuit

Jane Branstetter Stranch, 6th Circuit

Judge Thomas Vanaskie, 3rd Circuit

Justice Barbara Milano Keenan, 4th Circuit

Judge Danny Chin, 2nd Circuit

Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, 1st Circuit

Judge Albert Diaz, 4th Circuit

Judge James Wynn, 4th Circuit

Goodwin Liu: 9th Circuit

Judge Robert N. Chatigny

Scott M. Matheson, Jr., 10th Circuit

In my best Ted “Theodore” Logan: “Whoa”. One person has decided to deal with the removal of the OtherOS in a different way: by requesting a refund.

A member of the NeoGAF forums named iapetus decided to take some action by requesting a refund from Amazon UK where he purchased the console.  Even though his system was out of warranty, his premise was that given the removal of the OtherOS feature, the console no longer fit the original description based upon it’s listed capabilities when it was bought, and that under European Law the device capabilities “made known to the seller at the time of purchase” had changed. Amazon agreed, and issued him a partial refund in the amount of £71.49 (US$110) plus tax.

As the saying goes “screenshots or it didn’t happen”, he has provided information and a proof in his forum post.

So the real question, is what happens next? Amazon will no doubt request the money back from Sony, and Sony ends up losing money. What is more, will this create a landslide affect, with similar users requesting a refund? At any rate, I think the coming days are going to prove most interesting. As I am gearing up for movie watching weekend, I think Gomer Pyle would say “Surprise, Surprise, Surprise”, and no, I was not alive when that show was on

KEVIN DRUM is wondering how Texas managed to avoid a housing bubble. He considers the arguments pertaining to Texas’ tight regulation of mortgage markets, but says:

[D]oes this explain how Texas avoided the housing bubble? There’s no way to say for sure, but I’m skeptical. Can a 12-day waiting period really be enough to put the kibosh on exotic mortgages? It doesn’t seem like enough — and anyway, my guess is that it was the bubble that drove the growth of exotic mortgages, not the other way around. So we’re still left with a question: why didn’t the housing boom ever take hold in Texas even though it seems to have all the usual sunbelt characteristics that drove the bubble in places like California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida? It’s still a bit of a mystery.

I’ve said this before, but it hasn’t sunk in so I’ll say it again. The bubble was not, repeat not, a Sunbelt phenomenon. Not. A Sunbelt phenomenon. Here is a chart:

Have a look at the above image, of seasonally adjusted home price indexes for nine different housing markets (the dotted line is the 20-city average), and tell me which set of lines contains Sunbelt markets. Have you guessed? It’s a trick question! They all are!

The red lines correspond to Miami, Los Angeles, Washington, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. The blue lines correspond to Charlotte, Atlanta, and Denver. The black line is Dallas.

Thinking of the bubble as a Sunbelt phenomenon is a bad idea because it’s not correct, but also because it generates confusion over what characteristics were important in driving bubble inflation. So it’s important to note that outside of the Sunbelt, there were many other bubble markets, primarily on the east and west coasts—San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, New York and Boston. What these markets all have in common, and have in common with Los Angeles and Washington, is that housing supply is relatively limited. So what emerged in these markets, initially, was a healthy price signal. This, incidentally, is how basically every bubble begins: with a healthy price signal. Demand for these coastal markets was high and rising, and housing supply was not keeping up. Therefore, prices rose. The bubble took shape thereafter, as rising prices combined with growing enthusiasm and rapid credit expansion, which fueled the growth of a bubble mentality.

Now, as prices rose, some housing demand shifted to other markets with strong local economies, including Phoenix, Atlanta, and Dallas. These markets tend to have very elastic housing supply, and so price increases translated into rapid construction, which prevented prices from rising and kept the bubble at bay.

Except that in Florida and the desert southwest, it didn’t. So has our housing supply model failed?

Not necessarily. As it turns out, you can “catch” a bubble from elsewhere. Migration to Las Vegas and Phoenix came overwhelmingly from Southern California. Residents of Los Angeles would cash out their homes and move east, buying one or two properties in cheaper markets, investing in those properties, and generally transmitting the bubble mentality that characterised the real estate markets of the California coast. Analysis of price movements has identified ripple effects from the Los Angeles property market to the Las Vegas property market, and thence on to the Phoenix property market. It seems likely that a similar phenomenon took place in Florida, which absorbed a great deal of migration from bubbly northeastern markets.

These “caught” bubbles were incredibly damaging, because they combined rapidly rising prices with rapidly rising inventory, leading to massive housing overhangs and price declines up to and greater than 50% from peak. But other Sunbelt metropolitan areas managed to avoid them, perhaps because they absorbed more workers from declining markets elsewhere in the south or northeast or midwest. Housing supply growth then prevented any big initial increase in prices which might have led to the enthusiastic growth in credit that triggered bubbles elsewhere.

With any sport, the more exhausted you become, the more prone you are to injury. In baseball, this is especially a problem for pitchers. But a new shirt can track a pitcher’s form in real time. More »

Some of our readers got mildy defensive about my post regarding extreme commuting. They made some valid points; sometimes you just don’t have a choice, especially if you switch jobs, or your partner works in the opposite direction requiring a compromise. But I still have a hard time imagining that all the driving could ever be worth it. And I love driving… just not to the same place, every day, for hours on end.

Apparently Ray LaHood, the Secretary of Transportation, agrees with me. Last month right before he announced a new policy regarding equal consideration for cars, bikers, and pedestrians, he told the National Bike Summit that “People want out of their cars”. Do they really?

I hope the car never disappears. That said, I think there are just too many cars on the road. It can really ruin the driving experience when you have to spend hours in gridlock, fighting traffic into and out of cities just to make a living. Driving should always be an option, but LaHood seems to think that given other options, people would choose public transportation. He is probably right.

(more…)

Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, BMW

American automakers have long struggled to export U.S. made vehicles to overseas markets. BMW, on the other hand, has apparently had no such problem. After 15 years of building cars and SUVs in Spartanburg, South Carolina the company has now shipped over one million cars to overseas markets. That’s nearly two-thirds of all of the production from the plant.

When the Spartanburg plant first opened in 1994, it only built 3 series sedans. Within a couple of years, the Z3 roadster was added, followed by the original X5. Ever since the 3 was dropped from the South Carolina production schedule, the plant has been the sole worldwide source for each of the vehicles it has built – a list including the Z3 and first generation Z4. Spartanburg currently builds the X5 and X6. Late this year, an expansion of the plant will bring production of the new second generation X3.

[Source: BMW]

Continue reading BMW exports over one million vehicles from South Carolina factory

BMW exports over one million vehicles from South Carolina factory originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yahoo has long given up on any ambition to have some sort of social service, closing down or selling off anything that even vaguely resembled a social network. In fact, it seemed content with integrating Facebook and Twitter into its services and calling it a day. Yet the more features it adds to Yahoo Updates, its status update aggregator of sorts, the… (read more)

Just when you thought the story couldn’t get more infuriating, there comes word that a handful of members of the Westboro Baptist Church have arrived in West Virginia.

The Kansas-based independent hate group — best known for picketing military funerals with signs proclaiming the soldiers’ deaths to be God’s punishment for the country’s tolerance of gays — has found a new target: the miners killed in Monday’s blast. From The Charleston Gazette:

Only six Westboro pickets showed up in front of the Capitol, including two men, one woman and three young children. They held up signs proclaiming: “America Is Doomed,” “Thank God for Dead Miners,” “God Hates Your Tears,” “God Hates West Virginia” and “God Hates You.”

The story ends well. More than 300 locals came out in a peaceful counter-protest that swamped the small group of bigots.

Local people peacefully overwhelmed the Westboro group. They carried their own signs, including: “I Love Everyone” and “God Bless Our Troops and Veterans.”

Others signs had humorous messages: “This is a Sign” and “God Hates Signs.”

“I think it is amazing the whole community came out for this,” said one local.

There’s huge trading volume in Yahoo today.

Anybody know why?

Here’s the chart from Yahoo Finance:

Join the conversation about this story »

We already wrote a detailed analysis of Clay Shirky’s recent writeup on complex business models. However, a few of you have sent over Kevin Kelly’s recent post about Shirky’s piece that also compares it to Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma, but thankfully highlights the one key line in Shirky’s piece that may have gotten lost in the original:

“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.”

Kelly calls this the “Shirky Principle.” To me, it calls to mind Upton Sinclair’s famous line:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”

They are not the same point, but they are related. In both cases, these are situations where people will often seek to preserve a problem or a falsehood, rather than recognize that it doesn’t need to be that way. There are lots of industries where this is a major issue.

But, of course, the real problem is in how they go about trying to preserve that problem. They will go to great lengths to demonize the solutions. This is why the newspaper industry has, at times, lashed out at Craigslist and Google News — two operations that have essentially removed problems that the newspaper business used to solve. It’s why old school video guys lash out at YouTube or Boxee — because they have removed problems that television used to solve. And, yes, it’s why the RIAA and the MPAA lash out at file sharing apps and services — because they have removed problems in distribution and promotion, that they used to solve.

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Sandra Bullock is taking care of her disgraced husband’s three children despite reports that she plans to divorce the serial-cheater. We hear Sunny, Chandler and Jesse, Jr. — the children of biker Jesse James — are all living with their famous stepmother while their father spends the month battling sex addiction in a Arizona rehab facility.

Some people are born with beautiful, lush eyelashes, and some people need a little help in that department. LashFood was designed for anyone looking to improve the appearance of their eyelashes, and they have added conditioning mascara and eyeliner to their line.

LashFood products are natural eyelash and eyebrow conditioning stimulators that provides you with fuller, longer, darker, and stronger lashes. LashFood is formulated using the highest grade natural ingredients including Biotin, an essential vitamin, Arginine, a natural amino acid, and root and herbal extracts. No harsh chemicals, drugs or imitation ingredients are used. All products are dermatologist tested and approved. The newest innovation of JB Cosmetics, LashFood is created by Jane Kim. JB Cosmetics is a well known cosmetic manufacturer that specializes in eyelash products and stands for sophistication and beauty.

Products include:

• Lashfood Natural eyelash Conditioner
• Conditioning Drama Mascara
• Conditioning Eyeliner

LashFood uses nano-peptide technology. Honestly, I am afraid of anything that uses nano in its product description over growing concerns about the safety of nano technology; however,  It is positive that these products are made in the USA and are not tested on animals. They would make a nice Mother’s Day gift too!

Disclosure: I was sent free samples of these products to review. No prior assurances were given as to whether the review be positive or negative.

by Agence France-Presse

Activists outside the Bonn climate talks ask negotiators to “pick up the pieces” after CopenhagenPhoto courtesy WWF Climate via FlickrBONN—Hopes of hoisting the U.N. process for climate change out of the mire after December’s flawed Copenhagen summit suffered a setback at talks here on Friday.

In their first parley since the stormy December meeting, countries in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) divided over how to plot the way forward, and the mood was soured by fresh finger-pointing.

“The one thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history,” said Tosi Mpanu Mpanu of the Democratic Republic of Congo, representing African nations. Copenhagen damaged “the trust that is necessary for any partnership,” he said.

The three-day gathering in the former West German capital takes place nearly four months after a summit that, far from rallying humankind behind a post-2012 climate-stabilizing pact, came within an inch of disaster.

Attended by some 120 heads of state and government, the summit was saved after a couple of dozen leaders cobbled together a brief document outlining areas of agreement. Their “Copenhagen Accord” sets down a general goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), includes rich and poor countries in pledges for tackling greenhouse gases, and earmarks nearly $30 billion in aid from 2010-2012, with prospects of up to $100 billion annually by 2020.

But criticism of the accord resurfaced on Friday.

Left-led countries in the Caribbean and Latin America noted that emissions pledges under the Copenhagen Accord are only voluntary and, at present levels, would ensure warming of 4 degrees C (7.2  degrees F) or more. They also denounced the accord as a stitchup among an elite group of countries; more than a third of UNFCCC parties have still not endorsed the deal.

“The total failure of the meeting in Copenhagen … was simply because the principles of the United Nations were not respected, nor were international rules,” blasted Venezuelan delegate Claudia Salerno. The “neo-colonialist exercise” seemed set to be revived, she warned.

In the quest to revitalize the process for the next big UNFCCC meeting, due in the Mexican resort of Cancun in November and December, many countries endorsed ideas for speeding a laborious affair that requires the approval of 194 parties. These include setting up a “contact group” of several dozen countries that would haggle over core issues, then submit the outcome to a plenary for its approval.

“We cannot go back to business as usual,” said Spanish delegate Alicia Montalvo, speaking for the E.U.

Mexico is chairing informal talks among some 40 key nations, while the United States on April 18-19 will stage talks among 17 economies that together account for more than 80 percent of world carbon emissions.

“We need to improve our working methods,” said Fernando Tudela, Mexico’s vice minister for planning and environmental policy. “This process of negotiations requires adjustment and modernization without of course using different practices that are used in the United Nations.”

Other issues on the table in Bonn will be how many extra meetings to stage before Cancun and whether attempts should be made to craft a draft negotiating text in the coming weeks.

Outside the venue, half a dozen protesters shovelled shards of broken glass in a symbolic appeal to the UNFCCC to “pick up the pieces” after Copenhagen.

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Hot on the heels of Blockbuster’s announcement of a deal with Fox and Sony that would allow it to offer new titles for rent and streaming on the day of DVD release, comes news of what appears to be another bad deal for Netflix subscribers — They’ll now have to wait 28 days for new releases from Fox and Universal.

So, if you wanted to see… I dunno, Avatar… when it hits DVD on April 22, you’re going to have to buy it or go to Blockbuster. Or wait until at least May 20 if you’re a Netflix subscriber.

This is essentially the same deal Netflix made with Warner Bros. earlier this year — a move which has gotten them sued by at least one customer — and the spin is basically the same, that Netflix will get better pricing on Fox and Universal titles and have access to more of the studios’ libraries for their streaming service.

I’ve reached out to Netflix for comment on this and will update if/when I hear back.

Netflix inks movie rental deal with U.S. studios [Reuters]

Thanks to Klay for the tip!

Phoebe Prince had no safe place to go at South Hadley High School.

Court paperwork reveals that the 15-year-old freshman suffered harassment in the hallways, the library, the classrooms, the lunchroom and even the bathroom.

According to witnesses, the bullies hissed curse words, yelled obscenities and threatened to beat her up, sometimes within earshot of school faculty.

The taunting stemmed from teenage jealousy. According to the documents, Phoebe briefly dated a popular older football player at the school, Sean Mulveyhill, who is now facing charges in the case, including statutory rape.

Mulveyhill, 17, ended the relationship with Phoebe in November and resumed dating his girlfriend, Kayla Narey, a junior at South Hadley High. Narey, 17, is charged in the case with criminal harassment and violation of civil rights.

16-year-old Ashley Longe, a close platonic friend of Mulveyhill, stands accused of harassment and stalking.

On the day Phoebe died, the couple, along with Longe, had scrawled derogatory comments on the school’s library sign in sheet, disparaging Phoebe’s Irish heritage and reputation.

In the auditorium, they stood in a group, the paperwork reveals. Witnesses say Mulveyhill was overheard calling Phoebe a “whore.” Longe said it to her face. Narey laughed.

As Phoebe walked home from school on this final day of her life, the paperwork says a witness saw Longe, passing by in a vehicle, throw an empty energy drink can in Phoebe’s direction and yell something degrading.

Phoebe was crying as she continued her walk. When she arrived home, she hanged herself in a stairwell, wearing the same clothing she had on at school that day.

Three other teens are also charged. Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 16, and Flannery Mullins, 16, both of South Hadley face charges of stalking and violation of civil rights as a youthful offender. Austin Renaud, 18, is charged with statutory rape.

In December, prosecutors say Phoebe had a brief relationship with Renaud that drew hostility from Mullins, who was his on and off again girlfriend.

Mullins had told other students that she was going to “beat Phoebe up” and that she “needed to watch out at break after second block.”

Velazquez, a friend of Mullins, was witnessed by a teacher harassing Phoebe in a classroom leading to a one day suspension.

Prosecutors say Phoebe suffered the torment and name-calling for months.

Witnesses stated that Phoebe’s reaction to the constant harassment varied from fear and apprehension to crying. She asked her friends to stay close to her in the hallways. One witness reported that Phoebe went to school administrators because she “was scared and wanted to go home.” The same witness said Phoebe returned to class and told her that no action was going to be taken and that “she was still going to get beat up.”

One witness told investigators, in a written statement, that Phoebe was not an aggressive person, and stated:

“She definitely didn’t want to fight with the girls in the school. She just wanted to keep to herself and keep things the way they were. She wanted people to stop picking on her, to stop being bullied. She wanted people to leave her alone. She wanted people to stop spreading rumors and stop the girls from talking about her.”

Phoebe committed suicide on January 14th. Her little sister discovered the body.

For the longest time, we thought granola was dry, tasteless, and boring. And then we tried the Olive Oil Granola that Faith reviewed last year and now we’re absolutely addicted! We love the control and creativity of making granola ourselves, and we’re ready to branch out into other recipes. Here are a few we’ve earmarked to try soon!

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