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Graham crackers shaped like wee hedgehogs. (Maybe using these cookie cutters?) That and more in today’s Delicious Links.

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Reuters
Monday, January 4th, 2010

Iran said on Monday several foreign citizens were
arrested during clashes between opposition supporters and security
forces last month, state television reported.

“Several foreigners are among those who were
arrested on the day of Ashura…they were leading a psychological
war against the system…They entered Iran two days before
Ashura,” Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi told state TV,
without elaborating on the foreigners’ nationality.

In Iran’s bloodiest unrest since the aftermath of the disputed
June 12 presidential election, eight people were killed on December 27
and at least 40 pro-reform figures, including four senior advisers to
opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, have been arrested since then.

Iranian hardline authorities have repeatedly accused the opposition
leaders of links to “foreign enemies,” warning that they
will not tolerate any more anti-government protests after the fiery
demonstrations during the Shi’ite ritual of Ashura.

Full article here

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Hey Netgear, did you have a surprise for us at CES? Say the world’s first 4×4 MIMO 802.11n WiFi HD Video bridge? Sorry, but Quantenna just revealed your partnership that promises to deliver Full HD video quality streams across distances of “100 feet or more, regardless of signal interferences and dead zones.” According to the Quantenna press release, anyway. That’s up to 5x the distance of existing wireless HD solutions thanks to Quantenna’s 4×4 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology, adaptive transmit digital beamforming, and wireless channel monitoring and optimizing; a lot of scary sounding jargon that should allow the device to carry up to four streams of full HD video pretty much anywhere in the house with claimed “near-perfect transmission performance.” While we don’t have pics yet you can expect Netgear’s baby to be sporting 4 antennas (like the Quantenna reference design pictured) when it’s announced proper in the next few days.

Netgear to stream Full HD anywhere in the home over 4×4 MIMO WiFi originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How many phones does Garmin-Asus sell on T-Mobile? If you guessed zero, you’d be absolutely correct, so we’re buzzing about this FCC filing that popped up in the last few hours detailing a “PDA Phone” with AWS 3G frequency compliance. To be fair, this could be a device for Canada’s WIND Mobile, too, now that it’s sharing T-Mobile’s spectrum space — but either way, we’ve got to wonder what kind of phone we’re looking at here. It seems a little late in the game to be re-releasing either the nuvifone G60 or M20 with new bands, so we’re hoping this is legitimately new hardware in the mix; if so, it’ll be interesting to see if the nuvifone franchise still has a chance to redeem itself after the G60 became one of the most catastrophically delayed launches in mobile history. Nothing a little Android can’t fix, right?

Garmin-Asus working on an AWS smartphone, but what is it? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hear that? That’s the sound of millions of Yanks celebrating in unison. Why the joviality? Because Philips’ CushionSpeaker is coming to America, of course! The device — which simultaneously serves as a lap-based laptop cushion / stand and an external speaker system — first made waves last September when it debuted in Europe, but now that USers have evidently proven that they need one too, they’re getting exactly what they want. We had a chance to tinker with the device, and largely, we agree with what has already been said. It’s a perfectly fine cushion for using your laptop while kicking back on the sofa, but the bass-less speaker leaves a lot to be desired. It’s set to ship to sofa sitters this April for $79.99, and if you’re interested in the $39.99 to $49.99 Notebook Sleeve, $49.99 Notebook SoundBar and a variety of other peripherals that now have a stateside release in their future, the full details are posted after the break.

Continue reading Philips CushionSpeaker coming to America this April for $80

Philips CushionSpeaker coming to America this April for $80 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s the new year, so what better way for a company to prey upon your insecurities than by offering devices that accessorizes your ambition to really meet your fitness goals this time around. Philips knows this, so it’ll be expanding its DirectLife wearable activity monitor to Germany this month and then to the UK a few months later while launching its new Activa personal audio player here at CES. Activa brings along a little trick called TempoMusic; a feature that analyzes your music library to later match songs to your aerobic intensity. That means that Activa can help keep you motivated by shouting out feedback on your progress in addition to words of encouragement while automatically selecting the appropriate music to match the pace of your workout or give you a boost when needed. Later, while cooling down with some cold suds and a delicious slice of warm tobacco pie you can check your progress and caloric burn rate via the bundled PC software. Activa will be available worldwide sometime in April for about $130, suggested.

Continue reading Philips Activa fitness MP3 player reminds you to move

Philips Activa fitness MP3 player reminds you to move originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CHIP CUMMINS
Wall St Journal
Monday, January 4th, 2010

Iranian media on Sunday reported Tehran will conduct a
large-scale defensive military exercise next month, coinciding with
what government officials now say is a deadline for the West to respond
to its counteroffer to a nuclear-fuel deal.

The commander of Iran’s ground forces, Brig. Gen. Ahmad-Reza
Pourdastan, said the drill will be conducted by Iran’s army, in
conjunction with some units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,
to improve “defensive capabilities,” Press TV, the
English-language, state-run media outlet reported.

The report follows comments by Iran’s foreign minister
Manouchehr Mottaki on Saturday, challenging Western nations to decide
by the end of the month on counterproposals Tehran has floated to an
internationally brokered nuclear-fuel deal. In the counterproposals,
Iran has said it would agree to swap the bulk of its low-enriched
uranium for higher enriched uranium, but in small batches and on
Iranian soil.

Iranian officials also have named Turkey as a possible venue to swap
the fuel. Iran has separately suggested it would be willing to buy
enriched uranium from a third party.

Full article here

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London’s mayor Boris Johnson has a plan for his city, but the good news stops here. If his Transport Strategy goes through, new road charges might appear in the British capital, and the people affected by this measure have only until January 12 to make a point against this measure.

The 354-page document referring to the Mayor’s Transport Strategy includes a section entitled Wider application of road user charging to manage demand which shows the intention to introduce more road ta… (read more)

London Telegraph
Monday, January 4th, 2010

Cuba’s high priests of the Afro-American Santeria
religion announced a vision of massive social upheaval and internal
conflict in 2010.

“We can reach all we aspire to, but we can also
destroy it all. The possibilities in 2010 are greater than last
year’s. It all rests in our hands,” Lazaro Cuesta,
babalawo, a Santeria priest, said.

The country’s leading 1,000 babalawos predicted global
turmoil, including “coup d’etats,” “sudden
changes in political systems,” “betrayal and
usurpation” among top government officials, as well as falling
farm and livestock production, and the “breakup of
agreements… wars and military interventions.”

Sincere dialogue should open so that respect for “the
decisions of the majority and the opinion of the minorities,” and
“new reforms” in the political, economic and social orders
could forestall disaster.

Full article here

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James Slack
London Independent
Monday, January 4th, 2010

New technology that Gordon Brown relies on for his
response to the Christmas Day bomb attack has been tested – and
found wanting.

The explosive device smuggled in the clothing of the
Detroit bomb suspect would not have been detected by body-scanners set
to be introduced in British airports, an expert on the technology
warned last night.

The claim severely undermines Gordon Brown’s
focus on hi-tech scanners for airline passengers as part of his review
into airport security after the attempted attack on Flight 253 on
Christmas Day.

The Independent on Sunday has also heard authoritative claims that
officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Home Office
have already tested the scanners and were not persuaded that they would
work comprehensively against terrorist threats to aviation.

Full article here

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A new legislation which came into effect on January 1st, 2010, stipulates that all waste industrial and automotive batteries will have to be recycled in the future at the manufacturer’s expense. Producers will be required to arrange the collection, treatment and recycling of such batteries, free of charge, if requested by business end-users and final holders.

The Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009 complement the existing Batteries and Accumulators (Placing on the Ma… (read more)

Vince Vaughn and Kyla Weber began dating in summer 2008. The actor then proposed to the Canadian realtor and presented her with with a gorgeous $125,000 four-carat diamond set in platinum on Valentine’s Day 2009. In September, the Jennifer Aniston’s ex-boyfriend stated that he was ready to start a family, saying “It’s the first time that I really want to have kids.”
When February 14 rolled around, “I figured this is not a ship to be missed because I will not forget this date,” the 39-year-old Vaughn told Ellen DeGeneres.

“So Valentine’s Day was the day that I asked her.”

Vaughn, who dated Jennifer Aniston for over a year, is “very happy” with Kyle Weber: “She makes me laugh. She is wonderful. I’m just thrilled,” he said.
Vince, 39, proposed to the 31-year-old Calgary native last Valentine’s Day. The actor — best known for his comedy features like Swingers and Couple’s Retreat – has kept his relationship with Kayla under the radar, following hishigh-profile romance with his The Break-Up co-star Jennifer Aniston
.

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Identity is becoming a crucial component online and there is a definite need for a convergence of all the different identities users have set up over the years on various websites and services. Increasingly, a number of identity providers, Facebook, Twitter, Google, are becoming the de facto standard providers. At the same time, a number of technologies are trying to solve the interconnectivity problem most notably efforts like the Facebook Connect API, OpenID and recently OAuth.

At this point though, everyone is trying to do things a little differently and none of these solutions is a direct competitor or replacement to the other. Facebook Connect is getting a lot of attention and for good reason. It’s a great way of enabling people to log into a website or share their data and content with various services without having to create new accounts every time or sharing their existing credentials. The obvious problem is that, being a Facebook product, the identity component is tied to the social network.

Google is taking a more open approach with Google Friend Connect, but it’s not perfect either. It uses the Google account as an identity, but can also use any OpenID provider and, recently, also Twitter profiles. Chris Messina, an open source advocate involved with the OpenID project… (read more)

European inflation surged to 0.9% year over year in December, after rising 0.5% in November according to today’s statistical release.

While inflation matched expectations, yields in the bond market are rising.

Bloomberg: German 10-year bunds declined before this week’s debt auctions as reports showed German unemployment unexpectedly fell and European consumer prices increased.

The decline pushed the yield on the benchmark security to within 2 basis points of yesterday’s three-month high.

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The Huffington Post has a newish CEO, a big pile of investors’ money and a lot of readers. Time to turn it into a business.

That’s the idea behind a brace of new sales guys, brought in by sales head Greg Coleman, who is himself a newish addition to the site.

The hires:

• Andy Wiedlin, formerly at News Corp.’s MySpace (NWS) and Yahoo before that, will run west coast sales.
• Phil Cara, formerly at AOL, and Yahoo before that, will run east coast sales.
• Peter Cherukuri, the former publisher of Roll Call, will run sales in Washington, DC.
• Brian Kaminsky, formerly at Reuters and Yahoo prior to that, will run sales operations out of New York.

Note the connection for three of the four new guys? Not a coincidence.

Coleman was the longtime Yahoo (YHOO) sales head until he got pushed out in 2007. He resurfaced last year as head of AOL’s (AOL) sales group but left less than three months into the job, when new CEO Tim Armstrong brought in his guy.

At the new gig, Coleman’s plan is to use his new/old team to convince advertisers to start spending significant money. The site was on track to do something in the $10 million range last year, but CEO Eric Hippeau wants to goose that number to $100 million in the next few years, in order to justify the $37 million that investors have sunk into the company.

Coleman came to the site last fall, when it already had a good traffic story to tell –  Comscore counted 6.8 million unique users in September, which is more than WSJ.com’s 6.7 million. And that story will get better very soon, as Comscore (SCOR) rolls out its new “hybrid” measuring system. Coleman says the new numbers will push Huffpo above the 17 million mark.

His team still needs to battle the perception that Huffpo is an all-politics (and lefty, to boot) site, since advertisers are often leery about anything political.

Sure enough, as I’m typing this on Monday night, the site’s front page is dominated by Washington coverage — a banner headline about the Republican party’s opposition to something called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. And no matter what Coleman and his guys say, no one’s going to confuse the site with, say, Fox News.

Still, the site has long argued that it isn’t dominated by political coverage, and Coleman now says less than 25 percent of its traffic comes from that stuff. A heavy dose of entertainment/media coverage — did you know the dude from “300″ now has man boobs and a paunch? — helps make that claim plausible.

Will advertisers buy it? People who aren’t Greg Coleman tell me marketers were already warming to the site this year, a result of work done by the previous regime. And in large part due to interest from entertainment companies pushing new movies and TV shows.

But if Coleman and his employers want to hit their $100 million goal, they’ll need to do a lot more work. For more on Coleman’s strategy, check out his conversation with Kara Swisher from last fall.

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The only issue with Aesop’s production is that it many times overshadows his MC cohorts. Good luck trying to decipher exactly what Murs and Slug are spitting during your first listen. There are moments when their rhymes fail to grab you and, instead, you’re left nodding along to Aesop’s production. What that amounts to is Felt 3 requiring several spins to fully digest. And once you do so, it’s when you can fully appreciate just how well these three guys complement one another.

Their lyrics might not dazzle you like on their own albums, but that was never the intention of Felt. Not to mention the fact that Murs and Slug truly sound at home over Aesop’s production. A quick listen to highlights like “Protagonists”, “Bass for Your Truck”, and “Henrietta Longbottom” will prove that. Murs and Slug adjust their deliveries to match the schizophrenic beats while delighting you with next-level bravado and storytelling. That’s no easy feat. But there is no question that the third Felt album could have used some editor’s scissors. It might be cohesive and well executed, but it suffers from moments of self-indulgence. There are numerous occasions, for example when Aesop’s beats, no matter how stunning, play for 30 seconds too long. Chop 15 minutes off this record and you not only have a fitting tribute to Rosie Perez but perhaps the best Felt project yet.

But you remember that Atmosphere album You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having? OK, good– now imagine the exact opposite sentiment. I have no idea what put these guys in such a sourpuss mode, but the celebratory “we the best” boasting of “Protagonists” proves to be a red herring instead of a mood setter. The rest of the way we get to hear Murs and Slug swap out the kickin’ back at the BBQ vibe of their previous releases and go off on so many archetypes/strawmen you wonder if they even think they have fans. Either way, it gets to be awfully oppressive over the span of Rosie Perez’s hourlong runtime for anyone other than the most insatiable consumers of complaint rap.

Hipsters, critics, “internet rappers,” rappers who rap about violence (“Deathmurdermayhem”) all get dealt with, but in a manner so vague that their dismissals become toothless. Come on, I’m wearing a cardigan as I type this review– work with it! Instead they save specificity for tracks boasting the concerned but condescending attitudes towards women I expect from a Taking Back Sunday album. It’s one thing to lack sympathy, but Slug and Murs crucially forgo empathy too often, and their subjects come off like set pieces rather than real people– oddly enough, the fantastical fairy tale character portrait of “Henrietta Longbottom” comes off like the most intensely written song on the whole thing.

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Comedienne Joan Rivers missed a flight from Costa Rica to Los Angeles on Sunday after she was “held hostage” by airport security before boarding a flight to Newark, New Jersey. The sharp-tongued pundit ran into troubled when officials questioned the authenticity of her passport. The 76-year-old is listed as Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers on the passport – Rosenberg is Joan’s married name.

Police were called and Joan missed her flight, forcing the star spend another night in Costa Rica. She flew home on Monday morning. Security has been stepped up on flights all over the U.S. after a Nigerian-born terrorist attempted to detonate a bomb in his underwear during a flight from The Netherlands en route to Detroit on Christmas Day.

	Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 From 250 million to 246 million. It’s not a big change, but the trend could continue.		Venture Beat: Chevy Volt will fail We can only make predictions about this for another year or so.
	Geely Panda to become electric polar bear The EV will take its name from the Inuit word for polar bear, Nanoq.	Other news: Did EESTOR miss another deadline? Signs are pointing to “yes” 2000-2009: The Ethanol Decade? ElectriCab E1 recharges its way to 428 miles in a day

AutoblogGreen for 01.05.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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