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Best Buy’s $40 ‘pre-optimization’ determined to be worthless, iPhone earbuds determined to be white originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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San Jose’s hockey team isn’t the only shark in the Bay Area, according to a complaint filed against Comcast Cable by Stanford University, the city of San Bruno and two local cable providers.

The Dec. 23 Federal Communications complaint — filed jointly by Horizon Cable TV, WaveDivision Holdings, the city of San Bruno and Stanford University–alleges that Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, unfairly combined its Sacramento and Bay Area regional sports networks, forcing cable competitors wanting to broadcast Comcast’s programming to purchase both CSN Bay Area and CSN California (Sacramento).

Comcast reassigned its game coverage of MLB Baseball’s Oakland A’s and the NHL’s San Jose Sharks from its San Francisco network (CSN Bay Area) to its Sacramento network (CSN California), raising the price of both networks, even though CSN Bay Area lost coverage of its headlining teams. Competing cable companies that wanted to run coverage of those teams had to pay more for two Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) and non-Comcast subscribers were landed with increased rates.

What’s more, the complaint says, Comcast raised prices for its own combined sports network package without increasing “major league sports programming.”

Comcast maintains that it reassigned its game programming to reduce scheduling conflicts and increase local sports coverage. For instance, according to CED Magazine, CSN Bay Area used to run games of both the A’s and San Francisco Giants, whose extra-long major league seasons would conflict with The Sharks’ and NBA Golden State Warriors’ games. Comcast says offering games on the Sacramento network eliminates any overlaps.

The allegations come at a bad time for Comcast, which is in the process of buying NBC Universal. The petitioners, backed by the American Cable Association, which represents small and medium-sized cable operators like Horizon and WaveDivision, slapped Comcast with the FCC complaint now to ensure that Comcast does not discriminate prices with NBC content.

“The complaint highlights the need for additional safeguards and remedies to prevent Comcast Corp. from abusing its market power to harm consumers, competitors, and the public interest in the distribution of ‘must have’ regional sports networks under its control,” said American Cable Association President Matt Polka in a statement. “Regulators must be certain that if Comcast takes control of NBC Universal, it can’t engage in unfair methods of competition and deceptive practices when competitors seek access to NBC broadcast signals, Comcast-NBCU national cable networks, and various Internet-content services, such as live streaming of the Olympics.”

Stanford University, the city of San Bruno and WaveDivision and Horizon are asking for the FCC to sanction Comcast, restore the previous major league content arrangements and award damages to the petitioners.

By Jessica Shambora, Reporter, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

Despite the controversy surrounding standardized tests for college admissions (Are they fair? What do they measure?), exams like the SAT and ACT remain a necessary evil for most college-bound students.

The same might be said of the process of preparing for these exams, a phenomenon that has spawned a multi-billion dollar industry led by two companies, the Washington Post Co.’s (WPO) Kaplan and The Princeton Review.

But like the music and publishing industries before it, the test-prep sector faces disruption from scrappy Internet startups.

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By Brenna Erlich, Copy Editor, Mashable

As the snow piled up on New Year’s Eve, Jersey resident Ravie Rave didn’t call a snow plow service to take care of her 65-year-old father’s walk — she tweeted at Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Booker, who has more than a million Twitter (Twitter) followers, is a regular man-about-town when it comes to the microblogging service (remember that whole thing with Conan?), but this level of responsiveness is extreme, even for the sometimes to-good-to-be-true politician.

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By Jacqui Cheng, Associate Editor, Ars Technica

Apple (AAPL) is a company known for many things, but embracing copyright freedoms has not been one of them. The company loves creating new and innovative products that challenge the world’s perception of what it thought it wanted, but it then turns around and aggressively protects those products from being poked or prodded too much by curious onlookers. Some believe Apple is in the right to do this, while others feel the company could set a better example when it comes to using (or abusing) copyright legislation for its own self-serving purposes.

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If you remember, EA Sports community manager Alain Quinto tweeted something back in December about their announcement of a new game. Now what could it be? Do you have any idea? If you guessed MVP Baseball, you’re

By Mike Melanson, Writer, ReadWriteWeb

The graying of the Facebook population seems to have continued according to new stats released today by iStrategyLabs. And while one might expect more of the site’s now nearly 10 million users over the age of 55 to be Neil Young fans, his “Rock N’ Roll Will Never Die” refrain seems to be falling through.

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By Simon Dumenco, The Media Guy, Ad Age

A little over a year ago, on Dec. 1, 2008, I made this prediction in my column: “Google will buy Yelp” — the social-networking-esque site that provides user-written reviews of businesses in cities across the U.S. and Canada. It took a while, but Google (GOOG) finally tried to make good on my prediction last month — but, of course, failed (at least initially).Yelp reportedly balked at being bought. Then Miguel Helft of The New York Times Bits blog reported that his source was saying that Google walked away from the acquisition talks, because it “didn’t want to let the negotiations be driven by leaks to the press.”

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Since the earliest rumors shivered through the blogosphere, Google has been on a steady march toward releasing its own mobile offering.

If the journey was steady, though, the communication was anything but. Google (GOOG) has shifted its language along the way and even outright denied the smartphone project once or twice.

The Nexus One, news of which got out a few weeks ago, might not be the innovative free-to-all that everyone was fantasizing about, but it represents the most significant mobile announcement from Google to date, using its Android operating system software.

More to the point, it is the Silicon Valley search giant’s most aggressive attack on the hegemony of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.

But overall, it was a pretty sneaky journey from there to here.

So, here is the visual history, using our new All Things Digital slideshow format.

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‘In the future, we may
see a type of pill for replacing food, but experts say it likely would
not be a simple compound of chemicals. A pill-sized food replacement
system would have to be extremely complex because of the sheer
difficulty of the task it was being asked to perform, more complex than
any simple chemical reaction could be. The most viable solution,
according to many futurists, would be a nanorobot food replacement
system.

Dr. Robert Freitas,
author of the Nanomedicine series and senior research fellow at the
Institute for Molecular Manufacturing spoke with FUTURIST magazine
senior editor Patrick Tucker about it.’

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The social networking app land is about to get a lot more interesting with the confirmed acquisition of Ping.fm by Seesmic. This move enables users to update their status on 50 social networks, thanks to Ping.fm’s large catalogue of supported services. The plan is now to integrate the two services and add some Ping.fm functionality to the Seesmic desktop and mobile clients.

“Your friends are not all in one social network, but we want to help you stay in touch with them anytime and from any device. That is Seesmic’s vision and to deliver this faster, we have acquired Ping.fm. You can now update 50 social networks using Seesmic+Ping.fm from email, chat, sms, Blackberry, Android, web, Windows, OSX and much more soon,” Seesmic announced on its blog.

A great thing about social networking site is that they foster a huge ecosystem of apps and services which sprung up around them to cater to various needs unmet by the proper service. One type of apps which has proven very popular are the desktop and mobile clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic which first catered to Twitter user but soon expanded to support Facebook and others. It enables users to update their status and keep in touch on the go or without opening up a browser window. It also enables them to handle several accounts from several social ne… (read more)

It looks like 4chan has found its first major target of 2010. In a message sent to what is presumably a huge amount of undisclosed receipients, 4chan is announcing that this coming Wednesday, January 6, is going to be a very special event: YouTube Porn Day.

The move comes in response to one account, Lukeywes1234, being suspended by YouTube. Apparently this was just a regular YouTube user who caught the eye of 4chan and they proceeded mass follow him and make tribute videos to him — like these (and the one below).

I’ll let you read on the poster above for what they’re asking you to do for this special day. We’re not condoning this, we’re just as confused as the rest of you.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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Basketball fans who have been requesting an NBA Jam revival are about to get their wish. EA Sports has picked up the classic franchise and will soon announce its official return.

According to ESPN, sources within the publisher have confirmed that the revival will be shipping “exclusively for the Wii,” and that creator Mark Turmell will be involved in some capacity. EA Sports is reportedly bringing in Turmell to consult on NBA Jam as well as work on other upcoming sports games.

The franchise is well-known for its popularity during the 16-bit era, when it was hot in both the arcades and on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. It was famous not just for its wild brand of 2-on-2 hoops, but for the inclusion of celebrities like Bill Clinton.

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Apple is expected to announce soon that it has purchased Quattro Wireless for $275 million, according to a report by AllThingsD. Quattro has a mobile ad network and platform that lets advertisers target mobile users with ads.

The report said several sources had confirmed the announcement but that Apple has declined comment. The move would increase the stakes in the mobile ad business, since it would be a kind of counter to Google’s $750 million acquisition of AdMob, which competes with Quattro.

The announcement could come as soon as tomorrow, according to the report. Waltham, Mass.-based Quattro is focused on ads for smartphones such as Google’s Android devices and Apple’s iPhone. The company has raised almost $30 million from Highland Capital Partners and Globespan Capital Partners. Its clients include Ford, Disney, and the National Football League.

The news comes on the eve of Google’s new big move against Apple: the launch of the Google-designed Nexus One smartphone.

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On behalf of the Stanford Daily Vol. 236 Editorial Board, I would like to welcome the Stanford community back to campus for the start of the winter quarter, and the beginning of a brand new decade. In September, at the onset of the volume, the current Edit Board had yet to be assembled; we were hitting the ground running from the first week on, unsure of how the quarter would unfold. Now, as a new quarter begins and a new volume lies just over a month away, I can say in earnest that I am thrilled to be rejoined with my colleagues on the Board and at The Daily for the first volume of the second decade of the century.

At the closing of the decade of the “zeros,” “aughts” or “thousands,” the feeling across America was an understandable mixture of relief and anxiety–relief that one of the most disappointing decades in its history was finally at an end, and anxiety over what the future may hold. While its body is not even cold in the ground, journalists have already begun labeling the past 10 years as a lost decade. And it is not hard to see why–with the shock of September 11 on one end and the collapse of our financial and economic security on the other, the decade’s entrance and exit were both defined by panic, fear and uncertainty. In between these two major shocks, the country waged two wars in the Middle East, at least one of which still threatens to lumber on well into the new decade. Less discussed in the media was the plight of the American working people, whose average salaries and range of opportunities stagnated throughout the decade while CEOs made billions, culminating in the first decade in 70 years during which there was no overall job growth in America.

Here at Stanford, 10 classes of students have graduated since the start of the century, with the Class of ’10 being the first of the new decade. Since we arrived on campus in 2006 or earlier, some of the major events we have seen have been, as is often case, a combination or synthesis of local happenings here on campus and the larger goings on of the wider world. In November of 2008, the world witnessed two major events on the same day that affected many people on campus differently: the election of Barack Obama and the passage of Proposition 8. More recently, the troubles of the global economy touched Stanford’s endowment, leading to cuts in budget expenses and staff positions. For the individual gay or lesbian student on campus, or the individual staff member who lost his or her job, the boundary between the nice and private world they enjoyed on campus and the rhythms of the larger world suddenly fell away. These examples serve as cold reminders that, even amid the sunny glow of the Stanford bubble, we all are, as individuals, touched by the larger world.

This lesson–applicable for both Stanford and America as a whole–may go down in history as the great lesson of the last decade. Here on the Editorial Board, we have committed ourselves to reaching a balance between addressing the issues of the day here on campus–from scheduling policies to Full Moon on the Quad–and greater issues of the world at large. Coming into the new quarter, we will remain committed to looking beyond our own daily worldview to the policies and practices that touch us all, not just as members of the Stanford community, but as citizens of the world.

Andrew Valencia

Editorial Board Chair

‘Goldman Sachs is among
the most visible financial parasites. Their executives have a revolving
door through the US Treasury Department. They profit through
“trading,” much like Enron did; including selling
investments represented as AAA while simultaneously betting the value
of those investments tank. Their CEO says they’re “doing
God’s work,” as Enron’s CEO said, “We are on
the side of angels.”

A US Senate report puts
the parasitic cost to Americans at $2 to $4 trillion every year. To put
that figure into perspective, that’s an almost unbelievable
$20,000 to $40,000 added cost per US household every year. Goldman
Sachs is so happy with their “trading,” they’ll pay
out a record of $23 billion in bonuses to their top employees for their
2009 work.’

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Robert R. “Bob” Augsburger, a former Stanford vice president, passed away Dec. 31 at his home in Portola Valley due to a brain tumor. He was 83.

Augsburger was educated as a lawyer and a businessman. He joined Stanford in 1971 as vice president of business and finance, supervising Stanford’s vast real estate holdings. According to Palo Alto Online, during his time in office, he worked to renovate and expand the Stanford Shopping Center. He also appreciated open spaces and enjoyed walking The Stanford Dish and Webb Ranch, and believed in condensing development in quasi-urban centers to preserve open spaces elsewhere.

In 1977, Augsburger founded Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), a nonprofit organization coordinating the efforts of landowners, donors and government organizations toward the goal of land preservation.

Recently, Augsburger had lectured at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), teaching courses on nonprofit management.

Palo Alto Online also reported that after retirement, he served on the advisory board of the GSB Oral History Program and as an officer of the Stanford Historical Society. Augsburger was particularly interested in the history of the Stanford endowment fund. Prior to his death, Augsburger was collecting material on important financial developments in the fund in hopes of writing a book on the subject.

The new Opel Meriva has been revealed in these leaked pics that seem to be official. The new Meriva look is similar to that of the Meriva Concept Car presented at the 2008 Geneva motor show, with book-opening doors and a glass roof. The engine line-up will range from 75 to 140 hp, with both turbo petrol and turbo diesel models. An efficient EcoFlex version will be available, and production of the new Meriva will kick off in March, after its official presentation at the 2010 Geneva motor show.

Source | AutoWeek.nl

Driving in my car on the way home from work last night I heard a local D.J. talk about a site on the internet that sound pretty cool, and yet oh so very drastic. The idea is that for those who wish to unplug, and fully quit the social networking seen, they can be assisted in committing suicide. Well, suicide of their online personas of course (I mean, really, don’t go commit suicide if you are sick of Twitter!)

This site is called The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. This is from their site:

Liberate your newbie friends with a Web2.0 suicide! This machine lets you delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your Web2.0 alterego. The machine is just a metaphor for the website which moddr_ is hosting; the belly of the beast where the web2.0 suicide scripts are maintained. Our service currently runs with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and LinkedIn! Commit NOW!

I just checked out their site today, and BAM! Already Facebook is blocking them. They are looking for ways to get around Facebook’s IP blocking so they may carry out their virtual Kevorkian duties. If you go to their site today, you will see the following message:

After more than 50,000 friends being unfriended and more than 500 forever "signed-out" users, Facebook started to block our suicide machine from their servers without any comment! We are currently looking in ways to circumvent this ungrounded restriction imposed on our service!

I am thinking that this might be good for people like my buddy Sundance who likes to re-invent his online self approximately every six months or so. I think it might also be a nasty little tool if you find out someone’s login information, and want to wipe out all of their accounts in one fell swoop. Other than that, I don’t think I have any personal use for it.

What about you? Have any interest in committing Web 2.0 suicide and reconnecting with the real world? Let us know in the comments!

Lately I’ve been sharing my desk. Lots of fun, but you quickly end up with a cable mess and running out of plugs. That’s why I want someone to convert the RedDot Award-winner PowerPost into a real product.

It’s a simple concept: An alternative table leg that is in itself a huge power strip. My only worry is that, knowing myself, it would look looking like a deranged hydra shortly after its installation. [Red Dot Award]