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As this is the 150th anniversary of the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’, I have spent some of my spare time over the last year filming primates. I have no training in this field and would consider myself an amateur and something of a novice  at that. It was my hope that in coming to understand a little better those creatures which are most closely related to us on the evolutionary tree I could comment a little more sensibly on the emerging area of evolutionary psychiatry. On a trip to London Zoo, I was able to film a Squirrel Monkey with her baby and on reviewing the footage I thought there was something of interest in relation to Winnicott’s earlier writings on Transitional Objects (see review here). I have set forth the case in the following video.

This is little more than speculation and is susceptible to a number of theoretical difficulties

1. Given that I was already familiar with Winnicott’s writings my identification of some of his themes may represent confirmation bias – i.e selective identification of the material which fits with the prior hypothesis

2. This is a single case study. Having little knowledge of Squirrel Monkeys I do not know if this represents a set of typical or atypical behaviours both for this mother and baby dyad as well as for others in the species.

3. Since triangulation with the use of language is not possible inferences about the internal mental state of the mother and baby are of dubious validity

4. The speculative conclusion about the concestor from 40 million years ago is unlikely to be verifiable. During this period the Squirrel Monkey lineage is likely to have evolved considerably and the behaviours observed in contemporary monkeys may not have been present in their ancestors even 100,000 years ago.

Nevertheless the paradigm offers useful insights bearing in mind that in infant development primitive reflexes such as the grasp reflex are still present. Furthermore the hypotheses can be tested indirectly utilising a number of means including quantitative analysis of behavioural patterns in mother-baby dyads, similar analysis in closely related species (which would add support to conservation of genes that contribute to the dyad interactions which is also an implicit assumption in the above although I would suspect that such genetic influences would likely lead to flexible generic functions rather than specific behaviours), characterisation of atypical dyads as well as a characterisation of a progressive independence of the infant.

While in evolutionary psychology and psychiatry there has been a number of references to a hypothetical characterisation of historic hunter-gatherers societies, primatology offers the possibility of identifying strongly conserved characteristics in living relatives of our species. The advent of video sharing sites such as YouTube offer the possibility of rapidly sharing footage of relevance and establishing interdisciplinary networks for further study in this area.

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Disclaimer

The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.

While its severely cold outside at the moment, we here at SwipeLife figured we’d heat things up a bit with some lovely ladies in bikinis. For your viewing pleasure is Zimmerman’s Swimwear Summer 2010 line. We don’t have the names of the models involved in the collection shoot, but we are definite fans already. Chalk this one up for our Women We Love section. Enjoy.

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Source: Fashionising

It’s almost January 1st, 2010 and we’ve been mulling over our favorites of 2009 – and the previous decade. Here we present another installment of our “Of the Decade” lists.

Winner Loser: Brick and mortar stores

Once consumer trepidation regarding e-tailers wore off, it was really only a matter of time before physical stores with limited stock and pushy salespeople bit the dust. Among the fallen we have Circuit City, CompUSA, and Gateway stores among others. Sure, for sundries, your Wal-Mart and Big K are doing just fine, but they also sell sweaters and apples. Best Buy is doing all right, but they’re really the Alamo of tech retailers. Poor bastards know what’s coming to ‘em, too.

The combination of low prices, reseller markets, the long tail effect, and the rise of internet literacy among the buying class has resulted in a ridiculous among of growth among the biggest e-tailers. And while I doubt we’re going to see a return of the glorious Kozmo.com, things like Amazon Fresh and Trojan horses like the Nook and Kindle suggest that even further dominance is to come.

Runners Up

Motorola Around the time of the iPhone being announced, the RAZR was the hottest handset on the market. It was thin as hell, looked futuristic, and did absolutely nothing different from any other phone. In fact, Motorola hadn’t made a phone that did anything different in years. And as things like Blackberrys and semi-smart phones began gaining traction on the mid-range-handset market, Moto continued to put out “improved” versions of the RAZR, or body modifications like the KRZR or whatever. Never mind that the phone was garbage fundamentally, let’s just keep pushing it! No long term plans necessary! They’ve salvaged themselves somewhat with the Droid, but that can’t last long; the Android market is too mercurial. Moto threw away an enormous lead and brand name, and barring a miracle, I don’t see any way they can get it back.

RIAA/MPAA What can I say here? These stodgy and litigious institutions continue to dig their grave to this day. A renaissance in media distribution was unfolding before their eyes, and instead of taking the bull by the horns, they sued the audience. Can you think of a worse way to handle the last decade of technological and cultural changes? I can’t. At every turn these Associations (and their counterparts throughout the world) have made the exact wrong choices. Suing children, fabricating numbers, instituting ridiculous DRM schemes — it’s been a decade-long disaster, and when the major labels all fall over dead, I’ll dance on their graves.

AOL Let me just say: I appreciate what AOL did. It put a lot of people online. It put them into a weird pseudo-internet, sure, but it broke the ice for millions and familiarized them with the web, e-mail, and A/S/L. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really a lot of room for AOL in the new order of things — AOL or the other big services like it. AOL’s role in the world today is much different than what it was, but instead of becoming a powerful brand in itself (like Yahoo!), it has receded into the background. And the fact is that’s because it represents all that was going to go wrong with the internet: it represents the corporate-controlled, content-locked, closely-monitored internet that the big guys would just love to foist on us.

Our take

Doug: Internet Explorer, both the mobile and desktop versions. At the height of its reign in the middle of the decade, it had over 95% market share. Now that number’s hovering around 65% thanks to Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome and, to a certain extent, Opera (especially on mobile devices). I haven’t personally used Internet Explorer for any significant amount of time in the past three years despite using it for everything in the early part of the decade. It’s mind boggling that Microsoft sat on its hands and watched other browsers eat its lunch for so long.

Matt: As much as Toshiba lost in its investment into HD DVD, the consumer lost even more because of the silly format war. All we ever wanted was an easy way to watch high definition content on our HDTVs. Instead we got the HD DVD vs Blu-ray format war that did nothing but confuse the general public and infuriate early adopters. Although the format war definitely caused more people to look take a serious look at digital downloads, which is somewhat of a win for everyone.

Nicholas: I’d nominate myself as biggest tech loser of the past decade, but that would sorta violate the spirit of this here category. That aside, I might go so far as to say Sirius XM just based on what the two companies (back when they were two companies) were supposed to be: revolutionary radio~! It very much has lost its appeal, as has radio in general thanks to things like the iTunes Store, Spotify, Pandora, and the less-than-legal sources of acquiring music. Talk radio—Hannity, Limbaugh, Opie and Anthony, Ron and Fez, Howard Stern (I guess, not really a fan) and the like—is obviously a different story;XM channel 202 is the only reason I still bother to subscribe. If O&A and R&F were ever to leave so would I. So yeah, the whole idea of commercial, music radio, specifically Sirius XM and how it/they tried to be different but really aren’t, would be a pretty big loser.

Dave: Print media has really taken it in the shorts in the last 10 years. Once considered the first, best, and only way to get your information, people have come to realize that traditional print media is a lumbering dinosaur, trying to keep pace with a fast changing world that they are always 12 hours behind. I do feel sympathy for the old guard, but unless they can learn to evolve quickly, print media will be going out with the baby boomers – because they are the only ones who actually buy newspapers any more.

John: Dead tree books. I just bought a Stephen King book – Under the Dome – for the Kindle. My buddy showed me the actual book. It was a 1000 pages long and so horribly thick that it looked overly daunting. When guys like me, guys who like to read, just don’t want to carry around a ream of paper onto the plane, the publishing industry needs to worry. Maybe they’ll get a boost from Mr. Sparky Pants but as Seth Godin writes:

Amazon and the Kindle have killed the bookstore. Why? Because people who buy 100 or 300 books a year are gone forever. The typical American buys just one book a year for pleasure. Those people are meaningless to a bookstore. It’s the heavy users that matter, and now officially, as 2009 ends, they have abandoned the bookstore. It’s over.

I agree and I think books – in electronic form – still have a long and lucrative life ahead of them.

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Filed under: Rumors, Odds and ends, iTunes, Apple

“iSlate” isn’t the only less-than-exciting name that Apple may be considering for their rumored upcoming tablet release. MacRumors has uncovered another possible trademarked name for the new device: iGuide. They found what appears to be a shell company created by Apple a while back (December 2007, around the same time that the iSlate trademark was filed) designed to trademark the name “iGuide” for a new device or service. The purpose of said service? To browse, transmit and play many types of multimedia content, including videos, audio, movies, photos, and even electronic publications like books, magazines, and blogs.

Obviously, this is a pretty vague stab in the dark, but paired with recent rumors that the new tablet will include some Kindle or Nook-style reader functionality, iGuide could certainly be a delivery service for the new device, sort of an iTunes but for all kinds of media, designed to deliver content directly to the reader. We’re just giving out ideas here — as I said yesterday, this thing isn’t real until it is. But the possibilities are very interesting for sure.

[If you want to see more speculation and prognostication around the tablet in convenient video format, check out Mike R.’s appearance on Fox Business News earlier today.]

TUAW‘iGuide’ another rumored tablet/service name from Apple originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Fresno Nuclear Energy Group and Areva have signed a letter of intent to build nuclear reactors in California’s Central Valley. Areva is proposing to build its EPR reactor somewhere in Fresno County, possibly beginning construction in 2017. If this nuclear push in the golden state is successful, it will set a strong precedent for nuclear energy in the U.S. in general, carrying the potential to dramatically change the country’s power mix.

Areva is supplying the technology for the project. Founded in 2001, Areva is a subsidiary of global research CEA, 90 percent of which is owned by the French government. Siemens, one of the major players emerging in the smart grid arena, has a 34 percent stake in Areva NP, the branch in charge of the nuclear reactor business.

Areva’s lead technology, called the Evolution Pressurized Reactor, is a powerful third-generation reactor cooled by pressurized water. A proposed EPR reactor in Maryland would produce 1,600 megawatts of power, capable of powering up to 1,600,000 homes. A similar facility could be slated for California’s Central Valley. And several other EPR reactors are in the works in the U.S., even though much of Europe has shunned the design due to safety concerns. These holdups have caused two such projects in Finland to run over deadlines and budgets.

Similar problems with time and money have been encountered in Areva’s French effort. There, one reactor’s construction prompted a letter from Finland, France and the U.K. governments alleging that the instrumentation and control systems are dangerously constructed.

With climate change becoming a hotter (pun intended) issue every day, nuclear power is becoming a more viable technology. While construction costs and timelines typically exceed proposed limits, the reactors emit very little carbon and do not depend on fossil fuels.

Nuclear power could bring California that much closer to hitting its goal of producing 33 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Even if Areva’s control systems are improved and no construction overages occur (unlikely), there are sure to be years of government permit review before construction can begin.

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“For so long, it was cloud-free. Then, all of a sudden, they dramatically appeared.”

The webOS 1.3.5 update is a gift that just keeps on giving.  In addition to a rather lengthy changelog that lists the removal of the app limit and the ability to download updates over a 2G connection amongst other notable improvements, folks are finding a slew of undocumented changes.

The latest discovery, a playable 3D Demo utilizing JavaScript and the HTML5 Canvas tag that hadn’t worked on webOS until after the 1.3.5 update, comes from Zoen22 in our forums.  While the framerate isn’t great and you have to turn your phone sideways while navigating with the keyboard, it’s a playable 3D level taking place entirely in the phone’s browser, and that’s pretty slick.

It looks like Palm is brewing a perfect storm (hello, OpenGL)  for an announcement on expanded gaming capabilities for webOS at their CES presentation in a little over a week. It’s starting to look like I may very well be eating crow come January 7th.

Thanks to windzilla for the tip!

Filed under: Sedan, Performance, Japan, Lexus, Rumormill

We’ve been hearing rumblings about a Lexus GS F for over two years, with the most recent report indicating that the maxed-out super sedan was put on hold until the economic climate reached a balmy 75-degrees. However, the rumormongers at Japan’s BestCar seem to think that the GS F is back on track, and not only that, it’ll be powered by a detuned version of the LFA‘s V10.

Although that sounds simply insane at first blush, the possibility of a 500+ hp V10 powerplant coincides with an initial report released way back in September of 2007. Not only that, but the GS F’s closest competition — the BMW M5 — uses a bent-ten as well. However, even if Toyota is trying to spread out the costs of the LFA’s development, with BMW’s bahn burner about to get the twin-turbocharged V8 from the BMW X6/X5 M and Mercedes-Benz’ decision to drop its 6.2-liter engines in favor of force-fed eights, it could be bad timing… or a cunning marketing move, depending on your motivational perspectives.

Speculation aside, if Toyota does pull the trigger and fit a reworked version of the 552-hp, 4.8-liter 1LR-GUE V10 into its staid sedan, expect the performance to strip the paint clean off it’s swollen fascia while leaving you over $100,000 lighter in the process.

[Source: BestCar via Carscoop]

Rumormill: Fabled Lexus GS F to use LFA’s V10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Royal Hooded Jacket comes from Melbourne based label, Orri Henrisson. This take on a great coat has a fitted silhouette throughout the cut. Details such as an oversized collar with a removable hood is added for multifunctions and style. Other details include pockets, buttons, half vents, and more. Available now at Bespoke.

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A short holiday history lesson

Jerry Large’s recent article on our unfortunate habit of focusing on the immediate future and ignoring the past was well written [“Timeless lessons of the season,” NWThursday, Dec. 24].

It would be appropriate to give a talk on this to the state education authorities who seem always to focus on science, math, etc. to the exclusion of art, history, economics and politics.

History is the only way that we can put the present into perspective. Being ignorant of history, and the fact that our knowledge of history undergoes continual improvement, guarantees that we continue to think of ourselves as existing in a perpetually unique situation.

I am not demeaning math or science. I am trained in mathematics and find the current emphasis very ill-informed. Education must be balanced, and history is part of the balance.

I want to thank Large for his short and sweet summary of the past.

I also appreciated his comments on only heroizing those in uniform. We all make choices about our occupations, and I thank those who choose to work in public service, such as the police and fire.

But I also appreciate those who pick up the garbage, farm and fish to produce the food that I eat, and those who provide medical service. We unfortunately idolize the military, and ignore all those who die from poverty, failures in our health care, and others whose occupations are so dangerous.

— Dick Swenson, Walla Walla

Ron Judd wraps up 2009, revisits Glenn Beck event

Regarding Ron Judd’s 2009 review “It’s hard to pick just one ‘winner’: 2009 was the race to the bottom” [News, Dec. 27].

Judd made a comment about Glenn Beck being a lunatic.

He may very well be a lunatic, but I sure wish someone would make a list of things he has been wrong about. I want some details about what he is wrong about, before I make my decision on him being a lunatic or even a liar.

— Jackie Harden, Seattle

Christmas music overload during December

Don’t children get enough Christmas music at home, in stores, on TV and at church in December [“Have yourself a PC little Christmas,” Opinion, guest commentary, Dec. 24]?

We do not need more Christmas music in school.

Unlike Jan Lind-Sherman, I think we marginalize other traditions when we force school children to perform music that is traditional only for Christians. Other traditions have beautiful music, but the schools have not given them equal attention at this time of year.

Performing one Hindu song and 10 Christian songs in a school performance is neither warm nor loving of non-Christian students. There are enough songs about winter and nature to fill a winter program that everyone can enjoy.

Our society celebrates Christmas music to the exclusion of all other music in December. The schools need not add insult to injury to people of other traditions.

— Barbara Frost, Seattle

C’mon, throw the dog a bone

I go out walking in Seattle fairly frequently and I have noticed a disturbing phenomenon. At Discovery Park, in Elliott Bay Park, and now along the path to Golden Gardens beach, I have come across people walking large Dobermans over which they do not seem to have much control.

It is difficult being a Doberman, I know. People train them to be attack dogs, and it isn’t their fault. Nevertheless, they are large, aggressive, alpha dogs, and they are dangerous to people and other dogs. They should not be walked in public areas where other people and their dogs congregate.

It’s admirable that there are people out there who want to rescue Dobermans and save them from the cruelty that usually marks their lives — vicious attack-dog training and then euthanasia when something goes wrong — but that doesn’t mean Dobermans should be out mixing with the general population. They are dangerous dogs and should be walked outside the city and general population limits.

The owners of these dogs all behave as though they are tremendously entitled to the space they occupy — they aren’t. They present a threat to others, and their oblivion to this is revolting.

— Dawne Adam, Seattle

There’s almost no question how this one is going to turn out, but we would be remiss not to discuss it a little bit.  It’s not like any of the other bowl games haven’t given us interesting upsets.

By the way Fresno State, how’s that working out for you?

Houston (10-3, 6-2 C-USA) vs. Air Force (7-5, 5-3 MWC)

December 31st, 2009 12:00 PM ET

Amon G. Carter Stadium, Fort Worth, Texas

History

Apparently they use an F-15 for a Football in this one.

Created in 2003, the Armed Forces Bowl was originally called the Fort Worth Bowl for unsurprising reasons.  The Bowl started under the sponsorship of PlainsCapital Bank and continued until 2005 when no corporate sponsor was available for the game.  In 2006 Bell Helicopter Textron – a Fort Worth company – took over sponsorship and renamed the game the Armed Forces Bowl that we know and love today.

The products of Bell Helicopter should be familiar to most people.  You have probably seen this unique flying machine.  Bell also produces a large number of civilian helicopters making it likely that if you see a medical or news chopper, it has likely been produced by Bell.

This game started out as a matchup between the Big 12 and the Mountain West, but the Big 12 didn’t end up sending a team until the third year of the Bowl when Kansas managed to fill the spot.  The previous two years had a WAC school and then a C-USA school replacing the Big 12.  The only year the Mountain West failed to send a team to this game was 2004 when former MAC school Marshall faced off against Cincinnati.

The most interesting matchup for the Armed Forces bowl was the very first one played.  Boise State faced off against TCU (sound familiar?) in 2003 which the Broncos walked away from with a 34-31 victory.  That was the only other time (other than last season) that these two teams have faced each other.  The Fiesta Bowl gets more exciting with every passing day!

Ok, that’s about as much enthusiasm as I can inject into that travesty of a BCS bowl selection.  Let’s get back to the game at hand.

Houston

Houston is one of those incredibly unoriginal schools. Who isn't called the cougars?

Early on this season Houston was easily generating the most excitement from fans of the “Let Chaos Ensue” strategy of eliminating the BCS.  Two games in a row Houston was able to knock off a member of the Big 12 conference.  The first was then number 5 Oklahoma State who they beat by 10.  The second was then unranked Texas Tech by one point scored in the last seconds of the game.  After that, however, things started to go a little sour.

The next week, UTEP hung 58 on Houston en route to a 17 point beating at UTEP.  Houston recovered from this and won their next 5, though having lost much of the prestige they had earned in the first 3 games.  A 5 point loss at UCF in mid-November knocked Houston out of the minds of the average College Football fan, and that was followed a couple weeks later by a loss at East Carolina by 6.  Along the way, Houston did manage to take out up-and-comer Southern Methodist (you know them as SMU, or, better yet, those cheaters that got the death penalty) by a score of 38-15.  It’s not often you see a June Jones team get mauled by 23.  Oh, wait…almost forgot.

Case Keenum, the Real Superman Quarterback.

Houston is lead by a Quarterback who everyone has heard about in discussions of the Heisman Trophy, but probably got shafted by not being invited.  Case Keenum had a spectacular rating of 159.3 with a 71% completion percentage on 659 throws for 5449 yards, 43 touchdowns and only 9 interceptions.  Read those stats again, I’ll wait.  Those are the kinds of stats that are usually put up by “system quarterbacks”, and perhaps Keenum is one of those, but he is still very very good at what he does.  He’s certainly no Reggie Ball.

Given the quantity of passes Keenum throws, you might expect that he hits a wide variety of targets.  You would be correct as Houston as thrown to 19 different receivers, 7 of them catching at least 2 passes per game.  This makes Houston an extremely dangerous team to defend in the secondary (you’re surprised, right?).  Three receivers in particular stand out: James Cleveland with 101 receptions for 1182 yards and 14 touchdowns, Tyron Carrier with 86 receptions, 998 yards and 7 touchdowns, and Patrick Edwards with 81 catches, 985 yards and 5 touchdowns.

If any team is designed to take what you give them, Houston is that team.  Along with a proficient aerial attack, Houston still finds time to run the football often.  Bryce Beall and Charles Sims share the load with 138 and 118 carries respectively.  Sims is the more efficient of the two, gaining 5.4 yards per carry and 9 touchdowns for his efforts.  Beall “only” has 4.8 ypc and 7 touchdowns to his name this season.   Keenum, too, runs the ball occasionally with 132 yards and 4 touchdowns on 56 carries.  If your defense actually manages to seal off the receivers, you can bet Keenum will find a way to gain yardage.

Air Force

Air Force Fighting Falcons. It's certainly appropriate.

The Falcons haven’t nearly the season that Houston has.  The schedule has been particularly brutal to Air Force as they couldn’t seem to find any rhythm at all flipping back and forth between winning and losing every few weeks.  They did, however, have good showings against decent teams when they did lose.  The first four losses for the Falcons included a 7 point loss at Minnesota, a 3 point loss at Navy, a 3 point loss to then number 10 TCU (wasn’t quite as close as the score indicated), and a 7 point loss to then number 18 Utah.  Air Force held their own quite well against good competition all season.

The one sore mark on their record was a 17 point loss to Brigham Young in their last game.  The game wasn’t even as close as the score suggests as BYU started out with a 24-0 lead through the first 25 minutes of the game and then coasted to the victory.  This was mostly caused by two reasons, the first was that Air Force could not complete a single drive with points, turning the ball over twice and missing a field goal in four drives.  The second was that their defense was simply unable to keep BYU from scoring on 4 straight drives.  Often that leads you to a rough loss.

Jared Tew will break you in half with his forehead.

Air Force, like all of the service academies these days, is a run first offense.  In fact it’s a run second and run third offense too.  The runningback leading the attack for the Falcons is Jared Tew with 212 carries 797 yards and 7 touchdowns on the season.  Tew is your prototypical Big Ten style running back.  Punch it up the gut repeatedly and get the tough yards.  The change of pace back in this set is Asher Clark with 736 yards on only 134 carries and 5 touchdowns.  Clark is much more of a big play threat than Tew, at least as much as is possible on this Falcon’s offense.  Also running the ball is starting quarterback Tim Jefferson.  Jefferson has 217 yards on 72 carries with 3 touchdowns running the ball.

His passing stats are equally depressing with only 79 passing attempts and only 54.4% of those completions for 687 yards 5 touchdowns and 2 interceptions.  Air Force prefers instead to throw the ball with a number of different passers, and even then follow Woody’s sacred idea that the pass was nothing more than a trick play.  Consider that Air Force has thrown only 139 times this season compared to 743 rushing attempts.

Who Are We Picking?

Mali: Houston

Eric: Houston

Jeff: Houston

Jim: Houston

This is yet another battle of two offensive styles that are diametrically opposed to each other.  Air Force is going to run the ball down your throat come hell or high water and Houston is going to throw it no matter how smart running the ball seems to be.  Should be a fun game to watch as I suspect Air Force won’t be able to defend Houston, and Houston may not be able to defend Air Force.

This should be fun!

Autonomous machines are getting better at better at the ongoing controlled falling known as “walking” among us humans.

January 5. That’s the day we’ll learn all we want to know about the Nexus One. Google didn’t explicitly say anything about the device in its invites today for an “Android press gathering,” but we all know what is coming. And T-Mobile, which will be the initial carrier option for the Nexus One, does too. And while other Android devices such as the G1, the myTouch 3G, and most recently, the Droid have garnered a lot of buzz, the Nexus One could be different. And its unveiling should mark an interesting moment in the brief history of the Android platform.

Google is unveiling the Nexus One just two months (nearly to the day) after the Verizon Droid was released. The Droid, of course, was seen as the Android platform’s Messiah by some, and the one phone that could maybe hold a candle to the iPhone. Sales have been good, and the general consensus is that the phone is a winner. But now, just two months later, we have a new Android phone that by just about every account is better than it. In fact, the only real upsides for the Droid over the Nexus One is that it runs on Verizon’s network, and that it has a physical keyboard. The Verizon point is certainly a fair one — there’s a reason why everyone is clamoring for a Verizon iPhone. But the physical keyboard argument seems moot, as the consensus is that the Droid keyboard is a pretty poor one.

I don’t know about you, but I’d be pretty annoyed if I just shelled out my money for a Droid, and locked myself into a 2-year contract (even one with Verizon). It reminds me of when Apple first unveiled the iPhone for $599 then slashed the price just a few months later, leaving all the early-adopters bitter. Apple eventually gave a partial rebate to those buyers, but it still was a curious move. And Google’s is arguably worse here, as it’s not just about the money, but about the unveiling of a superior piece of hardware so quickly after it put a lot of its own marketing muscle behind the Droid, trying to convince customers that it was the Android phone to buy.

Of course, after news of the device got out, Google’s official stance was that this new Android phone was simply an experiment that it was using internally. But the “eating your own dogfood” excuse quickly evaporates when you open these devices to the public less than a month after writing that. Instead, this looks to be a situation where Google is eating its own children, or at the very least, its own tail.

All that said, while I feel for the early Droid buyers, I admire what it looks like Google is doing here from bigger picture perspective. They don’t seem to care that they’re potentially alienating their existing mobile partners by bringing their own phone, that they will sell themselves, to market. This has long been the exact argument as to why Microsoft would never make its own hardware. (Of course, that stance is not working out so well for them right now as Windows Mobile market share continues to fall.) It would appear that Google realizes that the best way to make a truly great mobile device is to take control of most of it themselves.

The single biggest reason that the iPhone is great is because Apple is in nearly complete control of it. In fact, the only thing they’re not in control of, AT&T’s network, is its greatest weakness. Before the iPhone, no device manufacturer, let alone software manufacturer, had anywhere near the type of control that Apple does over a mobile device. With Nexus One, Google is moving in that direction too. And that’s the right call.

I have no doubt that at their event, Google will have plenty of spin for why they are taking the reins on this device. I’m sure we’ll hear about the dogfood aspect, I’m sure we’ll hear about how great this device is for developers, and I’m sure we’ll hear about “choices” (as in, there are a huge range of Android phones on a wide range of carriers). But make no mistake, the Nexus One will be the Android phone to get. And I suspect that will be the case until Google comes out with the Nexus Two. Hopefully, that won’t be in a couple months from now.

And I hope Google continues down this path. If they do, they’ll be taking power away from the carriers and traditional mobile handset manufacturers, and giving more of it to consumers in the U.S. Those guys have had their time; they have failed. The next logical step for Google along this path is to create a device that can run on both GSM and CDMA networks, so any consumers can pop in any SIM card from any carrier and use their device as they see fit. Of course, obtaining a SIM card without a contract from some of the carriers will still likely be an issue, but moves like this from Google can help pressure them into that.

And further down the line, as we move into the 4G networks, interoperability might actually be something that we see. Imagine a U.S. where the carriers have to have the best network or customers will just leave and join another one as they see fit. Androids may dream of electric sheep, but that’s what I dream about.

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We’ve been seeing a fair amount of netbooks equipped with Intel’s Pinetrail processors since they were announced early last week, and it looks like we’re going to be seeing at least one from Samsung in the very near future. This one — the N220 — was just spotted in France. The 10.1-incher packs (as you’d expect) an Atom N450 CPU, GMA 3150 graphics, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth, plus a webcam and a 6 cell battery which should supposedly get around eleven and a half hours of battery life. It comes with Windows 7 installed, and as you can see from the photo, one of the available colors will be glossy green. It’s going for 350 euros in France, so, if the price stays comparable when (and if it) hits North American soil, we can expect it to cost somewhere in the realm of $500.

Samsung’s Pinetrail-boasting N220 netbook spied in France originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Budget, Sedan, Technology, Hatchback, Ford

It’s fitting that Ford‘s first European offering to swim over this way will bring with it another feature that The Continent can take credit for: tap-for-three-blinks turn signal operation. It will appear on the Fiesta this summer, and then migrate to other vehicles in the 2011 line-up, starting with the Super Duty series.

The three-blink feature is not as polarizing as the placement of paddle shifters, but people are known to have their opinions. This writer likes it, preferring a mistaken tap to someone flashing their turn signal eternally. You can read Ford’s release after the jump, and sound off on the new convenience – or not – in the comments.

[Source: Ford]

Continue reading Ford adding three-blink function to turn signals

Ford adding three-blink function to turn signals originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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