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If you thought the automakers would be leaving CES to the TV and PMP makers, Ford would like to have a word with you. A few words, actually. Aside from announcing that in-car WiFi will be available next year, the iconic blue oval is today calling itself the first car manufacturer to offer factory-installed HD Radio with iTunes tagging capabilities. Slated to become available on select 2011 Ford models sometime next year, the implementation will enable listeners of HD Radio to “tag” songs they like via a single button press; from there, the song information will be logged within the radio’s memory, and up to 100 tags on Sync can be stored until an iPod is connected to suck them down. Once that data hits the iPod, users can then preview or purchase them conveniently through iTunes. There’s no word yet on pricing (we’re being forced to wait until CES), but we’re guessing it’ll demand quite the premium.

Continue reading Ford becomes first automaker to offer HD Radio with iTunes tagging

Ford becomes first automaker to offer HD Radio with iTunes tagging originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s one thing to have resolutions for the new year. I, for example, plan to lose weight, learn Python and design the perfect handbag. But since nothing satisfies like the quick achievement of a short-term goal, here are eight things every good nerd needs to to before the ball drops later this week.

These tasks comprise a quick to-do list that will leave you feeling competent and prepared for the decade that approaches. Also, you can play the condescension chip and start chiding friends who haven’t checked off these items yet.

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1. Edit your privacy settings and friendships.

Facebook’s maelstrom-causing privacy changes have given quite a few of us a head-scratching good time trying to figure out just how much of our private lives are to be made public. Before the new year begins, take a look at your settings on sites such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LiveJournal and any other places you might be sharing personal content to make sure what you display is consistent with the public image you want to project. As more recruiters and employers hit the web in search of info on individuals, it’s becoming ever more important to monitor and control our own identities. If you look back to the origin dates of some of your accounts, you might be surprised at what you thought was appropriate to share online in 2005.

Also, while considering what’s private and public, take time to evaluate what a “friend,” “contact” or “follower” means to you and what types of information you share with different groups.

2. Change your passwords.

Safety first, friends. Social web security threats in 2009 were sweeping and surprised more than a few users with spam DMs, hacked accounts and malware of all kinds. Check out the password management tools recommended by a recently high-profile hacker (scroll to the last few paragraphs); for free or cheap, they’ll help you generate strong, random passwords and manage them from your computer.

3. Own your name.

I’ve conducted many a web search on many a professional geek this year, and I’ve been disappointed by how few of us have staked a meaningful claim to our online identities. If you haven’t already, buy a URL – preferably one that relates to the name you use professionally – and make friends with Google. If you don’t show up in the first results when you search for your name, get a crash course in SEO and ask friends to link to you. It’s good for your social life and your career if you seize the opportunity to tell the searching world about yourself rather than relegating that responsibility to LinkedIn, Facebook or some weirdo with the same name as you.

4. Prune your feeds.

When going through your RSS feeds, do you find yourself impatiently scrolling more than you’re intently skimming? Is your list of unread items becoming unmanagable? The end of the year is a perfect time to get rid of the content you’re not reading and group the stuff you are. Take some time this week to organize, delete and add feeds, thereby optimizing your feed-reading experience. Try tools such as NetNewsWire’s “dinosaurs” and “least attenion” features that weed out unread or dormant feeds, and consider implementing tools such as Lazyfeed or Guzzle.it that can bring relevant results from fresh sources. And make sure the feeds you own are easy for others to find, too.

5. Find a better mobile.

If you don’t have a smartphone already, chances are you’ll desperately need one next year. And if you already have one, think long and hard about whether you’re happy with your service, network and interface.

While you might not be able to run out and buy your dream device before 2010 rolls around, visit a few retailers, read some reviews and have your eye on a good mobile to purchase next year. Mobile tech keeps on booming, and you’ll want to ensure a frustration-free year as new apps and OSes roll out.

6. Update copyright notices on your website.

Here’s a simple, obvious and necessary reminder. Does your website currently claim a copyright year of 2007? While it doesn’t put you on the foul side of the law, it does look a bit silly as we head into a new decade. The Next Web has a good bit of dynamic code for site owners.

7. Revisit your blog.

That poor, neglected old beast might be long overdue for a design facelift, a blogroll refresh or even just a few new posts. While you’re at it, why not set automatic reminders to periodically bug you about posting in the new year? On a more mission-critical note, you’ll also want to make sure you’re using the most updated version of your CMS; not doing so can can lead to problems from broken plugins to getting hacked. And while you’re at it, the year’s end might also be a good time to consider switching up your CMS service altogether.

8. Back up your data.

Hacks and hardware failures happen. Before 2010, make sure as much of your data as possible is protected. From calendars and contacts to blog posts and work projects, more and more of us are relying on networks of servers and startups to keep us running. So, now might be a good time to download and back up files of LinkedIn contacts and WordPress posts – anything that’s valuable to you and portable. Think of it this way: You – or at least parts of you – live in the Internet. If the Internet caught on fire, what would you grab to carry with you out of the blaze?

We hope this list helps you all get a few housekeeping items squared away in time for a great New Year’s Eve filled with peace of mind and a smug sense of superiority over your fellow nerds. If you can think of any must-do year-end tasks, please let us know in the comments!

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All signs indicate that the e-reader is to CES 2010 what the razor-thin LED-backlit TV was to CES 2009—a technology whose time in the commercial spotlight is now at hand, and which will make a huge, multi-vendor push into the market in the coming year. A whole raft of e-reader devices and technologies will be on display at next week’s CES—were I to cover all of them, this article would run for many pages. This being the case, in this short preview I’ll offer a quick look at three of the most promising e-reader efforts that we’ll be watching closely for this year’s CES coverage.

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Over 7,000 MW of wind power are expected to be installed this year in the U.S. That’s down from 2008’s record 8,545 MW, but that still would make it the second best year in the history of the industry. Not bad, at a time when the rest of the economy tanked and the value of your primary financial policy driver became all but worthless.

While the United Nations Climate Conference (COP15) was taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark, Brazil’s National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL) held the country’s first ever wind-only energy auction. On December 14, around 1,800 megawatts (MW) were contracted with energy from 71 wind power plants scheduled to be delivered beginning July 1, 2012. The wind power auction has reinforced Brazil’s success in generating electric energy from renewable sources, which currently represent 85.4% of the country’s electricity supply, according to preliminary data from the 2009 National Energy Balance, conducted by the Energy Research Corporation (EPE).

Two rather successful venture capitalists, Brad Feld and Fred Wilson, have been at the forefront of bucking the ridiculous claim that VCs only invest in companies that have patents, as both have spoken out about how patents tend to stifle innovation, and how their portfolio companies are often held back by patents, rather than helped by them. It looks like both of them are also quite aware of how copyright gets in the way of basic innovation as well. Brad Feld has a post up about how he created a Pandora station based on Fred’s blog post detailing his top albums of the decade. Pretty cool, right?

Well, the problem is that Brad sent Fred an invite to this “station,” and Fred is traveling for the holidays in Argentina with his family. So, because of ridiculous demands from copyright holders that make it so Pandora is only available in the US, Brad gets informed that Fred cannot access the station that Brad created for Fred solely due to ridiculous copyright holder demands. Yes, even though Fred almost always accesses Pandora from the US, but just happens to be in Argentina this week, Pandora says he can’t listen to the station that Brad created for him. Brad makes a good point, that any human can understand why this situation is silly, but computers still can’t quite figure it out, noting: “The level of interaction of human and machine is high, although the level of sophistication is pretty low.” As for Fred’s summation of the situation? “Rights holders fuck everything up.” Indeed.

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When you are making mashed potatoes, you don’t usually reach for your slow cooker. However, you actually can make yummy mashed potatoes in your Crockpot. Here is a fantastic recipe from the Idaho Potato Commission for Traditional “Slower Cooker” Mashed Idaho Potatoes.

Image: Idaho Potato Commission

Yield: 12 (3/4 cup per serving)

Ingredients:

• 5 pounds Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 1/4 cups water
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, divided
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt or to taste
• 3/4 teaspoon black pepper or to taste
• 1 2/3 cup whole milk

Directions:

1. Coat a 6 1/2-quart slow cooker with cooking spray. Add potatoes and pour water over potatoes, stir, cover and cook on high setting 3 hours or until potatoes are tender.

2. Drain excess liquid and return potatoes to slow cooker. Reduce heat to low, add all but 1 tablespoon of the butter, salt and pepper. Using a potato masher or a hand held electric mixer, beat on medium speed until potatoes are thoroughly mashed (while potatoes are in the slow cooker). Slowly add the milk and beat until creamy, do not overbeat or they will be stiff and have a “gummy” texture.

3. Place the remaining 1 tablespoon butter in a small microwave bowl and cook on high setting 25-30 seconds or until just melted. Drizzle evenly over potatoes.

Estimated Nutritional Analysis per Serving: 230 calories, 13 g total fat, 8 g saturated fat, 0 g trans fat, 35 mg cholesterol, 390 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 5 g protein, 23 g carbohydrate

Post from: Blisstree

“Slow Cooker” Mashed Potatoes

We told you two weeks ago that Samsung Omnia II was available for pre orders in Argentina through the carrier Personal. Finally, that Windows Phone have arrived to those lands and users can adquire it trough Personal. The plans available are the same that we told you in previous post.

Source: emovilPRO

This post was submitted by teo.

Daily Random Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• 465 grams / 1 pound onions, sliced very thinly
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon unrefined sugar or maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 8 cups hot water
• 6 vegetable stock cubes (enough for 6 cups water)
• 4 teaspoons vegemite, yeast extract or dark miso
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2/3 cup marsala, dry sherry, medeira, or sauterne (or any drinkable red wine)
• Freshly ground white pepper, to taste (or black pepper if desired)
• 6 thick slices of rustic italian bread, toasted
• Soy parmesan

METHOD:
In a large, heavy pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until they become tender and start to brown, stirring often and adding a little water from time to time if they start to cook. Add the sugar and salt and stir briefly. Add the water, stock cubes, vegemite/miso and soy sauce. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the wine and simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes. Taste for seasoning and add white pepper to taste. Place a piece of toast in each soup bowl and ladle soup over it. Sprinkle liberally with soy parmesan and serve hot.

NOTES:
From ‘Nonna’s Italian Kitchen’, by Bryanna Clark Grogan.

Finally. Over a year after iPhone users got their native Yammer fix, Android has an official Yammer application available on Android Market. The application, while still fairly basic, comes with support for most of Yammer’s core functionality. If you use Yammer and you have an Android phone, you’ll want this app. We can’t link directly to the app because Google still hasn’t launched a strong web presence for the Market, but you can find it by running a query for “Yammer” from your phone.

The new application is actually derived from the codebase of Yowl, a third party app for Android that Yammer acquired a couple months ago. CEO David Sacks says that the application has been off the Market since the acquisition, primarily so that the team could fix a few issues. Now it’s good to go.

While a mobile application isn’t totally essential to using Yammer (you can use SMS, and the web app works well enough from mobile browsers), they sure make life easier. The Android application can automatically notify you when you have new messages, and you can leave it running all day in the background (on the iPhone you have to set up Push notifications). We’ve relied heavily on Yammer since its launch at TechCrunch50 2008, and this will make things much easier for those of us who have made the jump from the iPhone (or something else) to Android.

I’ve been playing with the app throughout the day and found it to work well overall, but it isn’t perfect yet. I found a bug or two (for instance, whenever I try to jump back in a message I’m writing to correct a typo, the whole message disappears). And there are some features that aren’t in the app yet, like the ability to granularly control which messages should issue an audio/vibrating alert. Sacks says the app will definitely be upgraded with more features in the future.

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It’s been a while since we first saw the $199 NorhTech Gecko hit the scene, but the AA-powered netbook looks to finally be hitting US shores in proper fashion, and the crew at Lilliputing just got their tester. Inside it’s no great shakes, with a 1GHz Xcore86 processor, 512MB of RAM, an 8GB SD card, and an 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 display — but almost every component can be swapped out for a more powerful variant, including the processor. That’s certainly intriguing, especially for the education market NorhTech is targeting, but we’re mostly on the edge of our seats waiting to find out how long those AAs last under some real use. Check one video after the break and another at the read link.

Continue reading NorhTech Gecko netbook loaded up with AAs and booted

NorhTech Gecko netbook loaded up with AAs and booted originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store

I was just watching CNBC and saw a commercial for a special called “Planet of the Apps: A Handheld Revolution!” The one-hour program looks at how the launch of the Apple iPhone in June of 2007 gave birth to a revolution in mobile technology. The main site lists some highlight from the show, including a piece on Heroes actor Greg Grunberg and his “second job” as an app developer (he’s one of the people behind the Yowza! app). From the press release:

Apps are everywhere. In less than two years, the app craze has taken over. These small applications – or apps – that fit on our mobile phone do everything from helping us accomplish mundane tasks to keeping us entertained while we wait for the bus.

Apps are popular and profitable. Studies estimate, the Apple iPhone apps store alone generates about $200 million a month in sales. Innovative and often addictive apps are changing the way we work and live.

Welcome to Planet of the Apps: A Handheld Revolution. In this hour we’ll look at how apps have changed our lives, meet some of the creators behind them, and figure out just how big a business they really are.

CNBC’s “Planet of the Apps: A Handheld Revolution!” will premiere on Thursday, January 7th at 10PM, and repeats at 1AM. No comment on the cleverness of the show’s title, or lack thereof.

TUAWCNBC to air ‘Planet of the Apps’ on January 7 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“Government 2.0” has been a big buzzword of 2009, with thought-leaders like Tim O’Reilly and The Sunlight Foundation showing the way. It’s a movement that pushes public institutions to use technologies that have thrived in the last five years like social networking and blogging to foster closer relationships with citizens. This entails being more open with data, and encouraging regular people to transform it through mashups and apps for use by others.

A few city governments have made good on their pledges to be more transparent. San Francisco unveiled DataSF, a central clearinghouse for data collected by the city, and showcases some apps here. New York City went a step further, launching a full-on apps contest through Betaworks-backed startup ChallengePost.

It’s been almost three months since the contest launched, and several interesting applications have turned up. Here are a few, and you can check out the rest here. (To be clear, some of the data for these apps is collected through the government like with Bookzee and some of it is bootstrapped.)

Primospot: Hands down, the biggest pain of owning a car in a major metropolitan city is finding a place to park. Primospot is building a database of all parking regulations in Boston and New York, so you can figure out where you’re legally allowed to park now or in the near future. Primospot generates maps like the one above, showing what’s in the red zone and not. Primospot can also send you text messages for when your parking space is about to expire and you can search for parking in the near future (in case you’re working during the day and want to figure out where to park when you go out at night.) And, in case you don’t think it gets any better, you can also compare parking garage prices in real-time. The company just launched an iPhone app called iPark, so you can record where you’ve parked in case you forget it.

All in all, it seems like a very helpful app and one that’s sorely needed in a public transportation-asphyxiated city like San Francisco. The user interface could be a smidgen better. I’d rather see markers showing how much of the curb is available for parking rather than noting a single point along several blocks. It’s a helpful start and the team has been very aggressive in adding features every month.

Bookzee: This app helps you find available library books nearby. You can search for books either on the web site or through the iPhone app and it will show you which nearby libraries have it available. Again, it’s only available in New York. San Francisco’s library system has its own online search, through it could benefit from a facelift and some mobile availability.

Taxihack: Rude taxi drivers better watch out. This app lets people leave Twitter-style mini-reviews of drivers using their medallion number. The interface is barebones for now, but it’s a big step up from the old way of reporting poor taxi drivers. (That was to call 311 and testify before the Taxi & Limousine Commission.) Now if only there was a way to take photos of medallions and pull up reviews, Google Goggles-style. That’s for another day…

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Just a quick note to let everyone know that Bey’s show in Rio de Janeiro are now SOLD OUT. You can check the details here.

Towards the end of 2009 it was revealed published a document which purportedly described an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a neutron initiator for an atomic weapon. However, it seems US intelligence sources find this Iran nuclear document to be a fabrication. Shortly before his term as head of the IAEA ended, Dr. Elbaradei reiterated that using the language of force on this issue has not been helpful and despite some serious failings recently failings by Iran not to disclose an enrichment facility by a certain time, to present the Iran threat as imminent is hype.

This update expands on the above as well as adds a few notes on the recent political violence that has erupted as Iran’s security forces have clamped down on protesters supporting moderate opposition parties.

Read full article: Iran

Some people are surprised to learn that many cats can’t tolerate cow’s milk. While a kitten may be able to digest mother cat’s milk, it can be a very different story when it comes to cow’s milk. Lactose intolerance occurs when a cat is unable to break down the sugar in milk.

Symptoms of lactose intolerance in felines can include vomiting and diarrhea. Cats suffering from lactose intolerance may drink extra water to make up for dehydration. While some dairy products can cause diarrhea in sensitive cats, digesting other dairy products can have the opposite effect. Cheese may cause constipation in cats!

If a cat is fed a lot of dairy, skin irritation may also occur. If you’re concerned that your cat is lactose intolerant, talk with your vet and play it safe by not feeding dairy products. Visit the pet store for cat-safe milk substitutes like Cat-Sip that contain essential dietary requirements like taurine. Though my cat longs for ice cream, he’ll accept Cat-Sip!

Do you give dairy products to your cat?

(Image via flickr/Ryan Wick)

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Is Kitty Lactose Intolerant?