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type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"
allowscriptaccess="always"/embed/centerbr / pIt was only a matter of time before a flash cart was
introduced for the Nintendo DSi (which isn't even out Stateside yet, mind you). The Acekard 2i will
enable homebrew programs to run, and will even support Twitter on your DSi! The Acekard 2i will
support both microSD and microSDHC cards, in addition to Action Replay cheats whenever you find
your gaming skills coming up short to defeat the in-game boss. Of course, just like some other
flash carts on the DS Lite, Acekard 2i is also able to support MP3 playback, turning your DSi into
a portable media player of sorts. No idea on how much the Acekard 2i costs though./p pPermalink: a
href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/dsi_gers_acekard_2i_flash_cart.html"DSi Gers
Acekard 2i Flash Cart/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a
href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a
href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p
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Yaskawa Electric's Motoman SDA10 robot has been out and about for a little while now (along with
its not-so-distant
relatives), but it's apparently not just getting by on its good looks alone, and it recently
took advantage of Osaka's International Next-Generation Robot Fair to show off its newly developed
cooking skills. While there unfortunately doesn't seem to be any video available, the word is it
was able to take an order from a customer using its voice recognition capabilities and whip up some
okonomiyaki (a pancake, of sorts) from scratch, with it even going so far as to serve it to the
customer and top it off with some condiments. As if one human-replacing activity wasn't enough, the
bot also recently made an appearance on a Japanese TV show where it assembled a camera and,
thankfully, there is a video of that -- check it out after the break.
div align="center"a
href="http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/11/motoman-industrial-robot-cooks-okonomiyaki/"img
vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1"
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/12/motoman-sda10-12-02-08.jpg" alt="" //abr
/ div align="left"Yaskawa Electric's Motoman SDA10 robot has been out and about for a little while
now (along with its a
href="http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/11/yaskawa-electric-puts-robot-on-package-sorting-duty/"not-so-distant
relatives/a), but it's apparently not just getting by on its good looks alone, and it recently took
advantage of Osaka's International Next-Generation Robot Fair to show off its newly developed
cooking skills. While there unfortunately doesn't seem to be any video available, the word is it
was able to take an order from a customer using its voice recognition capabilities and whip up some
okonomiyaki (a pancake, of sorts) from scratch, with it even going so far as to serve it to the
customer and top it off with some condiments. As if one human-replacing activity wasn't enough, the
bot also recently made an appearance on a Japanese TV show where it assembled a camera and,
thankfully, there is a video of that -- check it out after the break. /div /divpa
href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/02/motoman-sda10-robot-shows-off-its-cooking-camera-building-skill/"
rel="bookmark"Continue reading emMotoman SDA10 robot shows off its cooking, camera-building
skills/em/a/ppFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/robots/" rel="tag"Robots/a/pp
style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a
href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/02/motoman-sda10-robot-shows-off-its-cooking-camera-building-skill/"Motoman
SDA10 robot shows off its cooking, camera-building skills/a originally appeared on a
href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:07:00 EST. Please see our a
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padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a
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href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Tv3KHR44cEbgmHsuc8K78ulcyT8/a"img
src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Tv3KHR44cEbgmHsuc8K78ulcyT8/i" border="0"
ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a
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src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=8W5pGVJJ" border="0"/img/a a
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pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/dealz122.jpg" width="600"
height="209" /Just because Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over doesn't mean there aren't all
sorts of deals out there to satisfy your impulsive seasonal shopping cravings. There's your usual
selection of cameras, TVs and computer peripherals, but we also found a deal for the first season
of Three's Company of DVD for $2.75. Now ithat's/i a deal. Hit the jump for the full bounty./p
pBGaming:/Bbr / · a
href="http://www.buy.com/prod/saitek-j62-rumble-force-pc-game-pad-saitek-p2500-rumble-force-pad-game/q/loc/108/90148141.html"Saitek
Rumble Force PC Gamepad for $7.99 plus free shipping/a (originally $49.99).br / · a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001ABN834/itquotes101-20"Guitar Hero World Tour -
Guitar Kit on PS3 for $59.98 plus free shipping/a (originally $99.99).br / · a
href="http://www.buy.com/prod/plantronics-audio-370-ultimate-performance-pc-multimedia-headset/q/loc/111/202592346.html"Plantronics
Multimedia Gaming Headset for $12.99 plus free shipping/a (originally $69.99)./p pBCameras:/Bbr /
· a
href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001GAPHOC?tag=i4ufututechne-20camp=0creative=0linkCode=as4creativeASIN=B001GAPHOCadid=0ZMC0RXWM312DM6R6C46"Pentax
K200 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera for $599.94/a (originally $1,089.31).br / · a
href="http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=41523351"Sony Cyber-Shot 7.2MP Digital Camera
(refurbished) for $84.99/a (originally $199.99)./p pBHDTVs:/Bbr / · a
href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889102180cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-89-102-180-_-Homepage"Samsung
50'' 720p Plasma HDTV for $999.99/a (originally $1,499.99)./p pBComputer peripherals and
memory:/Bbr / · a
href="http://www.nowdirect.com/exec/partInfo/part_detail.tsb?prcpart=SADHD103UI"Samsung 1TB Hard
Drive for $84.99/a (originally $112.55).br / · a
href="http://www.buy.com/prod/cyberpower-cp-h420mp-usb-hub-4-port-usb-2-0-480mbps-1-1-2-0-compatible/q/loc/101/203067541.html?2312"CyberPower
USB Hub (4-port, 2.0) for $9.99 plus free shipping/a (originally $59.99).br / · a
href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208293nm_mc=OTC-Frooglecm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Memory+(Flash+Memory)-_-Transcend-_-20208293"Transcend
8GB SDHC for $13.49 plus free shipping/a (originally $32.99)./p pBUnlocked Cellphones:/Bbr /
· a
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001IBIM00?ie=UTF8tag=mgnetwork-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=390957creativeASIN=B001IBIM00"Nokia
N85 (unlocked) cellphone for $555.99/a (originally $1,200)./p pBPersonal Portables:/Bbr / ·
a
href="http://www.buy.com/prod/v-touch-8gb-mp3-mp4-2-8-touchscreen-2mp-camera-expandable-minisd/q/loc/111/208370463.html"V-Touch
8GB MP3 Player for $69.99 plus free shipping/a (originally $249.99)./p pBStocking Stuffers:/Bbr /
· a
href="http://www.buy.com/prod/spider-man-3-blu-ray-single-disc/q/loc/322/208975622.html"Spiderman 3
on Blu-ray for $9.99 plus free shipping/a (originally $43.99).br / · a
href="http://www.borders.com/online/store/Landing?view=2rpp=25type=3kids=falsenav=5187+10373simple=false"DVD
Boxsets for 40% off/a (Use coupon code "CM2008" - valid only on 12/02).br / · a
href="http://www.deepdiscount.com/viewproduct.htm?productId=5736017"Three's Company - Season 1 on
DVD for $2.75 plus free shipping/a (originally $14.95).br / · a
href="http://www.eforcity.com/pothhdmid2m1.html"HDMI-M to DVI-M Cable (6 feet) for $3/a (originally
$23.99 - use coupon code "HDMIDVI6").br / · a href="http://sellout.woot.com"RCA Foreign
Voltage Adapter for $4.99/a (originally $32.99)./p pBHobomodo:/Bbr / · a
href="http://shop2.frys.com/product/5499649"SwissGear USB Notebook Cooler Fan for $0/a (originally
$39.99 - use a href="http://images.frys.com/art/rebates_pdf/5499649_1202.pdf"this rebate form/a -
valid only until 12/02)./p br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=7cee3c6f64cbc473b7494736fb666642p=1"img alt=""
style="border: 0;" border="0"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=7cee3c6f64cbc473b7494736fb666642p=1"//a img
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=7cee3c6f64cbc473b7494736fb666642" style="display:
none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=sESetTgA"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=8ltfRBhW"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=NB8LfXUI"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=NB8LfXUI" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=tI0jxETJ"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=tI0jxETJ" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/2Xg86G3ZSBw" height="1" width="1"/
Just because Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over doesn't mean there aren't all sorts of deals
out there to satisfy your impulsive seasonal shopping cravings. There's your usual selection of...
Live Nation and Blockbuster announced a three-year contract that will put the promoter's
large-scale ticketing system exclusively in 500 or so brick-and-mortar Blockbuster locations.
As part of the deal, blocks of tickets to shows ticketed by Live Nation will be available only at
Blockbuster locations for the first four hours that they're on sale. The plan will go into effect
after Live Nation's Ticketmaster contract expires at the end of the year, as part of the rollout
of its own ticketing system.
"Our research definitively shows that the vast majority of music fans who prefer to buy their
concert tickets at a retail location find Blockbuster to be the most convenient choice," stated
Nathan Hubbard, head of ticketing for Live Nation. "Blockbuster's huge national footprint
provides Live Nation with a powerful marketing partner to help drive incremental ticket sales to
our events and an incredible opportunity to develop other product lines centered around music for
Blockbuster customers."
Live Nation has record deals with Jay-Z, Madonna, Nickelback and Shakira and a
merchandise deal with U2.
For its part, Blockbuster has been shutting down locations across the nation for the past year or
so while doubling down on its video-on-demand strategy, and recently reported a quarterly loss of
$20.6 million, so it has ample reason to sign a deal that would bring more people to its
remaining locations.
"Not only will this agreement drive hundreds of thousands of customers to our stores, it
represents another step in the transformation of Blockbuster into a brand that offers the most
convenient access to entertainment," stated Blockbuster chairman and CEO Jim Keyes."We want
customers to know that whatever their entertainment needs -- from DVDs and games, to accessing
tickets to some of the biggest concert events -- they'll find those needs answered at
Blockbuster."
We've asked Live Nation about what sort of convenience fees they plan to charge after the
Ticketmaster contract expires, but so far haven't heard a definitive response. It's unclear
whether the Blockbuster deal holds any implications for the sorts of additional fees show-goers
might be expected to pay. But at the very least, the urge to snap up hot tickets should have many
music fans trying to remember the location of the nearest Blockbuster.
If tickets are still available after that initial four hours, they'll continue to be sold at
Blockbuster, which "will be responsible for managing and operating all aspects of the ticket
transactional experience." In addition to early ticketing, the deal involves Blockbuster-only
access to unspecified exclusive "concert products and promotions."
At the most recent Dorkbot DC, we had a wonderful,
extremely informative presentation given by Alden Hart. By day, Alden is an electrical engineer
and the CTO of a technical consulting firm, by night, he messes around with LEDs and
microcontrollers, especially for elaborate holiday light displays he does at his home in Northern
Virginia. Alden's talk was entitled "Practical Microcontroller LED Designs - lessons and gotchas
from prototype to production." It was a very well-presented survey of software and hardware
methods he's explored. Some of the programming was over my head, but he presented everything
clearly enough that I was able to follow it conceptually, anyway. I learned a lot, about such
things as different schemes for LED dimming, including something called Bit Angle Modulation
(BAM), color processing conversions from HSB (Hue,Saturation, Brightness) to RGB, and the use of
inductive drives for ballasting
LEDs (instead of the more common use of resistors).
There was all sorts of stuff brought up that I wanted to know more about. I'm talking to Alden
now about unpacking more of this information for us in some fashion (in MAKE articles, here on
the blog, etc.). In the meantime, you can download Alden's PowerPoint presentation of his talk
here.
a
href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/alden_harts_led_lessons_a.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890"
/Read more/a | a
href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/alden_harts_led_lessons_a.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890"
/ Permalink/a | a
href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/alden_harts_led_lessons_a.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890#comments"
/Comments/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/electronics/?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read
more articles in Electronics/a | a
href="http://digg.com/submit?url=blog.makezine.com%2Farchive%2F2008%2F12%2Falden_harts_led_lessons_a.htmltitle=Alden%20Hart%26apos%3Bs%20LED%20%26quot%3Blessons%20and%20gotchas%26quot%3Bbodytext=%20At%20the%20most%20recent%20Dorkbot%20DC%2C%20we%20had%20a%20wonderful%2C%20extremely%20informative%20presentation%20given%20by%20Alden%20Hart.%20By%20day%2C%20Alden%20is%20an%20electrical%20engineer%20and%20the%20CTO%20of%20a%20technical%20consulting%20firm%2C%20by%20night%2C%20he%20messes%20around%20with%20LEDs...topic=tech_news"
/Digg this!/a
For a site built on shots to the crotch and dogs riding skateboards, YouTube is classin’ up the joint for its new
YouTube Symphony Orchestra contest. Rosen up your
bow, because winners will get a chance to play Carnegie Hall.
From now until Jan. 28, 2009, users can submit videos of themselves playing two pieces of music.
The first is The Internet Symphony, an original composition by Tan Dun written
especially for this program (see him talking about the work in the embedded video). Entrants will
also submit a separate piece of their choosing that best showcases their style.
Everyone who enters will be considered for a big, global video performance of Internet
Symphony (not sure how that will be conducted), while experts from the London Symphony,
Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic and other orchestras will
narrow the field to semi-finalists. Once selected, the YouTube audience will pick their favorites
and the winners will be invited to participate in a 3-day classical music camp of sorts, ending
with a performance in Carnegie Hall.
In the quick-cut, in-your-face, extreme online video world we often live in, its nice to to see a
contest celebrate something more, well, classic.
Silly us
X-Files fans trying to rationalize why The X-Files: I Want to Believe crashed and
burned so badly this summer. It was too thoughtful! Too character-driven! Too focused on giving
fans emotional closure, and not enough on slam-bang summer excitement! Long-time franchise producer
Frank Spotnitz has a much easier and quicker
answer: It was The Dark
Knight's fault.
His theory
goes thus: The X-Files
opened a week after The Dark Knight broke all sorts of records and began its domination of
the summer box office. What's more, the dark and brooding film was similar in tone to the caped
juggernaut, and not the sort of counterprogramming that might nonetheless have had a chance in its
wake. And so you get $21 million domestic.
Look, I'm probably as big a fan of I Want to Believe as you'll find around these parts;
for fans of the show it was a lovely, moving conclusion. For fans of the show. The
commercial problem with the film wasn't that it was too dark or that it followed The Dark
Knight, but that it was too small, and its appeal too narrow. A bigger, flashier
X-Files, with more explosions and flying saucers, would have done better, Batman
notwithstanding. As it stood, people who didn't grow up on Mulder and Scully didn't see a reason to
go. And -- speaking, again, as someone who loves the film -- they probably made the right choice.
There wasn't much there for them.
Oh, and as to the possibility of another film that Spotnitz vaguely suggests: no thank you. This
was a graceful, satisfying finale.
In addition to his work in front of the camera, actor Jeff Bridges apparently has quite the eye for
photography, too. Case in point: The online photo diary he recently posted to his personal website,
featuring more than 30 images from the set of ”Iron Man.” nbsp;
nbsp; Titled ”Making Iron Man,” the photo diary provides a
particularly interesting behind-the-scenes peek at the making of Marvel Studios’ blockbuster
— including candid shots of director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey
Jr, as well as much of the cast, crew and special effects that made the film possible. Bridges also
provides handwritten commentary for many of the images that provides a narrative of sorts for the
images.
an online collection of more than 200 birthday tracks of all sorts to celebrate the first birthday
of the free netlabel Comfort Stand, and to wish a Happy Birthday to you on your special day, too!
nbsp; nbsp; will make a selection of the best tunes thereof imho and post it soon to my journal via
mixwit, could also make a nice present as a cd nbsp; nbsp; free music on lf
Surfing the Internet carries all sorts of minor hazards, including pop-up ads, vitriolic
bloggers and time-wasting videos. As of last week, it also carries one that is anything but minor:
the threat of criminal prosecution. That's the implication of the jury verdict in the case of Lori
Drew in the infamous MySpace case. The Missouri mother was convicted of three federal misdemeanor
charges for setting up a MySpace account to masquerade as a 16-year-old boy and exchange messages
with Megan Meier, who killed herself after "Josh Evans" spurned her.
div align="center"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" alt=""
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/12/mba-review-1.jpg" /br //div We've spent
a bit of quality time with the a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/macbookair"new MacBook Air/a,
and while there's little on the surface to denote a change, Apple did quite a bit under the hood to
turn this into a serious laptop -- of sorts. Full disclosure: we (meaning a certain Paul Miller,
specifically) have been using a Rev. A MacBook Air for the better part of a year as a primary
machine, to very much frustration, so we had some pretty big bones to pick with whatever revision
Apple might toss into our laps. Luckily, our fears were unfounded; read on for all the gory,
romantic details.br /br /[Images courtesy of a
href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/31/new-macbook-air-hits-the-streets-actually-capable-of-this-whole/"Sam/a]br
/div class="postgallery"pstrongGallery: a
href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/new-macbook-air-hits-the-streets/"New MacBook Air hits the
streets/a/strong/pa
href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/new-macbook-air-hits-the-streets/1130919/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/10/air-unbox-002_thumbnail.jpg" alt=""
title="" //aa href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/new-macbook-air-hits-the-streets/1130918/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/10/air-unbox-003_thumbnail.jpg" alt=""
title="" //aa href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/new-macbook-air-hits-the-streets/1130931/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/10/air-unbox-004_thumbnail.jpg" alt=""
title="" //aa href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/new-macbook-air-hits-the-streets/1130917/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/10/air-unbox-005_thumbnail.jpg" alt=""
title="" //aa href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/new-macbook-air-hits-the-streets/1130923/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/10/air-unbox-006_thumbnail.jpg" alt=""
title="" //a/divstrongbr //strongpa
href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/01/macbook-air-rev-b-mini-review/" rel="bookmark"Continue
reading emMacBook Air Rev. B mini-review/em/a/ppFiled under: a
href="http://www.engadget.com/category/laptops/" rel="tag"Laptops/a/pp
style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a
href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/01/macbook-air-rev-b-mini-review/"MacBook Air Rev. B
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We've spent a bit of quality time with the new
MacBook Air, and while there's little on the surface to denote a change, Apple did quite a bit
under the hood to turn this into a serious laptop -- of sorts. Full disclosure: we (meaning a
certain Paul Miller, specifically) have been using a Rev. A MacBook Air for the better part of a
year as a primary machine, to very much frustration, so we had some pretty big bones to pick with
whatever revision Apple might toss into our laps. Luckily, our fears were unfounded; read on for
all the gory, romantic details.
Pretty much every tech source out there is reporting that the
merger between Sprint’s XOHM WiMax service and Clearwire has been finalized with $3.2 Billion
in funding coming from Google, Comcast, Intel, Time Warner and Bright House Networks. What a
coincidence… Comcast has failed me miserably in the past week and today I purchased a XOHM
Wireless USB connection.
This past Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I woke up early to write a couple articles for
phandroid. A sigh of WTF billowed out as I could not connect to the internet. Repair network -
nothing. Restart computer? nothing. Reset my modem, router and computer? Nada. Zilch. Zero.
So I call customer service and after 1 hour on the line? Nothing. Well that’s not completely
true… they scheduled a technician to come out today (Monday) 5 days later. Luckily I have a
few alternative places I can “stay” and access the Internet… so a trip it
was!
I came back this morning to find that:
My roomate rescheduled the appointment for Sunday
They never came
My roomate called and they rescheduled for Tuesday
So that left me here, on Monday, without access to Internet. Sure, I could have
packed my bags and headed to a little cafe with WiFi. Or I could even make an hour or so drive to
one of the several friends/family who would take me in for the day/night so I could leech their
interwebs. But I have a bunch of packages on the way and need to be home for the next several
days to ensure they arrive.
But beyond that, I was sick of the uncertainty. This could happen at any given time - Comcast
could just POOF go out - and I could be left without a convenient internet connection for days
on end. And no, there aren’t any other WiFi signals I can pick up from my house that
aren’t painfully slow.
I took a quick drive to BestBuy and grabbed a XOHM USB hub for $60, came home, installed the
software, paid for 24 hours service for $5 and within 10 minutes I had a blazing fast
connection to the internet. A blazing fast connection that for all intents ans purposes,
can’t go down.
I know I’m opening up the door to* all sorts of agruments in the comments, but I’m
simplifying the facts. The point is, even if XOHM service WERE to go down it would get back up
and running MUCH faster. Because they are more than likely fixing a tower rather than having to
set up an individual schedule to fix my personal problem.
Comcast is scheduled to come tomorrow between 7am and 10am at which point they’ll either
fix the problem or diagnose the problem and schedule another ridiculous time several days into
the future that they plan on fixing it. If the latter happens, I’ll probably tell them to
take a hike and just start using XOHM full-time.
XOHM packages are both unique and awesome, if you ask me. You can get 24 hour web access for $5
or a month of web access for $30. The best part? No contracts! Just pay by the month! I’m
lucky to be in Baltimore where XOHM made its debut and I’m happy it did. XOHM was a
lifesaver for me today and it will probably save me again tomorrow when Comcast shows their
incompetence yet again. In fact, many people I know locally are switching their Internet/TV
service to Verizon.
And this is where the story comes full circle. Tomorrow, I might be leaving Comcast to use XOHM
full time. But XOHM was part of Sprint and the service will be renamed Clear under the new
company, Clearwire. The same Clearwire that was just approved for $3.2 Billion in
financing… $1 Billion of which comes from Comcast.
So is this a case of “The Grass Is Always Greener Between The Two Fences Which is
Partially Owned By Numerous Neighbors?” You betchya… and that is the main problem
that Clearwire will have if you ask me. There are many stakeholders in Clearwire that have
priorities and interests pulling in different directions. If execs in these companies sit on
the Clearwire board or hold prominent positions in the company, there will be a tremendous
conflict of interest that could create huge problems.
Myself, I’m sure along with many reading this article now, would love to see
XOHM/WiMax/Clear used to conjunction with mobile devices, like an Android Phone, to support
tremendous growth in mobile web speed and capabilities. Officials at Comcast and Time Warner
likely have other ideas in mind. You can spin it however you want but the fact is that
resources are never unlimited and at some point, decisions on how and where to use those
resources must be made.
If one were looking at this in the most optimistic of manners than the investment is an
insurance policy purchased by the investors. They’ll have a stake in a possible industry
juggernaut moving forward and regardless of how their own company performs, Clearwire will
provide some balance and diversity depending on which direction the tech sector heads
next… its often hard to tell.
But lets not be naive. Do you think for a second that these huge companies with enormous power
not only within their industry but within the world are just going to plop down hunderds of
millions of dollars, pat Clearwire on the back and say, “go out and play?”
Not a chance. They’re going to keep an eye on their investment and make sure the company
is being managed properly. And what Comcast or Time Warner views as “properly”
could differ greatly from what Google views as “properly”.
That’s one way to look at it. The pessimistic way to look at it. But you could also look
at Clearwire as more of a “meeting of the minds” where the best ideas and actions
will be discussed by these various stakeholders and the CEO of Clearwire will attempt to do
what is best for the company and its investors moving forward. Sound familiar?
It reminded me a lot of what Barack Obama said today as he announced more members of his
cabinet including Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:“I assembled this team because I
am a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions,” he said.
“I think that’s how the best decisions are made. One of the dangers in a White
House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in group-think and everybody
agrees with everything and there’s no discussion and there are no dissenting views. So I
am going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.”
And if this Obamian perspective is to be believed, then Clearwire CEO Benjamin C. Wolff had
better be prepared to be a strong, visionary leader.
So as I sit here writing this article with my little XOHM USB plugged in, I am quite literally
wondering if I am looking at my solution for today’s problem or if another industry
powerhouse is being created before our eyes. Unfortunately, the answer is anything but
Clear.
[Via Clearwire PR]
Two separate stories in the NY Times provide fodder for those who view Google as the new scary
borg. The first, looks at a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=2#038;pagewanted=all"
target="_new"Google's sometimes slippery slope role as a "gatekeeper" of information/a within
certain countries. For example, it looks at Google's a
href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070406/135305.shtml"agreement/a to help block access to
certain YouTube videos in Thailand and similar decisions in other countries. The article plays up
Google's reluctance to be involved in making these sorts of decisions (and highlights how the
company hopes that more countries learn to accept free speech a bit more), but it still leaves you
with this questionable feeling of Google as quasi-government censor. No matter how well-meaning the
people may be who are making the decisions, it still ifeels/i questionable. br /br / The second
article isn't just about Google, but talks about how, with various online services, a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30privacy.html?partner=rss#038;emc=rss#038;pagewanted=all"
target="_new"many people are effectively giving up their privacy/a. This is hardly a new topic, and
it's one that's been discussed repeatedly -- often with a nod to the famous Scott McNealy a
href="http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1999/01/17538"quote/a from almost a decade ago: "You
have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." The article touches on a lot more than just Google, but
does mention the fact that Google seems to have access to all sorts of data that, when clumped
together, could be seen as a violation of privacy for some. br /br / Between the two stories, you
can see why there's a growing sense of worry among some about how Google could become dangerous. It
has access to all sorts of data about you -- and has the power to make decisions about what you can
access, often with no explanation or recourse. Put that together, and you get this picture of
Google as the benevolent dictator of the internet -- where it may be using its powers (mostly) for
good, but there's plenty of potential that eventually it could turn evil. And, to some extent, it's
worth highlighting these issues, so that people don't become complacent about Google's actions.
But, there's an undercurrent to these stories that seem to miss out on a few things: if Google
really does start abusing either of these "powers," unlike with a dictator, people have pretty easy
choices to go elsewhere. Furthermore, as more concerns are raised about any potential abuse, people
are rapidly working on technologies that solve both issues -- allowing people to surf the internet
much more anonymously, while also routing around censorship. So, while it's not problematic to
highlight these potential issues with Google, that doesn't mean that there aren't necessary checks
and balances in place.br /br /a
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The tech blogosphere takes pride in its canny ability to leak information about upcoming devices
and announcements before the company themselves make the information “officially
official”. But execs at Nokia say their countdown clock (which runs out soon) is counting down to a huge announcement that
nobody on the internet has yet predicted, leaked or anything else.
You can be pretty confident it isn’t the Nokia touchscreen XpressMusic phone because that has
been leaked on more times than a portipot at Preakness. Apple and Android have their sight set on
taking over the mobile industry and Nokia, whose Symbian OS is currently the market leader,
doesn’t want to let that happen. So what will they announce?
For all the supposed “bragging” that Nokia execs are doing, it better be something
good. We can be pretty sure it isn’t an Android based phone since Nokia owns Symbian, which
competes directly with Android’s Linux based OS. But if somehow, some way it WERE an Android
Phone… what are the chances it would be made available on Verizon Wireless? There you have
it… the LEAST likely scenario… Nokia announces an Android Phone on Verizon
Wireless.
But in all seriousness, most phandroids out there are also just mobile and tech enthusiasts in
general and we’re curious to hear your predictions… what does Nokia have prepared to
announce?
Will it be a phone or other hardware? Will it be about developments in the Symbian platform? Will
it be a contest announcement and SDK of some sorts like the Android Developer’s Challenge? Or
will it be something else altogether?
[Via Mobile Roar]
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
Silly us
X-Files fans trying to rationalize why The X-Files: I Want to Believe crashed and
burned so badly this summer. It was too thoughtful! Too character-driven! Too focused on giving
fans emotional closure, and not enough on slam-bang summer excitement! Long-time franchise producer
Pretty much every tech source out there is reporting that the
merger between Sprint’s XOHM WiMax service and Clearwire has been finalized with $3.2 Billion
in funding coming from Google, Comcast, Intel, Time Warner and Bright House Networks. What a
coincidence… Comcast has failed me miserably in the past week and today I purchased a XOHM
Wireless USB connection.
