You guys may have seen our many previous reviews of long range plane-mounted tactical laser cannons, but let’s be honest: none have really lived up to the hype. Like Ultra HD or mobile TV, long range plane-mounted tactical laser cannons have just been impractical and difficult to recommend — until now. This latest long range plane-mounted tactical laser cannon being promoted by the US Air Force and Boeing is supposed to produce the heat of a blowtorch at a distance of 20km, or 12 miles in primitive continental units. It mounts on the compact and popular C-130 Hercules and is so effective and untraceable that it will be used in situations that require “plausible deniability,” as in “How do you know it wasn’t someone else’s long range plane-mounted tactical laser cannon.” Could this be the freaking long range plane-mounted tactical laser cannon that breaks through into the popular market? And to think that such a short time ago, spray-on laser shielding seemed like such a luxury. Don’t worry just yet though, the Directed Energy Directorate (DED) is still about $400 million away from making a home model. → Read More
I found this arresting chart on Swivel. It plots the number of bloggers who have been incarcerated over the past few years, based on data collected by the World Information Access project. The number of incidents it tracks went from five arrests in 2003 to 35 last year. As blogging expands internationally, so do the risk of speaking one’s mind. (Something many of us take for granted). Most of those arrests are in countries with oppressive regimes, such as Egypt, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. But bloggers have been arrested in Canada, France, Greece, and even the U.S. (with Josh Wolf being one of the most famous incidents—he spent the better part of a year in jail for refusing to turn over journalistic video footage to a grand jury). A few involve cases of alleged terrorism or pedophilia, but the majority involve some form of political speech. Some typical examples: Reza Valizadeh (Iran; November, 2007). “For revealing Iranian president’s overpriced dogs that his security team uses.” Charles Leblanc (Canada; June, 2006): “For taking pictures at a conference for his blog.” Josh Wolf (USA; August, 2006): “For videotaping a burning police car.” Hu Jia (China; December, 2007): “For posting his vocal critiques of human rights abuses and environmental degradation in China and calling the Olympics a ‘human rights disaster.’” Reza Valizadeh (Iran; November, 2007): “For revealing Iranian president’s overpriced dogs that his security team uses.” Nay Phone Latt (Burma; January, 2008): “For posting pictures of monks and people demonstrating on the streets.” I’ve uploaded a spreadsheet with the names of all 64 arrested bloggers tracked by the WIA that includes their country, date of arrest, and reason for arrest. These do not include people arrested for impersonating someone else on Facebook or unfortunate enough to be beaten to death during an arrest. → Read More
Facebook will tweak the user profile sometime tonight to let users fine tune the news items delivered to them on their home page. Currently users can filter news items to see top items, status updates, new photos and posted items from friends. With the changes, users can opt to see application-specific news items (events, movies, Causes, etc.) or just see all news items without any filtering at all. Specific friends or friend groups can also be selected. The importance of the news feed as a fresh content engine that brings users back over and over again each day isn’t lost on Facebook. They were the first major service to popularize the idea of a stream of news about a person, and haven’t been afraid to borrow good ideas along the way to make the product more compelling. Now if we could just get a RSS feed of all those streams out of Facebook, they’d cement themselves as the permanent hub of all that data. CrunchBase Information Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Just got in from a long drive and only now got a chance to pick a few winners for our first day’s drawing. Look forward to more amazing stuff tomorrow, though, readers. Why? Because we wuv you. Solio – Kyle Phil Havens – Dash Express Diane McCarthy – Optio A10 Nathan Hoover via Twitter – My Passport Essential USB drive 250 GB → Read More
When reception is low, the first one up on the ranter’s chopping block tends to be the carrier. Such is the case for AT&T; since the iPhone 3Gs launch, much flack has been sent their way over lackluster 3G signal, slow speeds, and dropped calls on the device. Thing is, AT&T doesn’t seem to be the one we should be pointing a finger at. Complaints of poor 3G reception have been ringing in from users around the globe, on a multitude of carriers. Pop your SIM card into another 3G device. If you have the same experience we had, your signal oughtta notably improve. That eliminates the signal output as the source of the problem, leaving only that which lays on the input side of the equation: the hardware itself, the software running within, or a combination of both. After seeing a small improvement in 3G signal following the 2.0.1 update, I’m hedging a hopeful bet on it being an issue fixable via software updates. → Read More
Fire Eagle, Yahoo’s platform built specifically for storing/broadcasting your current location, opened its doors to the public today. For the first time, any joe off the street can check out what Fire Eagle has to offer. Lets take a lo.. wait a second. I’ve seen this layout before. Rolling green hills populated with round-cornered buildings and perfectly circular trees, hovering above center oriented, round-cornered blocks. (Correction made to post – see bottom) It’s the Twitterfone layout, but with less cars and hazier skies. Did the Twitterfone designer get hired for a second job and decide to stick with what they know, or is someone just taking the sincerest form of flattery to an extreme? Correction: Looks like I got my dates mixed up. Fire Eagle has apparently had this layout for quite some time – it just went over my head until now. Shows me for posting at the tail end of a long day. I’ll go dig to see where the hills first rolled – In the mean time, I owe everyone involved a beer. I’ll go ahead and leave this up to remind myself not to make stupid mistakes. → Read More
I’ve been saying this a lot this year: it’s a good time to be in the market for a video card! NVIDIA and AMD are firing volley after volley of significant improvements and price reductions. Although NVIDIA’s on-GPU physics processing is compelling, AMD’s new 4870 X2 (essentially two of the impressive 4870 cards stuck together) provides an insane amount of power for the cost. If one 4870 made NVIDIA drop their prices by hundreds, what will two do? → Read More
Today’s Top Posts: Lenovo unveils behemoth mobile workstation, W700 Video: Pac Man: The Movie 10 Days of CrunchGear: Two Boulders Daily Crunch: Pac Bad Edition Thinking of getting a Mac? Wait till September Japan advances in the development of “perfect” humanoids Dell — The New Latitudes — Live from SFMOMA Oh wow, Verizon Wireless finally has visual voice mail AMD taking the bullet train to Splitsville? 10 Days of CrunchGear: Der SlingenBoxen → Read More
Provider of 1-to-1 web personalization solutions Magnify360 has announced $2.5 million of first round funding from MHS Capital. CEO Olivier Chaine stated that the funding will be used to attain the resources and capital necessary for the company to expand and establish itself in the growing industry. The product can best be described as a web-based behavioral targeting platform. As a visitor browses a company’s site, information like the time of day, browser being used, clicking locations, and other forms of behavioral data are gathered. The system processes this data based on a predictive model, develops a profile for the user, and determines where they are on the buying cycle. With this information page content is displayed in a way that has received positive responses from users of a similar profile. In the end, users are more effectively engaged, leading to higher conversion rates and sales. The key is segmentation of the user base and delivering results in real time. This allows the system to engage each individual user, and in turn provides valuable demographic information about a company or blog’s user base. Magnify360 hopes this will differentiate them from Omniture and the many other contenders in the industry. This investment marks the second investment in the space in the last week, following Marketo’s round of funding on August 8th. CrunchBase Information Magnify360 Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=38234 Mega Man 9′s step back to the golden days is exactly what the series needs. Seriously. It has been years since I’ve been this excited about getting frustrated and throwing my controller at the wall. Sneak peaks at two of the game’s levels showed up online today, along with the opening cinematic shown above. Though they’re only a few minutes in length, the videos gives the impression that this one is going to be stupidly hard – just as it should be. → Read More
Dare Obasanjo does a good job of gathering together the sad sack stories of a number of startup acquisitions. The rule of thumb he suggests is that rewriting in the acquirer’s technology base destroys the confidence of the startup’s developers, who trigger a cascading loss of faith by users as the founders abandon the company. He cites Fred Wilson’s frank assessment of his Union Square Ventures’ delicious, FeedBurner, and TACODA’s fates as support. Coming as this does from the point of view of the acquired, both posts don’t take into account the motives of the acquirer – in these cases Yahoo, Google, and AOL. Yahoo bought delicious at a signal point in the Web 2.0 bubble, when the startup’s street cred with developers was significantly enhanced by the purchase. At the time, Yahoo executives and even members of the delicious investor pool openly talked of the lack of business model or in fact concern that there was no such animal. This was in fact a momentum buy. If there was something to the first rumblings of social media, then delicious would eventually provide a useful clue or at the very least a leg up on continuing to attract other early thought leaders such as the far more successful Flickr acquisition some 9 months earlier. And then there’s the other big reason for many of these types of acquisitions: taking intellectual property off the table and out of the hands of competitors who might be able to react more quickly with a better match of technology platform or people fit. But what Obasanjo and Wilson may be onto is the possibility that so much of what we’re seeing right now is governed by the dynamic of a zero sum game. delicious may be losing its user base because of a mismatch of code base and the ability to innovate through a transition, or it may be obsoleted by disruptors including Facebook, FriendFeed, and Twitter. Facebook users get a bigger bang for their bookmark buck by sharing their links via a toolbar (ironically pioneered by delicious user Jon Udell), or by sucking their delicious feed into FriendFeed where it becomes submerged in the aggregation of similar signals including Tweets and Google Reader shares. Fred Wilson sees no growth in Feedburner’s publisher business, but Google immediately gets the benefit of swallowing the startup’s feed splicing services, an early take on what FriendFeed has → Read More
Photo Source: Flickr American households aren’t hook’n up to broadband access like they used to says Wired. The adoption rate here in the States is at a seven year low and it seems that prices are to blame. With $4 gas and Ramen Noodle dinners, high-speed access mustn’t feel like a necessity anymore. So what’s a struggling provider to do? How about dropping the price a bit. We don’t think anyone would complain about a price break and it might even improve some of the provider’s image a bit. After all, something tells us that if Comcast can install a 25-foot by 83-foot HD LED video wall in their brand new 57-story skyscraper, at least that company can afford to drop ma and pa’s internet price. → Read More
TheFunded, the site that lets startup founders leave anonymous reports on VCs they’ve encountered, has been issued a subpoena by a small Michigan based VC firm called EDF Ventures. The firm is apparently going after an anonymous user who posted the following on TheFunded on October 12, 2007: “Worked with these people on several deals and they are to be avoided unless you are desperate. Beaus Laskey, the only honest straightforward person in the bunch, has left the firm.’” TheFunded’s founder Adeo Ressi responds: The anonymity promised by Membership in TheFunded has been confirmed by leading programmers and by corporate counsel. Should EDF Ventures proceed with their request to subpoena records surrounding a post titled, ‘Avoid,’ TheFunded is certain that the anonymity of ‘John Doe’ will be now proven in a court of law. When TheFunded was conceived, we understood that some investors might attempt to take legal action against the views of entrepreneurs. In order to prevent this form of censorship, TheFunded has been carefully designed and takes extensive measures to protect the anonymity all those who share their opinions on the fundraising experience. TheFunded does not store IP addresses, email addresses, or any other personal information associated with a Member account in any database or any file system operated by the company. For every CEO that shares an experience, there are nine others who are hesitant. The worst stories of investor abuse remain untold, and TheFunded hopes that this test of Member anonymity will help open up floodgate. The Founding Member, Adeo Ressi There are a lot of VCs who hate TheFunded for exposing character flaws, and posting term sheets. Earlier this year someone launched a parody site called The UnFunded (since taken down) that allowed VC’s to rate the “clueless” founders who wandered into their offices. But taking legal action, especially against such a minor “offense”, is extreme. CrunchBase Information The Funded Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Microsoft is rolling out the Surface into a bunch of Sheraton Hotel lobbies tomorrow. Unfortunately, it’s not the Surface Sphere, but from what I saw back in June, the flat one should be quite enough to keep people’s attention. It’s free to use and of course free to look, so stop by a lobby tomorrow on your lunch break and give the thing a touch. If you haven’t seen enough video of the thing yet, here’s some Microsoft marketing for you. Update: Click below to see if your city is included in the rollout. (it’s kinda limited) → Read More
No, that’s not my opinion. I’m looking forward to both, but this guy from Variety thinks that Mirror’s Edge is gimmicky — “a hot chick in the future who does parkour” — and talks up Fable 2 like it’s, well, what everybody wanted Fable to be. We’ll see. I think Mirror’s Edge has a great team behind it, and despite the hype (I remember reading about it in Edge like 2 years ago) I think it will actually have a unique feel and look, and my actually be fun and different. I’m looking forward to Fable 2 as well, but Fable was disappointing and its sequel has some fundamental problems to overcome. Anyhow, it’s good to hear discussion of E3 other than people saying “God, E3 sucked this year!” Chill out people, it’s about the games! → Read More
Notebook computers are starting to outnumber desktops in many schools and work settings. Keeping these laptops charged and ready to go can be a real challenge for a lot of IT people. The problem is more common in the schools, since students could lose or forget their power cords. To solve this problem some teachers or IT peeps may consider Oncore’s 6-Bay Battery Charger for Apple notebooks the solution.It’ll charge 3 batteries simultaneously and keep up to six charged and ready for action. Not only will it work with the new Macbooks, it will also work for older iBooks. Guess that “dog ate my battery” excuse won’t work any more. Curses! → Read More
Instead of being stuck behind some A-hole driving 20 miles per hour under the speed limit while talking on his cell phone, you’ll soon be stuck behind a very similar A-hole trying to balance a laptop on his dashboard. According to Twice.com, Chrysler’s parts division will begin selling “a Mopar car cellular/Wi-Fi hot spot, expected to be the first of many Internet offerings from the car companies” starting August 25th. The hotspot device will be compatible with all 2009 Chrysler vehicles and certain earlier-year models. Customers will be able to order new cars with the device installed or bring compatible cars into Chrysler dealerships to have it retrofitted. The router will cost $499 and will grab EVDO signals as well as WiMAX signals. The CEO of Autonet Mobile, the company that supplies the device to Chrysler, says that the router can be converted for use on all cellular networks. I’m assuming since Chrysler’s pushing EVDO, this will either be a Sprint or Verizon affair. Interestingly, the monthly service charge will only be $29. That actually seems reasonable. Again, the device itself costs half a grand and you’ll need to fork over $35 to $50 for installation, followed by a $35 activation fee. The service will be sold by Chrysler as “Uconnect Web” starting at the end of the month. → Read More
