Cisco Systems Inc. Friday said it would buy Jabber Inc., a maker of instant-messaging software for corporations.

Even as home sales remain in a prolonged skid, there’s something of a Gold Rush to develop software and Web sites designed to turn mobile phones into divining rods for real estate listings and neighborhood information.

Clinical software maker Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc. said Friday it signed a deal to sell its Physicians Interactive unit to a fund managed by private-equity firm Perseus LLC.

Apple Inc. on Friday advised iPhone 3G users in many countries to replace the device’s power adapter following reports that metal prongs broke off and stuck in power outlets, creating a risk of electric shock. Apple said it will exchange the ultra-compact USB…

If the nation’s largest cable TV operators have their way, the home digital video recorder could soon become a relic. Leading the way is Cablevision Systems Corp., which plans to roll out a system in early 2009 that will let viewers record any show without a…

Seinfeld out the door in ads for Windows Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is gone from the enigmatic Microsoft ads, just as we were getting used to him. Microsoft officials said the move is all part of their grand plan to get people talking about Windows. To make sure…

Oracle Corp. said Thursday its fiscal first-quarter profit jumped 28 percent, beating Wall Street’s expectations, as software sales stayed steady despite turmoil in the U.S. economy. The business software maker’s net income for the three months that ended…

Palm Inc., maker of the Treo and Centro smart phones, said Thursday its fiscal first-quarter net loss widened, but overall results were better than what Wall Street had expected. For the three months ended Aug. 31, the Sunnyvale company posted a net loss…

Yahoo has started testing a new design for its home page on randomly selected users as part of a company-wide strategy to emphasize third-party content on its sites. The new design, the company’s first in two years, “will bring the things that matter most to…

Details emerged Thursday behind the break-in of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s e-mail account, including a first-hand account suggesting it was vulnerable because a hacker was able to impersonate her online to obtain her password. The…

Wireless carriers have taken over from wired phone companies as a stable investment in a poor economy, the chief executive of regional carrier MetroPCS Communications Inc. told analysts Thursday. “I think one thing that has been proven is that wireless is a…

Buy a CD or DVD, and it should work on a variety of devices and personal computers. Buy the same music or movie online, and you’re on your own: Songs bought at Apple Inc.’s iTunes will generally work only with Apple products like the iPod, while many movies…

Hearst Corp. announced Wednesday that Mark Adkins, senior vice president of advertising for Hearst Newspapers, has been named president of the San Francisco Chronicle and its online home, SFGate.com. The announcement was made jointly by George B. Irish,…

Amazon has acquired twelve year old Canadian company Abebooks (formerly the Advanced Book Exchange), the companies just announced. AbeBooks is an online marketplace for books focusing on used, rare and out of print titles for sale by independent booksellers – it currently has 110 million books for sale from 13,500 sellers.

Sascha at PCMag writes a charming little piece on the death of Usenet as a method of discourse and its eventual rebirth as a repository for porn, spam, and pirated warez. He recalls the days of “serious conversations” on 8-bit Atari architecture and the rise and fall of net.manners as more and more n00bs came on to mess up in-depth threads on symbolism in Bob Dylan’s Street Legal.

Is Usenet dead, as Sascha posits? I don’t think so. As long as there are folks who thing a command line is better than a mouse, the original text-only social network will live on. Sure, ISPs will shut down access out of mislaid kiddie porn fears but the real pros know where to go to get their angst-filled, nit-picking, obsessive fix.

In a way inconceivable in today’s Web-fragmented marketplace, Usenet was where you went to talk. Conceived back in the idealistic, non-profit days of the Internet, it was—well, it is, but it mostly was—a series of bulletin boards called “newsgroups” shared by thousands of computers, which traded new messages several times a day.

Read more…

Throw out that WAP browser on your cell phone. We are quickly approaching a point where a full browser experience is available on our mobile devices. And it is not just the iPhone. A startup called Skyfire is in some respect even further along than Apple in bringing the entire Web to your phone. Its mobile browser lets you slide Web pages around and zoom in like with the mobile version of Safari. But it also supports Flash and Ajax sites. (It does this by offloading most of the heavy lifting to its servers rather than the mobile client). That means you can watch Youtube videos and go to Google Maps right in the mobile browser instead of having to download separate apps. In contrast, the iPhone’s Safari browser still does not support Flash and so to watch a a video you have to launch the separate Youtube app.

As it becomes possible to do more and more inside the mobile browser itself, it raises the question of whether that indeed is the killer app for mobile Web phones. For the most part, you still get a richer experience by downloading a separate single-purpose app to your phone. But efforts like Skyfire’s point to a future where that may no longer be necessary for all but the most sophisticated apps and games.

Yahoo is making a number of changes to its default search experience tonight to add more structured data to results. Yelp, Yahoo Local and LinkedIn SearchMonkey widgets are being added to search results automatically, eliminating the need for users to go into the search gallery and add them manually.

SearchMonkey is a key part of Yahoo’s attempts to embrace the semantic web and open standards in general.

With SearchMonkey, site owners create “applications” for Yahoo search that can be installed by users in the same sense that Facebook applications can be installed. Each application modifies results for a certain URL specification (for example, all reference pages on Wikipedia or product pages on Amazon). Modifications include both changes to the basic elements of a search result (the title and description) and additions such as an image, deep links, and key/value pairs.

Users can also add additional widgets via the Yahoo Search Gallery.

Here’s the Yelp search result example we used in our first post about SearchMonkey:

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Macrumors reports that Apple’s App Store was selling a tethering app compatible with the iPhone (both 3G and EDGE) for a brief period earlier this evening. The $10 application, called NetShare, was developed by Nullriver software, and would be a godsend for many iPhone owners. After going up around 8PM EST to the elation of a lucky few, the application was pulled down around 20 minutes later.

Phone tethering allows users to access the internet from their laptop computers wherever they get service on their cellphone carrier’s data network. The feature is common on many phones with high speed (namely 3G) data access, and has been noticeably absent from iPhones. While 3G is typically slower than most Wi-Fi access points, having internet connectivity on the go is a huge plus for many people – enough so that many carriers charge on the order of $30 a month to enable it.

Tapulous, the company behind Tap Tap Revenge, has announced that the popular iPhone app will hit 1 million installs some time this weekend. The app is the second we’ve heard from to hit the milestone (Facebook reached it last week), and is another testament to the extremely rapid growth some applications have seen on Apple’s newly launched App Store.

Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem says that the application has been downloaded about 900 thousand times since its launch, and expects to hit the 1 million user milestone over the weekend. Tapulous’s iPhone Twitter client Twinkle is significantly less popular, with around 80,000 installs, but it was released after Tap Tap Revenge. Decrem notes that there is a total install base of about 5-6 million iPhones and iPod Touches running the 2.0 firmware (which is compatible with the App Store). With about 1 million downloads, this puts Tapulous applications on around 20% of all devices – a very impressive feat.

Move over, Al Gore. You may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain helped create the BlackBerry.

At least that’s the contention of a top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain’s work as a senator, he told reporters Tuesday, "You’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create."

Read actual article

Shares of PC makers headed mostly lower Tuesday along with the broader market, after computer company Dell Inc. warned it is seeing weaker information technology demand around the world.

The answer to many of our security problems could be found in chips that are used to store credentials and user certificates says Wave Systems CEO Steven Sprague.

A memo from the US Department of Homeland Security has recommended that corporate and government leaders do not travel with mobile equipment carrying sensitive information.

Canonical’s CEO Mark Shuttleworth has explained the presence of a Firefox 3.0 end-user license agreement in Intrepid Ibex, following developer complaints.

A senior program manager at Microsoft claims that Google took some open-source code from Microsoft and used it in their Chrome browser. And it’s perfectly legal.

Japan’s NEC Electronics, the world’s No.12 chipmaker, said on Thursday it would team up with IBM and others on next-generation microchips in a bid to beat mounting development costs.

Setting out the roles of the two hypervisors it is working on, Red Hat has predicted virtualization will be included in all operating systems for free

A federal judge in San Jose has given preliminary approval to a $14 million settlement of shareholder claims over backdating of stock options against current and former Apple executives.

Amazon has acquired twelve year old Canadian company Abebooks (formerly the Advanced Book Exchange), the companies just announced. AbeBooks is an online marketplace for books focusing on used, rare and out of print titles for sale by independent booksellers – it currently has 110 million books for sale from 13,500 sellers.

The company has been around since 1996 and fills a niche for Amazon in hard-to-find or out-of-print books. Rather than hold its own inventory, it acts as a digital marketplace for established booksellers.

AbeBooks also owns 40 percent of LibraryThing (a social app for keeping track of your books and finding other like-minded book lovers). Whereas Amazon is an investor in Shelfari. Now Amazon will own a piece of both of those competing startups.

AbeBooks CEO Dr. Hannes Blum sent an email out to its booksellers today talking about the acquisition, saying the company would continue to operate as a stand-alone business. The email is below; the press release is here.

Dear Booksellers,

AbeBooks has reached an agreement to be acquired by Amazon.com, Inc. This is a major landmark in the 12-year history of AbeBooks.

AbeBooks will continue to operate as a stand-alone business with all aspects of AbeBooks’ bookseller and customer experience remaining intact. AbeBooks’ headquarters will remain in Victoria, BC, Canada, and our European offices will remain in Dusseldorf, Germany. We will continue to support both our international marketplaces and our domestic marketplace here in Canada. I will continue to lead AbeBooks.

We expect this change to allow AbeBooks to expand its offerings and introduce new features and services to enhance the book buying and selling experience. Amazon is committed to further developing the AbeBooks brand and building upon the success of the past 12 years. This is not the first time AbeBooks has changed hands since being launched in 1996. Hubert Burda Media, a German media company, took a majority shareholding in 2003.

The bookselling community has been a vital component in our success, and we are grateful for your continuing support. We will be happy to answer questions about our new ownership and what the future holds. A bookseller Roundtable will be held on Thursday August 7th at 2:30pm PDT/9:30pm GMT/7:30am AU where I and the Director of Sales & Account Management, Shaun Jamieson, will answer any questions you might have. In addition, the ‘Ask AbeBooks a question’ folder will continue to be available for ongoing questions from the seller community.

We realize this is important news for our community, and we are confident that this acquisition will greatly benefit AbeBooks’ sellers and provide us with many opportunities for future growth.

For more details please see the official release posted today.

Regards,

Dr. Hannes Blum
President and CEO
AbeBooks

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

Throw out that WAP browser on your cell phone. We are quickly approaching a point where a full browser experience is available on our mobile devices. And it is not just the iPhone. A startup called Skyfire is in some respect even further along than Apple in bringing the entire Web to your phone. Its mobile browser lets you slide Web pages around and zoom in like with the mobile version of Safari. But it also supports Flash and Ajax sites. (It does this by offloading most of the heavy lifting to its servers rather than the mobile client). That means you can watch Youtube videos and go to Google Maps right in the mobile browser instead of having to download separate apps. In contrast, the iPhone’s Safari browser still does not support Flash and so to watch a a video you have to launch the separate Youtube app.

As it becomes possible to do more and more inside the mobile browser itself, it raises the question of whether that indeed is the killer app for mobile Web phones. For the most part, you still get a richer experience by downloading a separate single-purpose app to your phone. But efforts like Skyfire’s point to a future where that may no longer be necessary for all but the most sophisticated apps and games.

Skyfire launched on Windows Mobile, but as of today it is also available in a private beta for Nokia phones running Symbian’s S60 operating system. The first 200 TechCrunch readers to sign up for the beta here will get invites (enter invite code: Tcrunch).

I just tried it on a Nokia N95, and watching video in the browser looks great as long as you are connected via WiFi. As 3G networks become a reality, that should change (although I am supposedly on AT&T’s 3G network in New York City, and videos take so long to load that they are basically unwatchable at this point). And I still prefer the speed of the Safari browser overall in terms of responsiveness. But for other mobile platforms, Skyfire is going to give mobile browsers like Opera’s a run for their money. And if Apple ever actually allows another browser on the iPhone, it could add some much needed competition there as well.

The company recently raised $13 million in a series B round from Lightspeed, Matrix, and Trinity. Below is a video demo of Skyfire on Windows Mobile:

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Yahoo is making a number of changes to its default search experience tonight to add more structured data to results. Yelp, Yahoo Local and LinkedIn SearchMonkey widgets are being added to search results automatically, eliminating the need for users to go into the search gallery and add them manually.

SearchMonkey is a key part of Yahoo’s attempts to embrace the semantic web and open standards in general.

With SearchMonkey, site owners create “applications” for Yahoo search that can be installed by users in the same sense that Facebook applications can be installed. Each application modifies results for a certain URL specification (for example, all reference pages on Wikipedia or product pages on Amazon). Modifications include both changes to the basic elements of a search result (the title and description) and additions such as an image, deep links, and key/value pairs.

Users can also add additional widgets via the Yahoo Search Gallery.

Here’s the Yelp search result example we used in our first post about SearchMonkey:

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Macrumors reports that Apple’s App Store was selling a tethering app compatible with the iPhone (both 3G and EDGE) for a brief period earlier this evening. The $10 application, called NetShare, was developed by Nullriver software, and would be a godsend for many iPhone owners. After going up around 8PM EST to the elation of a lucky few, the application was pulled down around 20 minutes later.

Phone tethering allows users to access the internet from their laptop computers wherever they get service on their cellphone carrier’s data network. The feature is common on many phones with high speed (namely 3G) data access, and has been noticeably absent from iPhones. While 3G is typically slower than most Wi-Fi access points, having internet connectivity on the go is a huge plus for many people – enough so that many carriers charge on the order of $30 a month to enable it.

Users with jailbroken (hacked) iPhones have been able to enable tethering to their phones through a complicated process for some time, but such tethering is prohibited by AT&T’s terms of service. The release of NetShare seemed to indicate (albeit briefly) that AT&T had changed its mind on the matter.

Now, users who try to download the application are told that it is no longer available in their country. So what happened? The app may have snuck past Apple’s approval process – but with reported wait times of weeks (or months) it seems unlikely that anything appears there accidentally. Then again, Apple has been dealing with a massive influx of new applications – they may simply be overwhelmed and are getting sloppy.

It is also possible that the app was supposed to be limited to a few select countries, and was accidentally posted on the US store. Finally, AT&T may have really changed its mind, but it seems unlikely that they’d pass up the chance to tack one more fee on our data plans.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Tapulous, the company behind Tap Tap Revenge, has announced that the popular iPhone app will hit 1 million installs some time this weekend. The app is the second we’ve heard from to hit the milestone (Facebook reached it last week), and is another testament to the extremely rapid growth some applications have seen on Apple’s newly launched App Store.

Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem says that the application has been downloaded about 900 thousand times since its launch, and expects to hit the 1 million user milestone over the weekend. Tapulous’s iPhone Twitter client Twinkle is significantly less popular, with around 80,000 installs, but it was released after Tap Tap Revenge. Decrem notes that there is a total install base of about 5-6 million iPhones and iPod Touches running the 2.0 firmware (which is compatible with the App Store). With about 1 million downloads, this puts Tapulous applications on around 20% of all devices – a very impressive feat.

One of best features in the original version of the game (which was only available on hacked iPhones) was that users could create tab sheets and play the game with any song in their iPhone’s library. Unfortunately, Apple prohibits any developer from accessing the iPhone’s library with a native application, so Tapulous has been forced to come up with a different way to introduce new content to the game. For the time being they’re offering free downloads of new songs directly through the app, but these songs have all been submitted to the company by indie artists (impressively, 2.5 million songs have been downloaded so far).

As it turns out, a number of record labels have taken notice of Tap Tap Revenge’s quickly growing install base, and are eager to use it as a means of exposing users to new music. Decrem says that the company is in talks with both indie and more well known artists to create a premium package of songs, which will likely be released in the App Store as a separate game for a small fee. Subsequent packages will also likely be released as their own independent games, as Apple does not currently offer a way for developers to sell new content from within an application.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Katherine Graden doesn’t really like shoot-’em-up video games. She prefers games on her Wii system that test her fitness and agility — the ones her guy friends tease are her "sissy games."

Move over, Al Gore. You may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain helped create the BlackBerry.

An Illinois judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to halt Sprint Nextel Corp.’s plan to create a next-generation wireless network.

The answer to many of our security problems could be found in chips that are used to store credentials and user certificates says Wave Systems CEO Steven Sprague.

A memo from the US Department of Homeland Security has recommended that corporate and government leaders do not travel with mobile equipment carrying sensitive information.

Canonical, the leading backer of the Ubuntu version of Linux, is hiring a team to help make open-source software on the desktop more appealing and easier to use.

A senior program manager at Microsoft claims that Google took some open-source code from Microsoft and used it in their Chrome browser. And it’s perfectly legal.

Setting out the roles of the two hypervisors it is working on, Red Hat has predicted virtualization will be included in all operating systems for free

A federal judge in San Jose has given preliminary approval to a $14 million settlement of shareholder claims over backdating of stock options against current and former Apple executives.

The web is a geek traveler’s almanac. You can find all sorts of
travel information not available on your cheap tourist map. We’ll
show you how to prepare for you next trek by scouting out weather,
photos, terrain and communication all thanks to the magic of the
internet and handy gadgets.

:

Wired.com tracked down some great comic book-inspired tattoos at this year’s ComicCon in San Diego, but we suspected our readers could show us some mad ink. We were right. Check out our favorite comics-inspired tattoos submitted by you.

Quite a few of the entries were definitely geeky, but not necessarily comic related, so we decided to give them some net space at our Wired.com Readers’ Best Geek Tattoos gallery. Enjoy!

Left:

Comic Collection
Submitted by Anonymous

Photographer’s comment:

“This takes up a lot less space than the boxes of comics I used to lug around.”

:

Jean Grey as Phoenix
Submitted by Mindy C

Photographer’s comment:

“Got this beauty six months ago — it took two four-hour sessions. I still need to go in and have more shading added when I get the funding together. I plan on getting Rogue on my left arm, and Fray eventually. This was my third tattoo. ”

:

Super (Mario) Duper Tattoo
Submitted by Liz

Photographer’s comment:

“I went in to see Kevin Starai @ Deluxe Tattoo in Chicago almost two years ago with pictures and my own crappy drawings of what I wanted. ‘The bad dudes from Mario brothers.’ When I came back a month later to see his drawings, I almost pooped my pants. Even now when I wake up and see it every day, I almost poop my pants. I love it. “

:

Vissago’s Metroid
Submitted by Vissago

Photographer’s comment:

“I’ve wanted this tattoo for years and years. This was four sessions, each an hour in length.”

:

Marvel Zombies
Submitted by Greg Clarke

Photographer’s comment:

“Marvel Zombies Secret Wars cover, with some characters switched out.”

:

The Corinthian (from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman)
Submitted by Brian Dillard

Photographer’s comment:

“This is ‘The Corinthian’, the serial killer nightmare from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. It’s part of an entire Sandman sleeve mostly inked by Kevin Lytle of Eternal Tattoo in Livonia, Michigan. It was Kevin’s idea to surround him in a crown of leaves in which human eyeballs — his feast of choice — substitute for berries or flowers.”

:

Death and Life of Superman
Submitted by Rob Stevens

Photographer’s comment:

“Done after my divorce and for my 32nd birthday, symbolizes my love of the Superman character, as well as the transition from my old life to my new one. The kryptonian script above the tattoo is a word chosen to remind me that being alone doesn’t necessarily mean being lonely: Solitude.”

:

Godzilla & Co.
Submitted by Kyle Y

Photographer’s comment:

“The king of the monsters commanded nothing less than a full sleeve dedicated to himself and those giant rubber behemoths, and I obeyed. It took me seven years to complete it.”

:

Boba Fett
Submitted by tk7602

Photographer’s comment:

“The skull from Boba Fett’s shoulder armor in Return of the Jedi.”

:

Major Motoko Kusanagi
Submitted by Melissa

Photographer’s comment:

“I love anime, and what better way to show that then get a giant tattoo of my all-time anime goddess?”

:

Akira Tattoo
Submitted by Joe Peacock

Photographer’s comment:

“My Akira sleeve, based on the comic (not the movie). I started designing this when I was 16 years old. It’s changed a bit over the years, and once I found an artist who could do what I wanted, we got to work. This is the final result, depicting the moments after Akira awakens and nukes Neo-Tokyo.”

Last week, I took a look at interesting things technology can do with your remains once you’re too dead to care. This week I’m going to follow up with a slightly different set of post-mortem services. These are companies that claim to make your death as eco-friendly as possible.

Now, I always assumed that dying is already one of the nicest things you can do for the environment. Dead people rarely drive Humvees. They don’t purchase individually wrapped cheese slices. They probably use more than their fair share of air conditioning for the first couple days, but after that it’s green all the way, baby.

Alt Text Podcast

Download audio files and subscribe to the Alt Text podcast.

Well, apparently corpses just aren’t carbon-neutral enough, because a bunch of people are willing to take money from your estate to make sure that your remains are more environmentally friendly than a hand-assembled hemp chicken tractor.

Here are some of their brightest ideas.

Neptune Memorial Reef

Apparently when Luca Brasi went to sleep with the fishes, he was proving himself one eco-friendly mafioso. The Neptune Society will happily provide your ashes with a set of concrete galoshes by interring them in an artificial reef off the Miami coast. The reef in question is a neoclassical affair with arches and lions and butterfly thingies, giving the overall impression that a senior prom sank slowly beneath the waves, the cover band solemnly playing “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” with corsages and rented bow ties floating around their knees. So that’s pretty cool.

Natural Burial

This is pretty straightforward. Your unembalmed body gets interred in a biodegradable casket or shroud in a pesticide-free area planted with native flora. A few centuries ago this was just called “burial,” but now we need a special word for it. The modern innovation I most appreciate is that many natural cemeteries provide GPS coordinates in lieu of a gravestone, allowing you to pay your respects via Google Earth. Personally, I’m willing to go one step further and be buried in a cemetery that lets the coyotes and vultures have at me. What could be more eco-friendly than a scavenger buffet?

Ecopod

Even if you want to be buried in a traditional cemetery with stone angels, immaculate lawns and drunken goth teenagers, you can reduce your carbon death mask by being buried in a coffin made of post-consumer recycled material. (Particularly apt, given that you’re a post-consumer.) There are a lot of options here but my favorite is the Ecopod, a recycled newspaper coffin that looks like something Steve Jobs would crawl into, only to emerge later as a huge luna moth.

Promession

If you can put off dying for another year or two, you might be able to get in on the next big thing in Gaia-approved post-breathing services, a patented process called “promession.” Remember the one interesting day in junior high science class when the teacher brought in a canister of liquid nitrogen and proceeded to shatter a rose like safety glass? With promession, you are that rose. Rather than burning your body to ashes, this process freeze-dries you into person dust. Once powdered, you can decompose as you’ve never decomposed before, providing life-giving nutrients to a shrub or, if you’re feeling impish, some poison ivy.

Resomation

Like promession, Resomation is a new, science-infused process designed to emulate cremation without having to fire up the grill. According to the site, Resomation is basically decomposition on fast-forward, accomplished with chemicals rather than larvae and bacteria. I’m not sure the larvae and bacteria would consider it an improvement, but at least it doesn’t release harmful, Earth-choking emissions. Another listed benefit: “You can use it immediately first thing in the morning.” Now your surviving loved ones don’t have to miss yoga class!

- – -

Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a revenant, a reveler and a reverend.

:

From DNA to 80 digits (and counting) of pi, Wired.com readers take their geek tattoos pretty seriously.

We asked you to flash your decorated flesh, and you obliged with pictures of some pretty wild skin art. Now it’s time for the rest of the world to bask in your dermatological commitment to geekery.

Click through the gallery to see more ink inspired by science, computers and other geek obsessions.

Left:

Ctrl+Alt+Del
Submitted by Shahar

Photographer’s comment:

“Comes to show it’s that easy to reboot and start over.”

:

The Other Half of Rock
Submitted by Aaron Sarazan

Photographer’s comment:

“My brother and I got matching tattoos. He has a Guitar, with binary that says ‘Rock’ — I’ve got a D20 with ‘Roll.’”

:

Extra-Large DNA
Submitted by Brandon

Photographer’s comment:

“Seven years I’ve been working on this. Phase 1 is complete.”

:

Geek 4 Life
Submitted by Christopher Holmok

Photographer’s comment:

“I am a GEEK 4 LIFE, SUCKA!!!”

:

Pi Tattoo
Submitted by Drew

Photographer’s comment:

“Since tattoos were illegal in Oklahoma until only a couple of years ago, my friends and I made a tradition out of annual road trips for tattoos. Every time I can’t think of something new, I add some more digits to pi. It’s up to 80 digits.”

:

No More Hunting for Tape Measures
Submitted by Dave Selden

Photographer’s comment:

“As a woodworker-graphic designer, I use a tape measure or ruler almost every day. Now I have one always within arm’s reach. I use it for my work, but also my play. I measured some trout for length with it on a fishing trip to Mount Hood this weekend.”

:

Louder!
Submitted by Ben Casey

Photographer’s comment:

“I always wanted a musical tattoo, and the audio-out icon on my 266-Mhz G3 seemed more appropriate than a G clef.”

:

Bassoon Keywork on My Leg
Submitted by Matthew S.

Photographer’s comment:

“I was a bassoon major in college, and still play as a hobby. This gets a lot of interest, and many wrong guesses. The only people who have correctly identified it as a bassoon have all been players themselves. John at The Chameleon in Cambridge, Massachusetts, did a fantastic job on the artwork.”

:

Seattle, Third Avenue, 2004
Submitted by mooargyle

Photographer’s comment:

“Taken with Nikkormat FT2 (film).”

What better way to celebrate the long weekend than by enjoying a nice bottle of chenin blanc? Except that you forgot to pack a corkscrew on your jaunt to the Hamptons. Don’t fret — we’ll show you how to open a bottle of wine with nothing more than a hammer, a wood screw and some elbow grease.

The party is drawing to a close at the annual Burning Man festival on the northern Nevada desert.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nevada — It’s hot in the desert, but not too hot to set something on fire.

Amid other activities, Burning Man attendees spit flames and gaze at fiery art installations as the annual festival’s iconic Man awaits his inevitable fate.

Left:

In the biggest harshed mellow at Burning Man so far this year, the sun decides to come up again. Early risers and those who have not slept wallow confusedly in the solar judgment.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

The streets of Black Rock City hustle and bustle with activity as a swarthy unknown by the name of Swearengen arrives seeking wealth and power by any means necessary.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

The Cheshire Cat makes its way across the desert and sheds a tear for the old, more wholesome, wonderland.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

Burners walk far out on the playa to experience a light and music show created by a team of 20 with weather balloons, off-the-shelf Christmas tree hardware and software, and various insulation and irrigation pipes. This year’s decorations are sooo going to one-up the more perfect and WASP-y anarchist festival across the street, Flaming Dude.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

A huge ship sails burners across the night desert until the 8-year-old who drew it thinks it looks crappy and throws it away.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

Mutopia — a tech piece of interactive, flame-throwing art depicting a mutant alien life form going through its stages of development — delights burners. The piece was created by a San Francisco Bay Area group known as the Flaming Lotus Girls.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

A costumed burner stops to watch Mutopia.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

Natalie Spence works the controls of Mutopia.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

Flames shoot from the mouth of a literal burner who just shotgunned a can of lamp oil. This has to be the coolest thing someone can be able to do and still be poor somehow.

See also:

• American Dreamers Run Free at Burning Man
• Snail Car Is Born When Math, Dreams Collide
• Elevation’s Throne Seats Only 1 at Burning Man

… be the first to use Google’s Android software, which is supposed to make it easier and more enticing to surf the Internet on a handset. Google is counting on the software, announced last November, to help sell more advertising by encouraging more …

Over the past year, at the most senior level of the company, Google has been quietly pursuing an extremely significant effort to figure out how to improve Google News and also sustain good journalism at a time …

A brief report in Digital HealthCare and Productivity suggests that Health 2.0 also presents risks to existing healthcare providers .

MyWebGrocer, a Colchester-based Internet grocery shopping site, has acquired Buy4Now’s U.S. operations in a deal valued at more than $15 million.

This is Signal vs. Noise , a weblog by 37signals about design, business, experience, simplicity, the web, culture, and more.

… the new disc. “And my manager would say ‘Don’t worry about that. It doesn’t matter. We’ve just got to organize the Internet marketing and the downloading and all that stuff.” And just like that, the discussion went back to saying goodbye to the …

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com said on Monday that its subsidiary, Internet Movie Database, would allow users to watch feature films and TV shows for no charge on its Web site, imdb.com.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union antitrust watchdogs are looking into a planned deal between Internet giants Google Inc and Yahoo Inc to share some advertising revenue.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. phone company AT&T Inc plans to eventually link Apple Inc’s iPhone to its high-speed Internet and video service called U-verse, and introduce new features like using the phone as a remote control.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and Merrill Lynch & Co Inc may be about to disappear from the Wall Street landscape, but their memorabilia commanded a premium on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A deal by Google Inc and Yahoo Inc to share some advertising revenue will mean less money for newspapers and weaken Yahoo in the long run, the World Association of Newspapers said on Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Best Buy Co Inc plans to buy digital music service Napster Inc for $121 million in cash in an effort to compete with Apple’s dominant iTunes service and its iPod music players.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – An upstart Internet telephone company has introduced a method for U.S. mobile telephone users to call land line phones around the world for as little as two-cents a minute on top of basic rates.

Last week, I took a look at interesting things technology can do with your remains once you’re too dead to care. This week I’m going to follow up with a slightly different set of post-mortem services. These are companies that claim to make your death as eco-friendly as possible.

Now, I always assumed that dying is already one of the nicest things you can do for the environment. Dead people rarely drive Humvees. They don’t purchase individually wrapped cheese slices. They probably use more than their fair share of air conditioning for the first couple days, but after that it’s green all the way, baby.

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Well, apparently corpses just aren’t carbon-neutral enough, because a bunch of people are willing to take money from your estate to make sure that your remains are more environmentally friendly than a hand-assembled hemp chicken tractor.

Here are some of their brightest ideas.

Neptune Memorial Reef

Apparently when Luca Brasi went to sleep with the fishes, he was proving himself one eco-friendly mafioso. The Neptune Society will happily provide your ashes with a set of concrete galoshes by interring them in an artificial reef off the Miami coast. The reef in question is a neoclassical affair with arches and lions and butterfly thingies, giving the overall impression that a senior prom sank slowly beneath the waves, the cover band solemnly playing “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” with corsages and rented bow ties floating around their knees. So that’s pretty cool.

Natural Burial

This is pretty straightforward. Your unembalmed body gets interred in a biodegradable casket or shroud in a pesticide-free area planted with native flora. A few centuries ago this was just called “burial,” but now we need a special word for it. The modern innovation I most appreciate is that many natural cemeteries provide GPS coordinates in lieu of a gravestone, allowing you to pay your respects via Google Earth. Personally, I’m willing to go one step further and be buried in a cemetery that lets the coyotes and vultures have at me. What could be more eco-friendly than a scavenger buffet?

Ecopod

Even if you want to be buried in a traditional cemetery with stone angels, immaculate lawns and drunken goth teenagers, you can reduce your carbon death mask by being buried in a coffin made of post-consumer recycled material. (Particularly apt, given that you’re a post-consumer.) There are a lot of options here but my favorite is the Ecopod, a recycled newspaper coffin that looks like something Steve Jobs would crawl into, only to emerge later as a huge luna moth.

Promession

If you can put off dying for another year or two, you might be able to get in on the next big thing in Gaia-approved post-breathing services, a patented process called “promession.” Remember the one interesting day in junior high science class when the teacher brought in a canister of liquid nitrogen and proceeded to shatter a rose like safety glass? With promession, you are that rose. Rather than burning your body to ashes, this process freeze-dries you into person dust. Once powdered, you can decompose as you’ve never decomposed before, providing life-giving nutrients to a shrub or, if you’re feeling impish, some poison ivy.

Resomation

Like promession, Resomation is a new, science-infused process designed to emulate cremation without having to fire up the grill. According to the site, Resomation is basically decomposition on fast-forward, accomplished with chemicals rather than larvae and bacteria. I’m not sure the larvae and bacteria would consider it an improvement, but at least it doesn’t release harmful, Earth-choking emissions. Another listed benefit: “You can use it immediately first thing in the morning.” Now your surviving loved ones don’t have to miss yoga class!

- – -

Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a revenant, a reveler and a reverend.

:

From DNA to 80 digits (and counting) of pi, Wired.com readers take their geek tattoos pretty seriously.

We asked you to flash your decorated flesh, and you obliged with pictures of some pretty wild skin art. Now it’s time for the rest of the world to bask in your dermatological commitment to geekery.

Click through the gallery to see more ink inspired by science, computers and other geek obsessions.

Left:

Ctrl+Alt+Del
Submitted by Shahar

Photographer’s comment:

“Comes to show it’s that easy to reboot and start over.”

:

The Other Half of Rock
Submitted by Aaron Sarazan

Photographer’s comment:

“My brother and I got matching tattoos. He has a Guitar, with binary that says ‘Rock’ — I’ve got a D20 with ‘Roll.’”

:

Extra-Large DNA
Submitted by Brandon

Photographer’s comment:

“Seven years I’ve been working on this. Phase 1 is complete.”

:

Geek 4 Life
Submitted by Christopher Holmok

Photographer’s comment:

“I am a GEEK 4 LIFE, SUCKA!!!”

:

Pi Tattoo
Submitted by Drew

Photographer’s comment:

“Since tattoos were illegal in Oklahoma until only a couple of years ago, my friends and I made a tradition out of annual road trips for tattoos. Every time I can’t think of something new, I add some more digits to pi. It’s up to 80 digits.”

:

No More Hunting for Tape Measures
Submitted by Dave Selden

Photographer’s comment:

“As a woodworker-graphic designer, I use a tape measure or ruler almost every day. Now I have one always within arm’s reach. I use it for my work, but also my play. I measured some trout for length with it on a fishing trip to Mount Hood this weekend.”

:

Louder!
Submitted by Ben Casey

Photographer’s comment:

“I always wanted a musical tattoo, and the audio-out icon on my 266-Mhz G3 seemed more appropriate than a G clef.”

:

Bassoon Keywork on My Leg
Submitted by Matthew S.

Photographer’s comment:

“I was a bassoon major in college, and still play as a hobby. This gets a lot of interest, and many wrong guesses. The only people who have correctly identified it as a bassoon have all been players themselves. John at The Chameleon in Cambridge, Massachusetts, did a fantastic job on the artwork.”

:

Seattle, Third Avenue, 2004
Submitted by mooargyle

Photographer’s comment:

“Taken with Nikkormat FT2 (film).”

What better way to celebrate the long weekend than by enjoying a nice bottle of chenin blanc? Except that you forgot to pack a corkscrew on your jaunt to the Hamptons. Don’t fret — we’ll show you how to open a bottle of wine with nothing more than a hammer, a wood screw and some elbow grease.

The party is drawing to a close at the annual Burning Man festival on the northern Nevada desert.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nevada — It’s hot in the desert, but not too hot to set something on fire.

Amid other activities, Burning Man attendees spit flames and gaze at fiery art installations as the annual festival’s iconic Man awaits his inevitable fate.

Left:

In the biggest harshed mellow at Burning Man so far this year, the sun decides to come up again. Early risers and those who have not slept wallow confusedly in the solar judgment.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

The streets of Black Rock City hustle and bustle with activity as a swarthy unknown by the name of Swearengen arrives seeking wealth and power by any means necessary.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

The Cheshire Cat makes its way across the desert and sheds a tear for the old, more wholesome, wonderland.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

Burners walk far out on the playa to experience a light and music show created by a team of 20 with weather balloons, off-the-shelf Christmas tree hardware and software, and various insulation and irrigation pipes. This year’s decorations are sooo going to one-up the more perfect and WASP-y anarchist festival across the street, Flaming Dude.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

A huge ship sails burners across the night desert until the 8-year-old who drew it thinks it looks crappy and throws it away.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

Mutopia — a tech piece of interactive, flame-throwing art depicting a mutant alien life form going through its stages of development — delights burners. The piece was created by a San Francisco Bay Area group known as the Flaming Lotus Girls.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

A costumed burner stops to watch Mutopia.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

Natalie Spence works the controls of Mutopia.

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com

Flames shoot from the mouth of a literal burner who just shotgunned a can of lamp oil. This has to be the coolest thing someone can be able to do and still be poor somehow.

See also:

• American Dreamers Run Free at Burning Man
• Snail Car Is Born When Math, Dreams Collide
• Elevation’s Throne Seats Only 1 at Burning Man

… be the first to use Google’s Android software, which is supposed to make it easier and more enticing to surf the Internet on a handset. Google is counting on the software, announced last November, to help sell more advertising by encouraging more …

A brief report in Digital HealthCare and Productivity suggests that Health 2.0 also presents risks to existing healthcare providers .

MyWebGrocer, a Colchester-based Internet grocery shopping site, has acquired Buy4Now’s U.S. operations in a deal valued at more than $15 million.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com said on Monday that its subsidiary, Internet Movie Database, would allow users to watch feature films and TV shows for no charge on its Web site, imdb.com.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union antitrust watchdogs are looking into a planned deal between Internet giants Google Inc and Yahoo Inc to share some advertising revenue.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. phone company AT&T Inc plans to eventually link Apple Inc’s iPhone to its high-speed Internet and video service called U-verse, and introduce new features like using the phone as a remote control.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and Merrill Lynch & Co Inc may be about to disappear from the Wall Street landscape, but their memorabilia commanded a premium on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A deal by Google Inc and Yahoo Inc to share some advertising revenue will mean less money for newspapers and weaken Yahoo in the long run, the World Association of Newspapers said on Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Best Buy Co Inc plans to buy digital music service Napster Inc for $121 million in cash in an effort to compete with Apple’s dominant iTunes service and its iPod music players.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – An upstart Internet telephone company has introduced a method for U.S. mobile telephone users to call land line phones around the world for as little as two-cents a minute on top of basic rates.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Why shop when you can swap? An Australian bartering website is targeting moms keen to live the good life despite the economic slowdown, and their children.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As personal computers go, the new rash of ultra-mini laptops are full of geeky goodness. Light, portable and powerful, they are almost perfect. Almost.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – News Corp’s MySpace, the world’s largest social networking site, said on Sunday its long-expected MySpace Music joint venture with three major music labels will launch with four major sponsors underwriting the costs of streaming free music to millions of MySpace users.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Why shop when you can swap? An Australian bartering website is targeting moms keen to live the good life despite the economic slowdown, and their children.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As personal computers go, the new rash of ultra-mini laptops are full of geeky goodness. Light, portable and powerful, they are almost perfect. Almost.

Heather Hopkins of Hitwise has a new post for all you Blogliners out there. She’s a VP of Research at Hitwise, a leading web analytics firm. She writes, “It (Bloglines) is the most popular web-based feed reader based on share of US visits.” Or in other words, Bloglines is beating Google Reader in the U.S. In an interview done by RW/W on August of 2007, I said it was a “2 horse race.” It still is.

Heather goes onto write about the differences between the user bases.

• Bloglines users are also more inclined toward Photography websites, while Google Reader users are more inclined to visit Television websites.
• …Bloglines users are 24% more likely to continue on to a retail (Shopping & Classifieds) website.

It would be interesting to hear from Blogliners on your blogs to see if you really do track more photography websites. We launched a Flickr feed module in Bloglines Beta for our photography enthusiasts. We hope you liked the feature and also like Bloglines Beta.

Enjoy!

- Eric Engleman and the Bloglines Team

We’ve deployed all the features mentioned in the previous blog post. Here’s a recap:

Search

Blog search is finally in Beta, and we’ve incorporated some popular Ask 3D features. For example, related searches are displayed in the right-hand column next to results. All of classic’s features are still there, but with newer styling.

Flickr View

Selecting a Flickr feed and viewing it in quick view now uses the Flickr API to show images at their maximum resolution.

Add Page

Beta’s old add page was spartan, to say the least. The new Add page has package tracking, weather feeds, and a new feature: Packs. You can now add popular categories of feeds with a single mouse click.

Enjoy!

- Eric Engleman and the Bloglines Team

View entire original article

IEEE readies launch of gigabit Wi-Fi project – PC World Magazine
http://tinyurl.com/6fpzxy

View entire original article

More eye candy for iGoogle
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/388648743/more-eye-candy-for-igoogle.html
In case you’re looking for some more personality to add to your iGoogle page, we’ve just launched a fresh collection of iGoogle artist themes — an ongoing project we launched in April for which we invited world-class artists to design dynamic themes for your iGoogle homepage.

The new collection features designs from 28 leading artists from the worlds of fashion and music. This group is amazing, spanning a wide range of styles and genres: Radiohead and Gnarls Barkley used radiant colors; Gucci, Burberry, and Vera Wang illustrated beautiful patterns; and Bob Dylan and Celine Dion created an iconic look (of course). So depending on what you’re interested in, there’s lots of great art to choose from to suit your personality, taste or mood.

The future of search
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/388934244/future-of-search.html

The Internet has had an enormous impact on people’s lives around the world in the 10 years since Google’s founding. It has changed politics, entertainment, culture, business, health care, the environment and just about every other topic you can think of. Which got us to thinking, what’s going to happen in the next 10 years? How will this phenomenal technology evolve, how will we adapt, and (more importantly) how will it adapt to us? We asked 10 of our top experts this very question, and over the next three weeks we will present their responses. As computer scientist Alan Kay has famously observed, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so we will be doing our best to make good on our experts’ words every day. – Karen Wickre and Alan Eagle, series editors.

I am a search addict. I’m naturally inquisitive – I’ve always liked finding things out. Plus, I’ve worked at Google on search for the past 9 years and 3 months. Of course I search – a lot. Yet I would guess that on any given day, I only do about 20% of the searches that I could. This past Saturday, I kept track of the things that came up in conversation that I wanted to search for right then but couldn’t:

Last week’s launch of Google Chrome generated some discussion over the legal language in our new browser’s terms of service (TOS). As we noted in a subsequent post on Google Chrome’s terms of service:

"… Under copyright law, Google needs what’s called a "license" to display or transmit content. So to show a blog, we ask the user to give us a license to the blog’s content. (The same goes for any other service where users can create content.) But in all these cases, the license is limited to providing the service."

We’ve also seen some discussion on a few blogs about how our universal terms of service apply to other products, with some users worried that Google is trying to claim ownership of the content they generate. To be clear: our terms do not claim ownership of your content — what you create is yours and remains yours. But in lawyer-speak, we need to ask for a ‘license’ (which basically means your permission) to display this content to the wider world when that’s what you intend. This issue is not unique to Google; it applies to lots of other Internet companies that display and transmit user content. You can see some other terms of service here from Amazon, eBay, and Facebook.