Samsung's SGH-P520 is the Armani Phone
Filed under: Cellphones
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Archos's Generation 5 players are now available worldwide
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
Leaked Samsung G800 Reveal 5 Megapixel camera with 3x Zoom
[GSM Helpdesk and Let's Go Mobile via Unwired View]
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Survival: Life Saver Portable Water Filter Cleans the Crap Out of Your Water...Literally
After showing the bottle off at a defense conference in the UK, Pritchard sold all 1000 of his $385 bottles in under four hours. Defense experts were impressed with the fact that it could filter 4,000-6,000 liters before the filter had to be replaced. An innovation such as this could have a significant impact if it ever reached the consumer market, not only being used as emergency gear, but for camping and travel as well. [The Register]
NYT: The Picture Worth a Thousand Words
Performance of New York Times Company (NYT) stock during the 5-year bull market:
Cellphones: Samsung WEP500 Quarter-Sized Bluetooth Headset Available Now
Water: IBM to Monitor the Hudson River with Solar-Powered Underwater Vehicles
AT&T Brings Back Cingular Orange to "Mobilize" Brand
Augustine: TRULY, TRULY unbelievable waste of money. Do they (or their agency) really think orange will help drive sales, get new customers, increase customer satisfaction? Why not simply bring call centers back from India, better train support staff, end anti-customer policies like "you lose all your roll-over minutes when you make any change to your plan, including adding a line" and let your customers tell others how super-great you are.
After spending an ungodly amount of money to kill Jack and mutate the Cingular brand into the "new AT&T," they've decided that Cingular's orange palette offered a "younger, edgier and more contemporary style—all attributes closely associated with wireless." But clearly not AT&T. So, they're rebranding. Again. Look for Death Stars set against the new "primary corporate color," orange, and a series of commercials directed by Wes Anderson coming your way as of—yesterday. Wow, I feel AT&T tickling my cutting edge sensibilities already. [AT&T via Broadband Reports]
NYT: August Ads Drop -3.2%
Overall, the story remains the same. The Times' impressive web business is partially offsetting continued declines in the print business, but only partially (because it's only about 10% of the company). Revenue per web user is still far below revenue per print reader--so, over the long term, unless revenue per web reader increases significantly, the company is screwed. On the positive side, the New York Times itself is hanging in there, and the web business showed a nice acceleration. Our detailed monthly trending spreadsheet here. Release here. Details after jump.
NYT: August Key Points
- Revenue at the online newspaper properties rose 28%, a nice acceleration from July's 19%
- Offline ad revenue decline accelerated to -10% from -8% in July
- About.com rev increased slowed to 27%, but newspaper online revs accelerated significantly.
- National advertising rose again, up a strong 9%!
- So did circulation revenue! Up 4%!
- New England (read: Boston Globe) ad revenue dropped 9%, vs. 5% in July
- Regional ads dropped 12% (vs. 11% in July)
- Classified ads dropped a dismal 20%, a major deterioration
- TimesSelect paying subs who don't get the print paper crawled up to 226,800 from 225,000.
- Web uniques to all the company's properties hit a nice 44.2 million, up 11% from 39 million last year (a slower y/y gain).
- Revenue per web user appears to have increased modestly to about $0.60 a month ($8 a year).
Don't Miss: Running the Numbers: Why Newspapers are Screwed NYT Debt Outlook Cut to "Negative" By Moody's Death By Month: Tracking the Newspaper Industry's Decline Great Ad Share Shift: Google Sucks Life out of Old Media
If You’re Not A Model, Don’t Bother Reading This
from TechCrunch by Michael Arrington
To get in you have to be a professional model and invited by the site or by other members. Once you're in, you can do standard social networking stuff - post pictures, videos and profile information, and find romantic matches so you can have beautiful little photogenic spawn together.
They're a year old but have been off our radar until this evening when the Wall Street Journal did a profile on them. A choice quote:
Models spend a lot of time in isolation, traveling from casting to casting, often in cities where they don't know anyone else. But like Shannon Rusbuldt, a 22-year-old model with Elite Models, many fear exposing themselves to unwelcome solicitations from wannabe photographers, agents and suitors. Mr. Lannung, who is represented by Ms. Rusbuldt's former agency, persuaded her to join by assuring her that his site is similar to other social networks, "but without the creepy people."
Poor models. It's good that they have a place to hide from the creepy people (i.e., the rest of the population).
The site may actually be a bit too selective though. 2,000 people have tried to join over the last year, says Lannung, but he's rejected half of them. That makes for a pretty thinly populated social network. MySpace, by comparison, adds well over 100,000 members daily. Still, high end advertisers are said to be targeting the site to get access to those 1,000 trendsetters. The company is now trying to raise $1.5 million in venture capital, which I honestly hope they raise so that I can continue to make fun of them (and their VCs) before eventually depositing them in the Deadpool.
If you're hot but not quite model material, check out Darwin Dating, another obnoxious site that is focused on matching up beautiful people on dates. Their tagline? Online Dating Minus Ugly People.
Microsoft Patents "Stealthy Audio Watermarking"
Microsoft has been granted a patent for "stealthy audio watermarking," which is just a slick way of saying inaudible digital watermarks directly embedded in the audio of a file, allowing the owner to be traced. Apparently, in their version of the tech, the watermark's scattered throughout the file so it's more difficult to pull out or tweak and it's able to be compressed while remaining intact. You'd think they'd worry about actually selling music before trying to tie it down, though.
Magicians innovate without IP law
Jacob Loshin, a law student at Yale, drafter a paper exploring how stage magicians protect the secrets behind their tricks, and continue to come up with great new ideas, without getting caught up in the insanity of intellectual property law. Basically, magicians police themselves based on a set of norms for treating secrets, presentation styles, and techniques of making magic. Violate the norms by, say, stealing a trick or not giving credit where it's due and you'll be shamed and shunned by your fellow magicians. From the abstract:
Intellectual property scholars have begun to explore the curious dynamics of IP's negative spaces, areas in which IP law offers scant protection for innovators, but where innovation nevertheless seems to thrive. Such negative spaces pose a puzzle for the traditional theory of IP, which holds that IP law is necessary to create incentives for innovation. This paper presents a study of one such negative space which has so far garnered some curiosity but little sustained attention - the world of performing magicians. This paper argues that idiosyncratic dynamics among magicians make traditional copyright, patent, and trade secret law ill-suited to protecting magicians' most valuable intellectual property. Yet, the paper further argues that the magic community has developed its own set of unique IP norms which effectively operate in law's absence. The paper details the structure of these informal norms that protect the creation, dissemination, and performance of magic tricks. The paper also discusses broader implications for IP theory, suggesting that a norm-based approach may offer a promising explanation for the puzzling persistence of some of IP's negative spaces.Link (via TechDirt, thanks Sean Ness!)
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Lego Towers: Architect makes Scale Model of Housing Proposal in Lego
This is a 1:50 scale model of Lego Towers, a proposed housing development for Copenhagen &mdash made of Lego. Designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group, this time-lapse video was shot over five weeks. Photos, plus how many bricks were needed to make the model, are after the jump.
Digital Cameras: Unlock RAW Mode on Point and Shoot Canons
Toshiba: Toshiba's TDP-EX20U projector, which only
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