Tuesday, October 30, 2007

A Global, Long-Term Perspective on Crop Production

from Earth2Tech by Alexis Madrigal

The effects of climate change are turning the outlook for long-term food production into an increasingly dire one, according to an MIT study released this week and a report delivered last week by the UN's Special Rapporteur on Food.

UN expert Jean Ziegler is calling for a five-year global moratorium on converting agricultural land into biofuel crop acreage. The use of food crops for production of biofuels, notably corn, he argues, has sent food prices rocketing in a world where the majority of African countries have to import food. Obviously such a move would have a negative impact on the world biofuel market, even if the U.S. were to ignore the advice, as we likely would.

It might seem strange for an advocate for poor African countries like Ziegler to oppose biofuels, considering that many (like the UN ) are quick to point out that climate change would have a disproportionately negative impact on poor communities living in marginal ecological areas. But in many regions, as the MIT report points out, increased carbon dioxide levels would actually be good for crops and soil. Seen purely through a food production lens, a warm, CO2-heavy world might not be such a bad thing.

Still, the desire to head off climate change without starving people living on 50 cents a day is a catch-22 for defenders of our world's poorest populations, and not one that's likely to go away.

But there was bad news for crop production out of the MIT report that biofuel and food proponents can fret about together. The MIT researchers project that ozone would cut crop yields per acre by 40 percent by 2100 if nothing is done to stop its increasing concentration in the atmosphere.

While we normally think about ozone in terms of keeping it intact high in the atmosphere (ah, the hole in the ozone layer ), at ground level it's actually is a nasty pollutant that damages lungs and plants alike. A 2006 Yale study found that even low concentrations of ozone cause higher mortality rates among people.

So, what's causing increased ozone concentrations? Surprise: burning fossil fuels. Scrubbing ozone out of our lives seems like a great challenge for cleantech entrepreneurs looking for fresher fields in which to lay seed capital.

The Really Really Viral Game

from Okdork.com by Noah Kagan

Guess the 3 sites. What can we learn? Think about what is super viral yet no one publicly talks about…

Winner gets a $1 check mailed to them:)

USB to DVI Adapter Expands Screen Space Without Adding Video Cards [Adapter]

from Gizmodo by Jason Chen

The idea of driving a DVI or VGA display with a USB adapter isn't new, but Sewell's latest adapter seems to be fairly cheap and useful. Their adapter costs $119 and has 128MB RAM on board, which is then powered by USB ports from your computer to drive a 1600x1200 resolution monitor at the same time as your standard monitors. Sewell claims that these USB-driven monitors have the same quality as standard DVI monitors at displays of up to 20-inches. If you're trying to power anything bigger, like a 22 or a 24-inch, you're better off getting a new video card anyway. Unless you're on a laptop, in which case you're boned. [Sewell via Sewell]

Facebook's NY Rent: $29k/Month

from Silicon Alley Insider by Peter Kafka

First we found Facebook's secret Midtown office. Now, thanks to a helpful reader with access to a real estate database, we can tell you what Mark Zuckerberg is paying for the 5,350 square feet he's renting in the French Building: $65 per square foot, or $347,750 a year. That's $29,000 a month. Full details after jump.

Our tipster wonders why Facebook is slumming it in midtown: While the French Building has cool art deco flourishes, it's considered a "B" building by commercial real estate standards, and it's not really wired for state-of-the-art IT companies. Google's Chelsea space, by comparison, is famously situated right over a major Internet hotbed. But this doesn't seem like a mystery to us: Google's NY office is heavy on actual engineers, and there's actual technical work happening there. Facebook's NY outpost, at least for now, is a sales office with a heavy Madison Avenue orientation.

Related: Inside Facebook's Secret NYC Office, Facebook's NYC Digs: Photos!

First Technical Review of the Samsung LED Backlit LCDs [LCDs]a

from Gizmodo by Brian Lam

Gary Merson backs up our review of Samsung's new LED driven LCD displays, agreeing with my impression that its the best LCD I've ever seen. Gary's tests went deeper, revealing that the TV resolves 800 lines of motion which means that these sets have better blur resistance than even most 120Hz sets, and even some plasmas.

He also disliked the set's handling of 480 content, reporting massive jaggies. But scaler aside for a moment, anyone can tell this set looks good, technical tests or not, by looking at it plain and simple. If you're considering this TV, he also drops in comparisons to plasmas and some other sets so reading his review is worth it. [HD Guru and Samsung's 81 Series on Giz]

Anti-ripoff megapost from The Consumerist

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

The Consumerist has posted a giant round-up of their advocacy articles called "The Ultimate Consumerist Guide To Fighting Back." It breaks down into three sections:

Section 1: "I've been wronged! What do I do next?"
Section 2: The Consumerist Corporate Executive Directory
Section 3: Success Stories

and each section contains links to excellent articles on everything from timestamping your communications with customer-service lines to "launching an executive email carpet-bomb" to the delightfully named "Underlying Principle For Forcing An Uncaring And Adversarial Company Fix Your Problem." The next time I'm ripped off, I'm starting here. Link

Anti-Stealth for College Applications

from This is going to be BIG. by CEO

In the same way that Path 101 wants to bust open the data lockbox for the job market, showing you what others like you are doing with their careers, PeerDecision is aiming shed light on college admissions. This is fascinating, because I don't think there's anything more competitive and cutthroat than college admissions (except maybe Upper East Side Nursery School admissions), and so I could imagine students swarming on this in a hurry.

I wonder if the anti-stealth nature of it might cause a little fudging. I'm sure Jack actually got a 1480 on his SAT, but how do we really know for sure? :)

This is data I think everyone wants to see, but perhaps this is a case where public profiles aren't a good idea. If people start comparing themselves to others, is that going to open up some really negative interactions? I think people want to compare aggregate numbers, but I think singling out individuals might get too personal, and maybe even downright ugly.

They also have voting, where you could vote people up or down depending on whether or not you'd make certain schools. Again, this might bring out the worst in people.

So, I REALLY like PeerDecision, I just think people are evil... especially overambitious high school kids.

One thing I might consider is flipping the voting a little. Have people try to gauge themselves... vote which schools you think you have a good shot of making and then show me the aggregate data. This way, I don't have a reason to mess up the voting, because I'd only be screwing up my own account.

Another thing they need to nail that Path 101 needs to nail as well is a reason to get people to add this data. I could join and tell people what schools I made, but what do I get back immediately from that? For Path 101, we can do some job skills and trend data, but PD is tackling something that's even a bigger data black hole... so I'm not sure how you could even prime the pump here.

What about maybe a way to gripe? "What's the school that turned you down? Tell us about it...add other schools".

It's interesting... check out their site... It's a process I'd love to see them succeed in opening up more, but I'm not sure how to do that.

BenQ unveils the MP771 short-throw XGA projector

from Engadget by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Displays

BenQ certainly loves to crank out the projectors, and the company's latest, the MP771, features a short-throw lens that's able to put up a 74-inch picture from just a meter away. The 1024 x 768-res unit puts 3000 lumens of shine behind your content with a 2000:1 contrast ratio and BenQ's UNISHAPE variable-brightness lamp tech, which varys the brightness of the lamp in sync with the DLP mirrors and color wheel, resulting in a 40% boost in brightness. Input include VGA, DVI-D with HDCP, S-video and composite, and BenQ says the wall-color correction system will put up an accurate picture on non-white walls with a minimum of fuss. No word on pricing just yet, but we should be seeing these hit in November.

[Via About Projectors]

Lightning Round: Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card [Review]

from Gizmodo by Mark Wilson

The gadget: The Eye-Fi. It's an SD memory card that adds Wi-Fi to any camera. Plus the free Eye-Fi service supports automatic uploads to 20 different web photo sites (like Flickr) as well as a computer on your home network.

The verdict: It works flawlessly.

The performance: Like we said, the Eye-Fi works flawlessly. Setup takes roughly five minutes (you program the card through your computer and bundled card reader.) From there, you simply snap pics in the range of your router, and chances are, by the time you go back to your computer, the pictures will be viewable. If your router dies, you turn off your camera, or even if you take out the card and put it back in, the photos will upload when you get things sorted out again. It's actually a normal 2GB memory card underneath all of the other functionality and can work as such.

The catch: We figured iIt must drain more battery —but apparently in-camera SD power standards dictate that this extra consumed power needs to be minimal, to the level of not noticeable to the end user. Unfortunately, the product doesn't support hotspots.

The price: $100

The verdict Part II: Sure, the Eye-Fi is basically a cradle replacement. But snapping photos and automatically uploading them in real time to share is truly fantastic, especially when the images can be better than one's camera phone. And the entire product experience is built with Apple-like simplicity. If you can get over the price and are sick of cords, we strongly recommend the purchase. Available now. [eye-fi]

Meebo Opens Site to Developers

Meebo Opens Site to Developers

By REBECCA BUCKMAN
October 30, 2007; Page B4

Meebo Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up aiming to morph from a Web-instant-messaging company into a general-purpose media company, will open its Web site to software developers, throwing it into possible competition with the likes of Facebook Inc. and Google Inc.

You can, on Facebook, where thousands of free applications let you interact with friends in unusual ways. But while fun for users, developers are vying for eyeballs, hoping to turn a profit with ad dollars. Stacey Delo reports. (Oct. 29)

Two years ago, Meebo began offering technology that enables instant messaging through a Web site without the user downloading software from other companies. Now, in a bid to become a broader "destination" site and cash in on the online-ad market, the Mountain View, Calif., company will allow outside software developers to build programs and applications around its instant-messaging technology.

The new programs, which could expand Meebo's reach, will stress activities that can be enjoyed live online with groups of friends, like interactive speed dating and computer games. Meebo, backed by high-profile Silicon Valley investors Sequoia Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, hopes to make money by selling online ads inside the programs.

The company's transformation shows how hot the trend of social networking and Web-based "communities" has become, and how eager venture capitalists are to fund such ventures, despite questions about their profit potential. Meebo started collecting revenue only two months ago, from ads sold inside its chat rooms. The company, with its focus on live activities, "has the potential to be a fabulous business" and earn money, said Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia.

Facebook, a popular social-networking site, opened its Web platform this year. Since then, nearly 6,000 programs have been added to Facebook's site, the company says.

Meebo's initial rollout will feature services including Internet phone-calling and online video. The company is partnering with TokBox Inc., also backed by Sequoia, to provide video Web calling. It will work with Ustream.TV Inc. to offer live, streaming video. The idea is to encourage programs that stress the always-on nature of Meebo and its users, as opposed to the "static" set-up of sites like Facebook and Google's YouTube, says Seth Sternberg, Meebo's chief executive.

Instead of posting a video on YouTube, a Meebo user could stream video of an event as it is happening and simultaneously share it with a pre-selected group of instant-messaging friends, Mr. Sternberg says. He co-founded Meebo two years ago with Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen.

This year, Meebo launched Meebo Rooms, which essentially are chat rooms. It has had success parlaying some rooms into larger media partnerships. CBS Corp., for instance, now links to the Meebo chat room about the offbeat TV show "Jericho" and has made it the main Jericho chat room on the CBS Web site.

"We want to encourage lots of different partners . . . to build really super-viral, super-engaged platforms to sit outside of cbs.com," said Patrick Keane, an executive vice president and chief marketing officer for CBS Interactive. CBS provides behind-the-scenes Jericho footage and other tidbits for the Meebo chat room and has signed on as a Meebo advertiser, Mr. Keane says.

CBS says it is working with other sites, including Facebook. Facebook has added programs that offer instant-messaging to its site, which might reduce any advantage Meebo has. Meebo executives and investors say the company has established itself as a destination for instant-messaging, with more than six million unique users logging in monthly.

Write to Rebecca Buckman at rebecca.buckman@wsj.com

Monday, October 29, 2007

CE-Oh no he didn't! Part XLVII: NBC Universal chief says Apple "destroyed" music pricing

from Engadget by Nilay Patel

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker clearly did not get enough raisins in his cereal this morning, because dude was not holding anything back during that speech he gave at Syracuse's Newhouse School of Communications -- in addition to saying NBC had made only $15M in iTunes video sales despite being the number one producer of content, he flat-out said that Apple and iTunes had "destroyed the music business" in terms of pricing and that video was next unless "we take control." Of course, seeing as consumers can access Universal's entire music catalog with various subscription services for under $10 a month ($36 a year, in the case of Yahoo Music) and entire NBC shows for free on the web, but still choose to buy songs and shows straight-up on iTunes anyway, it might be fair to say that NBC Universal is still figuring out how to monetize its content effectively, but really, where's the fun in that? Round 7, fight!

Toshiba A2 HD DVD Player for $200 at Circuit City

from Engadget by Conrad Quilty-Harper

When they say "competition's good," they obviously meant "competition means cheap HD DVD players": Wal-Mart's $198 Toshiba HD-A2 has been copied by Circuit City, which is now selling the same player for $197.99 online. Add it to your cart, and see for yourself. As one tipster said, with deals like this popping up this early, signs are looking good for one helluva Black Friday.

[Thanks to everyone that sent this in!]

Sprint Sprints to be the First to Agree to Phone Unlocking [Sprint]

from Gizmodo by Haroon Malik

Sprint has become the first American CDMA wireless company to begin unlocking their hardware once contracts have been honored. The move will allow other unlocked handsets to function on Sprint's network, but whether the reverse will occur with the other carriers is yet to be seen. For ex-Sprint customers who are happy with their phones but want to move to a different provider, it will not be imperative to purchase a new handset for the switch. This is because the unlocked handsets will function on all compatible carriers across the board. Well done to Sprint for being the first out there to get the, now inevitable, mass unlocking phenomenon well underway. [Boy Genius Reports]

The Simplicity of Time Machine Compels You [Mac OS X Leopard]

from Lifehacker by Gina Trapani

If you're running Leopard and you've got an external hard drive, you will back up your data, even if that wasn't your intention when you bought the drive or plugged it into your Mac. That's because Leopard's system snapshot mechanism, Time Machine, is dead simple to enable—and Leopard prompts you to turn it on the moment you plug in your FireWire drive. You'll think, "why not?" and why not indeed.

In System Preferences, Time Machine has exactly two settings: the On/Off switch, and what backup drive it should use. Once it's on, it creates hourly, daily, and weekly snapshots of your Mac, and automatically deletes the oldest ones when you run out of space on your drive—no user configuration required (or even possible, as far as I can see).

That terrible day you delete a file you need, to restore a past snapshot you'll use Time Machine's overwrought interface to fly back through space and time to that happy day when your file did exist. Gimmicky? Sure. But Mac guy John Gruber says that's a good thing:

Apple has made something so effect-laden and so extraordinary that users want to see it in action—the fact that that something is backups, which, let's face it, is effectively a chore, is a noteworthy achievement. Making backup software that people can't wait to try, and which, once activated, just automatically kicks in and does its thing on a regular schedule, is like making people want to go ahead and sign up for life insurance.

In short, Apple's used the best productivity trick in the world: to make the right thing to do the easy thing to do. Leopard's release will no doubt bring on an uptick of Mac users who diligently back up their system and data without even thinking about it.

Leopard [Daring Fireball]

Leopard Hacked For Self-Hating PC Users [Hacks]

from Gizmodo by Mark Wilson

We had written a very smug, Macs rule PCs drool post reporting that PC users could run Leopard. And then our Mac froze up and we lost it all. So now you just get the news straight, without our giggling. The news, once again: OSX Leopard has been hacked to work on all Intel PCs, and the process is ridiculously simple, requiring a small .zip and a touch of blank media. [UPDATE: And it looks like you need Tiger pre-installed, too.]

Of course, by installing Leopard on a PC, you are endangering the stability of the space/time continuum, risking not just the future of the Earth and our own humanity, but the existence of everything in the Universe. And we could never condone anything that Back to the Future told us was best avoided. [ OSx86]

Thanks Jason!

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