Saturday, October 29, 2011

Once High-Flying Netflix Falls to Earth as Subscribers Flee, Earnings Tank

Reuters

Is this the end of the road for the DVD-rental business? 

More than 800,000 subscribers fled Netflix in the third quarter amid rising prices and growing anger at the company's flip-flopping business model -- and the company's stock took a rollercoaster-style plunge that evaporated capital and had day traders gasping for breath. Some analysts argued that the trouble with once high-rolling Netflix is a fresh nail in the coffin of the DVD rental business.

"The future is clearly streaming now -- it's only a matter of time before all disk-based media becomes obsolete," Rob Enderle, a leading technology analyst with The Enderle Group, told FoxNews.com.

"It’ll die in cities first and die more slowly the farther you get away from high speed network connectivity," he said.

Enderle may not be the only one to make that conclusion: Netflix shares traded around $75 for the first time in 18 months, a 36 percent plunge Tuesday that continued a tumble that has erased about $12 billion from the company's market value in just 104 days.

In other words, if you owned 1,000 shares of NFLX stock on Friday, it was worth $118,840. As of 11:48 a.m., that same stock was worth $77,690 -- a loss of $41,150 on paper.

The video-rental company was haunted by its decision to raise prices and its admittedly botched effort to divorce rentals of DVDs from streaming video services, admitted Reed Hastings, Netflix's chief executive officer.

"We made a couple of big mistakes this year," Hastings said. "It's up to us to own up to those mistakes and to move forward."

And Netflix isn't the only company struggling with change in the movie rental industry: Blockbuster, which once dominated the rental market, collapsed as a brick and mortar company, filing for bankruptcy in April. The company was purchased by Dish Network and moving the focus off renting DVDs and onto the online streaming service built to compete with Redbox, Hulu Plus and others. 

Netflix's struggles began in July when the company announced it was raising prices and separating its DVD and streaming services into two separate businesses, one named Netflix and a new one named Qwikster. 

If you're dedicated to your disc collection, don't worry yet. The death of the DVD probably won't be next week, Enderle said.

"Technologies have a habit of sticking around for years, servicing those that move very slowly to new standards," he told FoxNews.com. "In this case, there will be many parts of the world that won’t have the networking infrastructure for economical streaming for some time."

But the end is definitely coming -- and this time around, we'll stream it live on our computers. 

Related Stories Could Microsoft and Roku Finally Kill the Cable Box? Epic Fails: Netflix Qwikster and 5 Other Products People Didn't Want Netflix Abandons Plans to Rename DVD Service 'Qwikster' Which Do You Prefer -- DVD or Video Streaming? Print Email Share Comments Recommend Tweet View Article Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. You must login to comment.

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Boeing Dreamliner's Inaugural Fight Lands in Hong Kong

AP

October 26, 2011: An All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 lands at Hong Kong International Airport for the airplane's inaugural commercial flight from Japan.

HONG KONG –  Boeing's much-anticipated 787 carried its first passengers Wednesday on a four-hour, 8-minute flight filled with cheers, picture-taking and swapping of aviation stories.

The new long-haul jet aims to change with the way passengers think about flying with larger windows, improved lighting and air pressure and humidity that closer resembles that on the ground.

It's not the fastest jet or the largest jet but the plane, nicknamed The Dreamliner by Boeing Corp., is built of lightweight materials that promise to dramatically improve fuel efficiency. The first flight, from Tokyo to Hong Kong, was filled with 240 aviation reporters and enthusiasts -- some of whom paid thousands of dollars for the privilege.

"It's silly, but it's a little piece of history. New cars come out all the time but how often do new planes come out?" said Stephanie Wood. She and her husband Dean, of Davie, Fla., won a charity auction, paying nearly $18,700 for two business-class seats. Another passenger paid $32,000.

The most noticeable feature of the plane is its windows, which are 30 percent larger than older jets. Passengers no longer need to hunch forward to see the ground. Those in the middle of the plane can even glance out part of the windows. The shades are replaced with a glare-reducing, electrical dimming system that adds tint to the window within 30 seconds.

"The windows are absolutely amazing. You're not confined. You've got the outside inside," Wood said.

The $193.5 million plane's debut was more than three years delayed because of manufacturing problems. But that didn't bother the fans who broke out in applause at every opportunity.

The highlight for many was a rainbow-colored light show that transformed the sedate white interior into something closer to the Las Vegas strip.

Many of the 106 enthusiasts on board the flight by Japan's All Nippon Airways were carrying memorabilia from past inaugural flights and snapping photos of everything from the overhead bins to the bathroom with a window and bidet.

Thomas Lee, of Los Angeles, handed out his own press release and biography. There was his first inaugural flight -- the Boeing 747 as a 17-year-old boy in 1970 -- and then the Airbus A380 four years ago.

"I'm not crazy," he said. "For an aviation enthusiast, this is as high as it gets. It's like going to a movie on opening day."

He and the rest of the coach passengers paid the apt sum of 78,700 yen, about $1,035, to be part of the inaugural flight.

The 787 has been sold by Boeing as a "game changer," promising to revolutionize air travel just as its 707 did by allowing nonstop trans-Atlantic service and the 747 did by ushering in an age of mass travel.

The 787 is designed to connect cities that might otherwise not have nonstop flights. Planes like the Boeing 747 and 777 and the Airbus A380 can fly most long-haul routes but finding enough daily passengers to fill the massive jets is a challenge. The A380 typically has 525 passengers but can hold up to 853.

The 787 only carries 210 to 250 passengers. That means it can fly nonstop routes that larger planes can't profitably support like San Francisco to Manchester, England or Boston to Athens, Greece.

"It's going to be a hub-avoiding machine," said Ernie Arvai, partner with aviation consulting firm AirInsight. "You'd pay extra not to go to (London's) Heathrow."

Connecting such smaller cities is the "holy grail" of air travel, said Richard Aboulafia, analyst with the Teal Group. That's why the plane is the fastest-selling new jet in aviation history. There were 821 orders for the 787 before its first flight, although 24 were recently canceled by China Eastern Airlines because of delays. Now, the industry is waiting to see if the plane meets Boeing's 20 percent fuel-savings claims.

"If it performs as promised, it's the iPod of the aircraft world. If it doesn't, it's just another CD player," Aboulafia said.

ANA is the first airline to fly the plane and expects to have seven of them by the end of the year. United Continental Holdings Inc. will be the first U.S. carrier to fly the 787, sometime in the second half of 2012. It's planning to use the plane between Houston and Auckland, New Zealand.

There will probably be a short period when United -- which ordered 50 of the jets -- uses its first 787 on domestic or short trans-Atlantic flights. To make the Auckland route work, it will need a second 787 flying in the other direction.

For passengers, the changes start with boarding. They enter into a wide-open area with sweeping arches. Eyes instinctively move up. There's an impression of more space. Claustrophobia is reduced just a bit, even if seats are as cramped as ever.

Another physiological trick: lights gradually change color during long flights to reduce jet lag.

But the biggest changes come thanks to the stronger composite shell, which is less susceptible to corrosion than aluminum. Air won't be as dry, with humidity doubled to 16 percent. The cabin will be pressurized at the equivalent of 6,000 feet -- 2,000 less than most planes. That should lead to fewer headaches and leave passengers with more energy during long trips. A number of passengers on Wednesday's flight said they thought it was too short to notice any improvement.

Other changes for passengers include:

-- The largest overhead bins ever. They are designed at an angle to make the cabin feel significantly larger. Boeing says there's enough room overhead for every passenger to have one carry-on bag, however, the only way that seemed feasible was with identically rectangle bags, stacked in the optimal order.

-- Less noise. New engines with a wave pattern around the exhaust reduce interior and exterior noise, although Boeing won't say by how much. Since the plane is lighter, additional sound and vibration padding can be added. Wednesday's flight appeared quieter, but a handheld sound meter registered noise levels similar to Boeing's 777.

-- Later models will have a turbulence dampening system. Accelerometers in the nose register a sudden drop. A signal is sent in nano seconds via fiber-optic cables to the wings. Adjustments are made and what would have been a 9-foot drop is cut to 3 feet.

Most passengers don't know the make or model of their plane, unless they read the safety instruction card. The 787's interior is likely to change that. Even those who don't fly it, are likely to notice.

Hundreds of employees at Hong Kong airport stopped working to watch -- and take photos -- of Wednesday's arrival.

"We're celebrities," said passenger Lee Simonetta of Atlanta. "We ought to just taxi around for an hour."

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Divers to Rescue Blackbeard's Pirate Ship

Steve Workman / NC Department of Cultural Resources

Divers work with a hose that sucks up small artifacts from Blackbeard's ship to the recovery vessel.

BEAUFORT, North Carolina –  Researchers have raised a 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) cannon from the wreck of the pirate Blackbeard's ship, which has been on the ocean floor off the North Carolina coast for nearly 300 years.

The Queen Anne's Revenge Project brought the massive gun ashore Wednesday. Onlookers cheered as the eight-foot-long 8 feet (2.4-meter) gun was raised above the water's surface.

The project is named after the flagship and has been working since 1997 to salvage artifacts from the wreck.

The gun was on public display Wednesday in front of the state Maritime Museum in Beaufort before being taken to a laboratory for further study.

The cannon is encased in a cement-like shell of sand, salt and barnacles. It could take years for researchers to learn exactly what the shell contains in addition to the gun.

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EyePoppers: The Best Science Photos of the Week

",dek:"

Science is both complex and beautiful. Here, the latest findings in the many worlds of science -- from genetics to chemistry to rocket science -- as told through pictures.",date:"October 26, 2011",language:""

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Hurricane Rina Rages in Space Station Astronaut Video

NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

Oct. 24, 2011: Hurricane Rina as seen by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite on when it was off the coast of Mexico. Rina's southwestern edge was over Honduras at this time.

From high above Earth, the astronauts on the International Space Station have a unique view of the menacing Hurricane Rina raging below, and by the looks of a video recorded today (Oct. 25), the view from space reveals quite a storm.

"We have a view of Hurricane Rina in the video camera here," space station commander Mike Fossum of NASA radioed to Mission Control in Houston. It's a biggun."

From Fossum's perspective, the cloudy white mass of the hurricane can clearly be seen beneath the space station as it passes overhead. The video of Hurricane Rina  from space compiles multiple camera angles from the orbiting lab. The footage was captured at 2:39 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT) today as the space station flew 248 miles (399 kilometers) over the Caribbean Sea, east of Belize.

"We're seeing it too, Mike

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Researchers Crack Secret Society's 18th Century Code, Target World's Most Mysterious Book

University of Southern California and Uppsala University

Pages from the "Copiale Cipher, " a mysterious cryptogram, bound in gold and green brocade paper, that was finally cracked by an international team of cryptographers.

They're going to need a bigger secret decoder ring. 

A team of researchers that made headlines for decoding a secret society's 18th century manuscript is working to reveal the secret behind an even more mysterious book -- one that the world has yet to decode.

Found in a chest of books outside Rome by a dealer in antique books, the Voynich manuscript has remained one of history’s biggest mysteries: Its aging parchment is coated in alien characters and has for centuries mystified scientists. And Kevin Knight, a computer scientist with USC's Viterbi School of Engineering who recently helped crack the Copiale Cipher, believes the same techniques could be used to tackle literature’s great mystery manuscript.



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Family-Owned Cafe Battles Apple Over Logo Dispute

Apfelkind

A café in Bonn called Apfelkind has become entangled in a legal fight with Apple over its logo.

When is an apple with a cutout silhouette and a leaf on top just, well, an apple? A German family cafe and the American tech giant are trying to sort that out.

The Local Germany reported Wednesday that when Christin Romer opened her cafe in the west German city of Bonn last May she named it Apfelkind (apple baby) after a nearby apple orchard.

Then she commissioned a logo, which turned out to be a red apple with a cut-out silhouette of a child in a hat, and liked it so much she had it reprinted on cushions, chairs, cups and even a delivery bike.

"I wanted to do something like Starbucks, and have the logo as my trademark," she told The Local. "I was even thinking of eventually expanding and creating a franchise business so other people could open up other Apfelkind cafes, which is why I wanted to register the trademark."

Enter Apple, the world-famous computer giant, which sent her a letter from California headquarters last month saying its logo would be damaged by any trademark rights she might win for her apple and that in particular, the choice of the color red, the leaf on the apple stem and the shape of the apple could confuse consumers.

"At first I couldn't believe the letter," she told The Local. "Then I called my lawyer. The thing is, it was almost flattering to hear from Apple. I love Apple products -- I love design and am not terribly technical. I organize my cafe with my iPhone and Apple laptop."

Romer has refused to withdraw her trademark application, and said her lawyer expects the case to be resolved by the Munich Patent Office.

Apple would not comment on the story.

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Dinosaurs Scrambled to Feed Gargantuan Appetites, Study Finds

AP Photo/ Henry Fricke,/Colorado College

A new study of the teeth of dinosaurs suggests long-necked, plant-eaters migrated hundreds of miles to find enough food for their gargantuan appetites.

LOS ANGELES –  What did giant plant-munching dinosaurs do when they couldn't find enough to eat in the parched American West? They hit the road.

An analysis of fossilized teeth adds further evidence that the long-necked dinosaurs called sauropods -- the largest land creatures -- went on road trips to fill their gargantuan appetites.

Scientists have long theorized that sauropods foraged for precious resources during droughts because of their preserved tracks and long limbs that were "ideal moving machines" and allowed them to cover long distances, said paleobiologist Matthew Bonnan of Western Illinois University.

The latest study is the best evidence yet that at least one kind of sauropod "took to the hills in search of food when times got tough in the lowlands," said paleontologist Kristi Curry Rogers at Macalester College in Minnesota.

The new work, published online Wednesday by the journal Nature, was led by geologist Henry Fricke of Colorado College.
The researchers analyzed 32 sauropod teeth collected in Wyoming and Utah. The teeth came from massive plant-eaters that roamed a semi-arid basin in the American West during the late Jurassic period about 150 million years ago.

The largest sauropods weighed 100 tons and were 120 feet long. The type in the study was smaller -- about 60 feet in length and weighing 25 tons.

Scientists can get a glimpse into the source of the dinosaurs' drinking water by comparing the oxygen preserved in the tooth enamel to that found in ancient sediment.

A chemical analysis showed differences in the teeth and the basin where the dinosaurs were buried, meaning they must have wandered hundreds of miles from the flood plains to the highlands for food and water.

Fricke said the movement appeared to be tied to changing seasons. Sauropods left the basin in the summer for higher elevations -- a trek that took about five months -- and returned in the winter.

In lush times, sauropods would have feasted on a diversity of plants including ferns, horsetails, conifers and moss, said John Foster, a curator at the Museum of Western Colorado, who had no part in the research.

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Weather Looks Pristine for NASA Climate Satellite Launch Friday

NASA

An artist's conception of NASA's NPP climate and weather satellite in orbit.

NASA is gearing up for the planned Friday (Oct. 28) launch of its newest Earth-observing satellite, a trailblazing spacecraft that will be the first to make observations for both short-term weather forecasts and long-term climate monitoring.

Appropriately enough, it looks like Mother Nature will cooperate. Current forecasts call for a zero percent chance of launch-violating bad weather.

The National polar-orbiting operational environmental satellite system Preparatory Project

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Mars Feels Sun's Wrath

NASA

A gigantic solar eruption shoots out from the sun -- straight towards the Red Planet.

The sun battered the Earth's magnetosphere with an "epic" geomagnetic storm over the last couple of days, generating beautiful auroral displays at low latitudes. Now it's Mars' turn.

On Saturday (Oct. 22), a large bubble of solar plasma was blasted from the sun's surface. Unlike the coronal mass ejection (CME) that struck us on Monday, Saturday's CME was sent in a different direction -- toward the Red Planet.

SCIENCE CHANNEL: Wonders of the Solar System: The Sun

As per simulations carried out by NASA's Goddard Space Weather Laboratory (shown below), the CME should have arrived in Mars orbit by now (Oct. 26). However, its impact on Mars will be very different than a CME's impact on Earth.

For starters, Mars doesn't have a protective global magnetic field -- instead it has a "patchy" magnetic field distributed all over the planet. One of the many problems future Mars explorers will face is the increased radiation environment on the Martian surface -- the lack of a protective magnetic "shield" and a thin atmosphere means CME impacts and solar flare events are a health risk.

PHOTOS: 5 Ways the Solar Wind Will Blow You Away

It is believed Mars suffered a cataclysmic impact event in its early history that damaged the planet's internal "dynamo." Therefore, its magnetosphere was shut down and any residual magnetic field acts as mini-magnetic "umbrellas."

It is thought that these magnetic umbrellas my be the root cause of the thin Martian atmosphere. As the solar wind continually buffets Mars, the magnetic umbrellas get "pinched off," carrying atmospheric gases into space. This might explain why the planet's atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth's.

NEWS: Martian Air Blown Away by Solar Super Wave

According to Spaceweather.com, there is circumstantial evidence from data collected by the NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (1996-2007) that suggests these magnetic umbrellas also generate their own aurorae when particles from the sun impact the Martian atmosphere.

Like the satellites in orbit around the Earth, the three satellites in orbit around Mars (NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey, plus the European Mars Express) are vulnerable to damage by the sun's high-energy particles impacting their circuitry.

Fingers crossed this latest solar assault passes without incident.

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Facebook on Ice: New Data Center to Be Built Near Arctic Circle

AP Photo/Scanpix, Sweco, The Node Pole

Oct. 27, 2011: An artist's rendering of Facebook's new server farm on the edge of the Arctic Circle, the company's first outside the U.S.

Social networking site Facebook is to build its first data center outside the United States in the northern Swedish town of Lulea, awarding an initial construction contract of $121 million, the companies said on Thursday.

The data center, set to be the largest of its kind in Europe, will take advantage of the climate in Lulea, among the coldest in Sweden, to cool tens of thousands of servers.

"Those servers basically are what allow us to support all of the Facebook products for our users. Friend requests, tags, user updates will be accessed through this facility," Tom Furlong, Facebook's director of site operations, told Reuters.

"It will mostly serve European users and ideally improve performance for them," he added in a telephone interview.

Swedish construction group NCC said it was part of a joint venture with two U.S. companies, DPR Construction and Fortis Construction, which had won a contract of 800 million crowns ($121 million) for the first of three server buildings in the data center. NCC's share was 400 million.

The data center will be the northernmost of its size on Earth. It is Facebook's first in Europe and will serve more than 800 million site users.

Facebook said in a statement it chose Lulea, despite its remoteness some 1,000 km north of Swedish capital Stockholm, because its cold climate would be good for cooling and that it could provide environmentally friendly hydro-power.

The three server buildings will have an area of 28,000 square meters (300,000 square ft) each. Construction takes place in three phases and begins instantly.

"The first building is to be operational within a year and the entire facility is scheduled for completion by 2014," the company added. "About 300 full-time positions will be required during the first three years."

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'Junk' All That Separates Humans From Chimps

Reuters/AP

If we're 99% the same, what makes us different?

We all are the one percent, apparently.

Scientists have long been baffled by the genetic similarities between humans and chimpanzees, which share up to 99 percent of the same DNA despite our vast differences in appearance and ability -- baffled until now, that is. Researchers have determined that the only thing that separates us from chimps is a tiny bit of

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Researcher Warns of Stink Bug Invasion

USDA APHIS PPQ / David R. Lance

The brown marmorated stink bug(Halyomorpha halys) is indigenous to Asia and is considered an agricultural pest in Japan.

ATHENS, Ga. –  A University of Georgia researcher is warning that a species of stink bug could soon be marching into homes across the state.

Entomologist Rick Hoebeke tells the Athens Banner-Herald that swarms of brown marmorated stink bugs are probably going to be seeking wintertime refuge inside Georgia homes.

He said the bugs, about a half-inch long, have been known to show up in such numbers that homeowners in Pennsylvania have used buckets and brooms to sweep them off porches.

Hoebeke said that in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and other mid-Atlantic states where the bug already is well-established, the brown marmorated stink bug has caused millions of dollars in damage.

He said the bugs have been spreading south, and have already been seen in the Atlanta area.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011

Apple to Start Television Revolution, Analyst Says

Apple

Would a future Apple Television resemble their current line of LED Cinema Display computer monitors?

Reports have suggested for more than a year that Apple is working on a smart TV product, and those reports were firmed up last week when an excerpt from Steve Jobs’s biography revealed that the Apple co-Founder was indeed working on an Apple television.



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Nokia Unveils Its First Windows Smartphones

Nokia Corp.

The Nokia Lumia 710, the first Windows Phone-powered smartphone from Nokia.

LONDON –  Seeking to turn back the dial on the industry perception of it as an out-of-favor smartphone maker, Nokia unveiled Wednesday its inaugural devices that will run on Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system.

In a speech to open Nokia World, the Finnish cell phone company's developers' conference in London, CEO Stephen Elop said Nokia's newest offerings would be called the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 710, Marketwatch reported.

"It's a new dawn for Nokia," Elop told reporters and those assembled from the cell phone industry. "Eight months ago, we shared our new strategy, and today

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iPhone 4S vs. Android Phones: What's Better for You?

Laptopmag.com

You know your smartphone is doing well when 4 million people buy it in the first weekend and it temporarily sells out on all three of your carrier partners. 

The overwhelming demand for the iPhone 4S is understandable, given the much-talked-about Siri voice-controlled assistant, as well as the device's faster dual-core processor and fantastic 8-megapixel camera. But today's top Android phones

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Squirmy Toddler? There's an App for That

Gizmodo

A just released software patch for the iPhone updates the system software to version 4.0.1, which "improves" the way the iPhone displays signal strength.

There's a new routine these days whenever Amber Mullaney goes out to eat at a restaurant. While waiting to be seated, she asks her husband to get the phone ready to hand over to their 2-year-old daughter, Tatum.

The phone -- with its ability to stream episodes of Dora the Explorer -- is a godsend, Mullaney says.

Attempts at going out without whipping out the gadget have been disastrous, the Denver mom says. Her curious, independent toddler gets into everything. Salt shakers are fiddled with, drinks are spilled.

"She'll color for a little bit or talk with us for a little bit, but it's short-lived," Mullaney says. "It's miserable because all she wants to do is get out."

With the iPhone, however, Tatum sits quietly in the booth while her parents get to enjoy a meal.
Mullaney, a marketing manager for a technology company, sometimes wishes they could do without the phone because she doesn't want people to think they're using technology to shut their child up, but she also doesn't want to give up going out.

"Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do," she says.

Mullaney is in good company. About 40 percent of 2- to 4-year-olds (and 10 percent of kids younger than that) have used a smartphone, tablet or video iPod, according to a new study by the nonprofit group Common Sense Media. Roughly 1 in 5 parents surveyed said they give their children these devices to keep them occupied while running errands.

There are thousands of apps targeted specifically to babies and toddlers -- interactive games that name body parts, for example, or sing nursery rhymes. It has become commonplace to see little ones flicking through photos on their parents' phones during church or playing games on a tablet during a bus, train or plane ride. Parents of newborns rave about an app that plays white noise, a womb-like whoosh that lulls screaming babies to sleep.

In fact, toymaker Fisher Price has just released a new hard case for the iPhone and iPod touch, framed by a colorful rattle, which allows babies to play while promising protection from "dribbles, drool and unwanted call-making."

Denise Thevenot acknowledges that some people would look askance at the idea of giving a child a $600 device to play with -- she had the same concerns initially. Then she discovered the sheer potential.

"The iPad is movies, books and games all wrapped in one nice package," says Thevenot, who works in the New Orleans tourism industry. The iPad, she says, keeps her 3-year-old son Frankie busy for hours. And, when needed, taking it away "is the greatest punishment. ... He loves it that much."

Kaamna Bhojwani-Dhawan is an unapologetic proponent of the trend.

"If you're raising children, you've got to raise them with the times," says Bhojwani-Dhawan, who lives in Silicon Valley and founded the family travel website Momaboard.com. "If adults are going all digital, how can we expect children to be left behind?"

Her 2 1/2-year-old, Karam, loves the GoodieWords app, which explains complex concepts like "shadow" and "electricity." Other favorites are a memory matching game with farm animals and a drawing program.

Bhojwani-Dhawan points out that Karam also has books, crayons and Legos. "It's not replacing any of these things; it's one more thing he's getting exposed to," she says.
Experts say balance is key.

"It's really important that children have a variety of tools to learn from. Technology gadgets can be one of those tools, but they shouldn't dominate, especially when we're talking about very young children," says Cheryl Rode, a clinical psychologist at the San Diego Center for Children, a nonprofit that provides mental health services.

"If kids are isolating themselves or if it's narrowing their range of interest in things -- everything else is boring -- those are big red flags," Rode says. "You want them to have the ability to find lots of different ways to engage themselves."

For public relations consultant Stacey Stark, one red flag was seeing her 1 1/2-year-old cry if she wasn't allowed to hold Stark's iPhone. Little Amalia has dropped the phone, leaving it with a small crack on the back. She has also called a colleague of Stark's and almost shot off an email to a client.

For all those reasons, Stark and her husband have started to cut back on how much they let Amalia and 4-year-old Cecelia use their phones and tablets.

"It became an issue. We're trying to make it go away," the Milwaukee mom says. "It was easy for it to become a crutch."

Since scaling back, Stark says, she has seen her daughters engage in more imaginative play. Still, there is a positive side to the technology, Stark says. She thinks Montessori reading and spelling apps have accelerated her older daughter's learning in those areas. "But," she adds, "it's such a delicate balance."

Wake Forest University psychology professor Deborah Best, who specializes in early childhood, agrees that children can benefit from programs that are age-appropriate and designed for learning.

But "interacting with devices certainly does not replace one-on-one, face-to-face interaction between children and parents, or children and peers," Best says. Those interactions, she says, help children learn such skills as reading emotions from facial expressions and taking turns in conversations.

Joan McCoy, a bookstore owner and grandmother of five in Seattle, worries that this new generation will lack some of those social skills.

When her son and daughter-in-law get together with other parents and their kids, they give the children cellphones to play with, or the children bring along toy computers. "There is absolutely no conversation among them or with their parents. They are glued to the machine," McCoy says.
It's a different story when the youngsters, ages 2 through 7, are out with their grandmother.

McCoy brings along books, sometimes ones with only pictures, and asks the kids what they think is going on and what they would do in a similar situation.

"They just talk and they're excited and they're engaged," McCoy says. "They never ask for my cellphone, which is amazing because when we go with the parents, that's the first thing they ask for."

McCoy acknowledges she has the luxury of being a grandparent and having the time to do these things. "It's harder. It takes more discipline, it takes more time, and it requires interacting with the child as opposed to the child being entertained on their own," she says.

Eileen Wolter, a writer in Summit, N.J., readily admits to taking the easier path with her 3- and 6-year-old sons: "I'm buying my kids' silence with an expensive toy."

When her in-laws get together for a family meal, six iPhones get passed to six children. The adults talk while the kids play, their contribution to the discussion typically limited to announcing they have cleared another level on a game. When that happens, Wolter starts to think, "Eek!"

But then she says to herself, "Yeah, but we had a nice dinner."

Smart phones and tablets have only been around for a few years, but it seems like everyone has a favorite app that’s so great they can’t imagine life before it! Tell us with a video or a photo what app is your favorite and why.

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No Friends in Ireland: Probe Begins Into Facebook Privacy Issues

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick

A Facebook user edits privacy settings.

Privacy watchdogs began an on-site investigation Tuesday of Facebook's regional office in Ireland, FoxNews.com has learned, following sensational accusations that the company is creating extensive "shadow profiles" of non-users.

The eye-popping assertion came in a complaint filed in August by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, which alleges that users are encouraged to hand over the personal data of others. That includes "sensitive data such as political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation and so forth" -- and Facebook is storing it all up in its databases.

Despite the company's firm denials, the Data Protection Office began hunting for evidence on Tuesday, Oct. 25, to back up those claims.

"The on-site element started on Tuesday," Lisa McGann, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, told FoxNews.com. The search will take a number of days, she said, but she could not address questions about what specifically the commissioner hoped to find or had already discovered.

In such investigations, the office has the power to inspect the building, question employees, and take away copies of any files stored on local computers, according to the Commissioner's audit guidelines. The agency will then pore over that data for the next few weeks.

"It is the intention of the commissioner that the investigation will be completed by the end of the year," McGann told FoxNews.com. The organization conducts few such reports each year; according to the Data Protection Commissioner's 2010 annual report, the office opened 231 formal complaints under the Privacy in Electronic Communications Regulations act -- but only conducted 32 "comprehensive privacy audits."

The complaint alleges that Facebook is using a range of methods to collect non-user data, including when users "synchronize" their mobile phones, import info from email providers and instant messaging services and even search for other people's names on Facebook.

Facebook confirmed that the audit started this week, and reiterated that it strives to comply with all regional privacy laws. 



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Space Tech Takes Bat Signal to Sea

Move over, Wilson the Volleyball: This is the castaway's new best friend. 

The European Space Agency, using its expertise probing deep space to pierce the darkness of the seas, has developed a wearable antenna -- essentially a bat signal designed to enable search and rescue at sea.

Finnish defense company Patria and the Italian Tampere University of Technology worked with ESA to apply its space know-how to dramatically reduce the time it takes for a distress signal to be picked up, for rescue authorities to be alerted, and for help to reach a man overboard, shipwrecked or otherwise lost at sea.

So how does this new bat signal work?

Emergency radio beacons can be carried not only by ships and aircraft but also by people (where they become known in the business as "personal location beacons"). But unlike other transmitters and their long floppy antennas, the ESA's new invention resembles a small square of washcloth. There's a reason for that: This antenna can be handily sewn into a life vest. 

When someone is lost at sea, the distress transmitter connects with the Cospas-Sarsat Search and Rescue system -- satellites in space that listen around the clock for activated beacons in the 406

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Class-Action Suit Filed Against RIM After BlackBerry Outage

RIM

The Blackberry Bold 9900, a touchscreen version of the popular smarthphone, will be unveiled this summer, the company said.

BlackBerry users have filed a class-action lawsuit against Research In Motion after the company’s massive service outage earlier this month, the Financial Post reported on Wednesday. 

The suit was officially filed by the Consumer Law Group in the Quebec Superior Court

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So, Um, Why Does the New Google Phone Have a Barometer in It?

A weatherman in your pocket this is not--but that's not to say it isn't very cool By Dan Nosowitz Posted 10.19.2011 at 5:35 pm 23 Comments


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Archive Gallery: The History of Recorded Music

Sony Mini Disc, August 1991 View Photo Gallery

Our archives are always good for a laugh, whether its frightening carnival rides or bizarre DIY dodecahedral meditation chambers. But with an oeuvre spanning three centuries, the archives are also a great resource to track scientific development, or look back at the legacy of a genius. This week, we trace the history of recording technology from Thomas Edison to Apple.



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New Cutting Edges Pull Saw Blades Forward

Saws Jonathon Kambouris

Most saw blades don’t have the strength to chew through the compressed particle board that has become so common in construction. DeWalt and Bosch’s new blades, however, have extra teeth to grab the faux wood ahead of the cutting edge and literally pull the blade forward. The result: a more controllable slice that’s easier on workers’ arms.

THE TECH

DeWalt
As the DeWalt blade (left) works its way through cuts, eight resin-filled slots absorb the vibration that’s usually transferred to the arm of the person holding it. To help the blade glide easily across rough materials, DeWalt glazes the blade’s teeth with a Teflon-like coating.
DeWalt Precision Framing Blade: $10

Bosch
The Daredevil’s cutting edges (right) also have a nonstick coating to inhibit friction. Meanwhile, Bosch reinforced its 7.25-inch steel blade with manganese, an element that slightly raises the metal’s melting point so that it won’t warp and wobble during long cutting sessions.
Bosch Daredevil Framing Blade: $10

THE TEST

We tested the blades on the same 15-amp heavy-duty circular saw. First we made 71 eight-foot cuts through a 2.5-inch-thick stack of plywood with each blade. After neither one so much as flinched, we pushed them through two layers of asphalt shingles sandwiched between two-inch-thick pressure-treated boards interlaced with 15-gauge nails.

THE RESULTS

The Bosch blade was harder to hold steady than the DeWalt, making it difficult to follow the cut line or guide it back if it wandered off. As for staying power, after chewing through three football fields’ worth of plywood, the DeWalt made it through another 54 feet of shingle sandwich before getting stuck; the Bosch quit after 30 feet.

WINNER: DeWalt Precision Framing Blade

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Nokia Announces the First Great-Looking Windows Phone

Nokia Lumia 800 Nokia

Windows Phone, especially with its newest update, is a damn fine mobile operating system, but also one lacking a truly killer phone. We were holding out hope that Nokia's first Windows Phone smartphone would be the one to get, and it just might be--the Lumia 800 is the first Windows Phone that's as eye-catching as the OS inside. Nokia also announced the 800's little brother, the 710, which is no slouch either.

Nokia's long been known for great (if bulky) hardware and just the worst software (see our review of the Nokia N8 if you want to witness our frustration with it), and Microsoft's awesome Windows Phone software has been lacking a really great, non-plasticky, non-weird handset. It's the perfect pairing! And at last night's Nokia World, the Finnish company finally showed off the long-rumored handsets: the flagship Lumia 800 and cheaper Lumia 710.

The Lumia 800 (we know Nokia loves numbers, but still, that name) is based on the N9, a big, flat, gorgeous slab of aluminum. It'll have a 3.7-inch screen, which is slightly smaller than average for Windows Phones but certainly still usable, 16GB of non-expandable storage, and a fancy-pants camera that could actually give the iPhone 4S some competition. It's an 8MP job with Carl Zeiss optics, rated at f2.2. No clues on which U.S. carrier will get it, nor on a release date--it's only been announced so far for Europe, which will get it on November 16th for

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Libratone Live Review: Euro Design, Danish Engineering, and Apple AirPlay

Vision just posted a review of the Libratone Live, a curious, triangular, compact audio system that plays music from an iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, or Mac, beamed to it via Apple's AirPlay. S

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