Google’s Strategy In Japan: Avoid Yahoo And Take Over The Mobile Web First

by Serkan Toto on August 31st, 2008

Inside India’s CAPTCHA Solving Economy

by Soulskill on August 30th, 2008

Anti-Globalism points out an analysis of India's CAPTCHA-solving industry posted at ZDNet. It begins: "No CAPTCHA can survive a human that's receiving financial incentives for solving it, and with an army of low-waged human CAPTCHA solvers officially in the business of data processing while earning a mere $2 for solving a thousand CAPTCHAs, I'm already starting to see evidence of consolidation between India's major CAPTCHA solving companies. The consolidation, logically leading to increased bargaining power, is resulting in an international franchising model recruiting data processing workers empowered with do-it-yourself CAPTCHA syndication web based kits, API keys, and thousands of proxies to make their work easier and the process more efficient."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Texas Instruments’ new LED-based DLP projection shines in person, due Q4

by Paul Miller on August 30th, 2008

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Delta Electronics might've jumped the gun a bit with its claim of firsties on Texas Instruments' new "PhlatLight" HD LED DLP projector tech. Delta hasn't brought even a prototype to IFA, but over at Texas Instruments there's a Vivitek version of the lamp-free projector tech, which TI claims will be the first to market sometime in Q4 of 2008. The specs they rattled off are undoubtedly impressive: 50% better color range, 500,000:1 contrast ratio, 30% less power draw, and of course 1080p to put a feather in the cap. In TI's darkened viewing room the image was certainly impressive, but we're guessing specs like these could carry over nicely into our less-than-ideal bedsheet setup back home.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

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Is It Good For Business To Subsidize OSS Developers?

by Soulskill on August 30th, 2008

ruphus13 writes "A lot of developers for open source software have full-time day jobs too. As economist Milton Friedman said, 'The business of business is business.' So, does it make sense for companies to encourage their developers to contribute to the open source community? OStatic discusses a blog post by Alfresco exec Matt Asay, who makes the case for why they should. '"Companies like IBM, Intel, SGI, MIPS, Freescale, HP, etc. are all working to ensure that Linux runs well on their hardware. That, in turn, makes their offerings more attractive to Linux users, resulting in increased sales." While I don't think we'll ever see companies everywhere subsidizing employee development of open source tools, many tech and non-tech companies alike could benefit from subsidizing open source development from employees with talent. If more companies woke up to this idea, we'd see more purpose-driven, mission-critical open source software shared by firms in the same industries. That, ultimately, would benefit the companies providing the subsidies.' Should your employer pay you for time spent on open source development?" snydeq points out an Infoworld story suggesting that there's something to learn from the way French companies are promoting open-source development.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Navigon’s 7200, 2200 and 2150 Max in the flesh

by Paul Miller on August 30th, 2008

Filed under: GPS

We just went on a whirlwind tour of Navigon's booth here at IFA 2008, and while a sea of barely distinguishable GPS devices has a tendency to send us into sudden and violent fits of napping, we thought we'd give you a look-see just in case you feel otherwise. The only real standout was the new 7200 (pictured), which has a flat, glossy front, and is a joy to touch -- we're not positive it's capacitive, but it feels a ton better than the regular dull resistive touch of most GPS units out on the market. We also took a look at the 2200 and 2150 Max, as you can see in the gallery below. Knock yourself out.

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Screen Grabs: the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart grabs a Centro for some speech critique

by Joshua Topolsky on August 30th, 2008

Filed under: Cellphones

We're not sure how this came to be, but when Jon Stewart needs to make a real / fake call to Democratic governor Mark Warner to let him know how bad his speech at the DNC "suuuuuuucked," he reaches for a Centro. Check the read link to watch the full episode, and if you don't enjoy comedy, you can just skip to about 3:29 in to see Palm's cheapo smartphone get some face-time.

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Gamer’s Bill of Rights

by Cory Doctorow on August 30th, 2008

Edge Magazine's Brad Wardell has a great, provocative 10-point Gamer's Bill of Rights that runs the gamut from DRM to quality assurance:

1 Gamers shall have the right to return games that don't work with their computers for a full refund.
2 Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
3 Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game's release.
4 Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
5 Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will adequately play on that computer.

The Gamer's Bill of Rights (via /.)

William Gibson’s playlist

by Cory Doctorow on August 30th, 2008

From William Gibson, a playlist of ten musical tracks to get you in a Spook Country mood (sez Bill, "I have always regarded music with lyrics as a species of fiction.")

1) Country Blues, Dock Boggs. On finally learning to hear this music, you literally become some different, more primal manner of flesh. There is simply nothing else like it. It is an Ur-thing, sere and terrible, yet capable of profound and paradoxical rescue in the very darkest hour. Dock Boggs lived in Wise County, Virginia, not far from where I grew up. I am haunted by the possibility that someone could have listened to this recording in Paris, in 1927, the year it was released.

2) Make Me Down a Pallet on Your Floor, Lucinda Williams. A ravishingly young woman (1978) channels all the sexuality, injustice and spirituality of the American Gone World. For Smithsonian Folkways, no less.

3) Decoration Day, Drive-By Truckers. Like early Cormac McCarthy, but with three lead guitars. Hyper-literate narrative song-writing in the service of an act of stingingly efficient shamanistic cultural recall.

Living With Music: A Playlist by William Gibson (via Beyond the Beyond)

Simple way to keep your download folder tidy

by Cory Doctorow on August 30th, 2008

From Danny O'Brien, a nice hack for keeping your download folder tidy -- a script that deletes everything that's more than a week old. I'd like one of these to run on my ~/.Trash folder, too.

I've had bad experience with handing "delete file" powers to an automatic script before, so I'll disclaim any warranty ("TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW" as the GPL shouts), but it's pretty straightforward, and works for me: I have it in a cronjob. The tmp folder it cleans up is my default save folder on Firefox, and where I generally download everything. If I want to save anything longer than a week, I find it a place in the rest of my filing system. It's sort of like having a cleaner come around every week: occasionally you go "Garr! Where's that coffee-stained, have torn copy of last month's New Yorker! I was going to eventually get around to reading that!", but mostly your cruft just silently disappears without you noticing a thing.

the most useful simple script i have

Austin Event: Frankenbike

by Luke Iseman on August 30th, 2008

(image courtesy Austin Bike Zoo)

Apologies for the late notice, but there's a Frankenbike Saturday:

FrankenBike # 37 9am-7pm @ the Austin Bike Zoo @ 1706 E. 17th St 78702

Frankenbike is basically a big, cool bike part swap meet; good article about it here. Austin Bike Zoo does some amazing stuff,so swing by and check it out!

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