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Friday, March 30, 2012

Report: Foursquare shuts off API for Girls Around Me app

Report: Foursquare shuts off API for Girls Around Me app: An app that employed Foursquare and Facebook data to show the real-time location of women has raised an uproar and is making people think about how social media exposes them.
[Read more]

Type Connection

Type Connection: A Typographic Dating Game

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Controversial Pesticide Linked to Bee Collapse

Controversial Pesticide Linked to Bee Collapse: A controversial type of pesticide linked to declining global bee populations appears to scramble bees' sense of direction, making it hard for them to find home. Starved of foragers and the pollen they carry, colonies produce fewer queens, and eventually collapse.

Unemployment down in Douglas County, but how do job-seekers feel?

Unemployment down in Douglas County, but how do job-seekers feel?:

New numbers released show that unemployment is down in our area, but not everyone is seeing the results. While Worksource Oregon says there are plenty of jobs, there are also plenty out of one.

Google enables third-party apps in video Hangouts

Google enables third-party apps in video Hangouts: Google has opened its Google+ Hangout service to third-party applications, and is adding an apps menu to the video chat application to help people find them.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Free up space on your iOS device

Free up space on your iOS device: As apps are getting larger, space on iOS devices is becoming increasingly cramped. Here are several ways to squeeze the most storage possible out of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Cloak 0.9.21 - Protects your Internet use when using public WiFi networks; free 1GB account.. (Free)

Cloak 0.9.21 - Protects your Internet use when using public WiFi networks; free 1GB account.. (Free): Exactly how unsafe are public hotspots? Here's a recent CBC report about Firesheep, a hacking tool that makes it shockingly easy to steal your stuff.

With Cloak, safety is just a click away. Here’s why:

No setup or configuration: it just works.
Automatically detects insecure networks and keeps you safe.
Rock-solid, industry standard encryption technologies.
Protects all your apps, not just your web browser.
Supports all your Apple devices, not just your laptop.
Curious how Cloak works under the hood? Check out our technology deep dive.

Printer ink: Tired of feeding the cash cow? | Macworld

Printer ink: Tired of feeding the cash cow? | Macworld: Human blood costs about $17.27 an ounce, silver about $34 an ounce. But both are bargains compared to the ink sold to the owners of inkjet printers, which can exceed $80 an ounce. Meanwhile, the ink used to print newspapers costs about 16 cents an ounce.

Some OEM cartridges have expiration dates built into their chips, and cannot be installed after that date, warns Slawetsky. Buying cartridges in bulk at a discount may be self-defeating for such machines, he warns, as a cartridge may expire before it is needed.

But all third-party refill ink for HP cartridges that it has tested fade noticeably within a year.

“The industry figured out years ago that once people buy a printer they are committed to it, so you can sell the printer at or below cost knowing they will buy the cartridges,” adds Charles Lecompte, head of Lyra Research, a market research firm in Newton, Mass. “We think they are selling the cartridges for several times more than it costs to make them.”

Why? “Printer prices have hit rock bottom, and the manufacturers are trying to somehow make up for the money they are not making from the hardware,” says Seheje Saraphy, analyst at market research firm IDC.

Google's latest brainstorm: Analytics for the common folk | Digital Media - CNET News

Google's latest brainstorm: Analytics for the common folk | Digital Media - CNET News: A new monthly dashboard service from Google will let users monitor their "account activity."

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Apple Explains New iPad's Continued Charging Beyond 100% Battery Level

Apple Explains New iPad's Continued Charging Beyond 100% Battery Level: So, here’s how things work: Apple does in fact display the iPad (and iPhone and iPod Touch) as 100 percent charged just before a device reaches a completely charged state. At that point, it will continue charging to 100 percent, then discharge a bit and charge back up to 100 percent, repeating that process until the device is unplugged.

Doing so allows devices to maintain an optimum charge, Apple VP Michael Tchao told AllThingsD today.

“That circuitry is designed so you can keep your device plugged in as long as you would like,” Tchao said. “It’s a great feature that’s always been in iOS.”
Tchao notes that users can expect 10-hour battery life on the new iPad regardless of when in that trickle charge/discharge cycle they unplug their device, and that Apple intentionally displays the battery level at 100% throughout that cycle so as to not confuse consumers who might otherwise think their device is not completing charging correctly.

Blood, sweat and tears | Prospect Magazine

Blood, sweat and tears | Prospect Magazine: Long Day’s Journey Into Night was so personal and painful for Eugene O’Neill that he forbade the performance of the play until after his death. Does it stand the test of time?

Science on the Rampage by Freeman Dyson | The New York Review of Books

Science on the Rampage by Freeman Dyson | The New York Review of Books: Physics on the Fringe describes work done by amateurs, people rejected by the academic establishment and rejecting orthodox academic beliefs. They are often self-taught and ignorant of higher mathematics. Mathematics is the language spoken by the professionals. The amateurs offer an alternative set of visions. Their imagined worlds are concrete rather than abstract, physical rather than mathematical. Many of them belong to the Natural Philosophy Alliance, an informal organization known to its friends as the NPA.

The originality of the species | Books | The Guardian

The originality of the species | Books | The Guardian: A frenzied desire to be first inspired Darwin and Einstein to bursts of creativity. Like writers and artists, scientists strive to have their names attached to a work of brilliance, but any breakthrough depends on the efforts of countless predecessors. Ian McEwan reflects on originality and collaboration

Arts & Letters Daily (27 Mar 2012)

Arts & Letters Daily (27 Mar 2012):


Eugene O'Neill never staged Long Day's Journey during his lifetime. It was too painful. Rarely has a
playwright stripped himself so bare. more



At the far end of theoretical physics, truth and fantasy blur. The glory of science, says Freeman Dyson, is to imagine more than
we can prove... more



To be first is everything in science and art. Immortality is at stake. Nobel Prizes, too. Originality is a grand, ignoble, fruitless pursuit... more

Monday, March 26, 2012

Roddick upsets Federer at Key Biscayne (Yahoo! Sports)

Roddick upsets Federer at Key Biscayne (Yahoo! Sports): Andy Roddick beat Roger Federer for only the third time in their 24 meetings Monday, dominating with his serve to win 7-6 (4), 1-6, 6-4 in the third round at the Sony Ericsson Open. Roddick broke serve only once but held every service game in the first and last sets. After falling behind 15-30 in the final game, he closed out the victory with an ace and two service winners.

Which streaming media device is right for you? | Crave - CNET

Which streaming media device is right for you? | Crave - CNET: Once a fringe activity for the geeky set, online video streaming is now officially mainstream, thanks in large part to the omnipresence of Netflix on nearly all Internet-connected entertainment devices. But with so many options now available, what's the best solution -- be it for Netflix, Hulu Plus, Vudu, Amazon, or any of the myriad other online video sources?

LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS | Dreaming in Chinese

LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS | Dreaming in Chinese: China and the Chinese display a profound ambivalence toward modernity and all that it entails. On the one hand, they are extraordinarily proud of all that their nation has accomplished over the last 30 years. At the time of Mao’s death in 1976, China was still a predominantly rural-agrarian society. The post-Maoist leadership is credited with lifting 400 million peasants out of poverty. By the same token, most Chinese I spoke with had strong reservations about the accelerated pace of modernization, which allows little time to savor the virtues of traditional of Chinese life: family, community, and nature.

How to make basic edits in iPhoto for iOS | Macworld

How to make basic edits in iPhoto for iOS | Macworld: iPhoto is one of the most packed and powerful iOS photo apps we’ve seen, so there’s a slight learning curve when using it to spruce up your photos. Here’s how to use some of the app’s tools to make basic edits. Instructions are based on the iPad version of iPhoto for iOS, but it's easy to extrapolate the same techniques for the iPhone 4 or 4S.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

My Cabellian research has yielded a mind-blowing revelation

To wit, in James Branch Cabell's own words, from his preface to "The Witch Woman", the book which he has "not as yet published."

Preface to the Past.jpg

Preface to the Past2.jpg

Preface to the Past3.jpg

So, 700 years of human history, as we know it, is, in fact, the Norns second version, a somewhat muddled affair it seems.

And the period ends, in a monstrous act of egotism, in 1879 upon the date of the author's birth.

And so, Cabell has wrapped up his Biography in as neat an alternate-history scenario as you will find in the hardest of hard sci-fi.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Flying Dutchman is Lying Dutchman in elaborate hoax

Flying Dutchman is Lying Dutchman in elaborate hoax: A cleverly designed human birdwings hoax has the whole Internet bummed out it's not real.
[Read more]

Google+ Hangouts now calling any phone

Google+ Hangouts now calling any phone: With the flip of a virtual switch, Google has graduated a popular experimental feature into a standard for Google+ users, the ability to place calls to any number using Google Hangout.
[Read more]

Four short links: 23 March 2012

Four short links: 23 March 2012: Walmart Buys A Facebook App for Calendar Access (Ars Technica) -- The Social Calendar app and its file of 110 million birthdays and other events, acquired from Newput Corp., will give Walmart the ability to expand its efforts to dig deeper into the lives of customers. Interesting to think that by buying a well-loved app, a company could get access to your Facebook details whether you Like them or not.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

'Bird Man' Hoaxster Comes Clean on Dutch Television

'Bird Man' Hoaxster Comes Clean on Dutch Television: The man who claimed to achieve bird-like flight with a custom-built contraption came clean today: It was a hoax 8 months in the making. "Jarno Smeets" of the Human Birdwings project is really Floris Kaayk, a Dutch artist.

Annual Spring Fair kicks off Friday in Roseburg

Annual Spring Fair kicks off Friday in Roseburg:

Those interested in finding something a little different to check out are in luck this weekend, as the the Spring Fair is kicking off this Friday.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Wi-Fi Issues On Your New iPad? Try This Simple Fix [iOS Tips] | Cult of Mac

Wi-Fi Issues On Your New iPad? Try This Simple Fix [iOS Tips] | Cult of Mac: Go back to the Settings app and under the ‘General’ tab, tap ‘Reset’ then ‘Reset Network Settings’. You will lose all of your Wi-Fi passwords by doing this, but it’s well worth it if it works. Once the process is complete, reboot your iPad and connect to your Wi-Fi network again.

Bernanke the Professor Debunks the Gold Standard - NYTimes.com

Bernanke the Professor Debunks the Gold Standard - NYTimes.com: Mr. Bernanke spoke Tuesday about the history of monetary policy in the United States, including the Fed’s creation in 1913, and its role in causing the Great Depression. He framed much of this history as a critique of the gold standard, which was dropped in the early 1930s in a decision that mainstream economists regard as obviously correct, hugely beneficial and essentially irreversible.

Congressman Ron Paul, a Texas Republican who is running for president, has won a loyal following, including among college students, for his campaign to restore a gold standard. In such a system, the availability of money is determined largely by formula — in proportion to the availability of gold — rather than the discretion of policy makers.

Mr. Bernanke has treated this advocacy as obviously misguided, generally declining to engage with Mr. Paul at Congressional hearings. But the Fed’s longstanding practice of ignoring most critics most of the time has not served it well in recent years, as its aggressive policies have made it the subject of public scrutiny.

So on Tuesday, in careful and simple language, Mr. Bernanke took the time to explain his opposition to the gold standard.

How I use Evernote for work

How I use Evernote for work: You might know Evernote as a great tool for clipping stories from the Web and collecting recipes. But you not have considered how useful it can be for business, too. David Sparks explains how he does just that.


Macworld 3/21/12 6:30 AM David Sparks

First look: MyTunes Pro HD

First look: MyTunes Pro HD: On Wednesday, SRS Labs released an iPad version of its MyTunes Pro music browser and audio enhancement app. Christopher Breen offers his first impressions after using it for several weeks.


Macworld 3/21/12 12:01 AM Christopher Breen

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Web sites shifting away from Google Maps due to high fees

Web sites shifting away from Google Maps due to high fees: Sites that used to incorporate Google Maps into their own pages are considering other options, claming the search giant is charging too much.
[Read more]

Monday, March 19, 2012

Apple taps $100B cash pile to pay dividend, buy back stock | Apple - CNET News

Apple taps $100B cash pile to pay dividend, buy back stock | Apple - CNET News: Apple plans to pay a dividend, finally putting to use a portion of its $100 billion cash hoard.
The company said it plans to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012.
In addition, Apple's board has authorized a $10 billion share repurchase program commencing in Apple's fiscal 2013, which begins on September 30, 2012. The repurchase program is expected to be executed over three years.

Troubleshooting your Apple TV | Macworld

Troubleshooting your Apple TV | Macworld: The second- and third-generation Apple TV were designed with simplicity in mind but they don’t always work as expected. Where do you turn when your Apple TV acts up? The next several paragraphs are a good place to start. Check out our symptoms and solutions for common Apple TV issues.

Alt Text: Apple App Apparently Apocalyptic | Underwire | Wired.com

Alt Text: Apple App Apparently Apocalyptic | Underwire | Wired.com: Look at the facts here. The first networked ATM in America was installed in 1968. A major recession hit in 1969, and another in 1973. Money went from something you were handed by a human being wearing nice clothes to something a machine spit into your hand like a candy bar or really terrible coffee.

In 1986, American Express started allowing card owners to carry a debt balance. In 1987, Discover Card launched widely. In 1990, we hit another recession. As money shifts from sturdy green paper to plastic you can’t bring within 16 feet of a magnet, it becomes less real, and people go kinda nuts.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Apple Conference Call

Apple Conference Call: Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, and Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, will host a conference call Monday, March 19, 2012 at 6:00 a.m. PDT/9:00 a.m. EDT to announce the outcome of the company’s discussions concerning its cash balance. Apple will not be providing an update on the current quarter, nor on any other topics. Apple will provide live audio streaming of its conference call using Apple’s industry-leading QuickTime multimedia software, and the webcast will be available as a continuous rebroadcast for two weeks thereafter.

At the BNP Paribas Open, Larry Ellison Puts His Money Where His Forehand Is - NYTimes.com

At the BNP Paribas Open, Larry Ellison Puts His Money Where His Forehand Is - NYTimes.com: He is Larry Ellison, the tanned chief executive of Oracle, who in 2010 purchased the BNP Paribas Open, a combined ATP Masters 1,000 and WTA premier mandatory event largely considered the lead contender for the colloquial title of the Fifth Slam. Ellison, whose purchase of the tournament allowed it to stay here, is considered something of a savior for the event.

With an estimated net worth of $36 billion, Ellison is listed by Forbes as the third-richest person in the United States (behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) and the sixth wealthiest worldwide.

What I want in OS X | Macworld

What I want in OS X | Macworld: This concept was engineered for managing a few windows on a small screen. Today’s screens have more than seven times as many pixels than that of a classic Mac but the amount of work we manage to perform has become an order of magnitude greater.

Dare I say that back in 1985, Microsoft, in its eagerness to introduce a windowed OS but not to get sued by Apple quite so quickly, fell bass-ackwards into the correct approach? Windows 1.0 used tiled panels instead of overlapping windows. What if OS X 11 had a separate Easy Mode in which the user is always looking at a single screen of immediately-relevant tiles, adeptly curated by the OS based on its guess at what’s important to you at this part of your day?

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Occupy group plans campout to protest Roseburg police

Occupy group plans campout to protest Roseburg police:

Occupy Roseburg plans to camp overnight in Willis Park, to protest what they say is a "police crackdown on homeless people." Police say it's all about behavior.


 

Is the iPad helping women read erotic books?

Is the iPad helping women read erotic books?: It seems that sales of female-targeted erotica are pointing up. One report attributes this to the additional privacy offered by tablets. Yes, people think you're reading Jane Eyre, but you're not.
[Read more]

Friday, March 16, 2012

Dark Shadows - Trailer

Dark Shadows - Trailer:







  Dark Shadows - Trailer

In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet--or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy...until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) has called upon live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), to help with her family troubles. Also residing in the manor is Elizabeth's ne'er-do-well brother, Roger Collins, (Jonny Lee Miller); her rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn Stoddard (Chloe Moretz); and Roger's precocious 10-year-old son, David Collins (Gulliver McGrath). The mystery extends beyond the family, to caretaker Willie Loomis, played by Jackie Earle Haley, and David's new nanny, Victoria Winters, played by Bella Heathcote.

Directed by: Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Eva Green, Chloe Moretz, Bella Heathcote, Thomas McDonell, Gulliver McGrath

Fun Beats Fugly: Why Square Is Still Better Than PayPal | Epicenter | Wired.com

Fun Beats Fugly: Why Square Is Still Better Than PayPal | Epicenter | Wired.com: Maybe more importantly, it’s not rethinking the mobile shopping experience as much as it is trying to grab a slice. Fair enough — the market is exploding, plenty of share up for grabs. But Square Register and Card Case strike me as having rethought shopping for both customer and merchant in a much more fundamental way.

Visualization of the Week: Visualizing Big History

Visualization of the Week: Visualizing Big History: The ChronoZoom Project is an impressive new timeline tool that aims to deliver an online visualization of Big History, an emerging field of study that examines the past based on findings from multiple disciplines (including biology, astronomy, geology, climatology, archeology, economics, anthropology and environmental studies). In other words, it's history since the beginning of time.

A field that encompasses 13.7 billion years involves a huge amount of data, and that data is difficult to track, let alone visualize. ChronoZoom is meant to help aggregate this data — data about the cosmos, Earth's history, the history of life on this planet as well as human history — and make it all searchable and displayable.

Bugs & Fixes: Troubleshoot Journals in iPhoto for iOS

Bugs & Fixes: Troubleshoot Journals in iPhoto for iOS: Ted Landau likes iPhoto for iOS a lot, but finds some issues with its Journals feature.

UltraViolet: DRM by any other name still stinks

UltraViolet: DRM by any other name still stinks: The first major outing of Hollywood's UltraViolet digital streaming effort show the scheme for what it really is: DRM all over again, and a way to make you pay for content over and over, too.
[Read more]

Adium 1.5 - Popular instant messaging client supports a plethora of services.. (Free)

Adium 1.5 - Popular instant messaging client supports a plethora of services.. (Free): Adium is a fast and free instant messaging client which supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Yahoo! Japan, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, QQ, Novell Groupwise, SIP/SIMPLE (Text), and Lotus Sametime. Adium supports beautiful WebKit message display, tabbed messaging, encrypted chat, file transfer, and more. Give it a try; you won't look back.

<em>Iron Sky'</em>s Moon Nazis: Shock Troops in Nordic Genre-Film Invasion

Iron Sky's Moon Nazis: Shock Troops in Nordic Genre-Film Invasion: Iron Sky is a movie about moon Nazis. The hook is brilliant -- they had us at "moon Nazis" -- but given that outrageous premise, the resulting film could easily have wound up as B-movie nonsense. Surprisingly, Iron Sky succeeds as a wickedly fun adventure comedy.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

UCC students react to news of possible tuition increase

UCC students react to news of possible tuition increase:

Students at UCC had a mixed reaction to the proposed tuition hike that was discussed Wednesday night. The fee increase would raise tuition by $3 per credit, but would still leave it below the state average.

Theory of a Deadman, country star Chris Young highlight fair lineup | Entertainment | KPIC CBS 4 - News, Weather and Sports - Roseburg, OR

Theory of a Deadman, country star Chris Young highlight fair lineup | Entertainment | KPIC CBS 4 - News, Weather and Sports - Roseburg, OR: ROSEBURG, Ore. -- Country star Chris Young and rock group Theory of a Deadman highlight the Douglas County Fair entertainment this year, along with Queensryche and Sublime W/ Rome. 

In a first for Douglas County, the Laser Spectacular featuring the music of Pink Floyd will hit the main stage Saturday night to cap off the fair, the first time a professional laser light show has come to the area.

Here is the schedule for headlining entertainment:

Chris Young - Tuesday, August 7
Sublime w/ Rome - Wednesday, August 8
Theory of a Deadman - Thursday, August 9
Queensryche - Friday, August 10
Laser Spectacular featuring the music of Pink Floyd - Saturday, August 11

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Board of Imagination: A mind-controlled skateboard. Seriously

Board of Imagination: A mind-controlled skateboard. Seriously: Alert: The video you are about to see contains no camera tricks or CGI of any kind. This skateboard is really, truly, controlled with your brain.
[Read more]

Russia Plans Moon Base, Mars Network by 2030

Russia Plans Moon Base, Mars Network by 2030: Russia plans to send probes to Jupiter and Venus, land an network of unmanned stations on Mars and ferry Russian cosmonauts to the surface of the Moon -- all by 2030, according to a leaked document.

Pubs and eateries turning green, getting set for 'Crawl'

Pubs and eateries turning green, getting set for 'Crawl':

One of the year's biggest economic booms for local restaurants is coming up this weekend. Many downtown businesses are already decked out for the 14th annual Roseburg Pub Crawl, taking place Saturday.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Disney Announces 2012-2013 TV Lineup With Tron, Other Geeky Goodness | GeekDad | Wired.com

Disney Announces 2012-2013 TV Lineup With Tron, Other Geeky Goodness | GeekDad | Wired.com: Another new show, which I’ve seen a short preview of and which looks like a lot of fun, is called Gravity Falls. It’s a quirky series about twins Dipper (a boy) and Mabel (a girl, as you’d guess) who are shipped off by their parents “to spend the summer with their Great Uncle Stan in the very strange town of Gravity Falls, Oregon.” The town includes the world’s most bizarre museum, within the tourist trap known as The Mystery Shack, which Stan runs. The show will star Jason Ritter as Dipper and the very funny Kristen Schaal as Mabel, and will premiere on the Disney Channel in June.

Sam Sacks on Frank Kermode | Open Letters Monthly - an Arts and Literature Review

Sam Sacks on Frank Kermode | Open Letters Monthly - an Arts and Literature Review: The year is important because the threat of nuclear annihilation lent intense clarity to Kermode’s main point: Humans, personally and collectively, are preoccupied with trying to understand their deaths. For life to have meaning, to amount to more than just a sequence of events, that meaning must be projected backwards from an ending that provides the key to interpreting everything that preceded it.

Fiction mirrors this process. A common complaint of a failed novel is that it just portrays one damn thing after another. But a great work of literature endows its actions with a higher order of consequence that transcends mere chronology and, as Kermode puts it, charges the story with meaning. Endings are not terminations but completions.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Behind the scenes with iMovie trailers | Macworld

Behind the scenes with iMovie trailers | Macworld: iMovie may not have the flashiest updates of the bunch, but it does gain a neat new feature from iMovie ’11 on the Mac: movie trailers. Now, when creating a new project, you can choose to instead create a trailer with one of nine different templates: Retro, Romance, Scary, Superhero, Swashbuckler, Narrative, Fairy Tale, Expedition, or Bollywood. You can swipe through and preview these for a better idea of what the trailer formats are like—be prepared for child spies and adventuring backpackers.

GarageBand Version: 1.2 Review | iPhone and iPad Music App | Macworld

GarageBand Version: 1.2 Review | iPhone and iPad Music App | Macworld: This works very much the way you’d play a collaborative game. Each member of the “band” must be on the same local Wi-Fi network. (If Wi-Fi isn’t available, you can also hold a jam session over Bluetooth.) One member of the group taps the Jam Session button that appears at the top of the GarageBand screen and becomes the leader and has control of the song’s key, chords, and tempo. The leader then taps Create Session. The other members of the band tap their Jam Session buttons and, in the Join Session area of the resulting window or screen, tap the name of the iOS device that the leader is using. They’re now part of the session. (The leader can boot anyone they wish to by tapping on a member’s name.)

Cure for an incomplete iOS update

Cure for an incomplete iOS update: When your iOS device demands that it be plugged into iTunes, things aren't right. Time to start over with a fresh iOS install.


Macworld 3/12/12 11:00 AM Christopher Breen

How to use Boot Camp with Lion

How to use Boot Camp with Lion: Wish you could run a Windows-only game? Got files from an old PC you really need to look at again? Today's Macs can run Windows natively using Boot Camp, a utility included with the Mac OS. Here's how to set it up.


Macworld 3/12/12 10:25 AM Christopher Breen

Four short links: 12 March 2012

Four short links: 12 March 2012: Information Technology and Economic Change -- research showing that cities which adopted the printing press no prior growth advantage, but subsequently grew far faster than similar cities without printing presses. [...] The second factor behind the localisation of spillovers is intriguing given contemporary questions about the impact of information technology. The printing press made it cheaper to transmit ideas over distance, but it also fostered important face-to-face interactions. The printer’s workshop brought scholars, merchants, craftsmen, and mechanics together for the first time in a commercial environment, eroding a pre-existing “town and gown” divide.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Marvel @ SXSW: Quesada Opens The All-Digital "Infinite Comics" - Comic Book Resources

Marvel @ SXSW: Quesada Opens The All-Digital "Infinite Comics" - Comic Book Resources: Now flash forward to '09; that’s when I came across the Deviant Art website of a French artist and animator named Yves Bigeral on which he clearly demonstrated his vision of what he thought the future of digital comics could be. I was absolutely floored, not only was it similar to those old Cyber Comics, but Yves took it to a whole other level as well as explained in very simple terms how it was the best methodology, and I couldn’t have agreed more. The next day I was running up and down the halls of Marvel showing his technique to anyone who would listen. For a while now we had all been struggling with trying to envision what the future of digital comics could be – what form they would take, what they’d look like, how they’d be constructed – and here Yves crystallized it all in one brilliantly elegant solution. Here was something that used the digital platform and all the tools that make it great yet still keeps the purity of what makes comics “Comics.” Still, the time wasn’t right, so I kept it in my back pocket and then in January of 2010 came the iPad.

Newsarama.com : Marvel Expands Digital Scope with INFINITE COMICS, AR App

Newsarama.com : Marvel Expands Digital Scope with INFINITE COMICS, AR App: "Infinite Comics are a new technique in comics storytelling that is built specifically for the digital world yet in a very elegant way manages to keep the purity of what makes a comic a 'comic,'" he said.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Review: iPhoto for iOS out-does Adobe for mobile image editing

Review: iPhoto for iOS out-does Adobe for mobile image editing: Apple released the final piece of its iLife suite for iOS on March 7, delivering a universal version of iPhoto for iPad and iPhone (sorry, iPod touch users). We spent some quality time with the app using an iPad 2 and iPhone 4, and came away impressed with the unique user interface design, general intuitiveness, and overall power Apple managed to pack into the app.

The app has a lot more photo tweaking capability than you might expect from first blush, including fully non-destructive editing that can be selectively undone. It also improves a bit on the standard Photos app's organization, and greatly enhances sharing options. More importantly, for $4.99 you get a photo editing tool that can, in many ways, out-Photoshop Adobe's own Photoshop Touch.

Friday, March 9, 2012

America, the Beautiful (And Nutty): A Skeptic's Lament

America, the Beautiful (And Nutty): A Skeptic's Lament: Almost one-third of Americans believe the ancient Mayan prediction of global calamity this December are "somewhat true," according to a recent National Geographic poll. The prediction is based on a huge stone calendar wheel but exact nature of the disaster is an open question. Why are such rampant notions of the validity of nonsense claims so firmly established in our culture?

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Apple’s new iPad is almost all battery with 42.5-watt-hours capacity – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home

Apple’s new iPad is almost all battery with 42.5-watt-hours capacity – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home: “A few things not included in the presentation: The new battery is a 42.5-watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery with 70 percent more capacity compared to the iPad 2′s 25-watt-hour battery,” Kahn reports. “The new iPad battery likely will cover almost the entire surface area of the device.”

Kahn reports, “One unanswered question is whether the new iPad’s 70 percent larger battery will take longer to charge.”

Path updated to include Nike+ integration, music matching, camera enhancements | iPhone Atlas - CNET Reviews

Path updated to include Nike+ integration, music matching, camera enhancements | iPhone Atlas - CNET Reviews: Popular mobile journal sharing app Path has been updated, now with the ability to share your runs through Nike+, find and share the music you're listening to, and add cool filters to photos.

Taking Twitter's cue, Facebook debuts Interest Lists | Digital Media - CNET News

Taking Twitter's cue, Facebook debuts Interest Lists | Digital Media - CNET News: In offering an alternative to Twitter lists, Facebook is seeking it make it easier to curate and customize news feeds. It's a stretch to describe this as a move toward becoming a personalized newspaper, but this is part of a broader product strategy to make Facebook the indispensable URL on the Internet. To the degree that it succeeds, the company would take another step closer to becoming an essential platform where its users come to Facebook because they're interested in content beyond photos of their Uncle Waldo doing the Macarena.

Senate votes for county timber payments renewal

Senate votes for county timber payments renewal:

The Senate has agreed to keep compensating rural counties for a decline in federal timber payments because of environmental protections for the spotted owl, salmon and other species.

Intuit Releases Lion-Compatible Quicken 2007 for Mac

Intuit Releases Lion-Compatible Quicken 2007 for Mac: Last December, Intuit announced that it would be developing a version of its Quicken 2007 for Mac software compatible with OS X Lion, targeting "early spring" for a release. Quicken 2007 has remained a popular option for users of personal finance software despite its age, as Intuit opted to deploy a stripped-down Quicken Essentials for Mac in 2010 rather than continuing to update the full Quicken product for Mac. But with Apple's discontinuation of Rosetta in OS X Lion, applications such as Quicken 2007 that had been written for PowerPC-based Macs are incompatible with the latest operating system.

Tap Joint Delivers Otherworldly Telegraphic Messages

Tap Joint Delivers Otherworldly Telegraphic Messages: Resistance movement gearing up for a revolution on Illumination Day, an annual holiday celebrated March 9th.

Four short links: 8 March 2012

Four short links: 8 March 2012: Add Torrent Links to IMDB (Userscripts) -- a glimpse at what the Internet could look like: from the site you research movies on, with one click you could then launch the download. If only the company that ran the movie research site had rights to the OneClick patent and the ability to offer movies for download. Oh wait, those aren't the barriers. If only the movie companies would cease being nutjobs insisting on flogging their DRM-hobbled nags when the black market has x264 racehorses for less. They're not competing on price, they're not competing on convenience, they're competing on the expected value of litigation. Now *that's* a business model!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

IBM's Holey Optochip Pumps 1 Trillion Bits per Second

IBM's Holey Optochip Pumps 1 Trillion Bits per Second: IBM Researchers have built an optical chip that can transfer more data per second than pretty much anything else on the planet. They this transceiver the Holey Optochip -- holey because they've taken a chip wafer and fired 48 holes in it so that laser light can be blasted in and out of the chip, moving data at one trillion bits per second. That's eight times faster than the fastest comparable optical components on the market today, and about 10,000 times faster than the 100 Mb/second Ethernet that's still common on corporate networks.

eBay offering up to $475 for iPad 2 trade-ins

eBay offering up to $475 for iPad 2 trade-ins: eBay today announced a limited-time offer for eBay Instant Sale...

Read E-Books On Multiple Devices

Read E-Books On Multiple Devices: When the ePub file format was created for e-books, it was meant to be an open standard, meaning that ePub e-books could be opened and read on any compatible device. Unfortunately, who's ever heard of a standard that's perfect in practice? Cue the evil intro music and enter DRM, the stick in the mud that's wrecking this whole open ePub e-book love-fest.

The New iPad: It's in the Apps - NYTimes.com

The New iPad: It's in the Apps - NYTimes.com: GarageBand, for example, has been blessed with several new music-making features. One of them lets up to four people play different instruments simultaneously. Somehow, their four touchscreen devices stay synchronized over Wi-Fi, and they make a master, perfectly synced four-track recording, ready for mixing, editing (there’s a new note-by-note editing mode) and posting online.

Summary: New iPad, new Apple TV, new iPhoto app, and more

Summary: New iPad, new Apple TV, new iPhoto app, and more: At its press event Wednesday, Apple took the wraps off the next version of the iPad, which is slated to ship on March 16. The company also announced a new Apple TV, iPhoto for iOS, updates to GarageBand, iMovie, and iWork for iOS, and more.

iOS 5.1 Now Available with Japanese Siri, Camera Enhancements, and More

iOS 5.1 Now Available with Japanese Siri, Camera Enhancements, and More: - Japanese language support for Siri (availability may be limited during initial rollout)
- Photos can now be deleted from Photo Stream
- Camera shortcut now always visible on Lock Screen for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
- Camera face detection now highlights all detected faces
- Redesigned Camera app for iPad
- Genius Mixes and Genius playlists for iTunes Match subscribers
- Audio for TV programs and films on iPad optimized to sound louder and clearer
- Podcast controls for playback speed and a 30-second rewind for iPad
- Addresses bugs affecting battery life
- Fixes and issue that occasionally caused audio to drop for outgoing calls

iPhoto update

What's New in Version 9.2.2
• Photos can now be deleted from Photo Stream

Apple - The new iPad - It’s breakthrough because its features are.

Apple - The new iPad - It’s breakthrough because its features are.: Talking is the new typing.
Write an email. Send a text. Search the web. Or create a note. And do it all with only your voice. Instead of typing, tap the microphone icon on the keyboard. Then say what you want to say while your iPad listens. Tap Done and, just like that, your spoken words become written words. Dictation also works with third-party apps, so you can do things like update your Facebook status or share a thought on your Twitter feed.

Apple iOS 5.1: First Take | Apple - CNET News

Apple iOS 5.1: First Take | Apple - CNET News: At the Apple iPad HD event today in San Francisco, Apple announced that iOS 5.1, will be available today.
Among the new features are Japanese language support for Siri. We'll have more on the new features as they come in.

New Apple TV delivers 1080p, updated interface | Apple - CNET News

New Apple TV delivers 1080p, updated interface | Apple - CNET News: 1080p movies and TV shows from iTunes Store
Redesigned 1080p user interface
Ability to re-download purchased movies through iCloud
"Genius" recommendations for movies
Photo Stream resolution bumped up to 1080p
Single-core A5 chip
1080p output



The new Apple TV will be released on March 16 with the same $99 price as the existing model.

In a related news, Netflix is announcing that the new Apple TV hardware will be fully capable of 1080p Netflix streaming video, and that both 2nd-gen and the new Apple TV will now allow you to purchase Netflix subscriptions through your iTunes account.

$99 Apple TV With 1080p Coming Next Week | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

$99 Apple TV With 1080p Coming Next Week | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: A hack released in January, dubbed MobileX, brought full-screen iOS apps to your Apple TV.

iPad 3

Retina display - 2048 by 1536 pixels, and if you do the math, that's over 3.1 million pixels. Put another way, many of you have an HD at home. These have a resolution of 1920x 1080. The iPad shows over 1 million more pixels than your HDTV does at home. Pixels are packed really tightly. 264 pixels per inch.

iSight camera - iPad has auto exposure, great exposure, great color. Autofocus. Great edge-to-edge sharpness. HD video recording now at 1080p resolution. Auto face detection. Auto exposure lock and auto focus lock. 1080p video recording, video stabilization, temporal noise reduction for low light.

Voice dictation. - Now there's a new key on the bottom that''s a microphone. Tap and speak.

Next-generation wireless. 4G LTE. - The iPad has had great wireless performance, and it supports EV-DO with a maximum downlink of 3.1Mbps, and HSPA with a max downlink of 7.2. Now the new iPad adds HSPA+ with a max downlink of 21 Mbps, dual carrier HSDPA with a max of 42 Mbps, and LTE with a max of 73 Mbps download. Performance is amazing. Additionally, software to make it a personal hotspot. If your carrier supports it, you can share the high speed network from your new iPad with up to 5 devices. New iPad: 4G LTE, fast 3G HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA networking, 3G world ready, Personal hotspot, most bands ever.

New iPad is priced at just $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. And $629, $729, and $829 for 4G. Same prices as iPad 2. Available on March 16.

With the iPad 2, we introduced some other apps today: iLife apps. Garage Band and iMovie. They're updated as well.

GarageBand adds smart strings joins smart guitars, smart keyboards, and smart drums. Your own string orchestra. There's a Note Editor; iCloud to keep songs on all devices; and better sharing features. But the best new feature is called "Jam Session." Four iPads can play together to create a new song over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

iPhoto for iPad. - "And it is amazing." Same photo library, but great new browsing, new ways to edit with multi-touch editing, professional-quality effects, brushes for applying those effects, and there's Photo Beaming to let you beam high resolution photos between your devices. And Photo Journals help you share photos with friends. Once you've chosen them, you can make them look even better. Auto-enhance button to alter contrast color. Tap on crop tool and iPhoto will analyze and find horizon line. Touch button and it straightens horizon line. $4.99 and available starting today.

They're going to keep the iPad 2, starting at $399. 16GB iPad 2 starts at $399, with 3G at $529. And new iPad at 16GB, starting at $499.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Epicenter - Mind Our Tech Business | Wired.com

Epicenter - Mind Our Tech Business | Wired.com: Google unveiled Google Play on Tuesday, a grand plan to unify all the media it serves up from various portals to one recognizable brand identity and location. Call it Google’s iTunes moment.

Instead of separating media by category — Google Music, Android Market, Google Books — all of Google’s disparate sources will be accesible from a very iTunes-like storefront, accessible via the web or through apps on Android smartphones and tablets.

Contrast this with Apple’s iTunes model, a desktop application which pre-dates even the iPod (and all of mobile) and funnels all Apple-sold music, movies and books through one unified, idiot-proof storefront.

How Gogol* Explains the Post-Soviet World (*And Chekhov and Dostoyevsky) - By Thomas de Waal | Foreign Policy

How Gogol* Explains the Post-Soviet World (*And Chekhov and Dostoyevsky) - By Thomas de Waal | Foreign Policy: So here is a not entirely frivolous suggestion: How about skipping the political science textbooks when it comes to trying to understand the former Soviet Union and instead opening up the pages of Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky?

This is not just a thought experiment; the works these authors wrote in the 19th and early 20th centuries turn out to be surprisingly applicable to today's politics in a broad swath of the former Soviet space, whether it's the unexpected fragility of Putin's authoritarian rule in Russia or the perpetually failed efforts to modernize next-door Ukraine. There's a reason: Most of the former Soviet countries emerged from two centuries of Russian-dominated autocracy, an autocracy that just happened to have produced some of the greatest literature the world has ever seen. Some have argued that the one helped produce the other, that the rigors of tsarist-era censorship, the aridity of public service, and the educated classes' hunger for intellectual nourishment all helped stimulate great writing. Pushkin and Tolstoy, Gogol, Chekhov, and Dostoyevsky were more than just cultural commentators -- they were public celebrities and the key moral and intellectual voices of their age. They were idolized because they described the predicament readers found themselves in -- and still do.

Monday, March 5, 2012

EA pulls hugely popular new Simpsons Game from Apple App Store after exceeding server capacity – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home

EA pulls hugely popular new Simpsons Game from Apple App Store after exceeding server capacity – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home: “Using the same writers and voice actors as the TV series, the game features a Springfield wiped out by a nuclear explosion caused by Homer,” Golson reports. “The game, however, proved more popular than EA expected. The game has been pulled from the App Store just 4 days after it went live because overwhelming demand on the game’s servers was causing a degradation in experience — though players who have already downloaded the game can continue playing.”

Schmidt: The Web will dissolve national barriers

Schmidt: The Web will dissolve national barriers: The Web isn't just making it easier for Americans to read German newspapers. It's laying the foundations for a global culture, Google's executive chairman says.

Changing your Apple ID's email address

Changing your Apple ID's email address: You say you've decided to leave Gmail and want to associate your Apple ID with a different email address? Chris Breen shows you how.




Sunspot Shoots Powerful Solar Storm Toward Earth

Sunspot Shoots Powerful Solar Storm Toward Earth: Magnetic disturbances on the sun hurled a colossal burst of charged particles into space overnight. The edge should reach Earth between late Tuesday night and Wednesday.

Sold out event had wine flowing in Canyonville

Sold out event had wine flowing in Canyonville:

Some of the best wineries from Southern Oregon were in Canyonville on Saturday for the annual Greatest of the Grape.

Square launches iPad app; adios, cash register

Square launches iPad app; adios, cash register: The new, free Square Register app allows brick-and-mortar retailers to handle all the tasks they typically would with a traditional register.

The Jerusalem Syndrome: Why Some Religious Tourists Believe They Are the Messiah

The Jerusalem Syndrome: Why Some Religious Tourists Believe They Are the Messiah: Jerusalem, with its mosaic of sacred spaces and millennia of history, can become so disorienting for some that it triggers full-on psychosis.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

High gas prices push jump in bus ridership

High gas prices push jump in bus ridership:

With gas prices already hitting $4 dollars a gallon in some parts of the county, many people are turning to public transportation. UTRANS has seen a big rise in the number of riders, especially in the Roseburg area.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Why the security industry never actually makes us secure | InSecurity Complex - CNET News

Why the security industry never actually makes us secure | InSecurity Complex - CNET News: The industry's sluggishness is enough to breed pervasive cynicism in some quarters. Critics like Corman are quick to note that if security vendors really could do what they promise, they'd simply put themselves out of business. "The security industry is not about securing you; it's about making money," Corman says. "Minimum investment to get maximum revenue."

Most ATP Singles Titles in Open Era (Yahoo! Sports)

Most ATP Singles Titles in Open Era (Yahoo! Sports): 109-- Jimmy Connors 94-- Ivan Lendl 77-- John McEnroe 72-- x-Roger Federer 64-- Pete Sampras 63-- Bjorn Borg 62-- Guillermo Vilas 60-- Andre Agassi 57-- Ilie Nastase 49-- Boris Becker x-active

"That Time Lois Lane ALSO Made Out With Supergirl's Horse" and More of the Strangest Comics of All-Time!

"That Time Lois Lane ALSO Made Out With Supergirl's Horse" and More of the Strangest Comics of All-Time!: Come check out CSBG's weekly collection of the strangest comics of all-time including the latest addition: when Lois Lane made out with...Supergirl's horse?!

LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS | The Exegete

LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS | The Exegete: on the career of Philip K. Dick,
up to and including The Exegesis.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Apple's App Store Reaches 25 Billion Downloads, Now on Pace for 15 Billion Apps Per Year

Apple's App Store Reaches 25 Billion Downloads, Now on Pace for 15 Billion Apps Per Year: Apple's App Store today reached 25 billion downloads since its inception in 2008, and along with the milestone comes the end of the company's "25 Billion App Countdown" promotion launched just over two weeks ago. The winner of the promotion, who is yet to be announced, will be awarded a $10,000 gift card valid for App Store, Mac App Store, or any other ITunes Store content.

The power of Bluetooth 4.0: It'll change your life | Mobile - CNET News

The power of Bluetooth 4.0: It'll change your life | Mobile - CNET News: According to Foley, the big improvements added to Bluetooth 3.0 and 4.0 were significant. While the general range of the wireless protocol remains the same (up to 300 feet), version 3.0 enabled a much faster theoretical data throughput of 26Mbps compared with the 2Mbps of version 2.1. That's swift enough says Foley, to handle data intensive tasks like video streaming.

The real benefit of Bluetooth 4.0 is energy efficiency. Designed primarily for devices which collect information frequently, either as much as five times a second or just once every hour, the standard is optimized for long battery life. In fact users may see longevity increase by five to ten times depending on individual usage. Mr. Foley went so far to say that a traditional wireless mouse and keyboard using the new protocol could conceivably last for five to seven years before needing a fresh battery -- likely outlasting the life of the product.

U.S. Air Force to spend $9M on iPads for flight manual reboot

U.S. Air Force to spend $9M on iPads for flight manual reboot: Under a new, multimillion dollar contract, the U.S. Air Force plans to replace a chunk of its printed in-flight materials with iPads.

Publishing News: Its time to break the stick

Publishing News: It's time to break the stick: "[Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble] have far more control over whose ebooks see the light of day because they also own the major ereading platforms, and they are making decisions based not on what they think consumers want to read but on their own competitive interests."

Ingram also pointed out that blame for the oligopoly marketplace in the U.S. doesn't fall solely on the chain store giants:

Publishers are partly to blame for the walled-garden status of the market as well, since they handed Amazon and Apple the stick of digital-rights management, which the two companies are now using to beat them.

Ingram's post is a must-read and a clear warning of what the future will hold if something doesn't change: "Welcome to the mutually incompatible, silo-based, platform-dependent and user-unfriendly future of books."

Elaine Pagels on the Book of Revelation : The New Yorker

Elaine Pagels on the Book of Revelation : The New Yorker: In a new book on those end pages, “Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation” (Viking), Elaine Pagels sets out gently to bring their portents back to earth. She accepts that Revelation was probably written, toward the end of the first century C.E., by a refugee mystic named John on the little island of Patmos, just off the coast of modern Turkey. (Though this John was not, she insists, the disciple John of Zebedee, whom Jesus loved, or the author of the Gospel that bears the same name.) She neatly synopsizes the spectacular action. John, finding himself before the Throne of God, sees a lamb, an image of Christ, who receives a scroll sealed by seven seals. The seals are broken in order, each revealing a mystical vision: a hundred and forty-four thousand “firstfruits” eventually are saved as servants of God—the famous “rapture.” Seven trumpets then sound, signalling various catastrophes—stars fall, the sun darkens, mountains explode, those beasts appear. At the sound of the sixth trumpet, two hundred million horsemen annihilate a third of mankind. This all leads to the millennium—not the end of all things but the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth—which, in turn, finally leads to Satan’s end in a lake of fire and the true climax. The Heaven and Earth we know are destroyed, and replaced by better ones. (There are many subsidiary incidents along the way, involving strange bowls and that Whore of Babylon, but they can be saved, so to speak, for the director’s cut on the DVD.)

Douglas County wine event slated for Saturday

Douglas County wine event slated for Saturday:

Local restaurants and wineries are gearing up to show off their best stuff this weekend. Wine The 42nd annual Greatest of the Grape is coming back to the area.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Apple Pushing Ahead with Plans for Subscription TV Service by Christmas?

Apple Pushing Ahead with Plans for Subscription TV Service by Christmas?: Apple’s negotiating stance can be summed up as “we decide the price, we decide what content,” according to one source familiar with the talks.

“They want everything for nothing,” said another media executive, echoing similar tense negotiations Apple has had in the past with magazine publishers and music companies.

Marvel Assembles "Avengers Alliance" On Facebook

Marvel Assembles "Avengers Alliance" On Facebook: CBR goes behind the scenes of "Marvel: Avengers Alliance," the new Facebook RPG that pits you and your friends against Marvel Comics villains in New York City.