Apple may be steadily chipping away at BlackBerry’s market share when it comes to smartphones, but in the tablet space, it’s Apple that has the lion’s share. And now it’s BlackBerry’s turn to play catch-up. RIM took its first crack at doing just that on Monday with the release of the BlackBerry PlayBook, a smaller, lighter, more business-savvy tablet than the iPad.

But will the PlayBook become a staple in briefcases everywhere, or is RIM too late to make a difference? We’ll find out in early 2011, when the first PlayBooks arrive, but in the mean time we’ve put the specs for each tablet side by side to see whether BlackBerry’s PlayBook is a like nuclear warhead aimed straight at Apple, or more akin to a flying boat strapped with cameras.

Portability

Winner: BlackBerry PlayBook

Not unlike RIM’s phones, the BlackBerry PlayBook will best its Apple equivalent on both size and weight. The seven-inch screen shrinks its top-down footprint correspondingly, but it also loses a tenth of an inch in depth (0.4 inches thick versus 0.5 on the iPad) and weighs 0.9 pounds, less than two thirds the weight of the 1.5-pound iPad.

Processor

Winner: BlackBerry PlayBook

As with most spec-based speed comparisons, this one’s far from cut and dry, but when it comes down to it, the iPad has one core running at 1GHz, the PlayBook has two. The ARM Cortex A9 used by BlackBerry represents a generational shift forward from Apple’s A4, which is based around the Cortex A8 processor. Besides the added computational brawn that comes with a whole extra core, like enabling 1080P video processing, the switch from 65nm to 45nm architecture should also improve battery life on the PlayBook. But there is a remaining question mark: BlackBerry hasn’t announced which graphics chipset it will pair with the A9, which could potentially leave the iPad as the gaming king with its potent PowerVR SGX 535.

Display

Winner: Apple iPad

RIM has opted for only a seven-inch screen on the BlackBerry, quite a bit smaller than the 9.7-incher on the iPad, but resolution remains surprisingly close: 1024 x 768 on the iPad, and 1024 x 600 on the PlayBook. Essentially, that makes using the PlayBook horizontally like watching a widescreen movie on the iPad – after tearing off the black bars. While it does boast higher pixel density, the iPad still wins on size and theoretical resolution (remember, a larger screen stretches those pixels out more). And while RIM could roll out with a real stunner, it would take a top-spec LCD panel to compete with the best-in-class brightness and viewing angle on the iPad’s IPS LCD screen.

Connectivity

Winner: Apple iPad

The first generation of the PlayBook will only ride on Wi-Fi networks, leaving the 3G-capable iPad looking much more practical for frequent travelers. However, BlackBerry may be sitting on a great deal more potential in the long term. If it follows in the footsteps of BlackBerry phones, future 3G versions of the phone may be carrier-independent, and QNX CEO Dan Dodge even hinted that 4G is not out of the question. However, until hard details on these options come down the pipe, the iPad remains the better-connected tablet.

Camera

Winner: BlackBerry PlayBook

Considering Apple’s iPad doesn’t even have a camera, even a cheapo VGA cam in the PlayBook would make this no contest, but RIM has gone above and beyond with some seriously impressive imaging equipment packed in. The PlayBook sports both a front-facing 3-megapixel camera for videoconferencing, and a rear-facing 5-megapixel camera. Even more impressively, the rear cam will shoot true 1080p video – a first for any tablet or smartphone.

Applications

Winner: Apple iPad

Rather than carrying over the latest BlackBerry OS to the PlayBook, RIM opted to start over with the new “Neutrino” OS from QNX, a company it acquired back in April. On the up side, the PlayBook gets a specially designed OS optimized for its seven-inch screen. On the downside, developers will have to start from scratch developing apps for it, rather than granting access to the 10,000 apps already available for BlackBerry smartphones through BlackBerry App World. Meanwhile, the iPad boasts access to 25,000 iPad-optimized apps in Apple’s App Store and growing, plus access to the full 250,000 made for iOS.

While it looks grim for the PlayBook, RIM has promised robust support for Adobe Flash, Adobe AIR and HTML5, which could potentially help fill the void of dedicated apps with Web

Conclusion

RIM can’t hold a candle to Apple’s app collection, but with the PlayBook, it has successfully managed to outspec Apple in a number of key categories. The PlayBook’s small size makes it eminently more portable than the iPad, its high-quality cameras will appeal to business users who want to Skype with family and coworkers from across the globe, and a dual-core processor will even tickle the fancy of performance geeks – not something RIM is used to doing. The PlayBook will also appeal to BlackBerry’s core constituency with the same tight enterprise support as its phones, BlackBerry tethering, and smartphone integration that will allow owners of both devices to switch back and forth between both devices seamlessly – starting an e-mail on a Bold 9700, for instance, then finishing it on the PlayBook.

RIM has also left us with a number of blanks to fill that could tilt the PlayBook in either direction. Which carriers will it come on? Can it match the iPad’s 10-hour battery life? Perhaps most importantly – how much will it sell for?

Until we have those answers – and our hands on the real hardware, we’ll refrain from declaring a winner here, but based on specs alone, it looks like RIM has wheeled out a legitimate challenger, and Apple engineers will have their work cut out for them when they go to revamp the iPad for 2011.

By: Nick Mokey

Rarely seen by outsiders, the daily life of a regional Taliban commander named Dawran and his militant fighters is dominated by extremes: love and war, attack and retreat, life and death.

For nine days in October 2009, Norwegian journalist Paul Refsdal was behind the lines with the Taliban, embedded as no Western filmmaker before him. And he was there to witness firsthand the jarring juxtapositions in Dawran’s life, at turns — directing an attack against U.S. forces in Afghanistan’s treacherous mountains — then hours later at home, a father playing with his children.

To capture these intimate and unprecedented images, Refsdal risked his life to embed with Dawran and his fighters in Kunar Province — the northeastern region where al Qaeda is active and Osama bin Laden was once rumored to be hiding.

Refsdal said he doesn’t know the number of militants under Dawran’s command, but included in their ranks is another of Dawran’s sons — a boy 12 or 13 years old. The son carries a machine gun nearly as large as he is, Refsdal said. “For Dawran … it’s not something bad to send your … son out to fight,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, because Dawran believes that “… his son will come to heaven when and if he dies in this war.”

There are many different groups that make up the Taliban, and they are fighting for many different reasons. Dawran says he and his men joined the Taliban to drive out foreign forces from his district. “We fight for our freedom, our religion, our honor and we fight for our land,” Dawran tells Refsdal. Commanding his forces from a house built of stone and clay, he says he relies on contributions to fund his operation.

Firm casualty figures for both sides in the decade-long war are hard to come by. It’s not known how many Taliban forces have been killed fighting U.S.-led coalition forces. According to the Pentagon, more than 2,200 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan since U.S. forces invaded in response to the 9/11 attacks. More than 1,400 Americans are among those coalition deaths.

As he urges his fighters to battle, Dawran questions coalition motives. “For what purpose are they fighting us?” asks Dawran. “Are they oppressed? Have they been treated unfair? Are they living in a dictatorship?”

Oppression is an accusation critics have aimed at the Taliban for decades. They rule their lives by an extremely strict interpretation of Islam. In places under their control, women shroud their faces and bodies in burqas and girls are forbidden to attend school. “There is nothing that Islam does not have the solution for,” Abdul Rahman, a local Taliban judge, explains to Refsdal. “If a person cuts off another person’s hand, then according to Islamic law, you have the right to retaliate and cut his hand off. It’s the same with the ears, the teeth the eyes and the nose.”

The Taliban government ruled Afghanistan — and gave safe harbor to al Qaeda terrorist training camps — from the mid-1990s until 2001. Leaders refused to extradite bin Laden, prompting the U.S. invasion which toppled the Taliban government and made way for national elections.

A decade later, Dawran’s fighters march through Kunar’s difficult terrain with heavy firearms and bandoliers of ammunition slung across their shoulders. Some wear traditional Afghan clothing and others dress in camouflage military fatigues as they trudge across canyons dotted with rocks, small trees and scrubby vegetation.

As Refsdal films, Dawran directs an attack on U.S. troops, coordinating the operation by hand-held radio from a mountain perch overlooking a valley road hundreds of feet below.

Eighty holy warriors are participating in this assault, Dawran says. They’ve taken positions in eight different places in groups of ten men each.

“Attack, attack, with the help of God!” Dawran shouts into his radio. “You hit the vehicle, you hit it!”

But did the fighters damage a vehicle or kill coalition forces as they thought? The answer seems to be no. Apparently, the attack wasn’t even worthy of a report. CNN contacted coalition headquarters. A U.S. press officer searched through 1,800 reports from October 2009 and said, “To be clear: we have no reports of any Taliban attacks in that area during the timeframe given.”

As the attack ends, the sound of gunfire echoes across the valley, a plume of smoke rising in the distance.

“Taliban are like most Muslim insurgents,” said Refsdal. “When they have spare time, they read the Quran. They don’t train. From what I could see from the firing they were not very accurate.”

He acknowledges that he expects criticism for being embedded with fighters trying to ambush coalition forces.

“I understand that this is very emotional for people — especially people in the armed forces,” Refsdal told Cooper. “I’m a journalist, I just film what happened.”

The war has become “routine” for this band of Taliban fighters, said Refsdal. “They do an ambush and then spend the rest of the day sitting around gossiping on the radio. They sit, they drink a lot of tea and they have some games they are playing.”

One of the games is a simple rock throwing contest. Standing in a relatively flat clearing, the men square off to see who can throw heavy rocks the farthest. Most use a two-handed thrust-from-the-chest technique.

In the end, the commander wins. “This is everyday life,” Refsdal told Cooper. “This is the Taliban.”

One day, Refsdal notices Dawran is nervous about a suspicious plane flying over the Taliban fighter’s hideout. The commander orders Refsdal to remain inside.

Later, Refsdal hears gunfire. Dawran knocks at the door telling Refsdal to get out immediately. “Leave your things,” the commander says. “Run.”

“We found an old abandoned shed and we slept there during the night” as the gunfire continued, said Refsdal.

By daybreak Refsdal is told that a dozen people — including Dawran’s top lieutenant — had been killed in a Special Forces raid.

Refsdal finds Dawran “crying like a kid” over his lost men. Later, Dawran flees with his family, fearing for his life.

Refsdal knows that the images he captured will be surprising to many — and disturbing to some. But he feels confident that the images are authentic, not an attempt at propaganda.

If the Taliban wanted to create propaganda, they would demonstrate a show of strength — not their softer side, he said. “Showing them[selves] as humans, they don’t understand any purpose of that.”

WHEN the famous hologram of Princess Leia says, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” in “Star Wars,” it’s science fiction. Now you can watch actual moving holograms that are filmed in one spot and then projected and viewed in another spot.

 

Norma Jean Gargasz

One hologram by Dr. Nasser Peyghambarian is an F-4 Phantom jet on a polymer sheet that refracts light.

Zebra Imaging and United States Army

Zebra Imaging and Parsons Brinckerhoff

Architects are finding that hologram technology helps them to communicate with clients, lawyers and engineers.

“The hologram is about the size and resolution of Princess Leia in the movie,” said Nasser Peyghambarian, an optical scientist at the University of Arizona and leader of a research team that recently demonstrated the technology, reported in the Nov. 4 issue of Nature.

The holograms aren’t as speedy as those in Hollywood. The images move a lot more haltingly, as the display changes only every two seconds, far slower than video sailing past at 30 frames a second.

But unlike science fiction, these holograms are actually happening and in close to real time: a fellow is filmed in one room, the computer-processed data is sent via ethernet to another room, and then laser beams go to work. Voilà: His holographic telepresence appears and moves, albeit somewhat jerkily, in apparently solid detail (until you try to put a hand through him).

Innovative research in holography is going on at labs and companies worldwide, said Lisa Dhar, a senior technology manager at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who is an expert in holographic materials.

“Groups are deploying new materials and methods to create compelling work” of both still and moving holograms, Dr. Dhar said.

The work has implications beyond the lab, she said. We may need to wait a decade before watching holographic movies at home. But even before the technology is practical for games and entertainment, it promises applications in advertising, the military, architecture and engineering.

Zebra Imaging in Austin, Tex., sells holographic prints that at first glance look much like ordinary 2-by-3-foot pieces of plastic — until an LED flashlight is shined at them. Then the patterns, burned into the plastic with high-power laser beams, come to life, said Al Wargo, chief executive. Out of the surface springs a model of a complicated building or an intricate network of pipes and mechanical equipment.

No special eyewear is required to view the holographic prints, which typically cost $1,000 to $3,000 each. The company has also demonstrated moving holographic displays in prototype at conferences, Mr. Wargo said. (It introduced color holograms in September.)

Zebra’s main customer has been the Defense Department, which sends data in computer files to the company. Zebra then renders holographic displays of, for example, battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Businesses are also Zebra customers, including FMC Technologies in Houston, which uses holograms of oil field equipment for sales and training.

Adam Andrich, global marketing manager for fluid control at FMC, says holograms are handy substitutes when the company wants to demonstrate its 50,000-pound equipment at trade shows.

“The holograms are a lot lighter,” he said, and they create a striking effect as they rise in shimmering volume in the air. “They are so realistic that every time we show them, people try to grab them,” he said.

Holographic prints may also find use among architects and engineers. Tina Murphy, a project engineer at HNTB in Indianapolis, says she already uses extensive 3-D computer modeling to plan before construction, but holograms can also help to communicate, particularly with a group. “We can show them to plant operators, lawyers, regulators and engineers,” she said. “With this one visual image, we can all communicate.”

The holograms are an inexpensive alternative to bulky, often fragile physical models of wood or polystyrene, says Jared Smith, a senior vice president at Parsons Brinckerhoff in Seattle, an engineering, planning and architecture firm.

“Slip them into a portfolio case and carry them,” he said. “Then shine a light on them and up leap these buildings in three dimensions.”

At the University of Arizona in Tucson, Dr. Peyghambarian created his displays using 16 cameras. Software rendered the images in holographic pixels, and laser beams directed by the software recorded the information on a novel plastic that can be erased and rewritten in two seconds. Dr. Peyghambarian says that the group is working on speeding up the rate and expects versions to be in homes in 7 to 10 years. Slower versions may be useful far sooner, for example, for long-distance medical consultation.

To help make those long-distance connections happen, Keren Bergman, a professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University in New York, is working on ways to send holograms not just from room to room, but also from Arizona to New York on the Internet. Dr. Bergman and Dr. Peyghambarian are collaborating as part of joint research financed by the National Science Foundation.

One day, she may summon people to her lab by holographic telepresence, just as Alexander Graham Bell once summoned Thomas Watson (“Come here!”) with a historic telephone call. To introduce that memorable moment, maybe she will find a good quote from “Star Wars.”

By Anne Eisenberg

Politics as usual is the current or rather old news.  To simplify a long post, democrats are oblivious to the fact they suck and republicans are doing a great job for the constituents, and that is not the majority of the American people. Whose fault?? The American people, stop voting people who will not vote to help your interests and please go out in vote even if nots popular or Jon Stewart/ Stephen Colbert don’t talk about it on their show. And heres 1 democrat who gets it

 

 

WASHINGTON — Fresh off a narrow loss in his gubernatorial re-election campaign, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland on Wednesday offered some somber and sober-minded criticism for his own party and president.

Democrats suffer from an “intellectual elitism” that prevents them from adopting the type of populist tone to relate to voters, he said. And while President Obama had made a series of monumental legislative advancements — any one of which would have been “historic” in its own right — he fails to recognize that he is being “slapped in the face” by his Republican critics.

“I think there is a hesitancy to talk using populist language,” the Ohio Democrat said in a sit-down interview with The Huffington Post. “I think it has to do with a sort of intellectual elitism that considers that kind of talk is somehow lacking in sophistication. I’m not sure where it comes from. But I think it’s there. There’s an unwillingness to draw a line in the sand.”

Attending the Democratic Governors Association for the last time as a sitting governor, Strickland did not name names with respect to who’s guilty of elitism. If anything, he was deferential to the president, arguing that he is not getting the credit he deserves for rescuing the economy from a surefire second Depression.

But his frustration was evident as the discussion progressed. Talking, unprompted, about the debate over the expiring Bush tax cuts, Strickland said he was dumbfounded at the party’s inability to sell the idea that the rates for the wealthy should be allowed to expire.

“I mean, if we can’t win that argument we might as well just fold up,” he said. “These people are saying we are going to insist on tax cuts for the richest people in the country and we don’t care if they are paid for, and we don’t think it is a problem if it contributes to the deficit, but we are not going to vote to extend unemployment benefits to working people if they aren’t paid for because they contribute to the deficit. I mean, what is wrong with that? How can it be more clear?”

Addressing the president’s self-analysis — offered after a bipartisan meeting with congressional leadership on Tuesday — that he hadn’t done enough outreach to Republicans, the Ohio governor was equally blunt.

“I saw what CNN said after that meeting yesterday. A line saying the president said he should have been willing to work with the GOP earlier. What? After all of this you don’t realize these people want to destroy you and your agenda?” he asked. “How many times do you have to be, you know, slapped in the face? Look what they did with health care.

“I mean, I understand a reluctance to reach the conclusion that I think a reasonable person can reach: that [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell was speaking the truth when he said his goal was not to govern, not to develop public policy, but his goal is to defeat this president in 2012. And I think when the base understands that that’s what’s at stake, the base is going to be much more willing to engage and to join the fight. The base is going to be less willing to join the fight if they don’t see the clear differences. The differences are there, for God’s sake.”

Removed from a re-election contest and the trappings of public office, Strickland’s candor is not entirely surprising. But for operatives in the party who have been making a similar argument both privately and in public for months, it will certainly be refreshing. If anything, a governor who ran a top-notch campaign, in a tough swing state — only to lose by a narrow margin — would have a sharper perspective than most about the problems afflicting Democrats. And while Strickland stressed that electoral politics was cyclical, that Democrats would reverse the trends of 2010, and that President Obama would “likely or “very possibly” win re-election, it would not first be without a bit of a course correction.

“It cuts your heart out,” he said, of the party’s inability to make a unified, principled case for their priorities. “People are willing to stand with you if they see you fighting for them. In Ohio, I didn’t lose because so many Republicans came out to vote for [incoming Ohio Governor] John Kasich. He ended up with 49 percent of the vote. I lost because there was an enthusiasm gap and too many people who would have most likely voted for me did not vote.”

First Posted by Sam Stein: 12- 1-10 01:29 PM

All of America now can rest easy: Merrill Lynch chief John Thain won’t get his $10 million bonus after all, having succumbed to browbeating calls for fiscal restraint.

Upside: Maybe we can avoid another round of outrage from Congressmen and other whiners who are shocked—shocked!—that anyone on Wall Street could get paid so handsomely, much less actually deserve it.

Downside: Thain gets screwed out of what rightfully was his, for he did deserve a bonus, for myriad reasons. Same goes, arguably, for Morgan Stanley chief John Mack and the seven senior execs at Goldman Sachs, all of whom will forgo any year-end payout. Worse, this whole kerfuffle may embolden the self-righteous, sanctimonious mob that now decries wealth creation and the profit motive. Where were all these populist prudes when the stock market was rising 63% from 2003 through October 2007? Answer: They were fat and happy and counting their money.

It’s one thing when a greedy fatcat utterly fails his shareholders, guts his company and walks away with an undeserved windfall. Two lamentable examples: the $42 million parachute for Charles Prince, who flopped at integrating the smokestacks of Citigroup and let it plunge head-first into the subprime debacle; and the $160 million sendoff for Stanley O’Neal, accumulated over an entire career at Merrill Lynch before he looked the other way while his traders loaded up on wild-eyed risk.

John Thain, by contrast, was brought in only a year ago to fix the Merrill mess, and he worked 24/7 to do it. Troubled rivals Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns dilly-dallied—rather than swallow their pride and sell themselves to healthier partners—and they went belly-up, pretty much. Thain, by contrast, handed Merrill cnbc_comboQuoteMove(‘popup_mer_ID0ENIAC15839609′);
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over to Bank of America cnbc_comboQuoteMove(‘popup_bac_ID0EONAC15839609′); Since mid-September, just before that deal popped, the stock price of Citigroup
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is down 43% and Goldman cnbc_comboQuoteMove(‘popup_gs_ID0ERHAE15839609′); is down 46%—but Merrill shares are up 5%.

That’s a gain of more than $1 billion in market cap for that floundering firm, so a $10 million bonus barely is a rounding error. Ten million bucks, in fact, is equivalent to how much revenue Merrill collects in just 20 minutes, based on a 40-hour work-week.

Yet now we’re gonna take pleasure in stiffing John Thain? Sounds a little punitive to me.

This CEO backlash, moreover, could spread far beyond Wall Street to infect the entire U.S. economy. Yet, last year, median pay rose only 1.3% and bonuses fell by 5% for the CEOs of more than 230 multibillion-dollar companies, even as their stock prices rose an average of 7.5%, says the research firm Equilar. At financial giants the median pay package fell 20% in 2007, and Wall Street now braces for haircuts of 40% to 70%.

Yet now we’re gonna take pleasure in stiffing John Thain? Sounds a little punitive to me. This CEO backlash, moreover, could spread far beyond Wall Street to infect the entire U.S. economy. Yet, last year, median pay rose only 1.3% and bonuses fell by 5% for the CEOs of more than 230 multibillion-dollar companies, even as their stock prices rose an average of 7.5%, says the research firm Equilar. At financial giants the median pay package fell 20% in 2007, and Wall Street now braces for haircuts of 40% to 70%

Okay, so some CEO pay is way out of whack, and too often mediocre performance is rewarded richly. In the late 1970s the bigwigs earned an average of 30 times the rank-and-file worker’s paycheck, and by this decade the gap widened past 300x. But this owes mainly to the fixes put in place a decade ago, in an earlier crusade to reduce CEO pay. Comp critics wanted to tie CEO pay more closely to a company’s stock performance, so stock options came into vogue and, in the long bull run that followed, the rich got vastly richer.

But trying, yet again, to ensure a corporate chieftain doesn’t earn “too much” money is a matter best left to boards and shareholders—not to politicians and union demogogues and irate day traders. (My favorite new tack: clawbacks.) Alas, I don’t hear anyone suggesting we cut the pay of other culprits in this crisis: Barney Frank and other lawmakers for inflating the Fannie-Freddie housing bubble; Securities and Exchange Commission chief Christopher Cox for letting risk run amok; and tens of thousands of people who lied about their finances to land super-cheap loans to buy more house than they could afford.

Oh no, that would be wrong—let’s take it out on the CEOs. It’s more fun that way.

AP Blackberry Storm

Today should be a momentous day forResearch in Motion and Verizon as the two unleash the new BlackBerry Storm on the market. It’s a slick, touch screen BlackBerry that could offer Apple’s iPhone its first real competition. We’ve been playing with the device for much of the week and think some of the hype might be a little overdone.

This isn’t an entirely technical review, since those of you who understand the software, pixel count and various apps have gotten your information before now. This is a far more consumer-oriented look at the device and whether you might want clip the Storm to your belt.

First, some background: I’m a CrackBerry. Addicted. I check and re-check for new emails. Feel compelled to respond to everyone. I text, I snap photos. I’ve shot video. When I’m out in the field, working out of a satellite truck, I write my scripts on this thing. I surf the web. I usually write my blogs on it as well, though I’m using my desktop this morning. When I’m at an Apple event, I live blog via the BlackBerry as well. I like it, a lot.

I tried to make the switch to Apple’s iPhone. I love the concept. I love the screen; the multi-media concept; the flexibility of the device. And most recently, I really liked 3G access. But after trying and trying and trying, I just couldn’t get used to the touch screen interface. My mind and fingers couldn’t mesh and I kept losing my place on the screen. It was a deal-breaker. I wanted to love the iPhone so much. But I’m touch screen challenged and just can’t get there.

BlackBerrys past gave me the keypad I needed, but the screen was substandard. The net surfing was substandard. When I saw the Bold ($299 retail with two year agreement), it was love at first sight. A spectacular screen, 3G, a completely different web-surfing experience, a little video camera, incremental but nice tweaks to the operating system and graphics. For me, it was a huge leap forward from the Curve I had been using. It’s yummy.

So enter the BlackBerry Storm ($199 with two year agreement), hyped as an iPhone killer, and the bridge device everyone was waiting for; combining the touch-screen advantages of iPhone, but with a unique tactile feedback system that would appeal to those of us who have that whole finger-mind-touch-screen issue. All of us in the Silicon Valley Bureau have spent some time playing with Storm, and we all have strong feelings about it since we’re all BlackBerry users. As mentioned, I’ve been using the Bold; producer Annie Pong has migrated to the Storm; and editor John Chiala has been using the BlackBerry 8800.

Annie found the Storm very “hesitant” when she typed. There was a “lag time” between hitting the keys and seeing the letter or number appear on screen. That’s something that can be adjusted, but it never quite seemed to work well enough for her. She also noted that when you swing the device around to change the screen to a “landscape” appearance, when you turn the device from a vertical to horizontal field, there was a delay and that seemed kind of strange.

John also found that the Storm wasn’t intuitive enough. “Seemed like there was lot of times you had to tap two or three times to get it to do what you wanted to do.” He added that, “At first glance, I wasn’t real thrilled with it. Looks cool though. Video and graphics look awesome.”

Another knock: the tactile response constantly made me feel like the thing was going to fall apart. When you touch the screen, the thing you’re touching is highlighted. Then you have to click the entire screen glass to launch whatever it is you just touched. But when the whole screen moves, it feels like the glass is going to fall out.

Storm’s biggest positive may also showcase its biggest drawback: The screen is gorgeous. There’s something amazingly simple about buying an iPod or iPhone and instantly being able to connect to one of the easiest, broadest, most robust online media stores available. And with the Apple App Store, you can constantly upgrade and add new programs. In other words, if you aren’t touch screen averse, and you’re trying to decide between BlackBerry Storm and Apple’s iPhone—and your company supports iPhone (mine doesn’t yet)—I don’t see why you wouldn’t choose iPhone just because of iTunes.

For me, I’m extremely happy with my Bold and my iPod Touch. The fact is, watching video or listening to music on my phone is nice in theory, but it eats up a lot of juice. And not being able to communicate with my communication device because messing around with all my extra-curricular activities ate up all my battery life just doesn’t work for me. Until iPhone, and Storm for that matter, dramatically improve battery life, I’m happy to carry two devices. One for communication and occasional entertainment, and one for entertainment only.

The Storm will sell well because it’s tough to break the BlackBerry addiction, it’s fun to play with, it looks so cool, and there’s a huge amount of buzz around it. iPhone challenger? Maybe. iPhone killer? Hardly.

This is it! This is the news we’ve been waiting for since May. On Wednesday, Research In Motion announced that the long-awaited RIM BlackBerry Bold will finally be available starting November 4 at AT&T for $299.99 with a two-year contract and after a mail-in rebate.

Though the smartphone was originally slated for a summer release, as we all painfully know, the Bold was delayed time and time again. Part of it was the lengthy carrier certification process and most recently, RIM said it held off on the release to make sure the 3G experience would be the best at launch (after witnessing the iPhone 3G debacle). Hey, whatever the story, we’re just glad to know we can finally get our hands on this sucker in a couple of weeks.

So despite all the delays and with new devices already on the market, are you going to get one?

A $10 million call by Google Inc. for beneficial, world-changing ideas has generated more than 150,000 online submissions.

The deadline for people to submit ideas for the initiative, called Project 10^100, was Monday. Google employees will now sift through the ideas, submitted in 25 languages, and choose 100 semifinalists by January 27. Funding for up to five winning ideas will be awarded in May.

“We’re thrilled by the large array of enthusiastic responses to Project 10^100. That number has exceeded our expectations,” said Bethany Poole, a product marketing manager at Google.

“We’re also very impressed by the variety and ingenuity of the submissions across all categories, ranging from health to energy, education and the environment,” she said.

Google launched the ambitious project September 24 to help celebrate its 10th birthday. In announcing Project 10^100 (pronounced “10 to the 100th”), the Internet giant said to hoped to solicit and bankroll fresh ideas it believes will have broad and beneficial effects on people’s lives.

The project’s Web site suggested that successful ideas address such critical issues as providing food and shelter, building communities, improving health, granting more access to education, sustaining the global ecosystem and promoting clean energy.

As an example, Google cited the invention of the Hippo Water Roller, a barrel-shaped container that holds 24 gallons and can be rolled with little effort like a wheelbarrow, making it easier for African villagers on foot to transport critically needed fresh water to their homes.

Over the past month, the Google project’s Web site received more than 2.5 million unique visitors, and its video was watched more than a million times. Entrants had to briefly describe their idea and answer six questions, including, “If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how?”

Now comes the hard part. More than 3,000 Google employees from more than 50 offices worldwide, with the help of an advisory board, will whittle down the massive list to 100 finalists.

“We will be going through the database and judging the ideas based on their reach, depth, attainability, efficiency and longevity,” Poole said.

On January 27, Google will make the top 100 ideas available online for public voting for one week. A panel of as-yet-unnamed judges will then review the top 20 ideas and announce up to five winners in mid-February.

Funding, from a pool of $10 million, will be awarded in May. If the judges decide to reward five winning ideas, each will receive $2 million. If only two ideas are chosen, each will receive $5 million, and so on.

Kanye West

http://www.zshare.net/audio/2061601598dc2cb1/

Eminem

http://www.zshare.net/audio/20617146f1166a42/

The Future continues to Arrive

Remember when you were promised all those amazing future tech innovations? Just around the corner was supposed to be a shining technology utopia with flying cars, personal space travel to distant galaxies, and bio-implantable cell phones. It’s almost disappointing enough to make you sit at home and watch old episodes of “Space 1999″.

Don’t lose hope! An amazing glimpse of this promised future has just arrived at ThinkGeek in the form of the Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard. This tiny device laser-projects a keyboard on any flat surface… you can then type away accompanied by simulated key click sounds. It really is true future magic at its best. You’ll be turning heads the moment you pull this baby from your pocket and use it to compose an e-mail on your bluetooth enabled PDA or Cell Phone. With 63 keys and and full size QWERTY layout the Laser Virtual Keyboard can approach typing speeds of a standard keyboard… in a size a little larger than a matchbook.