Hasta La Gadget!

The Prisoner was a 1960's take on surveillance societies, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.

We’re saddened to learn that actor/writer/director Patrick McGoohan has died at age 80. His cult favorite TV series, The Prisoner (1967-68), was startlingly forward-thinking in its imaginative use of technology, presaging …

Originally posted at Digital City Podcast

There’s just over a week to go before Barack Obama installs himself in the Oval Office, and in the meantime his geek-cred rating continues to climb. We’ve already seen his on-again-off-again iPod/Zune affairs, and his CrackBerry addiction is probably the best product endorsement ever.

Now, with the release of the official presidential portrait, the nerd-ometer continues to climb. The portrait contains full EXIF metadata, the text info tucked inside the file to tell you how and when the picture was taken. And guess what? Obama’s portrait was taken on the smoking hot, brand new Canon 5D MkII.

For the train spotters, here are the details: The lens was a portrait-friendly 105mm, and the shot was snapped at ISO 100 with a shutter speed of 1/125th/s at ƒ10. While we’re pretty sure it was the photographer, Pete Souza (his name is in there too) that took care of the details, we want to give credit to the President Elect’s PR flacks for not stripping the data out.

On the other hand, maybe this just slipped through by mistake, just like it would have done on Dubya’s technophobic watch.

New official portrait released [Change.gov via ★]

See Also:

• Barack Obama Uses a Mac
• Zunegate, Day Two: Obama Advisor Says He’s an iPod Man
• Barack Obama Uses a Zune
• President-Elect Obama Must Surrender His BlackBerry, Says Gov’t …

Apple this week began offering iPhone owners alternatives to its Safari mobile browser.

A
number of third-party web browsers appeared in the iPhone App Store on
Monday and Tuesday. Applications include Shaking Web ($2)– a browser
that stabilizes the view of a web page when your hand is shaking — and
Incognito ($2), which surfs the internet without leaving behind browsing history.

The
move suggests a change of heart in Apple’s App Store policies.
Previously, the company rejected some iPhone applications on the
grounds that they "duplicated iTunes functionality."

Some might
think approving third-party browsers will open doors to an
open-platform browser such as Firefox, which could finally allow
plug-ins such as Adobe Flash to run on the iPhone. However, it’s not
that simple. Apple’s terms of service for its software development kit
reads the following:

"An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code
by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in
architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise," reads clause 3.3.2 of the iPhone SDK agreement, which was recently published on WikiLeaks. "No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except
for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and
built-in interpreter(s)." 

So
unless Apple revises its terms of service for its SDK, we won’t see any
browsers mind-blowingly different from Safari. Nonetheless, less
restriction is generally more than welcome when it comes to Apple. 

Apple Allows 3rd Party Web Browsers into App Store [MacRumors]

So it looks like wannabe cloner Psystar’s supposedly hotshot law firm of Carr and Ferrell regrouped for a deep think after pumping out some fairly weak arguments in its case against Apple — according to a new draft of Psystar’s countersuit, the Florida-based computer reseller should be allowed to sell whitebox Mac OS X machines because it legally purchased copies of Leopard at retail. That’s the first sale doctrine, if you’re into copyright law — it states that the purchaser of copyrighted materials (like a book) can sell or dispose of them however they want. Here’s the thing though: a big part of Apple’s case (but not all of it) is based around the fact that consumers license OS X under the terms of the EULA — and courts are basically up in the air over whether the first sale doctrine should apply to software transactions. It’s an interesting tactic with a ton of repercussions beyond Apple if it’s successful, but we honestly can’t see it working — in the cases where first sale has been used to overcome a EULA, it’s generally been for used software, not companies like Psystar, who are modifying and installing new copyrighted software sold by a first party. We’ll see how Apple responds — things just got interesting again.

Update: World Of Apple notes that this argument has been present from the outset, but it sounds like Psystar’s really pushing it now. We’d say so — we think it’s the only plausible one we’ve heard so far.

[Thanks, iB3nji]

Disclaimer: Nilay’s a lawyer and about to fall over from CES, but he’s not your lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice or analysis.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Psystar’s lawyers regroup, try another tactic against Apple originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s just as hard picking the 10 best green cars from Detroit’s North American International Auto Show as it is picking the 10 best cars overall, but for different reasons. It’s hard to keep the 10-best-greenies list down to 10; it’s almost as hard to get the 10-best other cars list up to 10. Toyota and Lexus could fill out much of the green cars list on their own, with the 2010 Prius and its astounding 50 mpg fuel economy; the HS 250h, a Prius by Lexus (“don’t call it a Lexus Prius,” the Lexus people moan); and Toyota’s battery-only concept car, the TF-EV. Here’s my top 10 green cars from Detroit’s 2009 auto show, rated by likely impact, including the odds of actually coming to production.

1. Toyota Prius Hybrid

Toyota filed for more than 1,000 patents with the third-generation Prius arriving late this spring. It’s roomier inside with a revised roofline, yet the shape is unmistakably Prius. Most of the drivetrain parts are smaller, lighter, and more efficient. Combine that with very low wind resistance and you get 50 mpg combined city/highway mileage. A replacement was long overdue since the current model dates to 2004.