Hasta La Gadget!

Humans have probably been calculating since the moment that Paleolithic hunters first used a scorched stick to scratch a record of their kills on the limestone walls of a cave.

“Rrrr! Og kill four! More than Zog!”

Fast forward a few millennia to July 7, 1752, when Joseph Marie Jacquard is born. His automated loom, controlled by punch cards that encoded the complex fabric patterns it was to weave, led the way for many subsequent calculating and computing machines.

But Jacquard was hardly the first to conceive of using machinery to enhance the human brain’s computing power.

People have built calculating and computing tools for thousands of years. Let’s take a look at a few of the non-electronic predecessors to today’s silicon circuits.

This page: Babylonian clay tablets

In fact, archeologists still debate the meaning of cave paintings such as those at Lascaux. But there’s less dispute about the meaning of Babylonian clay-tablet writing, which was clearly used to record stores of grain and of beer, circa 2500 BC. It might be a stretch to call these clay tablets “computers,” but their role in tabulating and storing data is clear. Think of them as the ancient world’s first data banks.

This image, from the University of Chicago, is an administrative record of the payout of at least 600 quarts of an as-yet unidentified commodity at five villages near Persepolis in about 500 B.C.

Photo: University of Chicago

This article was written on June 06, 2008 by CyberNet.

Google has decided to take a few risks with Gmail by introducing Gmail labs. They say that they receive a lot of ideas for Gmail from both users and employees at Google, but they don’t always have the time to develop and implement them all. For this reason they started Gmail Labs which they say, “is a way for us to take lots of the ideas we wouldn’t normally pick and let you all decide whether they’re good or not.

For now it’s just offered in standard Gmail, and not for those using Google Apps. That’s not to say that they won’t offer this feature in the future for Google Apps users though. We could easily see this turning into something like iGoogle where everyday users, not just Google employees, will be able to submit their own work which would be great.

At this point, the Google Labs feature is available to those in the United States and the United Kingdom. You’ll know if you have it by logging into Gmail and clicking on the Settings tab. If you see a section at the far right labeled “Labs,” you have it. Just click on it to browse through the features that have already been made.

Of course you can view all of the different new features here, but we’ll quickly run through them so you can get an idea of what’s available:

• Quick Links: Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. You can use it for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, and more.
• Superstars: Adds additional star icons. After enabling this feature, you can choose which icons you wish to use in the “General” Settings page.
• Pictures in chat: See your friends’ profile pictures when you chat with them.
• Fixed width font: Adds an option to the reply dropdown menu that lets you view a message in fixed width font.
• Custom keyboard shortcuts: Lets you customize keyboard shortcut mappings. Adds a new Settings tab from which you can remap keys to various actions.
• Mouse gestures: Use your mouse to navigate with gestures. Hold right-click and move the mouse left to go to a previous conversation, move it right to go to the next conversation, and move up to go back to the inbox view. Works best on Windows.
• Signature tweaks: Places your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and removes the “–” line that appears before signatures. Can’t use this and the “Random signature” Labs feature at the same time.
• Random signature: Rotates among random quotations for your email signature. Can’t use this and the “Signature tweaks” Labs feature at the same time.
• Custom date formats: Adds options to the general settings page allowing the date and time format to be changed independent of language. For example, you can use a 24-hour clock (14:57) or show dates with the day first (31/12/07).
• Muzzle: Conserves screen real estate by hiding your friends’ status messages.
• Old Snakey: Kick it old school with Old Snakey! Enable keyboard shortcuts and hit ‘&’ from the main page to play a game of snake.
• Email Addict: Lets you take a break from email and chat by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat.
• Hide Unread Counts: Hides the unread counts for inbox, labels, etc.

Before you go and opt-in to some of these features, just note that they may not always work perfect. They are experimental features, and Google even notes that they could change without notice, break or disappear.

Thanks for the tip Cory!

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• Gmail Labs: Almost a Year Later and 50+ Available
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X-Series Walkman takes on the Samsung P3

Q: I am finally ready to cross that bridge and get me a touch screen player. I wanted to know your expert opinion on the Samsung P3 and the Sony Walkman X-Series. I purchase all my music from Napster, Amazon and some from Rhapsody. I use Window Media Player 11, so I need a player that is compatible with that. Please let me know what you think. — bensworld411, via e-mail

A: Although I’ve only used a pre-production sample of the X-Series Walkman, I can tell you that I favor it over the Samsung P3. Granted, the X-Series is quite a bit pricier, but I personally prefer the onscreen interface and touchscreen implementation (though the P3’s is certainly flashy). I also straight-up love the fact that the Walkman has tactile buttons on the top for controlling playback (say, while you have the player in your pocket). Both devices will work equally well with the system you use for music, and both offer excellent sound quality.

Really, I would narrow it down to two things: price and whether you prefer Bluetooth or WiFi. If you want a cheaper device that includes the ability to sync up Bluetooth headphones, go with the P3. If you want something with a slicker interface that has WiFi and built-in Slacker capability (free music!), go with the Walkman. Better yet, if you can hold off a few more days, I’m expecting a retail unit of the X-Series to be delivered to my desk tomorrow, which means we’ll have a full review up for you very soon.

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Originally posted at MP3 Insider

Welcome to the 411, my new Q&A column answering all your questions about cell phones and cell phone accessories. I receive plenty of questions about these subjects via e-mail, so I figured many of you might have the same questions, too. At times, I might solicit answers from readers if I’m stumped. Send your questions and comments to me at nicole.lee@cnet.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous, let me know in the e-mail.

The Palm Pre's battery life is an issue, but is that enough to avoid it?

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

I have the new Palm Pre and I am very concerned about the battery drain. The last phone that I had was the Instinct and was a smartphone and a good phone. But it was not an iPhone, so when the Palm Pre came out, I was happy that they had a phone that can holds a match to the iPhone. But the battery has me worried so I went out and got an iPhone 3G 8G and am trying it out. The iPhone is really a great device. But I have heard that AT&T has poor signal and service. I have been with Sprint for nine years and love their service and signal is dependable and the everything plan is great and affordable compared with AT&T. Do you have any help for me making this choose. — Bradford, via e-mail

You’ll have to decide which is more important for you–battery life, proper coverage, or affordability. As you’ve already mentioned, the Palm Pre has problems with battery life, and AT&T sometimes has poor coverage depending on your area (You should investigate this further in your own home and office instead of just relying on random hearsay though–you might find that you have good AT&T coverage in your area). It’s also not as if the iPhone doesn’t have battery issues either, depending on how much you use it. Since you seem to be more keen on sticking with Sprint though, I would suggest you stay with the Palm Pre for the time being, despite the poor battery life. Our own Bonnie Cha has released a brief how-to on maximizing the battery life on the Palm Pre. If that still isn’t good enough, I would encourage taking a look at some of Sprint’s other smartphones like the HTC Touch Pro, which might have a slightly longer battery life.

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Originally posted at Dialed In Podcast

Great-sounding home theater is becoming increasingly rare, as consumers move toward space-saving solutions like soundbars and tiny home-theater-in-a-box systems (HTIBs). If you still care about sound, have a budget around $1,000, and want the convenience of an all-in-one package, the choice largely comes down to two systems: the Onkyo HT-S9100THX ($…