Hasta La Gadget!

Verizon is apparently quite confident that its network is robust enough to withstand the strain of the iPhone–a marked contrast with AT&T, which has struggled through data usage issues and dropped calls since Apple first began offering its handset exclusively through that carrier in the US, back in 2007.

Verizon, which is widely expected to announce its own version of the Apple handset during a New York City press conference tomorrow, has reportedly been ramping up network infrastructure, in anticipation of the strain it could undergo after offering users the iPhone. According to a source who spoke with The Wall Street Journal, the carrier is confident that its network could withstand such strain.

The carrier has focused much of its efforts on cities like San Francisco and New York, where the prevalence of the iPhone has often been blamed for slowing AT&T to a crawl.

Merry Internet pranksters Improv Everywhere pulled off another successful No Pants Subway ride this weekend. Not quite CES numbers, but according to initial estimates from the group, some 3,500 New Yorkers participated in the event, removing their bottoms and enjoying all that our city’s wonderful public transportation system has to offer–quite the feat, given the fact that it never got any warmer than 32 degrees.

Events were also held in 50 other cities in 24 countries, from chilly Minneapolis to the far more pleasant São Paulo. Video from last year’s event after the jump.

After a substantial two-year dip, attendance level estimates for CES 2011 are back up around their 2008 level, a sign perhaps of slow but steady continued economic recovery. Attendance for the country’s largest consumer electronic show took a major tumble in 2009, when they dropped from 141,150 to 113,085.

2010 saw an uptick in those numbers with an initial estimate of around 120,000. The Consumer Electronics Association, the show’s governing body, released initial estimates for 2011, putting attendance at last week’s show at around 140,000–right around the level they were at in 2008.

According to the CEA’s numbers, 30,000 of those attendees came from other countries. Also, some 158,000 CES-themed tweets have been sent since ;ast Monday–a number that seems a touch low, perhaps, at just over a tweet per visitor–I’m sure at least a quarter of those were sent by our own EIC, Lance Ulanoff.

The Eco Printer seems to be based on an invention I came up with around 15 years ago, although as I never told anyone or did anything about it (and my invention used completely different technology), I”ll let it slide. The printer prints onto paper using a special disappearing ink that can be erased by zapping it with UV light. The idea is that you can print things for temporary use and then re-use the paper, over and over again.

It’s a nice idea, promising the advantages of paper but without the environmental costs – even recycling uses resources. But it misses the exact same thing when I was dreaming up re-printable paper back in the 1990s: Paper is useful because of what you do to it after the ink has been laid down. You can scribble and annotate, fold it or tear strips off and rearrange them. These are the things paper does that an LCD screen can’t, and these are precisely the things that will render the paper useless for this particular printer/wiper. It won’t remove your pencil marks for example, or repair creases and tears.

If you’re forced to keep the paper in pristine condition, then you may as well use an iPad.

And what about this magical UV-sensitive ink? Going on the already dizzying prices of regular printer ink, the cost is sure to be terrifying.

Reprinting on One Paper Only [Yanko. Thanks, Radhika!]

See Also:

• Printer Ink Now $8000 A Gallon: Boston Man Sues
• Printer Ink Gouging Runs to $6 Billion a Year
• A New Way to Force You to Buy Overpriced Printer Ink
• For Printers, 'All-In-One' Really Means 'Way-Too-Much'

This article was written on September 05, 2006 by CyberNet.

If you haven’t heard by now, the ultra popular social network Facebook (generally for college students) got a pretty major facelift. I logged into my account to find a new Facebook “feed.” Apparently they didn’t want to be left out of the feed frenzy!The last time I checked, there were 26,000 names on the petition to have this feed removed, and it keeps growing! The general consensus with this new debut is that Facebook now crosses the line from “Social Network” to “Stalker’s Paradise.”

The news feed looks  something like: “John added ____ to his favorite movies,” or “Susie and Kim are now friends” or “Lisa is now in a relationship” (complete with a heart) or “Dan added new photos” (complete with thumbnails of newly added photos), or “Jeff joined the group– The Croc Hunter, a legend of our time..RIP Steve Irwin.” It is literally a whole page- plus some of stalkish, useless information.

Some of the comments I have seen include “Facebook is the ultimate stalkers dream now.. sick” to “I’m thinking Facebook scares me.” There is even a group called “Students Against Facebook News Feed” with nearly 26,000 members (and counting) who say this is the official petition. In comparison, there is a group titled “Students in favor of Facebook News Feed” with 17 lonely members.

I’m sure there are some people who like every last juicy detail about every so called friend they have on their list. That’s why I think they need to make this an optional feature disabled by default. They’ve gone a little bit far now by making a feed of every single update and change a user makes.  Change can be good, but in this case I think they went a little too far too quickly. They need to take a step back and take the feedback from the millions of users seriously.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Facebook Expands – Registration Available To EveryoneFacebook Gets a Makeover after Community FeedbackSave XP Petition Grows to Over 200,000 SignaturesXP “Deadline” Extended? Maybe…Windows Live Messenger Users Forced to Upgrade