Tech Tracker

Google Snowmobile, Offers Not A Street View, But A....Slope View?

Matt Hackney — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:33:00 GMT

It works much the same as the Street View cars Google has out now. But soon this snowmobile will be offering some pretty awesome views. It was created especially for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but don't be surprised if this thing makes it to a slope near you.

[VIA MASHABLE]

Locked On, Proximity Sensing Shirt

Matt Hackney — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:01:00 GMT

"Stay on Target!

The sidewinder missile launched an era of military weapons with auto-targeting capabilities. Why worry about aiming, when "fire and forget" technology can take out a concealed bunker from thousands of miles away? Now ThinkGeek makes auto-targeting personal with the Locked ON Proximity Sensing T-Shirt. Buy one of these glowing shirts for yourself, and gift one to a friend or enemy (co-worker, boyfriend, girlfriend, fembot 2000...). During your normal activities the radar screen on the shirt will be scanning constantly. But get within a few meters of your counterpart wearing the matching shirt and suddenly the radar on both of your shirts lock on and detect each other. It's the perfect early warning system to defend against an imminent attack.

Product Features

Glowing Animated T-Shirt Detects Another Locked-ON shirt nearby

Buy as a Pair. When two shirts are within a few meters of each other the glowing radar stops scanning and locks on!

Black 100% Cotton T-Shirt

Animated Decal is Removable (with hook and loop fasteners) for Easy Washing

Battery Pack is Concealed in a Small Pocket Sewn Inside the Shirt

Runs for hours off three AAA Batteries (not included)

Washing Instructions

Carefully peel animated decal from front of T-Shirt

Unplug ribbon connector behind decal and remove decal

Unplug battery pack and remove it

You can leave the ribbon cable inside the shirt

Machine wash gentle cycle on cold

Hang to dry
Please Note: If you plug the connector into the battery pack backwards the shirt will not animate properly. It will not damage the shirt. Simply reverse the connector.

Q. Dear ThinkGeek, I want to learn more about the Locked ON - Proximity Sensing Shirt. What can you tell me?
A. What do you want to know?

Q. Do I need to buy two shirts?
A. You need to buy at least two shirts for the Locked ON - Proximity Sensing Shirt to function correctly.

Q. If I buy two mens shirts or two ladies shirts will they work together?
A. Yes. Any combination of shirts will detect each other when they are close together.

Q. How does the Locked ON - Proximity Sensing Shirt tell if two shirts are close together?
A. Magic of course... and a little proximity based radio frequency transmission/detection thrown in for good measure.

Q. So the shirts will light up and lock-ON when they are about 3 meters apart?
A. About. It's not an exact science since the orientation of your body and other objects in the room can affect the range. "

[VIA THINKGEEK]

Twitter Asks Users To Reset Passwords After Possible Phishing Attack

Matt Hackney — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:49:00 GMT

Twitter is locking many users out of the system this morning, and sending them notices that they need to change their passwords in order to regain access to the service, due to concerns over a possible phishing attack.

While some people are worried that the e-mails might have actually been a phishing attack, there’s a flood of tweets from users having received the same message after effectively getting denied access to their accounts, so this seems 100% legit.

The message, copied here by a blogger, reads:

Due to concern that your account may have been compromised in a phishing attack that took place off-Twitter, your password was reset. Please create a new password by opening this link in your browser:
[PASSWORD RESET LINK].

The message adds:

As a reminder, you should be extraordinarily suspicious of any third party that offers to artificially inflate your follower count. We do not endorse any of these sites.

We’ve contacted Twitter for more information, but for now it may be wise to change your password regardless of whether you’ve received this e-mail or not.

Just yesterday, Sophos published a report that showed social networking services like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly being targeted in cybercrime attacks.

(Hat tip to Marjolein Hoekstra)

[VIA TECHCRUNCH]

3outube Downloads YouTube Files With a Single URL Change

Matt Hackney — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:23:00 GMT

You've found a great set of bloopers, and want to download them for future screenings. If you change the "Y" in the youtube.com address to "3," 3outube provides links for downloading that video in MP4 or FLV formats.

That's all there is to it, really—any YouTube video you want to download, just click on the YouTube logo in the lower-right corner of an embedded clip to get to the main YouTube page, then change the "Y" in YouTube.com to "3." Neat stuff, and it worked on all five of the test clips I sent its way.

Update: As our commenters point out, another URL-replacement service, KickYouTube, offers even more formats and features. If Kick goes down, or doesn't work for a certain video, though, having 3outube handy is a good thing—and 75 percent more efficient, in a very narrow way.

[3outube] [VIA LIFEHACKER]

Set Up Your Loved Ones with the Best Tech Tools for Keeping in Touch

Matt Hackney — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:19:00 GMT

Why do you almost never send hand-written letters to loved ones? The effort—locating pen and paper, writing, addressing, and stamping—can seem colossal on any given, always busy, day. But keeping in touch is easier than you (and they) may think.

Photo by el monstrito.

Want to do something nice for your loved ones? Keep in touch with them more often. If you've got friends or family members who aren't so good about online communication, these apps and tips make video chat, simplified email, and photo sharing easier to do on a regular basis.

Making a web connection isn't about "fixing" a relative's computer—though that's not a bad idea, next time you're visiting. It's about lowering the barriers for communication, for both yourself and the person on the other end, so you can get used to keeping in touch through the easiest available methods.

If it's that hard for you, it's doubly hard for a person who didn't constantly have a computer in front of them their whole careers. There are, thankfully, solutions that don't require either side to invest far too much time and effort to get started with. The reward is time well spent with far-off family members, which will certainly pay dividends for a long time to come.

Set up their computer

The apps we want to use to connect are pretty easy to install, for the most part. But if sending a bunch of download links over email to a relative isn't a realistic option, you can do the setting up yourself, from nearly anywhere in the world, with minimal pain. We've previously provided an in-depth list of tools for giving tech support or grabbing files from any system, but below are the two easiest solutions. (We're not even going to pretend your relatives are using Linux, but, if they are, see if you can walk them through connecting to your reverse VNC setup.)

CrossLoop: (Windows) The How-To Geek loves this little remote-control app, and for good reason: It's a VNC remote control app without all the back-end fiddling ("Do you know your IP address, Uncle Robert? Okay, type 'cmd' into the start bar ..."). The client only has to install the software and tell you their access code, and you run the same app and connect from your end. The Geek's site detailed the connection in a screenshot tour. It's secure enough for a one-shot Skype setup or settings fiddling, because it requires a fairly complex code and doesn't persist on the computer beyond your session and the next time they shut down.

LogMeIn Free: (Windows/Mac) It's another fancy, all-in-one VNC client, but it works between PCs and Macs. Doesn't offer the remote file transfer of CrossLoop, and is just a little more complicated for the relative you're having install it to get going with it. Still, it claims and (generally) delivers "two-minute setup," and, though intended for accessing your own home computer at the office and elsewhere, it's still works as a tech support tool. There's also LogMeIn Express, which is even more simple, fast, and support-oriented.

Make their system more accessible

If you've got remote access to a relatives' computer, you can also make it easier for them to use. Bigger type, screen magnification, higher contrast themes, and other tools can make the computer an easier place to navigate for older relatives, but they might never discover those options on their own.

You can read up on the built-in accessibility tools inside OS X, in Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

Set up video chat

These days, nearly every laptop has a webcam and microphone built in, and USB-connected webcams are cheap and easy to set up. Video chat is a lot more personal than a phone call, and feels like the next best thing to jumping in your car and visiting. (It's especially good for keeping up with the grandkids, nieces, and nephews as they continue to grow up so fast.)

Skype is the go-to pick for video chat—it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it's been designed to be fairly easy to install and get started without having to dive into the preferences and configuration settings. If you're not there, either in-person or remotely, most computer users can set up Skype just by clicking Next, Next, OK all the way through the installation process, minus one pause to set up an account. They'll end up with Skype automatically starting and logging them in when their computer boots into Windows, but that's something you can undo later, or not worry too much about if they've got a decently new system.

If most of your relatives have Macs, iChat is probably easier to set up and use than Skype. It is, however, limited to Macs, and so a fairly limiting option for families not entirely descended from typeface designers (Kidding!).

If Skype isn't going to work for your relatives, in terms of software setup, try the web-based TokBox. It's free for both parties, it's one of our readers' favorite video chat applications, and the quality is surprisingly good for a web-based client. You can sign up your relative for an account ahead of time, then simply email them a link to the chat you're initiating with them, along with their username and password.

Last, Gmail's video chat functionality installs via a browser plug-in and works surprisingly well, too—provided everyone involved has a Gmail account.

Better email for everyone

You don't always have time, or the right hair, to jump into a video chat. Sending an email is probably second nature to you, but some relatives hate their email—and you would, too, if you had it their way. Help them reconnect with the (type)written word.

The New York Times recommends a stripped-down email service called PawPawMail for computer unsavvy relatives, which any more tech-patient relative can set up for the email account that they've likely received from their cable, DSL, or other internet provider. It's a nice, simplified interface for email, and probably far easier to use than Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, or even Mail.app for Mac—the picture aggregation is a nice touch. Then again, it's also $5 per month, so you'll want to test it out before committing.

My own mother also grew to loathe desktop email clients, especially when Verizon tech support would have to talk her through SMTP setup when she spent time at our summer camp. The Verizon webmail interface just wasn't cutting it, either. So, using Gina's guide to consolidating multiple email addresses with Gmail, and Gmail's mail and contact importer, I set her up with a Gmail account that used her same password and, more importantly, sent and received email transparently through Verizon.net. Her friends didn't have to update their address books, and once she saw the magic of auto-complete, as-you-type contact names, she was hooked. I also set up sidebar labels, hooked to filters, that show her emails from her children, automatic notices of bills due, Netflix updates, and so on.

Photo sharing

My in-laws have a desktop computer in the living room, as well as a laptop. My wife and I would only occasionally receive digital photos from them, and they'd either be gigantic, 3 MB-each files, or tiny thumbnails forwarded from a photo developing service. While at their house at Thanksgiving, I showed them the Picasa desktop software (available on Windows and Macs), particularly the clever facial recognition and easy collage features. I set it up on their system, set it to always watch their desktop, downloads, and pictures folder, and returned home.

When we returned for the holidays, they had a special gift prepared for a son of theirs: a T-shirt featuring a photo collage of family members, assembled and ordered right from Picasa. I was pretty floored; these were folks I've long been the Computer Explainer for, but Picasa was intuitive enough for them to manage on their own, even into the advanced features. The main thing that required a little explanation was the somewhat quirky "holding"/thumbtack system, and its difference from "Starred" photos, but other than that, it's a perfect photo simplifier: the left-hand folders are albums that show up automatically, the main window is filled with pictures, and photos are automatically knocked into manageable but visible size for emailing—and it's even easier if you set up a Gmail holder account for the user.

[VIA LIFEHACKER]

How to Put Your PC to Good Use While You're Sleeping

Matt Hackney — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:14:00 GMT

The great part about your computer is that—unlike you—it doesn't require any sleep. Take advantage of your PC's insomnia by automating time- and processor-intensive tasks while you're counting sheep.

Photo remixed from Remko van Dokkum and Ian Wilson.

Note: We're all for powering down your PC to save energy overnight, but you can easily schedule your computer to shut down at specific times using several methods, so there's no harm in putting your PC to sleep an hour or two after you doze off—or an hour or two after you leave for work, or whatever times you might want to take advantage of a few extra CPU cycles while you're away from your PC.

On Tuesday we asked you what apps and maintenance tools you run while you're sleeping. Below we've aggregated our favorite overnight computer uses, including some of your favorite methods of squeezing a few more overtime hours out of your computer along with ours.

Backup, Update, and Clean

Ah maintenance; it's the stuff that boring work is made of. Rather than incorporate it into your regular computing hours—and staring listlessly at your computer while your maintenance tasks complete—make computer maintenance an overnight task that your computer performs without you.

Note: All of the below suggestions, naturally, can be set to run on a schedule.

Backup your hard drive: We've emphasized the importance of backup time and again, and even if you've already got some form of backup in place, there's still a good chance that you're doing it wrong.

The bummer about backup: It can take a very long time, especially when you're performing an off-site backup over the internet (which you should be doing!). We've detailed how to automatically backup your hard drive to an external drive and/or FTP server in the past. Backing up to a second local hard drive—like a connected USB drive—is the most important of these two, since most people don't necessarily have an off-site FTP server they can back up to.

Instead, for your off-site backup needs, we'd suggest signing up for a service like Mozy. An annual subscription to Mozy will cost around $55 a year for unlimited backups (free for up to 2GB), but let's say worst comes to worst and your computer is robbed, lost to a fire, or your hard drives up and crash. That small cost for insurance will likely seem very much worth the money. I personally use and can vouch for Mozy, but you might want to read up on it and other options in our recent Hive Five Best Backup Tools.

Some command-line savvy readers also opt to do their backups using the venerated rsync command line tool. If you're interested in taking the rsync route, check out our guide on how to mirror files across systems with rsync.

Make your hard drive repair itself: You can't do much to save a hard drive from dying if it's fated in the stars, but you can do your part to keep your disks healthy—specifically by regularly defragmenting and checking for and repairing any disk errors. Our oldie-but-goodie guide to the self-repairing hard drive will allow you to schedule this maintenance once or twice per week, while you're sleeping, so you can rest easy that you've done all you can to keep your disks running in tip-top shape.

Keep your computer up to date: This one's kind of a no brainer, but still very worth the reminder. Granted, some power users would prefer vetting each and every Windows update before it's applied, but for most folks, there's not much of a reason not to automate this process while they're out. To schedule updates via Windows Update, just launch the Update tool from the Control Panel, click the Let me choose my settings link, and choose your preferred automated update settings.

OS X users, your Software Update tool isn't quite as friendly about setting specific times for checking for and downloading updates, but Macworld's Christopher Breen has some clever tips for scheduling Software Update that'll do the trick.

Clean house: Whether you're talking antivirus, crap cleaning, or other general PC cleanup, there's no better time to run those scans and maintenance tools than while you're catching some Z's. It may depend on your antivirus application of choice, but you should have some sort of built-in scheduling option for running antivirus and spyware scans. And for the CCleaner crowd, the How-To Geek details how to set up CCleaner to run automatically every night.

Download, Encode, and Fold

Now that you've got your PC taking care of its most important maintenance tasks overnight, let's look at a few other common overnight uses.

Downloads: When we asked about overnight PC use, downloading using tools like BitTorrent ranked very high among those who responded, and for obvious reasons: Downloads can take a long time, and those hours you're sleeping are hours that big downloads can be completing. But rather than keep your PC on all night long—even after it completes your download—most popular file downloaders have built-in options for shutting down, hibernating, or otherwise powering off your computer when the download in question completes. Everything from the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent (whose options are pictured above) to download managers like DownThemAll have these options built in.

Video encoding: Many of us will never know the time it takes to do some seriously heavy video encoding (we're none of us Pixar), but if you've ever tried ripping a DVD (here are five of the best ripping tools out there), you know how much time and CPU cycles video encoding can take. Outsource your ripping and other encoding jobs to the night so you can actually use your computer the next day.

Share your computing power with researchers: Distributed computing tools allow researchers across the globe to use your extra CPU cycles to run a few algorithms of their own in the background using your computer. That might not seem like much, but with enough computers, researchers can do some serious work with distributed computing. (Wikipedia notes that Folding@home, the most popular distributed computing network, has up to 400,000 active machines running at a time and has reached computing speeds of over 5.0 native petaflops.) If you're interested in putting your PC to use to help the world while you're sleeping, you've got plenty of options:There's Folding@home (a project to understand protein folding), BOINC, the World Community Grid, and LHC@home, to name a few popular options.

And a few other smart ideas

Clever (or just less common) overnight uses for your PC suggested by Lifehacker readers included:

Updating your applications: Reader Matthew Giacomazzo uses previously mentioned software update tool Ketarin to check for and download software update packages for installed apps. Rather than automatically install them, he has Ketarin output updates to a text file on his desktop so he can review the downloaded updates and decide whether or not to install them in the morning.

Compiling code: Compiling code from source can be an intensive process, and reader perlhacker uses his overnight cycles to update and compile software on his Mac and OpenBSD machines.

Renaming files: Lifehacker reader prupert runs scripts on his home theater PC to rename and copy television recordings on his MythTV setup, then scans the recordings for advertising, removes them, and converts the files to MKV.

Creating local backups for data in the cloud: Reader mojo schedules a Google Docs backup to give a little redundancy to data in the cloud.

Just Turn It Off Already

Okay, fine. Sometimes the best thing you can do with your computer is simply turn it off. You save on electricity, you lose one extra hum and a few flashing lights in your home at night, and you may stop thinking, "Oooo, maybe I should google that" while you're laying in bed with your pre-sleep mind wandering. Remember, though, very few of the options highlighted above should require an entire night's worth of your powered-on computer. Check out our guide to automatically shutting down your computer at a certain time for more ideas on how you can make the most of some after-hours computing power without keeping your computer on all night long.

[VIA LIFEHACKER]

Five Best Email Clients

Matt Hackney — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:46:00 GMT

Email as a technology has been around for decades, and thanks to wide spread adoption and popularity, it isn't in danger of disappearing. Check out the five most popular email clients to help you wrangle your email.

Earlier this week we asked your to share your favorite email client. We didn't restrict the voting to only stand-alone email applications or web-based email clients, but we did specify that if you voted for a web-based tool it had to have distinctly client-like features—such as Gmail's ability to fetch and sort email from other sources. The email Call for Contenders was one of the most popular we've ever had, with over 1,000 votes logged. Here are the five most popular clients used by Lifehacker readers:

Outlook (Windows, $399 for Office Standard Suite)

Outlook has been around since the 1990s, and by virtue of being part of the Microsoft Office suite and having been entrenched in the business environment, it enjoys an enormous popularity. Even if many people use Outlook because it's the email client provided—and often required!—by their place of employment, that doesn't mean it can't stand on its own merits. Integration with Windows Desktop Search gives you the ability to quickly search through your entire Outlook workflow, and Outlook can handle everything from your email to your calendar and easily transfer tasks, contacts, and more between the two.

Apple Mail (Mac, Free)

Apple's Mail application, also known as Mail.app or simply Mail, unsurprisingly continues the tradition of Apple applications following the "it just works" method of design. Mail allows you to collect all your email from across the web and various email servers in one place, and it actively engages your email as you read it. For example, if you get an email with an invitation to a meeting next Thursday, Mail will detect it and make it simple to kick that appointment right over to iCal. Like the integration between Windows Desktop Search and Outlook, Mail is integrated with Spotlight to make deep massaging your messages easy.

Thunderbird (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)

Thunderbird is an open-source offering from Mozilla—the company behind the beloved open-source browser Firefox. Thunderbird is a solid email application that sports the same extensibility of its code-sibling Firefox. Many readers voted for not just Thunderbird but Thunderbird with the addition of Lightning, a Thunderbird extension that adds scheduling and task management functionality to Thunderbird. If you're interested in using Thunderbird you'll definitely want to check out our guide to making Thunderbird your ultimate online/offline messaging hub, and you may also want to consider packing Thunderbird Portable away on your thumb drive for anywhere-access to your email.

Gmail (Web-based, Free)

Google has had quite a hit on their hands with Gmail, their extremely popular web-based email client. Not only do you get a feature-packed email account when you sign up for Gmail—you also get an email client that's is very adept at pulling in email from other services and organizing it with a robust system of filters and tags. You can check out how to manage multiple inboxes here if you'd like to use Gmail as a central hub for managing all your email. Many of the features in Gmail aren't necessarily revolutionary—like the ability to filter messages, flag, or label them—but the features are implemented in such a way that makes them effortless to use. And, surprising as it may seem, its much-loved threaded conversations are still relatively unique to Gmail.

Postbox (Windows/Mac, $39.95)

Postbox is stand-alone email client for Windows and Mac operating systems. Postbox is based on Mozilla-code, so the Postbox team has been able to tweak quite a few Thunderbird extensions, including Lightning, to work with Postbox. In addition to its extensibility, Postbox's default interface is powerful. The app includes features like the ability to search and compose simultaneously. You can look up an email address, search for a previous attachment, and check an old email for information all in the sidebar while working on your current email. Postbox also provides email summaries as you read through and search your email, showing you not just the sender and subject line but the attachments and any important information inside the email like addresses, appointments, and URLs.

[VIA LIFEHACKER]

Canceling a Nexus One Contract Costs More Than a Nexus One

Matt Hackney — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:52:00 GMT

If you buy a subsidized Nexus One with T-Mobile and you cancel your contract after the 14-day trial, it'll cost you between $50 and $200. Sounds pretty standard, but Google will charge you an additional "equipment recovery fee."

Google has the right to charge you up to $350 if you cancel before the 4 month mark, which is essentially their way of thwarting any plans you may have to sell a former contract phone for profit. ~~But here's the catch: Google's fees plus T-Mobiles fees can add up to $550—which is $20 more than the Nexus One costs in the first place.~~ Ugh, this math/cancellation is a bit confusing, but basically, Google will charge you whatever you didn't pay for a Nexus One due to subsidies. In other words, you'd owe Google $350 if you bought a Nexus One for $180 through T-Mobile—which brings the cost of your Nexus One up to $530 (what it runs unlocked).

Add on any fees from T-Mobile on top of that, and geeze, your contract-less Nexus One is costing you more than a new one unlocked.

[Google Terms of Sale via CNET via phoneArena]

Facebook dismisses rumours of charging plans

Matt Hackney — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:45:00 GMT

The rumour about Facebook charging for its content appears to have come from a hoax email circulated on the site.

Both groups collectively have nearly 200,000 members and believe that the site will soon begin charging somewhere in the region of £14.99 for use of the social network.

The more popular group, entitled: “We will not pay to use Facebook – we are gone if this happens”, now has over 140,000 members and aims to get 300,000 members to sign its petition.

Related Articles

Iran elections: Guardian Council says there will be no rerun

Iran election: contenders challenged by Supreme Leader on day of mourning

Iran bans Facebook ahead of election

Mills & Boon launches online social-networking site

Social networks can come in and out of favour like the latest fashion accessory

“This is a petition to stop Facebook from charging £/$14.99 a month starting from July 2010.

“Because of Facebook's huge popularity, Mark Zuckerberg [founder and chief] is getting a lot of offers from people wanting to buy Facebook - people who WILL turn it into a paysite.

“Let’s all stick together on this one and let them know that we will leave Facebook if they decide to charge us to use it," says the group's manifesto.

However, Facebook flat out deny the claims. A spokesman for the company said: “We have no plans to charge users for Facebook's basic services. Facebook is a free service for its 350 million users.”

Some smaller groups dedicated to spreading the message that Facebook will not begin charging from the beginning in July 2010 have also sprung up.

Last week The Telegraph reported that more than 420,000 people had joined a Facebook group called ”Save Top Gear” after fears emerged online that the popular BBC Two show might be axed. This was despite the BBC confirming that a new series will be made and that “Top Gear will be around for a long time yet”.

The programme’s long-time producer, Andy Wilman, began the controversy with a blog post looking at the recently completed Series 14, and conceding that previous runs had been more consistently entertaining.

The rumour about Facebook charging for its content appears to have come from a hoax email circulated on the site.

[VIA TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]

Download MP3 Albums Free!.....And Legally From Amazon

Matt Hackney — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:31:00 GMT

Head over to Amazon and get downloading!

[AMAZON.COM]

Properly Care for and Feed Your New HDTV

Matt Hackney — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:28:00 GMT

Back in the day, you bought a new TV, set it up in any old corner of the room, and dusted it whenever you remembered. Plasma TVs need the kid glove treatment, though, if you want to keep them in pristine condition.

Photo by lisibo.

Plasma televisions are expensive, so they're worth the extra effort it takes to keep yours ship-shape. Wired's How-To Wiki has some great tips for cleaning and maintaining your plasma TV.

When you bring it home for the first time, make sure you put the TV somewhere air can freely circulate around it, because all those electronic components generate a lot of heat. (Your owner's manual should tell you what you need to know about properly venting the television so it doesn't overheat.) As for cleaning:

To clean your TV you will need a micro fiber cloth as is recommended by the majority of manufactures. In most cases this should be sufficient enough to clean dust and fingerprints from the screen, but if you do find that you need more, use only cleaners that are recommended for Plasma screens. These are antistatic cleaners that will not damage your TV. It is also important that you not spray anything directly onto the screen; instead spray the cleaner onto the cloth and then use the cloth to clean the screen. Do not use any type of abrasive cloth to clean the screen, including paper towels. Abrasive cloth can damage your Plasma TV screen.

Hit up the post for more tips for properly maintaining your plasma television and avoiding problems like screen burn-in. If you've got more suggestions for caring for plasma screens, we'd love to hear them in the comments.

[VIA LIFEHACKER]

Hands-On With the Boxee Set-Top Box and Remote

Matt Hackney — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:22:00 GMT

LAS VEGAS — A host of video services on the web enable you to watch your favorite TV programs and movies anytime you wish, and Boxee is an open platform striving to weave them all into one neat interface. To get the Boxee experience onto a TV, D-Link has launched a set-top box dedicated to the open video platform, along with a special remote.

The Boxee box is pretty simple. Video outputs through an HDMI connector. For audio, you can plug in through an optical digital audio-out jack or regular composite audio. An SD card slot and two USB ports allow you to expand storage. For internet connectivity, the box supports 802.11n Wi-Fi and ethernet.

Boxee was previously a piece of open source software that you’d download to view media on your computer. Most users would download Boxee onto their notebook, which they’d then hook up to a TV. The box eliminates that need, and it’s also compatible with a new remote that just launched at the Consumer Electronics Show.

The remote sports a full QWERTY keyboard for typing in search queries. On the back of it there are three buttons for hitting Enter, accessing the main Boxee menu and playing or pausing video.

We’ve been fans of Boxee for some time: The menu is beautiful and intuitive, and it’s really zippy with loading multimedia files with thumbnails. The remote does indeed make the experience more enjoyable. It’s sturdy, smooth and comfortable, and the keys feel high quality.

Boxee’s primary purpose was to streamline video entertainment, but since it’s an open platform, it can do a lot more. There’s a Boxee app store for downloading third-party apps provided by developers. The main menu has buttons to access music and photos, too. Think of the Boxee as a restriction-free Apple TV.

The Boxee box and remote are shipping the second quarter of 2010. Pricing has not been announced, but Boxee estimates $200.

For a detailed look at the Boxee platform, see Epicenter’s coverage of the Boxee box launch.

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/hands-on-with-the-boxee-set-top-box/#ixzz0cLwZ5X5P

[VIA WIRED]

Dear Apple: What we want to see for iPhone 4.0

Matt Hackney — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:56:00 GMT

" week ago we asked you, the TUAW reader, to help us tell Apple what you want in the next iPhone: the OS, the apps, the hardware. Within two hours, I had over two hundred emails in my inbox. Within four days, the email total topped 1,100. As I was shifting and sorting through all your suggestions, one thing became clear: you love the iPhone, but you want to see it better, more intuitive, and more versatile – and you know how the iPhone can accomplish those goals.

This is the first of a series of letters to Apple on your behalf, telling the gang in Cupertino what would make their wonder-phone even more wondrous. This letter strictly focuses on the iPhone OS in general – the home screen, navigation, and settings. Future letters will deal with hardware and applications.

There were so many suggestions, I needed to whittle them down. To do that, I tabulated how many times a feature request was made. If more than 50% of you mentioned it, it made it into the letter. If you guys want to see the others (most were one-offs or had less that 15% of you requesting it), perhaps I'll add an extra letter onto the series at the end of its run.

Remember, if you made suggestions about any of Apple's built-in apps (Mail, Maps, Stocks, Calendar, etc) or hardware, you won't see those here, but in an upcoming letter dealing specifically with those areas.

I hope Apple is listening, because the readers of TUAW have spoken, and this is what they have to say:

Dear Apple,

While it's clear the iPhone is the best smartphone on the market right now, you have a lot of competition creeping up. We want to help you blow them out of the water with the iPhone OS 4.0. Here are our suggestions:

1. The lock screen needs to change.

90% of us want a new lock screen. We think the current screen that only shows the date and time, and only the most recent missed call or SMS, is not particularly helpful. If you get a text message, then a calendar alert, and then a push notification, the only one you see is the push notification message. Being able to swipe through them or have a table list would be far more useful. But even then, we still have to enter our four-digit unlock code to see if we've received any new emails. From the new lock screen we want to see all the calls we've missed and the number of new emails and texts we have. We want to see which apps have sent us push notifications, and what appointments are coming up. We want a brief overview of all the new data we've received to be presented to us before we have to enter our unlock code.

Let's extend the features of that new lock screen to ...

2. A new home screen. The iPhone is the smartest phone on the market. Make it smarter. Introduce a location-aware home screen.

Over 90% of us also want a new home screen – and we want it location aware. Let's say we live in London, but travel to continental Europe many times a month. We'd love to turn on our iPhones in the country we just landed in and see the local weather, currency, transit maps, and news displayed right on our home screens. Not only would it save us time and money, it would save something just as valuable to an iPhone owner – battery life. If all these things were displayed on the home screen the first time you turn on your phone, you wouldn't have to open five different applications to get what you want.

Imagine a 'Genius Location' feature as well: the iPhone would show you (through an app like Yelp – or a new Apple-branded app) what restaurants or businesses are around based on your 'likes' in your home town. We know you were granted a 'Transitional Data Sets' patent for a location-based home screen back in February 2008 - let's hope this sees the light of day in iPhone OS 4.0.

3. That new home screen? Let us access it by vertically swiping.

Imagine this: no matter what home screen page you're on, if you swipe up you are presented with a 'feeds screen' that works much like an RSS page. This feeds screen could be set based on in-app preferences so we could fully customize it. Ours might show our latest Facebook posts, last five emails received, our To Do notes, our Mint.com balance, missed calls, text messages, and upcoming iCal events. The guys at teehan+lax have a pretty cool mock-up of this feeds screen, but the killer feature would be how you could access it from any app page – by vertically swiping.

4. Overhaul app navigation.

85% of us think it takes too long to swipe through all our pages of apps. Even though iTunes 9 made a step in the right direction by allowing the user to organize apps and home screen pages visually, there has got to be a better way. Swiping through ten screens to get to the last apps page is tedious.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could press the home button and see all the home pages on one screen? The guys at Ocean Observations think so. Check out this concept video of what this feature would look like (their 'Cover Flow Multitasking' concept is quite cool as well). Don't want to do it their way? Give us stacks, give us folders, give us App Store-like category views. Just give us something that makes it easier to get around our deluge of apps.

5. 85% of us want multitasking and 3rd party background apps (but not at the cost of battery life).

There's not much more to say on this matter, but Palm does it, and if you can find a way around their battery drain, we want it!

6. Almost 80% of us want Flash, even if it's a bad idea.

No, not camera flash (we do, but that's for the next letter). We want Adobe's Flash Player, though Flash on the Mac is a giant performance and stability headache. Get your heads together with Adobe and make it happen (and fix the Mac version while you're about it, please).

7. We love that you introduced landscape mode across virtually all apps in iPhone OS 3.0, but 70% of us want the ability to selectively turn it off.

Give us a setting to switch off the automatic "turn to landscape mode" when the device is turning. Why? When we lay in bed on our side we can't read our mail. The app is always turning and that's really annoying. A system-wide 'ignore orientation' switch would be a good start; app-by-app options would be better.

8. When we leave an app, we want it to remember where we were.

If we click on a link in an app that takes us to Safari or if we switch apps to copy/paste, 70% of us want the app to remember where we were in it when we come back to it. Some apps do this, some don't. Make this an OS-level feature so they all do it.

9. 65% of us want the ability to remove Apple-branded apps.

That Stocks app? Cute, but the Yahoo! Finance [iTunes] app is so much better. We don't need both on our phones.

10. 60% of us want a universal "documents" folder.

We want one location, accessible to all apps, to store documents on the iPhone. Whether we need to send that PDF via IM through Nimbuzz or via email through the built-in Mail app, it's no problem. Either one can do it because the docs are all stored in one place, accessible to all apps. (We realize this breaks the sandboxing model that prevents one app from blowing away data belonging to another one, but we have every confidence you can make it work.)

11. Better Support for Codecs and Add-ons.

It's not just Flash, you know. WMV and AVI still rule on lots of sites. Let us see them (60%).

12. The iPhone is a hard drive with a screen, so....

Give us Disk mode in the OS. 50% of us want to use our iPhone as an external USB/Wi-Fi hard drive.

FYI, Apple, this is just the start. We've got so many more thoughts to share with you about the next iPhone's hardware and apps. So get ready, and thanks for listening. You'll soon be hearing from us again.

Sincerely,

The loyal readers and iPhone owners of TUAW.

TUAW Readers: The next letter will be published one week from today on Sunday 1/17. We'll be telling Apple what we want from the next iPhone's hardware. Want a different enclosure? Camera flash? RFID? OLED? Email me at tuawiphone [at] me dot com (by mid-day, Friday, January 15th at the latest)!"

[VIA The Unofficial Apple Weblog]

Fandango To Offer Paperless Ticketing Via The iPhone

Matt Hackney — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:53:00 GMT

Sunday, January 10, 2010 - by Michael Santo

Fandango's mobile iPhone app has been around since March, when it was first released, using it, an end user could find movies, find theaters, and buy tickets. Soon, the app may be able to produce scannable bar codes so users don't have to bother printing a ticket, either via a kiosk or a printer.

Fandango made the statements at CES 2010. Darren Cross of Fandango said, at a session on iPhone apps, “We’re testing it now. It’s not too far away. We’ll have it pretty soon.”

At the same time, Starbucks is trialing the same sort of thing in limited locations. Rather than using your Starbucks card, you use the mobile app and iPhone will display a barcode that you can use the same way you use your Starbucks Card to make purchases. Currently, the tests are happening in Seattle, WA, Cupertino, CA and Mountain View, CA.

Here's what the Fandango app can do currently:

Browse Movies:

In theaters

Coming Soon

Watch trailers

Read synopses, cast lists, run times and view fan ratings
Find Theaters:

Find theaters closest to you using iPhone and iPod touch’s core location feature

Add theaters to a “Favorites” list for faster searching

Discover theater amenities such as Print at Home ticketing and stadium seating

Connect with Google Maps to find driving directions
Purchase Tickets in a Flash:

Quick and easy ticketing available for more movie screens (16,000 and counting!) than on any other app

Securely store credit card information for faster purchasing

Buy up to 10 tickets at a time

Ability to review your purchase history

Fandango offers multiple versions of the app and it would make sense that Android might be next

This is all great, but casual observers can see that the United States is far behind other countries in such cell phone payment systems. Examples would include both Japan and South Korea, where mobile payment schemes are already in place, and gaining popularity. Of course, it's all a sort of chicken-and-egg type thing: Consumers don't want to rely on them, unless more places will take them. More places will take them, if there's more demand from consumers.

Still, baby steps, baby steps. When Fandango comes out with this, it'll definitely make ticket buying easier, and reduce the number of trees felled somewhat. Now if they can just do something about their "convenience fee" (yes, we know they need to make money).

[VIA HOTHARDWARE]

Pull-String Charging With YoGen

Matt Hackney — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:44:00 GMT

"A 5 Watt charge can be generated with a very easy pull of the string. It doesn't matter how fast or slow you pull, the same charge is generated. And I'm told it gives the same charge as if you were plugging into a wall, so 1 minute of pulling is equal to the same amount of talk time you'd get after 1 minute of wall charging, or about 5 minutes of talk time. It's intended as a solution for quick emergency charging. "

[VIA TREEHUGGER]