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The Apple iPhone doesn't make coffee. It can't print photos. It doesn't read VHS tapes. And it doesn't come in "every color that exists." But the xPhone, currently all the rage on YouTube, is all of those things. Could this new product from Germany literally nuke the iPhone into nonexistence? Watch the official video on the revolutionary iPhone killer, the new phenomenal xPhone. Yes, that's actual German, mostly just narrating what you're seeing on the screen - except for the bit about the colors. The entirely imaginary xPhone was a graduation project for Martin Fischer, a 25-year-old computer graphics designer...

So ... I've just returned from Wal Mart and ....

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Billionaire financier George Soros outlined a way to unlock $100 billion to help slow global warming on Thursday as talks on a new U.N. climate deal slowed over tough demands by the Pacific island state of Tuvalu.

Operation Enduring Freedom, on Oct. 7 will begin its ninth year. At $4 billion per month, a National Priorities Project has determined that the total cost of military operations in Afghanistan by the end of the year will be almost $200 billion. Thoughtful American taxpayers may ask why the Obama administration has not only embraced the Central Asian ground war that it inherited from Bush, but is seeking to expand not only the U.S. military footprint, but subject its NATO allies to contribute more troops and funding as well. Shorn of post 9/11 patriotic and fervor against the perpetrators of...

For the past 10 years, Jesus Leonardo has been cleaning up at an OTB parlor in Midtown Manhattan, cashing in, by his own count, nearly half a million dollars’ worth of winning tickets from wagers on thoroughbred races across the country. During his glorious run, Mr. Leonardo, 57, has not placed a single bet. “It is literally found money,” he said on a recent night from his private winner’s circle. He spends more than 10 hours a day there, feeding thousands of discarded betting slips through a ticket scanner in a never-ending search for someone else’s lost treasure. “This has...

An interesting look at the Economic Impact Global Warming has. The costs of Global Warming are tremendous, estimates of course vary but most figures put out are in the trillions. So what does this mean for you and how are you directly affected by these costs? In 2007, scientists at the Carnegie Institution measured, over the past 20 years, the annual yields of the world’s six largest crops (which account for 55% of non-meat calories consumed by humans and 70% of total animal feed)—and found that increasingly warmer temperatures led to lower crop yields. Those lower crop yields amounted to...

A DOCUMENT HAS COME TO LIGHT that details the lengths to which Nvidia has gone to cover up the problems it has been having with its graphics chips. The most recent lawsuit against it by the National Union Fire Insurance Company (NUFI) claims the company has withheld information on the nature of its bad bumps. The very same information it has withheld from us or any other nosy hack or awkward analysts.The story was broken by a certain Mike Magee at TG Daily on Friday, and it has a lot of juicy bits. The short story is that the list...

With the intention of expanding its server lineup, International Business Machines (IBM), has rolled out a new mainframe system which is specifically designed for Linux, targeting high-end x86 systems. The new server system, which uses IBM’s specialty Linux processors, will either run on Novell SUSE or Red Hat based systems thereby bypassing the z/OS mainframe operating system. Instead, the server includes mainframe management software as well as IBM's z/Virtual Machine system which come together to form IBM’s low-cost integrated stacks for mainframe. Interestingly, the new system is designed to compete directly with large multicore systems used for virtualization consolidation and comes in two...

If the data devoured in the United States last year were converted to text there would be enough books to bury the country under a pile seven feet (two meters) deep, according to a study released Wednesday. US residents consumed about 1.3 trillion hours worth of information from radios, televisions, computers, newspapers, mobile telephones, and other sources, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego.That translated into an average of nearly 12 hours spent daily by each US resident watching television, listening to MP3 players, scouring the Internet or tapped into other sources of data. The information tally...

COPENHAGEN (MarketWatch) -- The value of the global carbon trading market could rise from roughly $118 billion in 2008 to nearly $2 trillion by 2020, although it currently remains frozen in the headlights pending safe passage of U.S. emissions trading legislation. "The biggest missing piece from the [Copenhagen] policy equation is the U.S. emissions trading law," said Dirk Forrister, managing director of Natural Source Asset Management, in an interview. "The high-growth scenarios for the carbon market [will] only occur when the Senate acts and a U.S. law is adopted."

The Democrats have held majority control in both houses of Congress since the elections of 2006. They were not innocent bystanders. Before the Democrats took contol of Congress there was 50 consecutive months of economic growth. For nearly a year it has been repeated over and over about the Democrats inheriting the economic problems. Did they? Or are they simply shifting blame?

AT&T (NYSE:T) is already facing growing dissatisfaction from subscribers over service quality, and it looks like the exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier is about to throw some gasoline on that fire. At an investor conference in New York City Wednesday, Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T Mobility, said the carrier may change the way it bills customers for wireless data usage in response to the heavy load that iPhone users have been placing on its network. AT&T currently charges iPhone customers a flat rate of $30 per month for wireless data. Although a usage-based pricing model isn't coming right...

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), an Amazon.com company, has just released a free iPhone app [iTunes Link] that puts the power of the huge repository of movie facts, fables, and trivia into the palm of your hand. I use IMDb regularly, so when I saw that the app had been released, I downloaded it immediately. Upon launching, the app will ask if you wish to let it use your location -- this is used to display show times and movies for local theaters. While IMDb doesn't exactly have a beautiful interface, it's perfect for navigating the huge amount of information...

Windows 7 is nice, Bing is neat, Sharepoint is solid, and Azure is promising. But does Microsoft scare the crap out of any of its competitors anymore?Quick—when was the last time Microsoft dazzled you with breakthrough thinking and agenda-setting innovation? What was the last Microsoft product you couldn't wait to get your hands on, that would make a huge impact on your enterprise? When you and your team put together your list of Five IT Vendors We Can't Live Without, does Microsoft still make the cut? Now consider Steve Jobs and Apple: They took on the incredibly hidebound and entrenched...

Probably still reeling from all publicity around these shots, Microsoft reportedly told journalists gathered for a company press event in Germany not to use or mention Apple products. Our German is a bit rusty and Google's is even worse, but according to Handelsblatt and our bad translation: "While at a Windows Mobile 6.5 demonstration in Munich, Germany a journalist was warned by a Microsoft spokesman not to mention or use Apple products...since it was a Microsoft event the journalist had previously told everyone that he had never owned an easier to use cell phone than the iPhone." Now, you...

I do my grocery shopping about every two weeks and today when I went I noticed a HUGE spike in produce prices - some items nearly doubling since my last trip, i.e. romaine. Other shoppers were commenting on it as well. Anyone noticing this nationwide?

Economists are in broad agreement that the Great Recession is over. The American public strongly disagrees. In a poll of more than 1,000 Americans conducted late last week by CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, 84% of those surveyed believe that the economy is still in recession. That's a slight improvement from the 87% who believed there was still a recession in the September survey, but it is almost the opposite view of the nation's economists. An official declaration of an end to the recession that started in December 2007 won't be made until next year at the earliest by the National Bureau...

Why Apple succeeds, and always will By Joe Wilcox Published December 9, 2009, 9:45 AM Simply put: Apple doesn't play by the rules. It reinvents them. Apple applies what I call "David Thinking" to its broader business, product development and marketing. Apple is David to Microsoft Goliath -- and other ones, too. Goliath plays by one set of rules. David choses to change the rules, which favor his strengths rather than those of Goliath. David Thinking is most provocative and surprising when Goliath acts like David. After all, David sometimes becomes Goliath; Apple is a giant in music with iPod...

Forget zero-energy homes, which produce their own power and are carbon-neutral. The Germans are taking green building to the next step with so-called “triple-zero” homes, which both create enough energy to power themselves and have enough energy left over to send back to the grid. German architect and engineer Werner Sobek’s triple-zero homes are entirely energy self-sufficient, produce zero emissions and are made entirely of recyclable materials like glass, according to a recent article in Scientific American. So far, Werner Sobek’s firm of engineers and architects has built six of these homes, all in Germany, with a seventh planned for...

INDIAN HARBOUR BEACH, Fla. -- A frustrated homeowner spray-painted a "Hitler" message on her own house to address an escalating tiff with her homeowners association, causing unrest among neighbors in the quiet community of single-family homes. Sheila Jones, the 45-year-old homeowner, said she wrote the graffiti because, "I am tired of being harassed by the homeowners association." The messages she spray-painted in large red letters on her home, located at 430 Emerald Drive, said, "Hitler would be a welcome neighbor here. Stop the harassment to my family." Another message said "Merry Xmas." Jones told Local 6 News partner Florida Today...

Looking to park my money somewhere till the dems and rinos are gone.

Just got a call (here at work) from a telemarketer with a private number concerning "our local and long distance telephone provider" - I hung up as I always do. The woman called back 3 minutes later and said the following: "Now your getting your services changed bitch!" and hung up.

Google (finally) released beta versions of its Chrome browser for Mac and Linux on Tuesday, along with over 300 extensions for Windows and Linux. Sorry, Mac users - extensions "aren't quite beta-quality on Mac yet", according to a Google blog posting announcing the new-release trifecta. Google offers an introductory video for the long-delayed Mac beta, which notes that the Webkit-based browser integrates Mac OS X's spell-checker and Keychain, plus OS X's built-in sandboxing system. There's also a four-video collection of marketing fluff touting Chrome's speed, stability, and features - if watching cutesy Rube Goldbergian contraptions is your cup of tea....

LONDON -- The black cocktail dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in "How to Steal a Million" has sold for nearly $100,000 at auction. Kerry Taylor Auctions says the Chantilly lace dress sold to an anonymous bidder for about $97,700. It was one of 40 items from Hepburn's wardrobe sold off by her friend Tanja Star-Busmann. The auctioneer said Tuesday's sale made a total of 268,320 pounds. It says half of the net proceeds will go to The Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund.

Credit card reform kicks in Feb. 22, but it won't matter to these 5 readers. They cut up their cards and are going debt free. They share how they did it.....

<p>WASHINGTON -- After days of secret talks, Senate Democrats tentatively agreed Tuesday night to drop a government-run insurance option from sweeping health care legislation, several officials said, a concession to party moderates whose votes are critical to passage of President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.</p>

A HAIRDRESSER has come up with a cutting edge way of saving time - attaching tiny clippers to the ends of his fingers. Valentino LoSauro, dubbed the real-life Edward Scissorhands, after the character in the Tim Burton film, is the proud inventor of the 'Clawz'. He claims his creation helps him cut hair twice as fast as normal scissors. The inventor from Fort Myers, Florida, USA, said: "The idea came to me in the late 90s. "I am a pianist as well as a hairdresser and wanted to combine that light fingered touch with my styling. So the 'Clawz' were...

Got an iPhone? If so, you download some apps because they're cool and useful. Others, you get not because you necessarily want them, but because you really do need them. Here's one of each. Dragon Dictation - Free, Nuance. PC users know about Dragon Naturally Speaking, considered one of the best voice recognition programs available. This app uses Dragon's technology to turn speech into text very quickly. It's drop-dead simple: Launch the app, tap a button and start talking, then hit Done. A sound file is sent to a remote server, converted and the text sent back to your phone....

Unauthorized Mac clone maker Psystar is hoping to keep its Rebel EFI on the market, but if Apple's argument holds any weight, that won't happen. Psystar is working to convince the court that its software for installing Mac OS X on PCs shouldn't be included in a proposed injunction that prohibits it from making and selling PCs with Apple's operating system pre-installed. Apple filed a lawsuit against Psystar in Northern California several months ago claiming the small PC maker was violating the Mac OS X end user license agreement, and that it was violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act with...

"73,804 lines of Mac-specific code and 29 developer builds later, we're excited to finally release Google Chrome for Mac in beta," so sayeth John Grabowski and Mike Pinkerton via the Official Google Mac Blog. "We took a hefty dose of goodness from the Windows version to build a fast, polished browser for Mac -- with features such as the Omnibox (where you can both search and type in addresses), themes from artists, and most importantly, speed." MacDailyNews Take: "Hefty dose of goodness from the Windows version?" Sounds like Word 6. Yuck. "We also took great care to make Google Chrome...

The recent appearance of a racist image of the First Lady Michelle Obama during a search on Google's search engine raises an interesting question: Should search engines have a conscience? Obviously, search engines, like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, that rely on highly complex algorithms to determine search results, have no intentional bias or inclinations that influence their searches. To suggest otherwise would be to anthropomorphize what is simply an immense and complicated set of computer code. But that code is a creation of its individual developers and team of developers, each of whom has a conscience. And it is also...

IT WILL boldly go where few commercial flights have gone before.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks tumbled Tuesday afternoon across the board, as investors eyed weak global markets, a rising dollar, falling oil and gold prices and some disappointing profit news from 3M, McDonald's and Kroger. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) tumbled 100 points, or 1%, with more than two hours left in the session. The S&P 500 index (SPX) lost 10 points, or 0.9%. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) shed 11 points, or 0.5%. Stocks slipped right out of the gate as investors took a cue from falling global markets and a rising dollar. The weak dollar has added to...

Apple can be copied, but can it be beat? By Jim Dalrymple DECEMBER 8, 2009, 8:15 AM PT Apple has some of the best selling computers in the market, it’s the No. 1 music distributor, it sells movies, TV shows, iPods and it’s changing the mobile space with the iPhone and App Store. It’s also one of the most copied companies in the world, but can anyone beat them? It’s almost funny to watch companies line up to put out products that mimic Apple’s look and functionality. Apple puts out a new iPod and all of a sudden there are...

Dragon Dictation comes to the iPhone. Wow. by Mel Martin on Dec 8th 2009 at 12:00AM Put this into the 'I didn't think they could ever get this to work on an iPhone' category. I'm talking about Dragon Dictation [iTunes link] from Nuance, the developers of the very popular Dragon Naturally Speaking for the PC. Nuance also provides the speech recognition engine for MacSpeech Dictate on the Mac platform. To dictate on the iPhone you just launch the app, press the record button, and start talking. Your dictation can be a brief sentence, or a much longer treatise. Once the...

So what, in Public Editor Clark Hoyt’s judgment, would make a “three-alarm story”?  In his evaluation of the New York Times’ coverage of the Climategate scandal, he offers this example (via Jazz Shaw): Why didn’t The Times put the e-mail on its Web site? And, most important, is The Times being cavalier about a story that could change our understanding of global warming? Or, as The Times’s John Broder, who covers environmental issues in Washington, put it, “When does a story rise to three-alarm coverage?” …The biggest question is what the messages amount to — an embarrassing revelation that scientists...

As multinational military forces have left Iraq, international petroleum companies have eagerly descended -- seduced by the long-term potential of vast oil reserves off-limits to foreigners for decades. Yet lingering violence, legal questions and political uncertainty make doing business in this country a gamble. In the first international oil auction held last June, widely seen as a failure, the Iraqi government awarded a firm contract to only a consortium of British Petroleum and the China National Petroleum Co. to further develop the Rumaila field over 20 years. Iraq recently forged an initial agreement with a group comprising Exxon Mobil and...

Hot on the heels of Obama’s statements that a carbon market similar to the European Union’s greenhouse gas regulatory scheme would be centerpiece to his climate policy, Friends of the Earth has released a great overview of the proposals on the table. They warn that the lynchpin of US and global climate policy seriously risks replicating the boom and bust, experimental marketplace created in the last 10 years for mortgages and other debts. Like those markets, carbon trading is increasingly sparking fraud and wreaking havoc on prices. Moreover, it risks superseding, distracting from — and even discrediting — more legitimate...

History was made about ten days ago in Vienna at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency when China and Russia voted along with the United States to sanction the Islamic Republic of Iran over its continued pursuit of nuclear energy. Iran, it is believed, intends to develop the technology to produce weapons of mass destruction. So say Western nations. Iran, of course denies all such accusations, claiming its nuclear program is intended solely for peaceful purposes. What is “historic” in this context is the fact that both Russia and China saw eye to eye with the United States...

Preface to Pulsar: Why Seagate Needs This To say that the SSD revolution caught the HDD makers off guard would be an understatement. With the exception of Samsung, none of the players in the HDD business have an even remotely competitive SSD.Sitting this one out isn’t an option. In the enterprise market, a handful of SSDs can easily outperform dozens of 15,000 RPM hard drives. And when I say outperform, I mean by an order of magnitude. It’s not just about performance, there’s a tremendous power advantage as well. The best SSDs use less than 3W per drive under full...

I think we need to take a step back from the histronics surrounding the EPA announcement yesterday. Charles Krauthammer is correct in that this is a way to strong arm Congress into doing something. They are going after the egos of the Jim Webbs, Lindsey Grahams and John McCain. Let’s look at what the EPA CANNOT do: 1. They do not have the taxing authority of Congress, 2. The EPA cannot redistribute the wealth of this country the way congress can. 3. They have no way of making their political rulings permanent; another administration can overturn those rules. 4. Their...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP)—A person familiar with the plan says Danica Patrick has reached a deal to enter NASCAR with JR Motorsports.

Chet Baker was a leading jazz musician in the 1950s, playing trumpet and providing vocals. Baker died in 1988, yet he is about to add a new claim to fame as the lead plaintiff in possibly the largest copyright infringement case in Canadian history.  His estate, which still owns the copyright in more than 50 of his works, is part of a massive class-action lawsuit that has been underway for the past year. As my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes, the infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least $50 million and the full claim...

"In the classroom at Harvard Business School where Dan Bricklin came up with the idea for an electronic spreadsheet, there now hangs a plaque that designates the resulting software program as the 'original killer app of the information age,'" Scott Kirsner reports for Boston.com. "Bricklin and his colleague Bob Frankston formed a company in 1979, Software Arts, which would eventually sell the VisiCalc spreadsheet program for $99. It ran on a new 'personal computer' called the Apple II," Kirsner reports. "Thirty years later, Bricklin is now selling a $1.99 app for the iPhone called Dan Bricklin's NoteTaker," Kirsner reports. "It...

In the 1990's The Federal Government seized the Mustang Rance a Brothel between 15 or 20 miles from Reno Nevada.It was operated by a man named Joe Conforte, and it was a gold mine.The Feds seized it and for Tax Evasion. The Government in their wisdom decided to run it and get their tax money that was due. They went broke and tore the Mustang Ranch Down. Now we are trusting or economy, Banking Industry, Auto Industry and perhaps our health plans to the same Nit Wits who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling whiskey

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday formally declared carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that endanger public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that will lead to the regulation of the gases for the first time in the United States.

As the world descends on Copenhagen this week for the United Nations Climate Change conference, the city’s police must manage protests, secure world leaders, and handle all the other issues that come with a major global event. Perhaps surprisingly, the force is doing it with Macs.The Danish Police Department isn’t using Apple computers on the go, or keeping in touch with iPhones. No, the entire central command is now run by Mac Pros and Mac Minis, with not a single PC to be seen. The Danish police force has been using Macs since 1996, running NeXTStep. But five years ago,...

His administration formally declared that the gases "endanger the public health and welfare of the America people" empowering its Environment Protection Agency to regulate them across the country under the country's Clean Air Act, without having to get a hotly-contested climate bill through the US Congress.

“If there is one thing I have been impressed with over the last decades, it is that when the environmental community defines a number one priority, something happens. Not always something good—but something.”1 Dr. Kenneth L. Lay, Chairman, Enron Corporation, June 1997 (1) Who was the late Ken Lay, the architect and chairman of Enron throughout its 16-year history? All parties to the current legislative debate on a CO2 cap-and-trade bill should know. After all, Lay’s tireless efforts to promote CO2 regulation and enact renewable energy quotas make him a father figure for HR 2354, the Waxman-Markey climate bill, what...

Tiger Woods' Wife Packs Kids, Tupperware And Moves Out? Mon Dec 07 Rick Chandler Elin Nordegren has allegedly moved out of the Orlando home she shared with husband Tiger Woods, according to Radar Online. My guess is that Elin's mom talked some sense into the young lady. Elin Nordegren had enough and moved out of the $2.6 million Windermere home, neighbors and other sources close to Tiger, told RadarOnline.com exclusively. Sources say that Elin is living nearby in another house. Please prepare for the Apple Daily Online computer simulation of Nordegren packing her car and leaving a note for the...