Improv Everywhere, the pranksters behind such internet classics as the Grand Central freeze and the No Pants Subway Ride, recently did a tour of four North American cities to hold their MP3 experiments. These consisted of thousands of people getting together, each with a special MP3 loaded up on their portable audio players, and then following the instructions en masse. What resulted was a bunch of completely insane battles between huge groups of people wielding balloons, all listening to headphones. Only in the age of the internet could huge groups of strangers get together to participate in such well-organized lunacy. Be sure to sign up for IE’s mailing list if you want to get on board for the next one. [Improv Everywhere]
Wireless power has come a long way from Nikola Tesla’s early ruminations on the matter, and it looks like some researchers from Duke and Georgia Tech are now taking the idea to its logical, robot-powering conclusion. While their setup (thankfully) isn’t yet able to power robots beyond the confines of the Q L-C resonator-equipped table, it does appear to work remarkably well in that limited proof-of-concept, with five bots each equipped with a non-resonant pickup coil able to follow a path around the table, or simply sit still to recharge their batteries. They were even able to power an LED light with the system for good measure. Natually, they eventually hope to expand the system to power larger swarms of robots and do away with the need for batteries altogether. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Head on past the break for a video.
This concept from Mac Funamizu is designed to show how truly badass a phone with an OLED-wrap display could look. The most important advance? No more bezels or borders of any kind. A concept like this makes even the iPhone look cluttered, with that primitive silver border. It’s a great little design, inspired by the Nokia Aeon concept, and we’d love to see the wrap-around screen idea on a real phone someday. [Boing Boing Gadgets]
Hmmph. And we thought the Precision M6400 was hardcore. Check out the unapologetically named Precision M6400 Covet Mobile Workstation, a hotly colored beast that can’t be procured direct from Dell for less than $3,859 (stackable coupons notwithstanding). Aside from the sweet orange paint job, this one also comes packing a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo T9400, Vista Business, a dual-layer DVD writer, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, 160GB 7,200 RPM hard drive, NVIDIA’s 1GB Quadro FX 3700M GPU, a 2-megapixel webcam, WiFi, 9-cell battery and a 17-inch WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200) LED-backlit display. Those who don’t mind throwing in a few extra hundies can spring for an optional SSD, WWAN, a Core 2 Quad CPU and 16GB of RAM. You’re due for a new lappie at work anyway, right?
Hold the phone, people, the Hubble is still broken. There was word early Thursday morning that a Monkey Island-era 486 backup computer was going to take the reigns and begin mission critical operations, but a day later NASA scientists revealed the dusty old thing was better suited for minesweeper than capturing awe-inspiring deep field images of the observable universe.
The 486 was activated Thursday, and that went well, NASA scientists said. It was everything else on board the aging space telescope that pooped the bed, unfortunately.
When the 486 fired up, a low-voltage power supply issue sidelined one of Hubble’s cameras, and prevented it from rebooting properly. Not good. After that, further unidentified “computer trouble” hit Hubble hard, and ended all recovery efforts instantly. Now NASA is tasked with going through piles of data beamed back from Hubble since the malfunction on Friday to find a cure.
Today the best case scenario for Hubble is that engineers get it up and running late next week, said Art Whipple, a Hubble manager. The worst case scenario is Hubble has to wait for human hands to arrive next year as part of a shuttle mission. And fixing the telescope with astronauts is no joke. As we noted in September when this mess first started, fixing Hubble by hand is more risky that you could possibly imagine. Unless you’re an astronaut, of course. [MSNBC]
Bad news greeted new Dell Inspiron Mini 9 owners this week, in the form of a partition error that limited the amount of available disk space on the machine’s 8GB and 16GB solid state drive. The problem limits the machines to using only 4GB of space, regardless of drive size, and only affected machines that shipped with Ubuntu Linux. According to Liliputing, the issue occurred because Dell was using the same disk image to format every machine that shipped with Ubuntu, regardless of actual disk size. Lazy! But there’s options, people, so read on.
Linux command line ninjas can check the size of their Inspiron Mini’s partition by following a few simple steps. Open a terminal and enter the sudo fdisk -l command, and enter your password. You’ll be greeted with the image above, as well an accurate size of your partition.
Dell, for its part, is shipping updated machines that fix this issue. Existing owners looking for a fix have a few options, says Liliputing:
If you have a USB DVD drive, you can use the system restore disc to reinstall Dell’s custom version of Ubuntu. It will reformat the entire drive.
Or you can attempt to resize your partitions. The easiest way to do this is probably to download and install Parted Magic to a USB flash drive and then boot from that drive. Run the gParted partition manager and you should see the 4GB partition that Ubuntu is installed on and 8 or 12GB of unused space. Just grab the edge of the 4GB partition and drag it resize the partition, save your changes and reboot.
Of course, these DIY fixes run the chance of erasing your OS, so maybe this is one of those customer support times. Unless you live and breathe Ubuntu. Then, by all means, hack away. [Ubuntu Mini via Liliputing]
Ars reports that the FCC has bitch slapped cable companies that adopted the new switched digital video (SDV) CableCard protocol because, as we discussed in the spring, it totally left TiVo owners hanging. Cable companies say they should be free to do whatever they want with hardware; the FCC says, well, you still need to support companies that bend over backward to adopt to your existing technologies.
If you recall, the SDV switch jacked Time Warner, Cablevision and Cox customers out of channels if they had CableCard sets or boxes that couldn’t be updated. A dongle was promised, but it’s taken it’s sweet time making its way to the market, in part because it needs to pass CableLabs testing.
Well, the argument that CableLabs kept making didn’t seem to work with the FCC, who said this specifically in the Cox fine:
Taken to its logical conclusion, Cox’s reasoning would permit an MVPD [cable operator] to move all of its programming to an SDV platform without regard for the impact its actions would have on customers using or wishing to use CableCARD-equipped UDCPs [one-way devices]. Such an outcome would be fundamentally at odds with the Commission’s goal of protecting cable subscribers’ ability to view signals through the use of commercially available navigation devices offered in a competitive market.
The fines, levied against Time Warner and Cox (no mention of Cablevision), were mere slaps on the wrist—$60,000 a piece, pertaining to just three markets where formal complaints were brought up. But it’s good to know that the FCC isn’t the lapdog of the cable biz, especially when we hardware junkies want more out of our TVs than what the cable co’s box alone can deliver. [Ars Technica]
Update: According to the unofficial TiVo Blog, Time Warner sent a note that 34 “lesser viewed” channels—including BBC America and Universal HD, among other nerd favorites—would no longer be viewable without the TiVo dongle, which would be available “later this year.” So they are firm on when they will cut off their poor subscribers, but not so firm on when a return to service will come, and at what cost. Real cool, TWC—you deserve more than a $60K fine for this chicanery. [TiVoBlog]
A few Samsung laptops have managed to make it over here in the past under the guise of other manufacturers, but it looks like the company’s new Q310 model here is now officially the first bearing the company’s name to show up at a US retailer actually ready to ship, and, as we had heard, only the first of more to come. There’s actually two versions of this particular model available (at Newegg, at least), the $1,049 Q310-34G and the $1,249 Q310-34P, the former of which packs a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T5800 CPU and a 250GB hard drive, while the latter ups things a bit to a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo P8400 and a 320GB hard drive. Otherwise, you can expect 3GB of DDR2 RAM and integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics on each, plus the usual DVD burner, built-in webcam, 802.11n WiFi, and a 1280 x 800, 13.3-inch display — not to mention some of that snazzy red touch of color detailing.
Wireless power has come a long way from Nikola Tesla’s early ruminations on the matter, and it looks like some researchers from Duke and Georgia Tech are now taking the idea to its logical, robot-powering conclusion. While their setup (thankfully) isn’t yet able to power robots beyond the confines of the Q L-C resonator-equipped table, it does appear to work remarkably well in that limited proof-of-concept, with five bots each equipped with a non-resonant pickup coil able to follow a path around the table, or simply sit still to recharge their batteries. They were even able to power an LED light with the system for good measure. Natually, they eventually hope to expand the system to power larger swarms of robots and do away with the need for batteries altogether. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Head on past the break for a video.
A couple of dudes with more smarts than brains were busted for stealing the identities of legitimate trucking firms, setting up actual jobs and pocketing the cash, says Wired’s Threat Level blog. But though the hackers operated for years out of the comfort of their home, the master plan was doomed to backfire.
The first part of the plan was simple—Nicholas Lakes and Viachelav Berkovich, two Russian immigrants, hacked the low-security government-run Safersys.org, which lists approved safe trucking firms. They’d go in and replace the phone number and address of a legitimate company. Posing as that company, they would take an order to deliver a load, then subcontract the job to some other trucker.
Once the subcontractor delivered the goods, the client would pay Lakes and Berkovich directly, and they’d disappear with the cash. The poor subcontractor, the hardest-hit of the victims, would go to the legit company in search of payment. The legit company of course knew nothing about the deal.
Even though the two men ran this fraud for three years, and raked in $500,000, they should have known they’d be caught eventually. The plan was flawed in that it left too many people scratching their heads every single time. Someone sooner or later was bound to trace the phone calls and track the paper trail back to the source. [Threat Level]
This concept from 
Hold the phone, people, the Hubble is still broken. There was word early Thursday morning that a Monkey Island-era 
Bad news greeted new Dell Inspiron Mini 9 owners this week, in the form of a partition error that limited the amount of available disk space on the machine’s 8GB and 16GB solid state drive. The problem limits the machines to using only 4GB of space, regardless of drive size, and only affected machines that shipped with Ubuntu Linux. According to 
Ars reports that the FCC has bitch slapped cable companies that adopted the new switched digital video (SDV) CableCard protocol because, as we discussed in the spring, it totally left TiVo owners hanging. Cable companies say they should be free to do whatever they want with hardware; the FCC says, well, you still need to support companies that bend over backward to adopt to your existing technologies.
A couple of dudes with more smarts than brains were busted for stealing the identities of legitimate trucking firms, setting up actual jobs and pocketing the cash, says Wired’s Threat Level blog. But though the hackers operated for years out of the comfort of their home, the master plan was doomed to backfire.
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