Mystery Flare Photographed In Aurora Over Norway

Another weird phenomenon photographed in the creepy Norwegian sky...

On Jan. 20, 2010, Per-Arne Mikalsen was photographing a vast aurora erupting over the northern Norwegian town of Andenes.

Because solar activity is on the increase, aurora spotters have many opportunities to see the Northern Lights. On this particular night the aurora was intense, stretching toward the southern latitudes of Norway.

In one of the photographs taken by Mikalsen was an "object" that couldn't be identified. Although Mikalsen had taken several images at the same location, just one photo showed a mysterious green parachute-like object hanging with the main aurora. (This time, it appears that the Russian military was not involved in the making of this strange shape in the sky.)

[via Discovery News]

McAfee: Cyber Attacks, Extortion 'Common' In Business World

At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Switzerland, McAfeeannounced the results of a survey of 600 IT security execs in "critical infrastructure enterprises worldwide": that is, in places such as utility companies, banks, and even oil refineries. And apparently, they're constantly under cyber attack and also extortion related to those attacks.

The report, written by the Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS), says that 54 percent of those surveyed have already been attacked. The culprits behind the cyber-attacks are listed as "organized crime-gangs, terrorists, or nation-states."

Only one-fifth of the IT execs surveyed believe their systems are currently secure. One-third say things are worse now, vulnerability-wise, than a year ago, due to budget cuts.

What constitutes a cyber attack? A distributed denial of service (DDoS) is the most typical. 64 percent of those surveyed have experienced one that disrupted operations; 29 percent get them multiple times per month. A DDoS attack is, of course, conducted by bot-nets--robot networks of infected computers--so if you get malware on your PC, you might be doing your part to bring down foreign (or local) utilities and corporations.

[via PCWorld]

Rome's Ancient Aqueduct Found

The long-sought aqueduct that delivered fresh, clean water to Rome nearly 2,000 years ago, is found beneath a pig pasture northwest of the Italian city.

The long-sought source of the aqueduct that brought clean fresh water to ancient Rome lies beneath a pig pasture and a ruined chapel, according to a pair of British filmmakers who claim to have discovered the headwaters of Aqua Traiana, a 1,900-year-old aqueduct built by the Emperor Trajan in 109 A.D.

[via Discovery News]

Heads in the Cloud - episode 3 - All iPad Edition

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Apple iPad Announced - update

Apple today announced the iPad, a device that seems to resemble a large iPhone or iPod Touch. Designed for email and web browsing, with heavy emphasis on consuming media such as newspapers, photos, video, music and games.

Key Features:

• 16 GB of internal flash memory
• 9.7 inch LED-backlit, display: The high-resolution, 9.7 inch LED-backlit, IPS display is remarkably crisp and vivid, making it perfect for web browsing, watching movies, or showing off photos. It's also been designed to work in any orientation--portrait or landscape.
• Multi-Touch capabilities: The Multi-Touch screen on the iPad uses the same revolutionary technology that's in an iPhone. But for iPad, the technology has been completely reengineered for the larger surface, to make it extremely precise and responsive.
• IPS (in-plane switching) display technology provides a wide, 178-degree viewing angle, enabling you to hold it almost any way you want and still get a brilliant picture with excellent color and contrast.
• Powered by A4, Apple's next-generation system-on-a-chip: Designed by Apple, the new A4 chip provides exceptional processor and graphics performance along with long battery life of up to 10 hours. Apple's advanced chemistry and Adaptive Charging technology deliver up to 1,000 charge cycles without a significant decrease in battery capacity over a typical five-year lifespan.
• Built-in Wireless-N Wi-Fi: With integrated 802.11n networking, the iPad can take advantage of the fastest Wi-Fi networks. And it will automatically locate available Wi-Fi networks, which you can easily join with a few simple taps.
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR enables you to connect to devices like wireless headphones or the Apple Wireless Keyboard.
• Powerful, built-in speaker produces a full, rich sound, and the iPad also comes with a headphone jack and a built-in microphone.
• 30-pin dock connector on the bottom of the iPad allows you to dock and charge it. It also lets you connect to iPad accessories like the Camera Connection Kit or the Keyboard Dock.
• Up to 10 hours battery life: To maximize battery life, Apple engineers took the same lithium polymer battery technology they developed for Apple's notebook computers and applied it to the iPad. As a result, you can use iPad for up to 10 hours while surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos, or listening to music.

Apple iPad Announced

Apple just announced minutes ago the iPad, a device that seems to resemble a large iPhone or iPod Touch.

With a 9.7" IPS LCD multitouch screen, wifi, Bluetooth, accelerometer, compass, speaker and microphone, it can run any iPhone app. 10 hours of battery life is claimed. 3G will be available as well on some models.

Designed for email and web browsing, with heavy emphasis on consuming media such as newspapers, photos, video, music and games, as well as cloud based applications.
iBooks will be available from the new iBook store.

Last Minute Apple Rumor Roundup

If you're like me, your RSS feeds have been clogged with rumors and endless chatter about the unannounced new Apple "tablet". After tomorrow we'll be able to put rumors to rest but I couldn't help but get in on the speculation:

-10" tablet device, possibly OLED
-Gaming a heavy component: "the entertaining-est?" Apple device ever?
-EBooks will be a key component
-It will run a slightly modified version of iPhone OS 4.0
-It will be a subsidised device with 3G and wifi capabilities
-Don't expect it to have Phone capabilities, but rather will rely on audio and possibly video chat capabilities
-Your subsidy will also cover some content, but it will be limited in some way, perhaps limited to getting one complimentary subscription to the NYT or the WSJ
-You will be able to subscribe to magazines, and if you've seen what Google has done with their fast flip, expect something VERY similar to interact with your magazines, which will include integrating Internet content. Think embedded advertising. You don't think that Apple bought that mobile ad company JUST for the iPhone did you? They will be making money on all aspects.
-It will have the ability to integrate with your Mac as an input device, think Photoshop finger painting!
-New version of iTunes will be announced with wifi syncing over your home wifi network
-New version of iTunes will stream your content to the tablet 


What features or functionality do you anticipate with tomorrow's announcements?
image credit: MacDailyNews

Pernell Roberts Dies At 81

Pernell Roberts, the ruggedly handsome actor who shocked Hollywood by leaving TV's Bonanza at the height of its popularity, then found fame again years later on Trapper John, M.D., has died. He was 81.

Roberts, the last surviving member of the classic Western's cast, died of cancer Sunday at his Malibu home.


He is probably best remembered from two TV roles in particular; that of Adam Cartwright, son of Lorne Green's Ben Cartwright character in the 1960s show Bonanza, and later as the title character in the popular 1980s drama Trapper John, MD. He was the last surviving member of the Bonanza cast.

McGraw-Hill CEO: 'Apple Tablet Will Be Really Terrific'

What do you want to bet Steve was on the phone to this guy within the hour?

Avatar Now Top Grossing Movie Of All Time

Avatar's latest worldwide gross is now $1.84 billion, surpassing Titanic as the top grossing movie of all time.

ATT iPhone Exclusivity Ending On Wednesday?

This story is burning up the internets right now; many sites are reporting that AT&T is expected to lose their exclusivity to the iPhone that they have enjoyed since it's release. If so, this is a huge boon for consumers and bad news for AT&T, since many iPhone users complain about AT&T coverage and service.

Pope: 'Thou Shalt Blog'

The most media and tech-savvy Pope in history has a message for priests of the 21st century: Go forth and blog. 

Pope Benedict XVI has a new commandment for priests struggling to get their message across: Go forth and blog.

The pope, whose own presence on the Web has heavily grown in recent years, urged priests on Saturday to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures.

This is just the latest development in the Catholic church embracing the internet and social media. In May 2009 it launched a new website, Pope2you.net,  that integrates the church's Facebook application, iPhone app, and YouTube channel. Just this month the Vatican also joined Twitter.
image credit: Pope and iPhone by ~JackieTran

Manhattan Students DNA Test Insects, Groceries

Matt Cost, 18, and Brenda Tan, 17, of Trinity School in Manhattan spent four months collecting 217 samples of organisms in their neighborhoods. The results? The pair discovered mislabeled food products and possibly a new species of cockroach.

What first appeared to be a dead American cockroach could be a previously undocumented species of roach. So Mr. Cost and Ms. Tan, both seniors, collected a few more examples, searching the basements of other apartment buildings, and took them to the museum to be analyzed.

...discovered that 11 of 66 typical household food items were mislabeled, including sheep’s milk cheese that was in fact made of cow’s milk, venison dog treats that were made of beef and sturgeon caviar that was actually Mississippi paddlefish.

But perhaps just as amazing to the young native New Yorkers was that a hot dog bought on the street showed nothing but cow DNA.

full story at NY Times

Heads in the Cloud - episode 2 - You Can't Call Google

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Nexus One issues
Firefox vs. Chrome
Lastpass
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Teen Media Consumption Soars To Almost 8 Hours/Day

This latest study cited over at PC World has our teenagers spending about half their waking hours consuming media of some type. Which may be an underestimate, due to multitasking.

An updated study released Wednesday by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that children average 7.5 hours of media consumption per day, an a increase of almost two hours and fifteen minutes in five years. When multitasking – consuming more than one form of media at the same time – is taken into effect, the total jumped to 10 hours and 45 minutes, the Foundation found.

The study has implications for several aspects of popular culture, she said, including whether or not kids' aptitude for multitasking was actually beneficial in a work world, and whether or not advertising guidelines for targeting children and teenagers needed to be adjusted.

In total, media consumption peaked at ages 11 to 14. Black and Hispanic students, however, reported that they spent far more time consuming media – an additional three and a half hours per day – then white students, for a total of about 13 hours per day.

Marc Webb Reportedly Directing Spider-Man 4

New York Mag's Vulture blog is reporting (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb is slated to direct the next three Spider-Man movies as part of a franchise reboot of the film series.

Webb, whose (500) Days scored a Golden Globe nomination and whose name seems to have predestined him for this job, has long been a favorite of Columbia chairman Amy Pascal. We're told that last year she very nearly hired him to direct the adaptation of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball after she pulled the plug on Steven Soderbergh three days before shooting. She ultimately chose Bennett Miller (Capote), thinking that Moneyball might be hurt by Webb's whimsical style, but she views him as a latter-day Cameron Crowe for the economically and socially angsty Generation Y, and thinks he'd be perfect to explore the conflict within Parker.

Annette O'Toole Returns to Smallville

TV Guide is reporting Annette O'Toole's return to Smallville!

Martha Kent is returning to Smallville.

Annette O'Toole is set to reprise her role sometime this season, TVGuide.com has confirmed.

Since the death of husband Jonathan Kent, Clark's mom was last seen moving to Capitol Hill in Season 6 to become a U.S. senator.

O'Toole's, 57, exact return date is not yet set. She'll return for at least one episode, and there's the possibility for more.

Are you excited to see mother and son reunite?

Sony Conducting No Oscar Campaign For 'Moon'

Moon director Duncan Jones recently voiced his displeasure with Sony Pictures on Twitter regarding the lack of support his film is getting for an Oscar campaign, including the lack of Academy screeners or ads in industry trade magazines. 
Now Movieline is stating a Sony rep cited fear of piracy as a reason for not distributing screeners. Odd, because the studio did distribute screeners to video distributors in advance of the DVD release. I got one.

A representative for the Sony Worldwide Acquisitions Group — which picked Moon up in spring 2008, handed it off to Oscar war horse Sony Pictures Classics in January 2009, then reclaimed it for home-video release this year — acknowledged seeing some of Jones’s grievances. But, he added, the call to avoid Oscar screeners was a business decision as opposed to any lack of support.

“The DVD and Blu-ray come out on Jan. 12 — next Tuesday — and it was felt that to preserve the integrity of the film, we didn’t want to send screeners,” the rep told me. “We’re concerned about piracy. The thing about Moon is that its particular genre is very predisposed toward being uploaded onto the Web. We really just wanted to protect that aspect of it. It’s a simple as that. […] A lot of publicity for Moon is coming out next week. Hopefully that will remind all the consumers, all the readers — and especially any awards folks — that this terrific title is out there.”

full article at Movieline

Sony Scraps Spider-Man Film Continuity For 'Reboot'

In what must be one of the dumbest moves in film history, Sony pictures announced today they are scrapping the previously planned Spider-Man 4 in favor of 'rebooting' the film franchise. Director Sam Raimi and actor Toby Maguire will no longer be associated with future Spider-Man films.

The official press release:

Culver City, CA (January 11, 2010) -- Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012. Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today they are moving forward with a film based on a script by James Vanderbilt that focuses on a teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises.

The new chapter in the Spider-Man franchise produced by Columbia, Marvel Studios and Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin, will have a new cast and filmmaking team. Spider-Man 4 was to have been released in 2011, but had not yet gone into production.

“A decade ago we set out on this journey with Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire and together we made three Spider-Man films that set a new bar for the genre. When we began, no one ever imagined that we would make history at the box-office and now we have a rare opportunity to make history once again with this franchise. Peter Parker as an ordinary young adult grappling with extraordinary powers has always been the foundation that has made this character so timeless and compelling for generations of fans. We’re very excited about the creative possibilities that come from returning to Peter's roots and we look forward to working once again with Marvel Studios, Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin on this new beginning,” said Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

“Working on the Spider-Man movies was the experience of a lifetime for me. While we were looking forward to doing a fourth one together, the studio and Marvel have a unique opportunity to take the franchise in a new direction, and I know they will do a terrific job,” said Sam Raimi.

“We have had a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration and friendship with Sam and Tobey and they have given us their best for the better part of the last decade.This is a bittersweet moment for us because while it is hard to imagine Spider-Man in anyone else’s hands, I know that this was a day that was inevitable,” said Matt Tolmach, president of Columbia Pictures, who has served as the studio’s chief production executive since the beginning of the franchise. “Now everything begins anew, and that’s got us all tremendously excited about what comes next. Under the continuing supervision of Avi and Laura, we have a clear vision for the future of Spider-Man and can’t wait to share this exciting new direction with audiences in 2012.”

"Spider-Man will always be an important franchise for Sony Pictures and a fresh start like this is a responsibility that we all take very seriously," said Michael Lynton, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures. "We have always believed that story comes first and story guides the direction of these films and as we move onto the next chapter, we will stay true to that principle and will do so with the highest respect for the source material and the fans and moviegoers who deserve nothing but the best when it comes to bringing these stories and characters to life on the big screen."

The studio will have more news about Spider-Man in 2012 in the coming weeks as it prepares for production of the film.

Heads in the Cloud - episode 1 - I'm Lovin It

A new podcast from the Cooltidbits crew.
In which we discuss:
2010 CES, 3D TV, bandwidth caps are BS, e-readers, Ford MyTouch, TVs with apps, and annoying TV commercials.

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Cnet Best of CES Awards

Best of CES Nominee: D-Link Boxee Box

Best of CES Nominee: Eye-Fi ProX2

Best of CES Nominee: Motorola Backflip

Best of CES Nominee: Ford MyFord Sync

First Look-Google Nexus One

Fox News At CES

Natalie Del Conte With CES Gadgets

Tech Trends At CES

Video Business Ceases Publication

In what must be an unfavorable comment on the state of the industry, trade magazine Video Business suddenly announced today that it is ceasing publication after 29 years. VB served the packaged media rental industry since the early days of VHS.

Video Business is ceasing publication this week, after 29 years of industry-leading coverage of the home entertainment business.

The Jan. 4 issue was the magazine’s last.

VB’s owner, Reed Business Information, is shuttering the magazine and its online operations, effective this week, as part of a larger, ongoing strategy to divest itself of most of its business-to-business publications in the U.S. The company also is closing MBT (Manufacturing Business Technology) and Industrial Distribution.

“I’m extremely proud of the role VB has played in the home entertainment industry, consistently breaking news, while providing important analysis and insight to our readers for almost three decades,” said Marcy Magiera, editor-in-chief and associate publisher. “Every staff member and regular contributor here is a first-class business journalist, and I will miss working with this smart, dedicated and caring group of people.”

VB readers can continue to get the latest home entertainment business and technology news at www.variety.com.

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