CrunchGear

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• Family of Balloon Child hit with $42K fine
• Sharp develops efficient solar cells for use in outer space
• Kindle DRM hacked
• Robocops to roam the streets of San Jose
• Nook gets a softroot and its first homebrew app
• Curse Raises $6 Million As It Looks To Become The Ultimate Gaming Resource
• Build your own Death Star from the blueprints
• Google, Rome, and Empire
• “Zero Gravity” shelf cushions your turntable with magnetic forces
• Video: Epic demos Unreal Engine 3 running on the iPhone
• This SNES controller has a flash drive loaded with ROMs inside
• Of course there should be a digital picture frame and alarm clock
• Comcast settles bandwidth throttling lawsuit for $16 million. That’s 4 hours of revenue.
• The camera blast shield is a one tough cookie
• Last Minute Shopping: Gift Guide Roundup
• America the beautiful: Mother calls 911 because her kid was playing GTA past bedtime. Yeah.
• Panasonic officially owns Sanyo and boasts the world’s largest plasma panel plant now
• Sony Reader Daily Edition adds The New York Times, other newspapers to its back pocket
• CrunchDeals: Garmin nuvi 855 for $160
• Who killed Duke Nukem?

Family of Balloon Child hit with $42K fine Posted: 23 Dec 2009 05:00 AM PST The family of the fake flying balloon boy, the Heenes, whose strange, sad story so captivated us for about an hour two months ago has been hit with a $42,000 fine for the cost associated with tracking the balloon through the skies of Colorado. I was once enamored by this family so dedicated to science as to have a balloon that could even potentially lift a small child in their back yard. But after learning of the father’s sad, strange fame-whoring and their goals of being on reality TV, I think the feeling I’m going for is disgust. I hope these kids are able to look past their parent’s failings and that they work this out. via Giz

Sharp develops efficient solar cells for use in outer space Posted: 23 Dec 2009 03:00 AM PST Earlier this year, we reported twice about Japan’s serious plans to go to outer space to generate solar energy and then beam it back to Mother Earth. And today, Sharp has shown the first solar cell that’s not only bendable (we’ve seen that before) but that also withstands conditions in space. In addition, the company says those cells boast a record-high solar efficiency of 36%. The compound solar cells can not only be bent if needed but even folded. They are less than 20 microns thick and are made by stacking up single crystals of indium gallium, gallium arsenide and indium gallium arsenide. These single-crystal layers are grown on solid substrates before transferring them onto a flexible film base. As a result, the solar cells feature extreme flexibility material-wise. There’s only a prototype available at this point (sorry for the small picture), but Sharp is working on getting a practical version ready in 2012. The solar cells can then be used for equipping satellites and other space applications. Via Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]

Kindle DRM hacked Posted: 23 Dec 2009 02:44 AM PST A hacker, Labba, and his buddies have cracked the Kindle’s ebook DRM, essentially allowing folks to extract the text of Amazon’s AZW files into a PDF for viewing on any reader. The hackers have reverse engineered the ebook code and very close to a formal, software-based solution. It took the hackers only nine days to strip the DRM although there is no formal piece of software for the hack. But before you hack, think about it: these are ebooks. Do we really need to steal every living thing under the sun? via BGR

Robocops to roam the streets of San Jose Posted: 23 Dec 2009 02:21 AM PST According to the Mercury News, cops in San Jose will soon be wearing head-mounted video cameras to record their interaction with civilians. The devices will sit above their ears and they will be activated whenever they speak with a citizen or suspect. The videos will then be uploaded to a central server. Presumably these things turn off when the officers are in the toilet. Why is this happening? Because people don’t trust cops right now. The system, called AXON, can also attach to other parts of the body. A leading critic of the department welcomed the cameras as a tool to provide useful evidence, but dismissed their significance as a solution to rocky police-community relations. “The AXON project is unfortunately a positive thing right now because the level of distrust is so high,” said Raj Jayadev, director of the community organization Silicon Valley De-Bug. “But it doesn’t address the more fundamental problem: What stereotypes police may carry when they see people of color on the street and make assumptions about The kit also includes a computer that hangs from the officer’s belt. Thanks, Thomas!

Nook gets a softroot and its first homebrew app Posted: 23 Dec 2009 02:04 AM PST Those wacky NookDevs have hacked the Nook to within an inch of its life, created a softroot for those who don’t want to crack open their Nook cases to get at the soft and sweet MicroSD card inside. The softroot essentially “jailbreaks” the Nook, allowing you to install homebrew software onto the device. You can download the software here and I’ve mirrored it here so we don’t destroy their server (although I doubt there are enough hardcore Nookers right now). You should check back with the NookDevs often and always. The group is also planning on releasing a mail-reading app in the next few days. Here’s what they say to do: To enable adb on your nook (and get a root shell), follow these simple steps: 1. Turn your nook on. 2. Plug your nook into your computer via USB. 3. Find the drive for the external card (not the one named “nook”) 4. Copy the file “bravo_update.dat” to the nook’s external card identified in step 3. 5. Eject/unmount both the drive for your external card and the internal “nook” drive. 6. Unplug your nook. 7. Turn off your nook. 8. Turn on your nook, and immediately hold down both page-turn buttons on the right (or left) side of the nook. 9. Wait for your nook to run the firmware updater (a screen will show the progress). 10. Delete the bravo_update.dat file from your nook’s external card. 11. That’s it! You’re all done. = WHAT DO I DO WITH IT NOW? = To use your newly-rooted nook: 1. Download and install the Android SDK if you don’t already have it. 2. In a terminal (command line) window, navigate to the “tools” directory in the Android SDK. 3. Find the IP address of your nook. (On the nook, go to Settings -> WiFi -> Wifi hotspot -> Network Name) 4. Use the command “./adb connect NOOK_IP:5555″ where NOOK_IP is the IP address of your nook. 5. You can now use adb to talk to your nook. To get a root shell on the nook, type “./adb shell” Thanks, JohnnyTToxic

Curse Raises $6 Million As It Looks To Become The Ultimate Gaming Resource Posted: 23 Dec 2009 01:30 AM PST Most people would probably view a hardcore, 16 hour-a-day addiction to World of Warcraft as a bad thing. That was certainly the case for Hubert Thieblot a few years ago, when he dropped out of school and his parents decided to kick him out of the house because he was playing so much. Flash forward five years. Thieblot has managed to turn his addiction into a thriving company called Curse that generated over $3 million in revenue this year. Today, the company is disclosing a $6 million Series B round it closed in early 2009 with participation from Ventech Capital, AGF Private Equity, and SoftTech VC (Jeff Clavier). The round brings Curse's total funding to $11 million, after a $5 million Series A round in 2007 led by AGF Private Equity. In some senses, Curse is akin to a SourceForge for computer games, in that it offers a directory of plugins that players can use to customize and enhance their PC games. Many of the site's users are World of Warcraft fans, who have made Curse.com the definitive site for WoW add-ons. Alongside its directory, Curse also makes a native client players can use to manage their plugins.

Build your own Death Star from the blueprints Posted: 22 Dec 2009 05:00 PM PST Now you can get the Death Star plans without having to depending on those Bothan spies. Some enterprising publishing company has licensed and released the penultimate Star Wars geek accessory: poster sized blueprints. Not content with providing the blueprints for the Death Star, you can also get the design documents for Darth Vader’s mask, C-3PO & R2-D2, the Millennium Falcon, and lightsabers & blasters. All are printed on a poster sized page, and double sided. Obviously it’s too late for Christmas, but you can order the plans online for $19.99. [via Geekologie]

Google, Rome, and Empire Posted: 22 Dec 2009 02:00 PM PST 2500 years ago, Europe was a filthy mess of dirt roads, battered and cracked by hooves in the summer and rutted by rude wheels in the winter. To travel from the British isles to the tip of the Apennine peninsula would have been the work of months — and messy and rough work at that. Around 450 BC, the Roman Twelve Tables specified (among many other things) the dimensions of roads, and methods borrowed from the Carthaginians standardized their construction to some extent. Mere centuries later, an unprecedented network of trade and communication had been established, some parts of which are still in use today. The Roman roads improved the entire world, and the fact that they were built, managed, and maintained by the Romans was as effective a weapon for Rome as the gladii wielded by the legions who patrolled them. In the year MMIX Google revealed Chrome OS to the world. It was no more remarkable to onlookers than a single stone-paved road might have been to a Roman citizen in 400 BC. A decade or two from now, an historian might look back on the first few years of Google’s expansion and think: how similar was that Roman’s limited scope of observation to our own! For he saw a road, not the beginnings of an infrastructure which would span continents. And we see a suite of products, vessels for selling ads, not the start of a greater endeavor: a blueprint for connecting humanity in the 21st century. I don’t mean to overstate Google’s importance. Just as the world was awaiting a Rome to civilize its mountains and valleys and connect their denizens, so now the world has been preparing for a Google to lay down the flagstones of a modern Appian Way. All-purpose disclaimer: Now may be a good time to admit that I may have massaged reality somewhat to conform to my classical fantasy. Believe it or not, some allowances had to be made in directly equating Google with Imperial Rome. Furthermore, this is written from the point of view of a mere dabbler in the history of both subjects; feel free to correct me. Also, I want to note that I am not in the pay of Google. This was just an idea I had when Chrome OS was announced and thought I’d flesh out. But it’s all in good, thoughtful fun, so bear with me first and object later. Salt grain swallowed? Then let’s proceed. Oh, there’s an appendix. Veni, vici, viae Rome’s aims, once the project was well underway, were threefold. The roads allowed Rome’s military to move quickly and comfortably; her armies could move to her defense with rapidity, and strike or threaten any front without fear of leaving another long unfortified. The roads also allowed for trade caravans to move easily between areas of production and consumption, creating better distribution of risk and increasing wealth. Lastly, the roads were a symbol of Rome’s culture and sovereignty: wherever they were found, so too were found the rule of Rome’s law and the protection of her armies. Do you see any resemblance to Google’s career and prospects? First, Google’s tools and access are its shining centurions. As the leader and standard in search, advertising, and a number of other fundamental areas, Google is able to wield itself like a weapon. And the more fundamental its access (i.e. webpage vs. browser vs. OS), the firmer its grip. Second, by unifying and simplifying the means of access to one another, Google increases commerce and elevates what we might call the “standard of living” of the web. Whatever the tradeoffs may be, the web is a much easier place in which to exist since Google built that particular road. Lastly, although we observe clearly (and increasingly) their pursuit of power and wealth, we should be generous enough to assume some magnanimity on Google’s part. They want to make not just the web, but the world a better place, at least as far as their definition of “better” goes: they want to make it, if you will, a Google Earth (take a groan break here). Not surprisingly, it’s a world with Google at the center of it, modern Moirae, watching and cutting the threads as it sees fit — but it’s also a world founded upon interconnectivity, elegance, and openness, the hallmarks of Google’s products. Gugle cavat lapidem The Roman Empire had several kinds of roads, divided roughly into three categories. They correspond nicely with Google’s positioning, and demonstrate its pervasion at every level of the tech world, just as Rome’s roads pervaded every feature of its territory. We’ll look at them in the order which best suits my point. Viae rusticae, or secondary roads, were roads which already existed in some form before Rome arrived on the scene. These might be repaved or only lightly improved when integrated with the rest of the system, but they were what you might call the local thoroughfares. These are much like Google’s most well-known services: Google search, GMail, Apps, Reader, Android, and so on. Now, to be sure, email was certainly doing just fine before Google started up their own version, along with search, RSS, and so on. Sun, Microsoft, and Apple already laid these roads down. But Google approached them from the imperial, integrative perspective, and these roads, isolated and limited in their original forms, were made into tendrils of a larger system. Whether Google really improved on the individual service or not doesn’t really matter, because the real improvement they brought was themselves. Google Reader doesn’t seem materially better than, say, Newsfire. GMail, for example, is convenient but lacks features standard in Outlook for years (the exceptions to this rule, Navigation for instance, are pleasant but neither revolutionary nor common). So it’s not that they leapfrogged the competition; the Romans didn’t unnecessarily tear down existing roads just to build new ones. They came, they saw, they integrated. “It may not look much different than it did yesterday,” a Roman Consul might have said at the time, “but today your road leads to Rome.” Viae vicinales were the capillaries between the arterials of viae rusticae. These small roads were often private ones originally, and once brought into the Roman fold, lent a level of pervasiveness or completeness to the system that even the mighty road-builders could not hope to have achieved on their own. These are Google’s Labs and market experiments. Google Books, Checkout, Sketchup, Knol: not full-scale replacements for services used by everyone, but just big enough that Google can say “we do that” just as a Roman could say “we go there.” Who knows which hamlet might prosper and grow? — and who knows which might suddenly revolt? A good road is the best preparation for either eventuality. And it implies to those on the frontier that their town cannot be insulated from Rome — either from its armies or its auspices. Of course, Rome isn’t famous for going around labeling and resurfacing existing roads. But it was necessary to do so, for the system they planned wouldn’t be complete without them. And, until recently, that’s pretty much all Google was doing. As much as I enjoy GMail, I would never suggest it changed the world. Why should it? Changing the world wasn’t on the agenda — not then, at least. Viae publicae were the roads Rome built, and which in turn built Rome. Fashioned according to a rigorous standard (borrowed from the Carthaginians) which ensured usability, longevity, and replicability, these were the highways of empire. Their direction, construction, and maintenance were overseen by censors, senators, and, during Augustus’ reign, the emperor himself. This high level of superintendence was established because these roads weren’t just to make the farmers’ cart rides easier; they were to be the foundation for a world-spanning civilization that they saw lasting, well, forever. The fact that it failed to do so has not escaped my attention, but that’s for later. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the roads are still here. Chrome OS was announced quite a while back, and at the time the response was deafening and confused. “Will it change everything? Will it change anything?” I suggested waiting until we saw it before drawing any conclusions, and now we have. And here’s my conclusion: Chrome OS is Google’s first via publica. Pax Chromana Once again, I want to stress that I’m not putting Chrome OS on a pedestal. This isn’t me slobbering over what is clearly a simple and very straightforward OS made for everyday tasks, and which actually looks inadequate for most of what I do. And it’s not me saying Google is a beautiful thing we should all admire and praise. I’m saying that Google, which up to now has been satisfied with laying rambling country roads and tinkering with decaying byways, is about to start laying down asphalt by the mile. And it’s going to change things. The OS itself, it has been remarked, is no great shakes. Some people think it will be slow, some think it will be limiting, and some think it looks fine. The quality of this pre-release software, however, is not the issue (think Android 1.0 vs. 2.0). And really, its positioning in the OS market isn’t, either; it’ll affect the success of other OSes, but Chrome OS will do exactly what Google wants it to, and they’re happy to maintain it for as long as it takes. As proof, witness the sleeping giant, Android. A year ago, everyone thought it’d be a bit player. Two years from now, half the people in the country will own or have owned an Android device. Like Android, Chrome OS will start slow, get better, and pick up steam. This road may not look like much at first, but, if you’ll pardon my pun, Chrome won’t be built in a day. Here’s the thing: Google has said that Chrome OS will run on Google-branded hardware. Now, the open source Chromium bit will certainly be compiled to run on a few other devices, but what we’re going to see is a more extreme version of the current Android device market. Viz. a tripartite, tiered offering: devices that use the OS because they can (digital photo frames, netbooks) devices created to run the OS (MyTouch 3G, Hero) devices for which the OS was created (Nexus One) Hackers will be welcome to put Chrome OS on this or that device, and companies like Asus will put it on nice little netbooks (instead of Android, thank god). But the star of the show will be Google’s first-party devices, whatever they are; chances are they’ll be dirt cheap, dead sexy, and extremely capable. Openness will remain, but the choice to use their devices will be made increasingly easier. And as they lower the bar for adoption, they raise the floor for quality. We’ve lost track of our metaphor; let us return. Rome improved the viae rusticae, they mapped the via vicinales, and then laid down the highways, making the the disparate roads into a single system. Likewise, first you went to Google. Then Google came to you. And soon it won’t matter, because Google will be everything under the sun if it has its way. Apple best embodies this approach (”all things to all users”), but their we-know-best approach and expensive hardware (along with some questionable decisions in the 80s) have limited their piece of the pie. Microsoft is like a lumbering beast, rarely misplacing a step, but unable to turn quickly or defend itself against nimble assailants (except to squish or buy them). “Mainstream” Linux, having failed to achieve any traction in the consumer market during these tumultuous times, is unlikely to do so in the future. Google can step in, vertically integrated, with usability and trustworthiness oozing from the seams, and say, “Behold: our hardware, running our OS, providing our many services, able to do 95% of everything you want to do, and it costs less than an iPod.” And what will happen? Well — they’ll hardly sell any! Everyone already has a computer that does everything they need. But the point of Chrome OS isn’t to sell computers just yet, it’s to create an indivisible unit — the monad of the computing world. It’s hard to overstate how important such a unit will be, and it’s hard to say anything but “be patient” when its marketability is questioned. I said they’d hardly sell any — but at first what were the roads of Rome built for? After a road’s completion, it doubtless laid nearly unused for some time before the import of such a feature was understood by the region. Google’s roads started out empty, but parallel to other roads. Traffic gradually shifted over from the others. And this is the biggest road Google ever made, because it connects all the others. It’s just a matter of time before the chariots start rumbling down it by the thousand. An interesting flaw in the metaphor here is that Rome never really had to compete with anybody in their road-building, since they were more or less the first. Google’s in a different situation here, and the result is that Google will have a harder time of it, but the user wins out. After all, if the monad provides a certain level of functionality for what we can guess will be a seriously competitive price, then the rest of the computing world will have to match that. As was mentioned, Google has been content to sit by the sidelines and offer itself up, but now they’re actively encroaching on enemy territory; what they did to GPS makers, they’re going to do to everyone else. This Google monad sets a standard; it is Google’s Twelve Tables. The idea of what constitutes a computer is changing, and Google is striking at the critical moment. It gets to define what the New computer is, because it’s put in place so many of the systems the New computer will use. Google’s foresight becomes clear now; it was always looking toward this future, when it would take this step. Whether it would be successful in building the platform was not clear from the start, but now it’s beyond question. Google’s been loading the boats, and now it’s ready to cross that Rubicon. Okay, I own that the classical references are getting out of hand. But you have to admit the Latin puns are pretty good so far. Did I overstate it earlier when I called Chrome OS a blueprint for connecting humanity in the 21st century? Almost certainly. But it represents the first major divergence from traditional connectivity in this century. Since the internet was established, devices and OSes have been designed to accommodate it, but as the internet has grown to become the primary connective medium for the entire world, accommodation is no longer satisfactory. Our modes and media are limited by fundamental design choices in the devices into which they’ve been so rudely squeezed. It’s a square peg/round hole situation. Chrome OS, by contrast, is designed around the web so completely that it should be considered not child of Vista, OS X, and others, but rather the first ancestor of OSes to come. Chrome OS is the sapiens to their neanderthalensis. It would be as wrong to say that modern humans descended from Neanderthals as from geckos, and in a few decades it will be as wrong to say that whatever the hell we’re using then descended from Windows. It’s a new branch of the phylotechnic tree. To put it more succinctly: it’s not that the apple fell far from the tree. The apple is a pear. Mobile OS in mobili Now let me temper my hyperbole a bit. I’m comparing OSes to primitive humans, for god’s sake. As you may be aware, the Roman empire did not last forever. It was brought down by hubris, nepotism, decadence, and lead. Google’s downfall will be a little bit different, though considerably more rapid; things move a bit faster these days. Yes, I think Chrome OS will be the via publica that joins Google’s many pieces into a truly powerful whole. And the next age basically be a playground for Google, and everything will be strange and new as they were when the predecessors of our current OSes were created. Microsoft wasn’t always a lumbering beast; back around 3.1 and 95, Windows was unfamiliar and revolutionary at least to the eyes of many consumers. Now the traditional OS is bloated and stagnant — Google has no need to dramatically put it out of its misery. Progress will see to that, as it saw to DOS (ah, I miss DOS), and Chrome OS will simply be the carefully groomed successor. I suppose I’m positing the death of Microsoft, which is going to be a drawn out process if it happens at all. But I think we can all agree that though Microsoft and Windows will remain, they will be progressively more marginalized. Once Google lays its road down, it has nothing to lose and everything (everything of Microsoft’s, that is) to gain. Don’t worry, Microsoft, you’ve got a good decade yet. And Google will tread that path too, maybe 15 years from now. The way things are accelerating, miniaturizing, and converging, the New computer will become obsolete faster than the old one. Has not that always been the case? Google will wear the laurel for a brief, bright period — a transitional period, because as fast as things are changing now, we have nothing left but a succession of transitions. No company can survive long in that, even one which brought about the change it is enduring. Like the Republic, Google Earth is a fantasy. If we’re going to live in Google’s world, it won’t be for long. Just as the Vandals harried and eventually sacked Rome, so will Google fall to what passes for barbarians in 2020 or so. I’m already so far out on a limb here that I don’t dare speculate what those might be, but doubtless they will exist if history repeats itself — which it does, I am told. Mort UI vivos docent After its death, Chrome OS will live on to guide the next generation, just as the viae publicae persist to this day. In ten years, you’re as likely to be riding a chariot as you are to be running Chrome OS, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have left its mark. The past informs the present, and the present conceives the future. Windows 7 and OS X still bear the identifying features of extinct OSes — some code here, a UI element there — and it’s for the best, since people fear the truly new and unfamiliar. Google’s work is here to stay, as is Microsoft’s, Apple’s, Sun’s, and everyone else along the way. Don’t be sad, it’s a circle of life thing. To conclude (at last), let me say that this little exercise in free association and self-indulgence, while original (or the next best thing: long), doesn’t really say anything new. The tech world, like the rest of the world, moves in cycles. There are small cycles like the yearly “innovation” that keeps us buying products, and there are large cycles, like the move from computers as tools to computers as universal companions. We’re always in the middle of an unknowable number of these cycles, but I thought this one was particularly worthwhile to note. It’s a big change we’re about to witness, and we should be happy to be a part of it. Google is laying the stones for a fundamentally different period of computing and connectivity, though Chrome OS is admittedly a humble beginning. We must try to transcend our role in this — that is to say, the role of a blinkered and skeptical Roman citizen who sees only slaves putting rocks in a row, and instead see it for what it is: the foundation for a mighty empire. Appendix (just in case) Via/viae: road/roads Moirae: in classical mythology, arbiters of fate who monitored and cut mortals’ threads of destiny Veni, vidi, vici: I came, I saw, I conquered Monad: Greek philosophical concept of singleness and indivisibility, precursor to the atom Gutta cavat lapidem [non vi sed saepe cadendo]: a water drop hollows a stone [not by force, but by falling often] Pax Romana: period of enforced peace during Rome’s peak strength Mobilis in mobili: moving in a moving thing, or changing in a changing medium. Motto of Nemo’s Nautilus. Mortui vivos docent: the dead instruct the living Back to top

“Zero Gravity” shelf cushions your turntable with magnetic forces Posted: 22 Dec 2009 01:00 PM PST It’s not really an unprecedented product — magnetic levitation works for high-speed trains and other future toys, so why not your audio gear? Personally I might be a little nervous that the whole thing would just slide off at some point if the fields weren’t aligned right, but they’ve probably addressed that. It’s really not a bad idea at all. What better way to prevent footsteps and other vibrations from messing with your vinyl? My turntable skips when I walk into the room all the time. Would I spend $500 to have it suspended in the air by magnets? No. But then, I bought my speakers for $5 at a garage sale and the amp crackles like a brush fire. Skipping is the least of my worries. In conclusion, I have this to say: magnets are awesome, and as long as they’re guaranteed not to mess with the audio components or catapult them off if there’s a sudden shift in charge, then I fully support using this thing. [via OhGizmo]

Video: Epic demos Unreal Engine 3 running on the iPhone Posted: 22 Dec 2009 12:38 PM PST The iPhone is already touted for its gaming prowess almost endlessly, but it looks like things are about to take a pretty big leap forward. Epic Games has been crackin' away at an iPhone port of their Unreal Engine 3 -- the engine that powers such jaw-droppingly beautiful games as BioShock, Mirror's Edge, Gears of War 2, and a bunch of others -- and they're now far enough along that they're looking to show it off.

This SNES controller has a flash drive loaded with ROMs inside Posted: 22 Dec 2009 12:00 PM PST Step 1: Be a huge nerd. Step 2: Deconstruct a SNES controller and a flash drive. Step 3: Solder shit. Step 4: Become an even bigger nerd. [Ben Heck Forums via hackaday]

Of course there should be a digital picture frame and alarm clock Posted: 22 Dec 2009 11:30 AM PST I’ll just say it. Everything is better with a digital picture frame. If someone put a digital picture frame in a toaster, I would buy three. So with that in mind, imagine my excitement when I saw this Insignia alarm clock with built-in digital picture frame. I know, right? Awesome. </sarcasm> The NS-DPFC01 is $50 at Best Buy and does the standard duties of a clock. The 320 x 240 3.5-inch screen is backed with 128MB of memory, which is more than enough for about a million and a half pics of my dog Ferrari. Oh, and it comes with a remote for some reason. <via ubergizmo>

Comcast settles bandwidth throttling lawsuit for $16 million. That’s 4 hours of revenue. Posted: 22 Dec 2009 11:00 AM PST Whoever says the legal system in this country is broken, well, you’re right. Comcast was caught tampering with its customers’ packets two years ago. It bitched and moaned like nobody’s business, earning itself no friends. The Federal Communications Commission sanctioned the gigantic corporation in what amounted to a slap on the wrist. Big deal. A class action lawsuit was filed, which was just settled for $16 million. Comcast raked in $34.3 billion in revenue in 2008, meaning that this settlement amounts to four hours of revenue. That’s right: four hours. Take that, corporate America! If Comcast screwed with your packets between April 1, 2006 and December 31, 2008, you may be entitled to a piece of that $16 million pot. I write this happy as a clam with my Internet Service Provider, Optimum Online. Nothing wrong with totally uncapped 101/15 megabits per second.

The camera blast shield is a one tough cookie Posted: 22 Dec 2009 10:30 AM PST This is just cool. The pic is of a camera blast shield that’s used to capture those spectacular but deadly explosion videos. The best part is that this is homemade device seems somewhat easy to make. That is, of course, if you’re interested in building a camera to record all the shit you blow up. Video after the jump.

Last Minute Shopping: Gift Guide Roundup Posted: 22 Dec 2009 10:00 AM PST Still haven't gotten all those holiday gifts? You still have a wee bit o' time left. Whether you're planning to run out to a brick and mortar store or you're willing to test the limits of expedited shipping, here's a quick rundown of ideas and info from our gift guide. Public Service Announcement: Holiday Shipping Deadlines Gift Guide 2009: Netbooks Gift Guide 2009: Portable Media Players Gift Guide 2009: Peripherals Gift Guide 2009: Smartphones Gift Guide 2009: Pocket Camcorders Gift Guide 2009: Headphones Gift Guide 2009: Gaming Consoles Gift Guide 2009: Wireless E-book Readers Gift Guide 2009: Toys Gift Guide 2009: Gifts for the Technologically Impaired The 5 rules of HDTV buying Bag Week Review Round-up CrunchGear 2009 Holiday Gift Guide

America the beautiful: Mother calls 911 because her kid was playing GTA past bedtime. Yeah. Posted: 22 Dec 2009 09:30 AM PST Gotta love cops. A woman in Boston got mad at her 14-year-old son for being up at 2:30am playing Grand Theft Auto. (At least the kid wasn’t smoking dust in the street at that hour.) In fact, she got so mad that she called 911 for help. You know, “You have to help me. My son is up in the middle of the night playing video games! I don’t know what to do!” The cops responded, no doubt aggravated that they had to deal with this garbage, by saying, “Calm down, ma’am. Just put your dumb kid to bed.” That’s not an exact quote, but you know that’s what they were thinking. The woman, Angela Mejia, feared that her son was addicted to video games. Rather than throwing the kid’s PlayStation into the Charles like a normal parent would do, she waffles, baffled that her son is acting out by having the audacity to stay up late and play games. And who knows: maybe this kid is absolutely miserable, and the time he spends playing video games represents his only outlet. That certainly sounds familiar. It’s like, I could see the mother being upset if her son ran with gang-bangers, but staying up past his bedtime to get in a little GTA? Doesn’t sound like too big a problem to me, and certainly not worthy of harassing the 911 operators. As if they don’t have actual emergencies to respond to!

Panasonic officially owns Sanyo and boasts the world’s largest plasma panel plant now Posted: 22 Dec 2009 09:20 AM PST Good news for Panasonic in the last 48 hours. The company announced yesterday that it now officially turned Sanyo into a subsidiary after acquiring a 50.27% stake in its smaller rival. The merger was in the making for several months, and Panasonic paid a whopping $4.4 billion to make it happen. So we now have Japan’s second largest electronics maker in terms of sales (Hitachi is still the biggest). And one day later, Tuesday morning Japanese time, Panasonic announced another accomplishment: The company has completed the world’s largest plant for plasma panels. It’s located in Amagasaki in Southern Japan and is ready to produce the largest PDPs in the industry (Panasonic says panels sized at 330 centimeters by 190 cm can now be mass-produced). The company seems to believe there’s still a lot of room for flat TV sales and has big plans for the near future. Its new plasma panel plant will begin full-scale operation next month, producing 120,000 42-inch plasma panels per month. Panasonic aims at offering a total of 30 million plasma and LCD TVs in fiscal 2012, double the amount for fiscal 2009. Another new plant is scheduled to begin producing LCD TVs in July 2010.

Sony Reader Daily Edition adds The New York Times, other newspapers to its back pocket Posted: 22 Dec 2009 09:00 AM PST Should Santa leave a Sony Reader Daily Edition e-reader under your Christmas tree (or maybe you just like to buy fancy things on your own), you’ll be pleased to know that you’ll have a few more sources of content to choose from. Sony has agreed to deals bringing The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, and The Baltimore Sun (among others) to the device. And there was much rejoicing. Presumably. A deal with The Wall Street Journal was announced a few days ago, too. That will run you $14.99 per month. Basically, Sony realizes that vanilla e-book readers can only do so well. One, who reads anymore? Two, readers are weird and probably love the paper book as an end to itself (see: Devin). Three, newspaper are dying (get it?) for more sources of revenue, and hitching their wagons to the future in electronic readers may seem like a pretty swell idea.

CrunchDeals: Garmin nuvi 855 for $160 Posted: 22 Dec 2009 08:40 AM PST Amazon's got a one-day deal on the 4.3-inch Garmin nuvi 855 GPS at $160, down from $190. You can still get it by Christmas with one- or two-day shipping, too. The device features turn-by-turn voice directions, lane guidance, direct transfer of Google and Mapquest maps, MP3 playback, and expansion via microSD. For a GPS system that normally costs almost $200, it's a tad disappointing that there's no built-in traffic receiver or Bluetooth but you can at least add the traffic part after the fact, if need be. Garmin nüvi 855 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator [Amazon.com]

Who killed Duke Nukem? Posted: 22 Dec 2009 08:20 AM PST All in all, this year had very little vapor (I know, I know, but that wasn’t vapor). In honor of this year of solidity, Wired wrote a nice article about Duke Nukem Forever, one of the vaporest of vaporgames. The article discusses how success, not failure, doomed the game to oblivion. It’s hard to understand how great this game was when it came out. Sales were explosive. The game was addictively fun and crammed with racy humor, including strippers you could tip (at which point they'd flash their pixelated boobs) and mutant pigs dressed in LAPD-like uniforms. Critics went fairly mad with praise. In most games, the world was static, but Duke Nukem players could interact with objects — they could get Duke to play pool or admire himself in a mirror ("Damn, I'm looking good!" he'd say). The title sold about 3.5 million copies, making Miller and Broussard straightforwardly wealthy. In the end, after going through two engines and efforts to render more complex strippers, the game fell into spiral of improvements. This spiral, in the end, is what killed it. Not content to release just any game, they never ever released a game.

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