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After The Quake: Japanese Rescue Robot Scopes Out Damage In Collapsed Building (Video)

Posted: 26 Mar 2011 04:05 AM PDT

Why risk human lives when we have robots that could do the job just as well? That’s what a team of researchers at Kyoto University thought when it sent a mini rescue robot to investigate the inside of a partially collapsed building in Hachinohe, a small city in North Eastern Japan. Parts of the gymnasium’s ceiling fell down following the earthquake, making it too dangerous for humans to enter the building themselves.

Instead, the roboticists on site decided to use KOHGA3, a rescue robot first publicly shown in 2007 [JP]. The 40kg KOHGA3 can climb up stairs and move over rubble and other objects at an angle of up to 45 degrees.

It comes with three CCD cameras, sensors for gas/carbon-dioxide and attitude, an LED light, a thermal camera and an LED light. In the gymnasium, KOHGA3 was sent into the building and remote-controlled to scope out what damage was caused by the earthquake, for example in the roof and stage of the building.

Here is a video that shows how KOHGA3 was used (in English):

Via IEEE Spectrum (Thanks, Erico!)

Researchers Make First Plastic Processor

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 07:37 PM PDT

As you probably know, computer processors are made up of a bunch of teeny tiny transistors on top of brittle silicon. While this works well for devices that can deal with solid frames, new technologies that need to be more flexible will require a new type of processor. One that can bend.

Researchers in Europe were able to create such a processor by using 4,000 organic transistors. The processor sits on top of flexible plastic foil measuring about 2 x 2 cm. As of now, its performance is a bit weak; it can only run one simple, 16 instruction program which has to be hardcoded in.

It’s pretty basic, but if this proof of concept can follow Moore’s law like its silicon sister, then in a few years we could be wearing electronic clothes.

Harry Winston Opus Eleven Watch Explodes Time

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 06:04 PM PDT

With another year comes another Harry Winston Opus watch. As we eagerly anticipate the result per annum, 2011 reveals itself as being a shockingly good season for the collection. Back in 2000 the Opus collection started as a series of limited edition timepieces that were a collaboration between Harry Winston and a single famous watch maker. The concept was dreamed up by then man-in-charge Max Busser. The tradition has been so successful, that it continues in even fuller force. This year the Opus man is watch maker Denis Giguet of MCT, who created the amazing Sequential One. Giguet lends his talents to the Opus game and wins with the Opus XI. While the Harry Winston DNA is a bit hard to see in this watch, the piece is amazing and quite unlike anything I have ever seen before. It takes complexity to a new level. Never has the display of just the hours and minutes been cause for such jaw-dropping wows.

Read the rest of the article…

Blunt Umbrellas Reduce The Possibility Of Rain-Related Impaling

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 06:00 PM PDT


You would think that, in a city like Seattle, people would learn to A: not have gigantic, pointy umbrellas, and B: look where the hell they are walking. But no, that is not the case. I fear for my life on blustery days when iPhone-absorbed pedestrians of smaller stature menace my eyeballs with their spiky bumbershoots.

Today I learned that there are blunt umbrellas. I implore you, world, for god’s sake make this the standard. And make them cheaper, $80 is too much.

[via Uncrate]

“Condor” Supercomputer Made Of 1,716 PS3s Now Online

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 05:47 PM PDT

Supercomputers are expensive to make no matter how you look at it. But if you use a whole bunch of PS3s, you can save over 10x the cost compared to this guy. The Condor project is a supercomputer made up of 1,716 PS3s for the Air Force’s image processing tasks and is considered one of the top forty fastest computers in the world. Its big task involves monitoring 15 square miles 24/7, but not in the way you think.

Because the PS3 is really good at image processing, the Air Force hopes it will solve their problem of processing images from all their recent aerial photo gathering. With all the satellites they have, it has become pretty easy to snap loads of photos, but figuring what parts are important is difficult.

What’s crazy about Condor is that users will be able to move cameras around like you’re playing Starcraft. “You can literally rewind or predict forward (in the future), based on the information you have," said Mike Barnell, director of HPC at the Rome Research Lab.

Let’s hope that Condor is used for military analysis and not tuning in on our daily activities. Though it would be funny to point the satellites at the Bay Area, I don’t think anyone in the Air Force wants to know how boring my life is.

[via Hot Hardware; image credit: John Berry / The Post-Standard]

Specialized And McLaren Claim “The Fastest Complete Performance Bike In The World”

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 04:56 PM PDT


Cross-discipline collaborations are nothing new for the car, bike, or any industry, really. By putting their heads together, people can produce truly new and interesting works of engineering, though the result is almost always horrendously expensive. In this case, considering the collaborators are the well-known bike maker Specialized and the famed auto designer McLaren, you know it’s going to cost you a dollar or two over the competition.

They’ve created the S-Works + McLaren Venge to be a record-breaker, and in fact call it “the fastest complete performance bike in the world.” The carbon fiber frame tips the scales at under a kilogram: 950g, or around 2.09 pounds. Once you add in seat, handlebars, and so on, it comes to about 4.5 pounds. My bike’s lock weighs 4.5 pounds.

The tubing is aerodynamically optimized (or “optimised,” as the Brits would say) and cabling runs internally, so once you get your tight bike suit and teardrop helmet on, the air won’t know what hit it.

It should be available in the UK for £5000, or $8000 US. (BYO wheels)

[via Bicycle Design and Gizmag]

FYI: New MacBooks Have High-Power USB Ports For Quick Charging

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 04:24 PM PDT


A nice little unpublicized feature in the latest MacBook Pros: the USB ports provide an extra 1100mA of current, allowing devices like iPads to charge as fast as they would from an outlet. Good for people who use their laptop as their main power hub. The more you know!

Elon Musk Says Super-Capacitors Not Batteries, Will Be Breakthrough For EVs

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 04:00 PM PDT

When Tesla’s Elon Musk first came to Silicon Valley he was researching advanced, highly-energy-dense super-capacitors at Stanford. Coincidentally, when speaking at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco about the future of electric vehicles Musk said, “If I were to make a prediction, I'd think there's a good chance that it is not batteries, but super-capacitors."

Super-capacitors are similar to batteries in that they both store energy. But in electric vehicles, super-capacitors would be much more efficient at storing the massive amounts of energy taken in during regenerative braking. And when the time comes to accelerate, the super-caps would be able to deliver the that large amount of energy much faster than batteries, with less energy loss.

Currently, hybrid vehicles have batteries because super-caps cannot store the same amount of energy pound-for-pound. Super-capacitors require a large amount of surface area to store a large enough amount of electricity to be useful for electric cars. However, the introduction of nanotechnology could increase surface area exponentially, as recent experiments have shown. Picture infinitesimal conductive surfaces storing electrons for rapid use; no more chemical reactions requiring huge and expensive thermal management systems would be needed.

Seeing how Musk creates electric cars powered exclusively by lithium-ion batteries, his comment on batteries seems a bit out of place — unless his company is at work researching the next big thing.

[via AllCarsElectric]

Buffalo Launches First Ever BDXL Portable Blu-ray Burner

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 03:30 PM PDT

Buffalo just outed their new portable BDXL Blu-ray writer, the BRXL-PC6U2-BK. BDXL is the new Blu-ray spec that can store up to 100 GB on three layers and 128 GB on four. The burner can operate at speeds of up to 4x using dual USB 2.0 ports and 2x speed using only one.

The device is claimed to be the first portable BDXL Blu-ray burner on the market and will release later this month in Japan for about $286 — no word yet on a US release.

While this is certainly good news for the Blu-ray standard, 3-layer BDXL discs can cost about $57 apiece. I’m not so sure I’d want a portable drive writing on $60, write-once, discs.

In other news, Newegg is selling a 1 TB drive for $60.

Woah, This Robobird Really Flies Like A Bird – Like, With Wings

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 02:40 PM PDT


The SmartBird, designed by Festo, is an ultra-light flying machine modeled on “herring gulls,” whatever those are (we have “seagulls” here), and it actually flies by flapping its wings as a bird would — not just up and down, either, but twisting at the precise angles that make precise flight possible.

It should be said that it’s not actually the same size as a bird — it has a 2-meter wingspan, making it more of an albatross simulator than anything. But it weighs less than half a kilogram, meaning it doesn’t take much to get it into the air. It can take off, fly, and land without any interference.

It’s really a bit creepy — like that hummingbird UAV we saw a little while back. But like that thing, the important part is really making it practical, by which I mean giving it more than a ten-second flight time. Batteries are heavy. But hey, if these guys can design a flying bird machine, I’m sure they can figure out the next bit.

[via IEEE Spectrum, Make, and Tinkernology]

Cobra USB For PS3: In Case Jailbreaking Is Too Hard For You

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 02:00 PM PDT

It’s only a matter of time till Sony shuts these guys down, so better write about this quick. It’s called the Cobra USB, and presumably it has nothing to do with Santino Morella’s finishing move. Actually, no, I know it has nothing to do with Sanitno, for it’s a USB dongle that unlocks a few handy features, including region free Blu-ray playback and the ability to play DVD ISOs right from the PS3′s hard drive.

Clearly this is not an official product, and, again, I wouldn’t be shocked if these guys are shut down by the time this post hits the front page.

You can also play PS1 and PSP ISOs from the hard drive. Legal grey area says hi…

Not that jailbreaking your PS3 is hard, but this is plug-and-play, for the truly lazy among us. You will, of course, need an older firmware (3.41) to get it to work in the first place.

It should be available on April 11.

Time Waster: Play Old Handheld LCD Games In Your Browser

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 01:30 PM PDT


Here’s a great way to fritter away your Friday afternoon. Remember those little LCD games you used to play before Game Boy? With only like two or three buttons, and the static graphics? Well, Pica Pic has collected about a dozen of them, photographed the assets carefully, and remade them for you to enjoy.

I think you’ll find that some of these are still pretty fun, while others are just terrible, as they always were. Autoslalom? There’s literally no way to avoid the things sometimes! Who made this thing?

[via RetroThing]

Video: Inside BMW’s Secretive Plant Zero R&D Manufacturing Facility

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 01:00 PM PDT

Take a quick look at where BMWs are conceived. The video doesn’t show much, but clearly gets across the message that BMW is committed to making the world’s best cars. Crafting prototypes out of solid aluminum says commitment. Nuts. [via Jalopnik]

Nook Confirms April Update, New Applications

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 12:30 PM PDT

Looks like HSN wasn’t lying when they said the Nook Color would be getting an update next month. Of course, they continue to lie about the price of the device ($500, HSN? Really?), but that’s a whole other thing.

Barnes & Noble confirms: the update “will give customers access to explore exciting new applications, email and many other requested features. (Some of the popular apps will include Angry Birds, Drawing Pad, Lonely Planet Phrasebooks, Tikatok, and Wine PhD.” Email, too. Huzzah!

Nickelodeon is partnering with them, a good deal on both sides, to provide special children’s e-books of the Dora and Spongebob varieties. I know kids like the tablet-style color books, so this could be an opportunity to really hook parents into the Nook system.

They would also like you to know that Barnes & Noble is the only place where you can get an e-book of The King’s Speech. Quick! Buy it before their exclusive ends and the price goes down!

Here are the two full press releases, in case you want to jot down the new titles for future purchase:

Barnes & Noble's NOOK Color™ Reader's Tablet Keeps Getting Better With Great New Content for People Who Love to Read Everything

Customers Can Enjoy Multitudes of Newly Added Digital Books, Magazines, Children's Books, plus Exclusive Content in Barnes & Noble Stores

Exclusive: The King's Speech Digital Book Only Available for NOOK Customers

New York, New York – March 25, 2011 – NOOK Color, the award-winning, bestselling Reader's Tablet by Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) keeps getting better with additions to its expansive digital catalog including everything from interactive versions of Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine to exciting children's books featuring Barbie, Dora the Explorer and Mickey Mouse. Barnes & Noble, the world's largest bookseller, continues to enhance the NOOK Color reading experience, enabling customers to read even more of what they love in rich, beautiful color. The company offers one of the world's largest collections of digital content – which includes the only digital version of bestseller The King's Speech, an unmatched children's book collection, and more magazines and newspapers offered in color for subscription or single copy issue from one bookstore.

"We created NOOK Color for people who love to read everything – books, magazines, children's books and more – in rich, beautiful color, and are continually adding terrific new content our customers have asked for – from ESPN The Magazine and The Economist to children's stories featuring favorite Nickelodeon and Disney characters," said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products, Barnes & Noble. "With more than two million digital titles to browse, download and enjoy in seconds, NOOK Color customers repeatedly tell us how much they appreciate the ability to virtually turn the page on their favorite monthly, dive into a bestseller, and bring story time to life for their children – all using one device. And as always, Barnes & Noble will keep making NOOK Color better with new titles and featured enhancements for the best-in-class reading."

NOOK Color will get even better this Spring when a major update to the device's firmware will offer customers access to explore exciting new applications, email and many other requested features.

Having exceeded one million digital periodical subscription orders and single copy sales, NOOK Newsstand™ continues to grow with the addition of great titles in the last few weeks that include The Economist, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, ESPN The Magazine, Saveur and PC Gamer. Barnes & Noble customers can now enjoy more than 135 digital periodical titles including exciting full-color digital versions of their favorite print brands, all available by subscription and single copies. Current bestsellers in NOOK Magazines include US Weekly, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, Reader's Digest and O, The Oprah Magazine.

There's also lots of new stories for Barnes & Noble's youngest customers. Recent NOOK Kids™ additions include titles featuring favorite characters like Barbie, Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob Squarepants, Disney favorites featuring Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Phineas & Ferb, Beauty & the Beast, Snow White and the fun, fast, four-wheeled friends from Cars. Kids continue to be enchanted by stories featuring Barnes & Noble's exclusive Read to Me™ feature, with Are You My Mother, Go Dog Go, I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track and Little Red Hen the current category bestsellers. With NOOK Kids, Barnes & Noble customers can choose from more than 300 titles in the world's largest collection of digital children's picture books, and more than 12,000 children's chapter books on NOOK Color, as well as the free NOOK Kids for iPad™ application (www.nookkids.com/ipad and www.itunes.com/appstore).

And for book lovers, Barnes & Noble offers the largest number of The New York Times bestsellers, offering the Academy Award®-winning The King's Speech only for NOOK customers. Among the recent bestsellers are Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen, Toys by James Patterson and Neil McMahon, and Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult. NOOK customers will also find more than 75,000 independently published works through Barnes & Noble's PubIt!™ digital platform, which add even more exciting self-published selections including current PubIt! bestsellers Diary of a Mad Fat Girl, Daniel's Gift, Switched and Spying in High Heels.

More in Store for April

Barnes & Noble also announced its April More In Store™ content, exclusively available for NOOK Color and NOOK™ eReader customers in any of Barnes & Noble's more than 700 stores. In April, NOOK customers can connect to Barnes & Noble's free in-store Wi-Fi® service to access exclusive content – including essays, short stories and more – from authors including: Alexander McCall Smith, bestselling author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency; Erin McKean, author of The Secret Lives of Dresses; multi-bestselling thriller author James Grippando and Paula McLain, author of the much-reviewed-and-lauded The Paris Wife. More In Store is updated weekly and each new feature is available for four weeks on a rolling basis. Once a customer downloads the content to their NOOK, it is saved to their digital locker and can be accessed at any time. NOOK customers can always check the recent content by visiting www.bn.com/moreinstore.

Barnes & Noble Review Welcomes Katherine A. Powers' A Reading Life

Barnes & Noble is also proud to announce that the literary column A Reading Life by Katherine A. Powers, formerly appearing in The Boston Globe, will now be featured exclusively in the online Barnes & Noble Review. The popular and acclaimed reviewer and essayist will offer her insightful contributions for Barnes & Noble customers through her bimonthly column beginning in April. Learn more by visiting http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/.

Barnes & Noble Welcomes Nickelodeon's First-Ever

Digital Children's Books to Expansive NOOK Kids™ Collection

Marks First Time Children Can Enjoy Digital Books

with SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and Diego,

Only Available on NOOK Color™ and NOOK Kids for iPad™

New York, New York – March 25, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, today announced the continued expansion of the largest collection of digital children's picture books through a partnership with Nickelodeon, offering the first-ever digital books from the number-one entertainment brand for kids. Books featuring popular Nickelodeon favorites SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer are available in a fun, engaging, digital format, only for Barnes & Noble customers through the award-winning NOOK Color Reader's Tablet (www.nookcolor.com) and the free NOOK Kids for iPad application (www.nookkids.com/ipad and www.itunes.com/appstore). Now, kids and parents can take their favorite Nickelodeon digital books with them wherever they go.

Barnes & Noble is now offering a dozen interactive NOOK Kids Nickelodeon titles, and will expand to more than 20 next month, as the partnership continues to grow with new, exciting digital books. Camp SpongeBob, Happy Birthday SpongeBob! and others are perfect for the reader who loves zany stories. For young explorers there are fun-filled adventures including Dora Loves Boots, Crystal Kingdom Adventures, Dora Helps Diego, Dora's Sleepover and more.

With NOOK Kids exclusive AliveTouch™ technology, kids can easily find an exciting story, engage with the books and their favorite characters by simply tapping to turn pages, interacting with the text, and zooming in and around gorgeous graphics in SpongeBob's world under the sea and the places on Dora's map. Coming soon, select Nickelodeon NOOK Kids titles will also include Barnes & Noble's exclusive Read to Me™ feature offering professional narration, so kids can choose to explore books on their own or hear them read out loud.

"Barnes & Noble is proud to deliver the largest, richest digital collection for kids and families. Our technology enables families to read whatever, wherever and however they want. We are thrilled to partner with Nickelodeon to bring their much-loved characters and books to our NOOK Kids platform, enhancing what we firmly believe is the most enjoyable and imaginative digital reading offering for kids," said Wendy Bronfin, Director of Product Management at Barnes & Noble. "Children of all ages love the NOOK Kids experience, and we are so pleased to collaborate with a leading children's entertainment brand to welcome stories featuring SpongeBob, Dora and Diego to our best-in-class digital children's reading experience."

"Through this partnership, we're able to provide our young fans with a revolutionary new way to experience and enjoy reading Nickelodeon books," said Paula Allen, Senior Vice President, Global Publishing, Nickelodeon Consumer Products. "The NOOK Kids platform delivers an interactive way for kids to engage with their favorite Nickelodeon characters like SpongeBob and Dora by using this exciting technology."

Coming soon, kids and their parents will delight in books like WhoBob WhatPants?, The Big Win, Man Sponge Saves the Day and SpongeBob, Soccer Star!.

Since its launch last year, Barnes & Noble's youngest customers have been taken with the state-of-the-art NOOK Kids' reading experience, which lets them explore more than 300 NOOK Kids digital picture books, all presented in a consistent format, so parents and kids can keep the focus on the fun and interactive content, while encountering a familiar reading experience. NOOK Kids also features more than 12,000 children's chapter books, from classics to new releases. Learn more about NOOK Kids at www.nookkids.com, or visit a local Barnes & Noble today to let your children experience NOOK Kids firsthand.

Now That AT&T And T-Mobile Are Friends, Will The T-Mobile Girl Be Nice To The iPhone Guy?

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 12:00 PM PDT

We’ve all seen the ad above: nerdy AT&T guy takes punches from the cute T-Mobile girl. Sure, it works for them, but now that AT&T intends to acquire T-Mobile, what will happen to the commercials?

Don’t expect T-Mobile’s pitch woman to go anywhere just yet, the company said. T-Mobile is playing it safe, just in case the deal doesn’t get approved by the powers that be. “The ads continue to evolve as planned,” said T-Mobile spokesman Reid Walker. “Until the deal is completed, which could take up to a year, we are operating as usual — an independent company and our marketing strategy remains in place,” he added.

While the commercials will continue, it wouldn’t make sense for them to continue bashing their possible future parent. We bet that the next target will be the real competition: Verizon.


Crysis 2: PC vs. Xbox 360 Showdown

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 11:30 AM PDT

If nothing else I can now report that Crysis 2 is quite a bit longer than Homefront. I’m still churning through it, even after a good four hours last night. Hopefully I can finish it tonight or tomorrow. So at least the game has a decent length campaign going going for it. What it may not have going for it is, how shall I put this… the PC version looks too similar to the console versions. If you’re playing on an Xbox 360 and all you’re used to is, say, Dragon Age 2, then sure, the game looks pretty great. But PC gamers expect more. The jump from Far Cry to Crysis was pretty much insane. The jump from Crysis to Crysis 2 was less insane.

Up top is the PC version running on "extreme" graphics mode (whatever that means, since we’re not able to change AA, filtering, shadow detail, etc.) and the bottom is the Xbox 360 version.

The top version, says Bit-tech (a fine site, by the way), is running at 2560×1600 (it’s powered by a new Nvidia GTX 590) while the Xbox 360 has to upscale from 1440×720.

Yes: the PC version clearly looks better, but if there’s one thing I’ve noticed it’s some of the uneven texture work. I didn’t take the following screenshot, but it’s about what I’m talking about:

The low-res textures are easy to spot on things like vending machines. It’s just weird seeing perfectly good textures one minute, then the next you’re like, "Whoa, what happened here?"

Also for PC Crysis 2 players is this handy application that does, in fact, let you edit some of the game’s graphics settings, but I’ve read here and there that it’s prone to causing glitches every so often.

Walmart Accepts DS Trade-Ins For 3DS Credit

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 11:00 AM PDT

It’s Nintendo 3DS weekend, and Walmart (of all companies~!) has a pretty decent deal going on. Select stores will accept old DS models for credit, credit that you can then apply toward the purchase of a 3DS.

There’s a slight problem in all of this. Well, two problems. One, Walmart reserves the right to evaluate the value of your DS. If you hand them a first-gen DS with soda stains on it don’t expect much in the way of credit. Two, only select Walmarts are participating, and they’re in the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and South Carolina. Guess it’s a Southern thing.

In closing, the deal will last from release day (March 27) until April 30, the same day as the big GSP fight.

Badminton Played By Jedi

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 10:30 AM PDT


Lightsabers: Able to make a man’s sport out of anything including badminton. Jokes, all jokes, because played right, badminton will melt your face with awesomeness. [via Geekologie]

iPad 2 Shipping Date Moved Up A Whole Week

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 10:14 AM PDT

Ever since the iPad 2 launched, getting your hands on one hasn’t been easy — some resorted to paying outrageous prices on eBay. After huge sales during launch weekend, Apple began to push back estimated shipping dates to 2-3 weeks before finally leveling out at 4-5 weeks. Now, Apple has moved up the shipping dates one week to 3-4 weeks.
[via Mobileburn]

Will Bandwidth Caps Ruin Google’s Streaming Music Plans?

Posted: 25 Mar 2011 10:00 AM PDT

If the rumors prove accurate, and it certainly looks like they will, Google will introduce a mobile streaming music service à la Spotify or Rdio sooner rather than later. The big idea is that you’ll be able to listen to any song you want on demand so long as you have network access, either via Wi-Fi or 3G/4G/etc. It’s music in the cloud, in other words. Google won’t be the first company to offer mobile streaming music, but there’s something different between "small-company-launches-mobile-cloud-music-with-indie-record-labels" and "Google-launches-mobile-cloud-music-with-every-label-on-the-planet."

Not that we’re even at that point yet. Word on the street is that Google is still in negotiations with the big four records labels, and it’s not yet set in stone that the service will launch without any real label support. A streaming music service without any music is essentially pointless, yes.

But let’s assume that Google manages to convince all the big labels to sign up. Hooray! Now I can listen to "Friday" on my Android phone, whenever and wherever I am. It’s a dream come true.

Well, maybe. The problem with these streaming services is that they’re 100 percent dependent upon the kindness of strangers. In this case, the strangers are wireless providers: your AT&Ts, your Verizon Wirelesses, and so on. The days of being being able to subscribe to a $50 per month, all-you-can-eat (bandwidth) package are pretty much over. AT&T did away with it, and Verizon Wireless recently said that it, too, was considering moving to a tiered model. Say, $50 per month for 200MB of bandwidth, with an additional $10 per megabyte. Whatever the terms may be, how willing would you be to pay $30 for the ability to hear "Friday" standing in line at the local Whole Foods?

Let’s also not pretend that the wireless providers will, out of the kindness of their heart, bring back all-you-can-eat plans. And why should they, when they know full well that the next phone you’re going to buy will be a smartphone, and that you’ll be using it more to watch YouTube videos than actually make a phone call? (It also doesn’t help that the wireless providers are now merging left and right. As if less choice was ever beneficial to consumers.) Traditional ISPs are also clamping down on the all-you-can-eat party: AT&T recently announced that it will be implementing bandwidth caps on its subscribers. Granted, these caps are relatively generous by today’s standards, but that doesn’t mean we’ll always look at 200GB as a "large" amount of data.

So while the idea of a large-scale streaming music service is certainly appealing, the more you think about the increasingly unattractive wireless situation (at least here in the U.S.) the excitement, I don’t know, lessens.

It’s hard to get excited about a service that you know will have the life squeezed out of it before it even gets off the ground.
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