Yearly Archives: 2009

Mob Condom Protects 230 People from STDs [Condoms]

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Did you think the giant bed condom was the biggest condom in the planet? Wrong! Those Italians have made one for the biggest salami on Earth, one that can fit 230 people at the same time: The Mob Condom.

It was part of a campaign to raise awareness of STDs, asking people to get together inside the condom at different events through Italy, using Facebook, Twitter, and other internet sites. They were able to get 230 people inside at one of the events. I like absurd things like this. I just wish everyone were naked inside, wearing condoms themselves. [Direct Daily]



ovan

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dear sir,

we are planing to make ovan for electric motor(size 2.1m 2.1m X 4.5 m)so let me know capacity of heaters,timer,thermostar ,valve etc

Boeing 737 Splits in Two at Landing [Happy Ending]

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Details are unclear at this time, but an American Airlines' Boeing 737-800 plane split in two, overrunning the runway at Jamaica's Norman Manley International Airport, in Kingston. One of the passengers' description is frightening.

The passenger declared that the landing seemed all normal. Everyone applauded when the Boeing touched down, after a very rough flight under heavy rain. Then they noticed the plane wasn't stopping. A big noise was heard, and the whole structure started to break down as the oxygen masks dropped and all alarms went off. Another passenger declared that the plane starting to break right in front of her. Indeed, the plane split in two when it slid during the braking phase of the landing, ending a just few meters from the sea.

Seems to me that the ABS in the landing gear may have failed. Miraculously, none of the 148 passengers and six crew on board has died. Only 40 have been reported injured. [VOA]



Next Party Switchers in the House – Travis Childers of MS, Bobby Childers of AL, or Walt Minnick of Idaho?

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"GOP sources hint that there may be more party switches to come..."

Under reported political story of the year: Since September over 40 Democrat elected officials in at least 5 states have switched to the Republican Party. They include county clerks, judges, a state attorney general, and one state representative. The switches have come in Vermont, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.

Yesterday, a United States Congressman switched to the Republican Party from the State of Alabama: Parker Griffith of the AL's 1st District. Now, there's news of even more to come. Four names come up most frequently. And all four have voting records even further to the conservative side than Griffith's.

From the Hotline (National Journal) Dec. 24:

But after a Dec. in which 4 Dems in swing districts announced they would not seek re-election, Griffith's decision to abandon his party cannot be seen as anything but a blow to Dems. If someone with his voting record is deciding to run as a GOPer instead of a Dem, that could suggest he is seeing polling that scares him.

Expect GOPers to suggest that the next to flip may be Reps. Walt Minnick (D-ID), Bobby Bright (D-AL) and Travis Childers (D-MS). All 3 represent deep red districts, and all 3 vote with their party 80% of the time or less -- a lower frequency than Griffith voted with Dem leaders, according to the Washington Post vote tracker.

GOP sources hint that there may be more party switches to come, sounding as confident as they have been with an impending, but not yet obvious, wave of retirements.

Meanwhile, MSNBC identifies three potential switchers post-Griffith switch, including two who made the Hotline list:

The other three: Walt Minnick (ID), Bobby Bright (AL) and Gene Taylor (MS).

Show The World What You’re Drinking, With The Cipher Drinking Glass [Concepts]

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Remember those plastic glasses we had as kids, which changed color if liquid was inside? You'd quite often get them for 99c with a kid's meal at a fast food chain. These are the next (grown-up) step in the evolution.

While it's just a concept for now, I'm really hoping designer Damjan Stankovic can send them off on the production line. Each Cipher Drinking Glass has a multitude of colored dots in a seemingly random pattern, but once liquid is added, the dots actually spell out what sort of drink it is. You can see from the pic that it recognizes orange juice, milk and Coca Cola—but I wonder if it would detect the difference between vodka and gin? [Damjan Stankovic via New Idea Homepage via OhGizmo]



Multitouch ASUS Eee Pad Tablet With Tegra Chip On Sale in March? [Tablets]

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That Eee Pad we heard about earlier in the month has just been given another rinse through the gossip washing machine, with details about a multitouch, Tegra chipped 4 - 7-inch model breaking cover in March.

It seems like every man and his dog is using NVIDIA's new Tegra chip, with Notion Ink and ICD's tablets being just two we've seen recently. The German site NetbookNews has been tipped off on a March launch for the multitouch tablet, which will be either 4-inches or 7-inches in size (or potentially offered as two different models), and will have either 720p or 1080p resolution. It's presumed to be running Android 2.0, or a variant of it anyway, which ASUS should've got around to much earlier than now, as rumors of a smartbook or Android phone have been flying around since last year.

The leak isn't exactly solid, as you can see, but for anyone holding out for an affordable tablet next year, it's a sliver of hope to cling onto. [NetbookNews via Electronista]



Next-Generation iPhone May Have 5-Megapixel Camera, Sources Claim [Rumor]

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Digitimes' patchy sources are claiming that OmniVision Technologies—the current manufacturers of the iPhone 3GS' 3.2-megapixel CMOS image sensor—has won a new contract with Apple to provide the Cupertino company with new sensors for the next-generation 2010 iPhone.

They claim that the new CMOS image sensors are 5 megapixels. OmniVision Technologies say the orders will increase too, from 20-21 million estimated this year, to 40 to 45 million CMOS for the 2010. [Digitimes]



Kids on iPods, Dial-Up Internet, 9/11, Britney Spears, and All Those "Old Things" [Y2k10]

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What does it mean to be have been born in 2000? In a video that went viral earlier this month, Allison Louie-Garcia interviews 9-year-olds who can't hum a Britney Spears song and learned about 9/11 from a library book.

At a recent family function, I showed my eight-and-a-half-year-old niece, Dandara, my new book, Obsolete. Specifically, I showed her the book's James Gulliver Hancock-rendered illustrations of various objects that are becoming obsolete. I asked her what she thought each one was. She guessed that the cassette tape was some kind of film dispenser; a can of 35mm film was, in her view, clearly meant for storing small food products. She correctly guessed that Wite-Out was a kind of paint, but she couldn't figure out what one would use it for. This was a really entertaining game... for me. Unfortunately, she quickly grew tired of me laughing at her.

Allison Louie-Garcia took this idea one step further by interviewing a handful of kids born in 2000. The resulting video serves as a reminder of how much has changed in the last decade. The children discuss their first MP3 players, recall using computers at age two, and marvel over the sounds of a dial-up modem. Napster, one kid guesses, must've had something to do with naps. And Britney Spears lives in their memory as "the girl who cut her hair bald."

Louie-Garcia also asks the children about war and terrorism. My nephew Miles was three on 9/11/01 and I recall, in the weeks after the attack, walking in Manhattan's Union Square talking to him about the American flags that were omnipresent. With his little hand reaching up to mine, we walked around and made a game of counting them. It was my little way of trying to brand the memory on him—a recollection he would one day be able to share with his own grandchildren if they ever asked if he remembered what it was like to be in New York during that fateful time.

A few months later, one of my editors at work told me to not reference 9/11 in anything I wrote. "People are already over it," she said. I was nonplussed. But, this video reminds me that, in the end, editors are always right. What do the kids of 2000 as the most important event in their lifetimes? Michael Jackson's death. [Vimeo via Diary of a Madman and pretty much everywhere else on the internet]

Anna Jane Grossman will be with us for the next few weeks, documenting life in the early aughts, and how it differs from today. The author of Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By (Abrams Image) and the creator of ObsoleteTheBook.com, she has also written for dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Salon.com, the Associated Press, Elle and the Huffington Post, as well as Gizmodo. She has a complicated relationship with technology, but she does have an eponymous website: AnnaJane.net. Follow her on Twitter at @AnnaJane.



Obama, Reid, Pelosi – Socialist Agenda destroying our Constitutional Rights

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by Stephen Maloney

Barack Obama, who has never established his eligibility to hold the office of President, is systematically violating the Constitution he has sworn to uphold. Nancy Pelosi recently called serious constitutional questions about the health legislation "a joke." Harry Reid has recently provided many bribes to Senators in order to secure their votes. (Bribery consists of more than just handing over bags-full of cash.) "Bribery" in the Constitution is an impeachable offense.

Republicans in the Senate have raised the issue whether the proposed health legislation is unconstitutional. Clearly, it does great violence to the Constitution.

Although it will come as a surprise to Nancy Pelosi, Congress does not have unlimited powers to do whatever it darn well pleases. It also does not have any authority to force people to spend money on any product, including health insurance.

The enumerated powers of Congress are contained in the Constitution's Article 1, Section 8. As you read through the following, notice how simple and understandable (except for an occasional old word or two) Article 1, Section 8 is. Have Pelosi and Reid ever read it? If so, they regarded it as basically meaningless.

The Constitution is the key document in American history. As the first Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall, said of Article 1, Section 8: "This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent . . . [and] that principle is now universally admitted."

Universally admitted by all . . . except by Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their political cronies. It's impossible to establish socialism in the U.S. without shredding -- and obliterating -- the Constitution.

The following material is Article I, Section 8 -- it's short and simple, and it list no power to rule over health care or impose mandates to buy insurance. If liberals want to do that, they must amend the Constitution (which requires 67 votes in the Senate, not just 60), as well as approval by three-quarters of the states. Good luck getting that.

Enumerated powers of Congress:

Section 8: The Congress shall have power To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals [courts] inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;-And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.


Congress has no other powers -- none -- other than the ones listed above. The Founders, unlike our modern "leaders," kept things short and sweet.

Again, why is it important that we adhere to the Constitution? As a legal expert writing in Wikipedia puts it: "The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government to the states, to citizens, and to all people within the United States."

Editor's Note - Stephen Maloney is a libertarian Republican activist in Western Pennsylvania. He was Co-Founder of Draft Sarah Palin for VP in 2008. Currently he is active with at least 7 Republican Congressional campaigns around the US, including:

TimBurnsforCongress (Burns -- R -- against Murtha - D, PA 12th)
KeithRothfusforCongress (Rothfus -- R -- against Altmire - D, PA 4th)
RickPerryforGovernor (Perry -- R -- against Hutchison -- R)
KJeneretteforCongress (Jenerette -- R -- against Brown - R, SC 1st)
CarlyforSenate (Fiorina - R -- against Boxer -- D, CA, U.S. Senate)
RubioforSenate (Rubio - R - against Crist -- R, FL, U.S. Senate)
ToomeyforSenate (Toomey - R -- against Specter or Sestak, PA, U.S. Senate)

StephenGOP.blogspot.com

Terra Turns Ten: Snow, Clouds and Sunlight

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NASA flies three large, multi-sensor satellites that monitor Earth’s land, atmosphere, oceans and energy balance. Because the instruments on each satellite take measurements at the same time from the same vantage point, scientists are able to compare observations and tease out connections between different parts of the Earth system. The first of the three satellites, Terra, launched ten years ago on Dec. 18, 1999. In the decade since Terra launched, scientists have gained insight into the intricate connections that shape our planet's climate. The relationship between snow, clouds, and sunlight is a good example.

In November, the chill and snow of a Northern Hemisphere winter is on the horizon. Snow covers the far north and high elevations, as shown in the map of percent snow cover in November 2009. White areas show where snow covers the ground completely, while blue points to areas with partial snow cover. At the peak of the northern winter, more than 40 percent of the Earth’s land will be covered in snow.

In addition to being an important, life-sustaining source of water, the snow also reflects sunlight, limiting the amount of heat the Earth absorbs from the sun.

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The Ultimate "FAKE!" Internet Whining [Photography]

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It's one of my pet peeves: Internet assclowns shouting "FAKE!" or "PHOTOSHOP!" while presented with any image that is unbelievably amazing. Like what is happening now with this stunning prize-winning photograph of a wolf jumping over a fence.

The photo was taken by Spanish photographer José Luís Rodriguez, who won the British Natural History Museum's annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year, which is awarded jointly with the BBC Wildlife magazine. He beat 43,000 photographers to get the $16,000 prize, but people in the Internet are claiming the whole thing is a fake. They say the wolf—whose name they say is Ossian—was really held in captivity, and the jump staged. Naturally, Rodriguez says those cries are false:

I have been a victim of a strong campaign of defamation on the part of a group of people - I presume photographers like myself - who have hidden behind internet nicknames. I can only say that the evidence that has been provided to support the claim that it is a captive wolf are unsubstantiated and that what should be examined is the veracity of this evidence and the way it has been gathered.

He said that it took him ages to find the right location, wait for the wolf—tempting him with meat—and take the photograph. I believe him. This is all internet bullshit. The wolf is not Ossian. It's clearly a computer-generated wolf, created in Autodesk's Maya and Pixar's Renderman. [Daily Mail]



NASA Ames Celebrates 70 Years of Innovation

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NASA's Ames Research Center employees formed a NASA's Ames Research Center was launched 70 years ago as a high-speed aeronautics research laboratory as part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and was named after NACA's chair, Joseph S. Ames. The center was the second NACA aeronautics research center in the United States.

The world may have changed dramatically since 1939, but one thing remains constant: the center's bold spirit of innovation.

"History is made by those who are willing to take risks and break the mold," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA Ames. "I’m proud to be a part of a center that has paved the way for advances in aeronautics and space travel, and I look forward to the next 70 years of innovation."

Jack Boyd joined Ames in 1947 and today serves as senior advisor to the center director as well as historian. Boyd recalls when R.T. Jones came up with the idea of a swept-wing.

"People thought he was crazy and would say, ‘birds’ wings aren’t shaped like that,’” said Boyd. “Well, birds also don’t fly too fast."

Today, the swept wing is now used on all high-speed aircraft.

In 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed and the center became NASA Ames Research Center. Boyd said a lot of the behind-the-scenes research going on at Ames during the 1950s and 1960s greatly contributed to the speed at which NASA was able to send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s.

"The blunt-body concept and materials designed to withstand extreme heat for atmospheric reentry and a lunar guidance system all played a role in the successful Apollo missions," said Boyd. He added that Neil Armstrong practiced his lunar landings at Ames in the Vertical Motion Simulator.

The future looks bright for NASA Ames Research Center, with ongoing research converting algae to biofuel, developments in ‘green aviation’ and the construction of Sustainability Base—an environmentally friendly workspace that will have a platinum rating under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).

To commemorate NASA Ames’ platinum anniversary, Mountain View businesses are featuring exhibits of the center’s colorful history at 12 locations and a 70th anniversary banner hangs above Castro Street in downtown Mountain View.

Photo taken in 1940 showing the construction progress of Ames Research CenterJanuary festivities include a panel of past center directors on Jan. 22, 2010 and a gala dinner on Jan. 23, 2010. William Ballhaus, a former center director and expert on computational fluid dynamics, and Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek, will be guest speakers. Tickets for the dinner are $135 per person and include a three-course dinner and gift bag filled with a commemorative book, DVD and coin.

The 70th anniversary festivities conclude on Jan. 28, 2010 with a 1930s themed celebration, an antique car parade and a one-man play depicting the past innovators at Ames.

For more information on the history of NASA Ames, visit:

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Keck Telescopes Gaze into Young Star’s "Life Zone"

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Planets form around a young star in this artist's concept. Using the Keck Interferometer in Hawaii, astronomers have probed the structure of a dust disk around MWC 419 to within 50 million miles of the starThe inner regions of young planet-forming disks offer information about how worlds like Earth form, but not a single telescope in the world can see them. Yet, for the first time, astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii have measured the properties of a young solar system at distances closer to the star than Venus is from our sun.

"When it comes to building rocky planets like our own, the innermost part of the disk is where the action is," said team member William Danchi at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Planets forming in a star's inner disk may orbit within its "habitable zone," where conditions could potentially support the development of life.

To achieve the feat, the team used the Keck Interferometer to combine infrared light gathered by both of the observatory's twin 10-meter telescopes, which are separated by 85 meters. The double-barreled approach gives astronomers the effective resolution of a single 85-meter telescope -- several times larger than any now planned.

"Nothing else in the world provides us with the types of measurements the Keck Interferometer does," said Wesley Traub at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "In effect, it's a zoom lens for the Keck telescopes."

In August 2008, the team -- led by Sam Ragland of Keck Observatory and including astronomers from the California Institute of Technology and the National Optical Astronomical Observatory -- observed a Young Stellar Object (YSO) known as MWC 419. The blue, B-type star has several times the sun's mass and lies about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. With an age less than ten million years, MWC 419 ranks as a stellar kindergartener.

The team also employed a new near-infrared camera designed to image wavelengths in the so-called L band from 3.5 to 4.1 micrometers. "This unique infrared capability adds a new dimension to the Keck Interferometer in probing the density and temperature of planet-forming regions around YSO disks. This wavelength region is relatively unexplored," Ragland explained. "Basically, anything we see through this camera is brand new information."

The increased ability to observe fine detail, coupled with the new camera, let the team measure temperatures in the planet-forming disk to within about 50 million miles of the star. "That's about half of Earth's distance from the sun, and well within the orbit of Venus," Danchi said.

For comparison, the planets directly detected around the stars HR 8799, Fomalhaut and GJ 758 orbit between 40 and 100 times farther away.

The team reported temperature measurements of dust at various regions throughout MWC 419's inner disk in the Sept. 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. Temperature differences help shed light on the inner disk's detailed structure and may indicate that its dust has different chemical compositions and physical properties, factors that may play a role in the types of planets that form. For example, conditions in our solar system favored the formation of rocky worlds from Mars sunward, whereas gas giants and icy moons assembled farther out.

In turn, the astronomers note, the size of the young star might affect the composition and physical characteristics of its dust disk. The team is continuing to use the Keck Interferometer in a larger program to observe planet-forming disks around sun-like stars.

The Keck Interferometer was developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the W.M. Keck Observatory. It is managed by the W.M. Keck Observatory, which operates two 10-meter optical/infrared telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii and is a scientific partnership of the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and NASA. NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute manages time allocation on the telescope for NASA.

Related links:

Keck Telescopes Take Deeper Look at Planetary Nurseries

Twin Keck Telescopes Probe Dual Dust Disks

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Prepping WISE to Pop Its Lens Cap

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An infrared image of the launch of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, on Dec. 14, 2009 from Vandenberg Air Force BaseAll systems are behaving as expected on NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which rocketed into the sky just before dawn on Dec. 14 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The mission will undergo a one-month checkout before beginning the most detailed survey yet of the entire sky in infrared light. Hundreds of millions of objects will populate its vast catalog, including dark asteroids, the closest "failed" stars and tremendously energetic galaxies.

Shortly after the space telescope reached its polar orbit around Earth on Dec. 14, it acquired the sun's position and lined up with its solar panels facing the sun. Engineers and scientists continue to check out the spacecraft's pointing-control system in preparation for jettisoning the instrument's cover, an event now scheduled for Dec. 29. With the cover off, WISE will get its first look at the sky.

The cover serves as the top to a Thermos-like bottle, called a cryostat, which chills the heat-sensitive infrared instrument. The instrument consists of a 40-centimeter (16-inch) telescope and four detectors, each with one million pixels. Just as a Thermos bottle keeps your coffee warm or your iced tea cold with a thin vacuum layer, a vacuum inside WISE's cryostat kept the instrument cold while it was on the ground.

The cover also prevents light from reaching the detectors, and protects the chilly interior of the instrument from heat that could have come about from unintentional pointing at Earth or the sun during launch. After WISE was pushed away from its rocket, it wobbled around slightly before stabilizing (a process that took surprisingly little time -- only 3 minutes). Without the cover, the heat from Earth or the sun would have shortened the time the cryostat keeps the instrument cold, and possibly damaged the detectors.

Now that WISE is steadily perched in the vacuum of space, it will no longer need the instrument cover; in fact, space will provide an even better vacuum. Engineers are preparing to pop the cover by making sure the pointing-control system is functioning properly. Once everything has been checked out, they will send a signal to fire pyrotechnic devices, releasing nuts that are clamping the cover shut. Three springs will then push the lid away and into an orbit closer to Earth than that of the spacecraft.

The WISE team has also verified that the instrument is as cold as planned. The cryostat's outer shell is slightly below the planned 190 Kelvin (minus 83 degrees Celsius, or minus 117 degrees Fahrenheit), and the coldest of the detectors is less than 8 Kelvin (minus 265 degrees Celsius, or minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit).

All spacecraft systems are functioning normally, and both the low- and high-rate data links are working properly. The instrument's detectors are turned on, and though they are currently staring into the backside of the instrument cover, they will soon see the light of stars. WISE's first images will be released within one month after its one-month checkout.

JPL manages the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise, http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wise.

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Degaussing

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We have some hydraulic tank lids which have oil level switches, the reed switch kind.

When the fabricator cuts holes in the tank lids using plasma the lids are magnetised which effects the operation of the level switches.

Does anyone know a method of removing the magnetic field?

Regar

Parents of Balloon Boy Hit With $42,000 Fine [Crime]

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Ah, Balloon Boy. It happened barely two months ago, yet it already seems ready to show up on an I Love the 00s nostalgia-fest. Anyway, Balloon Boy's a-hole parents just got hit with a $42,000 bill for the stunt.

The tab covers the local, state and federal agencies that were called in to deal with the hoax, and seems kind of steep (do fire engines take some sort of special $10,000 per gallon gas or something?) but maybe there's a premium for captivating the nation with idiocy. However, the Heenes aren't about to pay the fine without a fight—their lawyer insists upon seeing precise documentation before paying a cent, which is reasonable. Let's hope this is the last we hear of poor, puking Balloon Boy until he writes his tell-all memoir in ten years. [Denver Post]



Google Nexus One Hands On [Nexus One]

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Thanks to a clandestine meeting with a source, I got a chance to play with and try out the Nexus One. It's basically, from my time with it, Google's Droid killer. It's thin, it's fast, it's better in every way.

My source was very firm about no photography, and I didn't want to jeopardize anything on my source's end, so there are no photos, hence these photos are ones we've already shown you. But, based on all the leaked shots this week, plus the very pretty and very clear one last week from Boy Genius, everyone knows what the phone looks like already. Hell, there's even a complete UI walkthrough today that's on YouTube. So I'm going to focus on the experience, and how it compares to the Droid and the iPhone 3GS.

How it feels

The Nexus One is slightly thinner than the iPhone 3GS, and slightly lighter. No hard specs were thrown around, unfortunately, since Google didn't even let people who they gave the phone to know that. The back is definitely not cheap and plasticky, like the iPhone's backing, and feels like some sort of rubbery material. So, not smooth like the iPhone, but not as rubbery as the Droid. It's halfway in-between.

You can call the design the antithesis of the Droid: smooth, curved, and light, instead of hard, square and pointy. It feels long and silky and natural in your hand—even more so than the iPhone 3GS. There are also three gold contacts on the bottom designed for future docking (possibly charging?) use, but there aren't any accessories available for the phone now. It plugs in via microUSB at the moment.

That screen is damn good

Even though the screen is the same size and same resolution as the Droid, it's noticeably better. The colors are much more vibrant and the blacks are blacker, as evidenced by putting both side by side and hitting up various websites and loading various games. The pinks on Perez Hilton and the blues on Gizmodo just popped a lot more on the N1, and made the Droid (which was actually considered to have a great screen) seem washed out. The same feeling carries over when you compare the Nexus with the iPhone 3GS. And it's pretty damn bright, compared to the other two phones.

This is probably the best screen we've seen on a smartphone so far. Probably.

Why is it so fast?

Google just gave Motorola (and Verizon) a swift shot to the TSTS, because the Nexus One is astonishingly faster than the Droid. The speed dominance was most evident when we compared the loading of webpages, but even when you're just scrolling around, launching apps and moving about the OS, you could tell that there's a beefier brain inside the N1. I don't know the specs for sure, but there's talk of a 1GHz processor being inside, which would push it quite a ways above the 550MHz Arm A8 in Motorola's newest toy.

When comparing the three phones in loading a webpage over Wi-Fi, the Nexus One loaded first, the iPhone 3GS came in a few seconds later, and the Droid came in a little while after that. This was constant throughout many webpage loads, so it's indicative of something going on inside with the hardware.

I ran all three through a Javascript benchmark engine for some quantifiable numbers, and while the results were similar between the Nexus One and the iPhone 3GS, the Droid still came up at about 60% of the other two. Surprisingly enough, Mobile Safari on the iPhone scored better on the Javscript benches than the Nexus did, even though the Nexus was able to pull down and render actual web pages faster. Note that I didn't list actual numbers here, for privacy reasons.

That crazy video background

You've no doubt heard about the animated video backgrounds, but they're actually more than just animations: you can interact with them.

The default background is the square/8-bit like one shown above, where lines of colored squares come in from different sides of the screen. What's neat (even if it is superfluous and battery draining) is that you can tap anywhere on the desktop in a blank space and trigger dots to spread out from your tap. Basically, press anywhere to cause blocks to fly outwards. The same thing happens in the "water" background, except instead of blocks, you cause ripples in the water.

What's also neat are the two virtual sound meters, which act as a visualizer for whatever music you're currently playing on your phone. There's one analog one that looks like one of the old ones with a red needle, and a "digital" one that looks similar to ones you see elsewhere. Sorta neat in itself, but it shows that the interactive backgrounds can actually interact with apps, as long as one knows the other's APIs.

Other bits

The 5-megapixel camera is nice, and the flash works well enough for a flash on a phone, but it's not spectacular, as seen by early photos taken and uploaded online by Googlers. There is autofocus, and you activate it with the trackball on the face of the phone. There is no tap-to-focus as see on the iPhone 3GS.

There's no multitouch in the browser or in the map, but I think at this point that's more of a legal consideration than a technical one, since many phones that run Android have the capability of supporting multitouch on a hardware level.

Playing back music over the speakers sounded decent, but not great. It's definitely in need of a dock—like all smartphones—if you want to listen to music for a sustained period.

I didn't get a chance to call on it, because I wanted to keep this as anonymous as possible, and didn't want any sort of way to trace when I used the phone. From what other people say in their time with it, it functions fine as a phone, and should work as normally as other Android phones in the SMS/MMS department.

So what's this all mean?

If Google's planning on releasing this phone as their official Google phone, it'll certify them as the premium Android phone brand out there right now. Even though it doesn't have a hardware keyboard, it basically beats the hell out of the Droid in every single task that we threw at it. And face it, some people didn't like the Droid's keyboard because it was too flush and the keys were too unseparated with each other. N1's onscreen keyboard felt fine, and the speedy processor made sure that each key was interpreted well.

But in the end, it's still an Android phone. If you want Android phones, this is the one to get, provided Google goes ahead with the rumored plans of either selling it themselves or partnering with T-Mobile in a more traditional role. Droid, shmoid; Nexus is the one you're looking for.

Image courtesy anonymous tipster