With eight days left in the auction, the actual EMS VCS3 synthesizer used by John Baker at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to create the Doctor Who theme is already up to $6,000. There are some deep-pocketed Whovians out there.

It's being sold on eBay after John Baker's estate sold it on after his death in 1997, and is apparently in very good condition, not having been used since the late '70s. Will the winning bidder use it to create YouTube montages of his/her favorite Doctor Who clips with a spooky synth soundtrack? Compose mixed tapes to be sent to David Tennant? Or simply have their bank send statement after statement of unpaid credit card bills? [eBay via Retro To Go]

So the Nokia N97 was a bit of a disaster. Normally, companies pretend that all of their products are great, even when they aren't. But one Nokia VP is willing to admit that the N97 was a steamer.

Nokia's VP of Markets Anssi Vanjoki recently said in an interview that the N97 was a "tremendous disappointment in terms of the experience quality for the consumers and something [they] did not anticipate." How refreshingly candid!

Of course, he's using such candidness as an excuse to claim that they've learned their lesson and are working to make the N97 a real contender via firmware updates. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it might be a little late for firmware to save the N97, but if Nokia really is learning from its mistakes, bring on the next gen devices. If Microsoft can retool its mobile division after the abortion that was WinMo 6.5, there's no reason Nokia can't do the same. [All About Symbian via Engadget]

Apple has banned sexy apps. But apps from Playboy and Sports Illustrated remain. Why does Apple care what turns me on?

If you need another example of why the iTunes App Store's walled garden is flawed, Apple has been only too happy to oblige, capriciously and arbitrarily removing an unknown number of "sexy" apps without warning. All that's missing to complete the metaphor is a flaming sword.

Some of those apps were certainly garbage, but it seems most were simply slideshows of women in various states of undress.

Jenna Wortham, writing for The Times, quotes Apple's Phil Schiller: "It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see."

By Apple's own count, there are over 130,000 apps in the App Store. With a selection that varied, I'm sure there's something to offend everyone.

How about an app that discusses abortion and birth control law? Maybe an app that helps you hook up with gay guys? How about an app that teaches you how to evangelize the fundamentalist Christian religion?

Think about that last one for second and the furor that would erupt if Apple made a sweeping ban of religious apps from the App Store. I am not a Christian. I would be concerned if my child were discovering religion before I'd gotten a chance to talk to them about it. (Especially since that would mean I had given birth to a baby without a mother, completing—if adventitiously—my dream to be the Male Madonna.)

Yet I wouldn't blame Apple for letting the app be sold, just like I wouldn't complain that I found it morally offensive, its existence alone threatening and insulting. And to be clear, I've got absolutely no problem with the "Grindr" app pictured here being on the app store. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em. It's simply a great example to highlight how subjective Apple's ban has been. That image is right there on its App Store page.

Look, we know censorship is wrong. We've been having this conversation as a society for a couple hundred years, and if you haven't learned by now that freedom of speech negates freedom from offense, there's nothing I can do to convince you except renew your subscription to Hustler.

The issue at hand is that Apple doesn't have to abide by the laws we've put in place in our society because the App Store is part of its business. Often I feel like that's a good thing—or at least fair dinkum. They built it; they get to run it.

With a closed ecosystem comes a lot of responsibility. Apple has taken on the heavy mantle of arbiter, ostensibly to manage quality. I can forgive them for that, even if I don't like it. But the only reason to ban blue apps is taste. And if these apps were a matter of taste, why were they approved in the first place? What will the next set of apps be that Apple decides are inappropriate long after people have spent hundreds of hours creating and marketing them? Ban apps because they're poorly designed—not because they're simply sexual.

Apple is making a moral judgement, declaring that nudity and titillation is something that should made hidden and shameful. It's disappointing that a company so publicly supportive of progressive sexual rights would react so orthodoxly.

Actually, it's worse than that. Apple is trying to take the easy way out, talking about degradation of women and the innocence of children, but allowing content from established brands—brands that exhibit sexual material meant to arouse—simply because they're well known and thus "safe". Apple is aping the sexual posturing of conservative American society, defining what expressions of sexuality are acceptable to even acknowledge.

Sure, there's still plenty of smut out there on the internet, readily accessible through the iPhone's Safari web browser. That's not the point.

Apple has made a declaration: that sex and sexuality are shameful, even for adults. But only sometimes. And only when people complain.

Unfortunately, they've accomplished the opposite. The only thing I'm ashamed of is Apple.

ChatRoulette, for the unaware, is the insane new site that randomly connects two videochatters together. It's mostly used by gross dudes masturbating and stoned college kids. But here are some examples of how it could be so much more.

First Place—Neal Rosenblat
Second Place—Thrillcox
Third Place—Balazs Denes Kovacs

The Astonishing Tribe's latest demo is Recognizr, an app that blends Polar Rose's face recognition tech with augmented reality and social networking—point your phone's camera at somebody's face, and their contact info and social networks will magically appear.

You have to join the Recognizr service and upload a photo to the database in order to be recognized, so it only works with people who've decided that, yes, if you take a head-on picture of them, it's okay for you to see their social networking info. The prototype app's built on Android, though Polar Rose's facial recognition tech will work on an iPhone 3GS too.

It's actually not really that invasive or creepy—it definitely seems even less so than another facial recognition social networking app from MWC—since it's completely opt-in, and really, the explosion of location-based services that broadcast where you are would seem to give people more pause. Or maybe these things should bother me more. Hello, I live on the internet. [TAT via Technology Review via Dvice]

Adobe spends considerable money trying to make us believe that Flash is an indispensable part of the Web. But like a friend said on Twitter, this Nexus demo video shows why Flash is not worth it in any mobile device.

He is right. It's not only the battery consumption, but the incessant zooming and scrolling, and the loading times. Why would I like to look at a Flash-based web site on the tiny screen of my Windows Phone 7 or my iPhone? Especially when I avoid them on my desktop computer in the first place.

So here's the question: Beyond YouTube—already available as dedicated apps in all cellphones—and other Flash-based movie playback—which will be soon replaced by HTML5 H.264 embedding—when was the last time you thought "OH, I NEED FLASH TO RUN THIS MUST-SEE SITE!"? Unless you want to play inane Flash-based games like Farmville and enjoy Flash-based ads in your browser, what does Flash really bring to the web today?

Do the test: Open your browser, go through your bookmarks, and make a list of actual content delivered by Flash only, the content you actually consume on a daily basis. If you are like most of the people I know, beyond YouTube and porn, you will come back mostly empty-handed.

We are in the Web 2.0 era, people. Let's move on to more interesting things. [Redmond Pie via Twitter]

Ed Note: This is just Jesus's opinion, and most of us disagree. – JC

10 billion. We can count up to 10 billion. But we won't. Because it's boring. But Apple's doing it, in their 10 billion song countdown. I remember when everybody laughed at the iPod and iTunes. Nobody is laughing now. [Apple]

Small flat-dwellers are accustomed to having one object perform two functions (my coffee table also stores bed linen, for example), but I've never seen a lamp become a garden.

While you can't grow a crop of tomatoes in Marko Vuckovi's Grass Lamp, the grass will flourish under the lamp's light and remind you the grass is always green—in a country house. [Yanko Design]

During the Frankly Speaking podcast, the hosts, who are Microsoft Australia Developer Evangelists spilled some details on how limited the hardware for Windows Phone 7...phones are going to be. There are precisely three chassis variants.

Chassis 1 is the phone we all saw on launch day—a huge touchscreen with a minimum 1GHz processor (read: Snapdragon) and a dedicated GPU, along with all of the other requirements we've talked about. They'll be the first out of the gate. Chassis 2 is the keyboard variant, with sliding keyboards and touchscreens, which are apparently more Palm Treo-like. What Chassis 3 is like is still a mystery, though.

While the three supported chassis are obviously pretty locked down, it'll be interesting to see how much of their own spin manufacturers will be able to rub on Windows Phone 7, given precisely how much they can't touch. [Frankly Speaking via ZDNet]

The upcoming MSI Air Keyboard is an HTPC keyboard/mouse combo that fits right in your hands much like a game controller.

Because aside from the typical QWERTY layout, the back is ergonomic for dual-handed use, and it even includes LB and RB shoulder triggers. And much like the Wiimote, the Air doubles as a mouse through the use of an internal accelerometer, allowing you to aim the device to control an onscreen cursor—effectively eliminating that whole where-does-the-mouse-go-on-the-couch problem.

Through a USB dongle, the MSI Air (which is technically a rebranding of an existing product by Cideko), can connect to PCs and Macs up to an impressive 160 feet away. It's available overseas now for the equivalent of $110. [ElectricPig via EverythingUSB]

Even as US authorities are getting pretty damn sure who's behind the high-level hacking attempts from the other month, and that they were launched from the Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School, China's all "Nuh uh, eff you guys."

I mean, that really is the essence of their rebuttal. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said that "Reports that these attacks came from Chinese schools are totally groundless and the accusation of Chinese government involvement is also irresponsible and driven by ulterior motives." And that's that, I'm sure. [The Hill]

The entrants to this week's Shooting Challenge: Blow Out are now available in wallpaper form. They're spectacular, but you might want to set your icon text to black before proceeding. [Giz Flickr]

Hey, you know about USB 3.0 by now, right? It's here! It's fast! And while Belkin's SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe Card and ExpressCard may not be superspeedier than any other USB 3.0 product, they are early to the market.

Belkin's SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe add-in card gives your computer two USB 3.0 ports, which means you'll be able to transfer files up to five times faster than your namby pamby USB 2.0 link-up. The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ExpressCard does the same, and supports plug and play and hot-swap functionality. Both are available now for $80. Both will be available in the US in April, while you Canucks will have to wait until May.

Belkin's also introducing SuperSpeed USB 3.0 cable, but at $40 for four feet, it's SuperExpensive compared to what's already out there.

Belkin Introduces SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Products

* SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products deliver transfer speeds of up to three times faster than USB 2.0
* Download HD movies, charge mobile devices, and transfer videos and photos from your camera to your computer more quickly with SuperSpeed USB 3.0

(Playa Vista, CA) - February 23, 2010 - Belkin announces a new line of SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products, including a PCIe Add-In Card, ExpressCard, and Premium A-B and Micro-B Cables. SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products provide a high rate of transfer speed that allows you to move content-rich media back and forth between different devices.

USB 3.0 is specified to transfer at five gigabits per second, or 10 times faster than USB 2.0*. In our tests we observed speeds of up to 180 megabits per second, or three times faster than USB 2.0, which is a great improvement for activities such as large file transfers. USB 3.0 products are backward-compatible with USB 2.0 devices and will interoperate with them as well.

With SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products, you can do the following faster than before:
# Download HD movies and other multimedia
# Transfer high-bandwidth media and files back and forth
# Charge and sync devices, like a digital camera or smartphone

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe Add-In Card

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ExpressCard™

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Premium A-B Cable, 4 ft.
STATISTIC

# An In-Stat 2008 report shows more than 3 billion USB-enabled devices currently being shipped.
# According to The NPD Group data from February 2010, Belkin is the current market leader in USB connectivity**.

AVAILABILITY

# April 2010 in the US
# May 2010 in Canada.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe Add-In Card (F4U023) - $79.99

* Connects up to 127 USB devices (through cascading additional hubs)
* Supports plug and play and hot-swap functionality

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ExpressCard™ (F4U024) - $79.99

* Fully compliant with ExpressCard specification 1.0 and Universal Serial Bus 3.0 specification Revision 1.0
* Supports plug and play and hot-swap functionality
* Connects up to 127 USB devices (through cascading additional hubs)

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Premium A-B Cable, 4 ft.(F3U158-04) - $39.99 ; 8 ft. (F3U158-08) - $49.99

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Premium Micro-B Cable, 4 ft. (F3U165-04) - $39.99; 8 ft. (F3U165-08) - $49.99

The slapdown of boobs, sexual or otherwise titillating apps on the iPhone App Store has claimed 5,000 apps, says Chillifresh, maker of Wobble. Or wait, mabye it was 10,000 casualties. [CNET]

Nanotech wonder Buckypaper is 10 times lighter and 500 times stronger than steel. And while academic research labs have successfully synthesized the stuff for years, the first architectural firm has just made Buckypaper on their own.

NY's Decker Yeardon just revealed their first thin sheet of the stuff—a "paper" made up of carbon nanotubes that, aside from being absurdly strong and light, can serve functions like filtering and heat dispersion. Their first piece measures just 90mm in diameter, but that's not stopping Decker Yeardon from imagining the possibilities:

We're hopeful that this new Buckypaper can be used as a thin, flexible electrode surface in an artificial muscle that we're developing for architecture.

But as much as the prospect of a flexing Burj Khalifa excites us all, it's probably not a bad time to remember, we haven't exactly don't a ton of research as to the effects of of these materials on our own bodies. Further study is necessary before we dare fill our cities with it. [Decker Yeardon via Nanoarchitecture via Inhabitat]

In today's Remainders: video! And in many cases, things caught on video for the first time, like Samsung's E6 and E101 ebook readers, Apple's $1 billion data center, Big Bloom's "miraculous" fuel cell, and a modern day Superman.

Stylish Stylus
We got a look at Samsung's ebook readers—the E6 and the E101—back at CES, but now you can check them out on video. Their claim to fame: electromagnetic resonance stylii that let you doodle on the screen and annotate your digital texts. Sure, that seems like it'd be useful for a particular set of ebookworms, but now that we're in the era of the iPad, watching and waiting for that E-Ink display to refresh is even more grueling. Still, the hardware looks pretty sleek, and might be a good fit for those who remain committed to their marginalia. [Engadget]

Pickleback
At the beginning of February, Nickelback had 1,380,820 fans on their Facebook page. Facebook user Coral Anne wondered if a Pickle could get more fans. So she started the group, "Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback?" The answer was yes, yes it could; on Friday, the Pickleback surpassed Nickelback in terms of Facebook fandom. The little stunt apparently did not sit well with Chad Kroeger, Nickelback's frontman, who fired off this snooty little message to Pickelback's creator. No matter—I think she got her point across. [The Daily What]

Hype Machine
This morning, everyone was abuzz over a little cube called the Bloom Box. The publicity stemmed from a 60 Minutes segment in which the Bloom Box was described as a "power plant-in-a-box," and posited as a "miraculous" solution to our energy crisis. Well that'd be great, wouldn't it? BoingBoing, however, was quick to cut through the hype and peg the Bloom Box for what it really is: a gussied-up fuel cell. Here's how it works:

[The creator, Sridhar] said he bakes sand and cuts it into little squares that are turned into a ceramic. Then he coats it with green and black "inks" that he developed.

Sridhar told Stahl there is a secret formula. "And you take that and you apply that. You paint that on either side of this white ceramic to get a green layer and a black layer. And...that's it."

Big Bloom Boxes are currently powering some buildings owned by Ebay and Google and the results are indeed promising. Sridhar says that he hopes to shrink the Bloom Box down to be cheap enough for consumers sometime in the next 5 to 10 years, which usually translates roughly to 10 to never years. So, all in all, is the Bloom Box miraculous? No. Is it revolutionary? Probably not. Is it a viable option for cheap, renewable energy going forward? Maybe. [BoingBoing]

Safe!
Neatorama deems him a "real-life Superman." I don't know about that, but this guy, who dashed in front of an oncoming train to push a truck off the tracks, definitely has some super cajones. I like how he and his buddy celebrate so ecstatically right after his daring feat. And rightfully so. I'd imagine the "I just saved a car full of people" high five is the best high five of all. [Neatorama]

Nap Time
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley—nappers that they are—have determined that a 60- to 90-minute nap in the middle of the day can increase your brain's ability to retain facts that you learn later in the day. Which is great, because I totally have an hour and a half in the middle of the day when I'm just sitting around trying to figure out how to replenish my brainpower. Oh wait no I don't. There have been many studies like this that show how the mind benefits from naps, but they never seem to make it any easier for me to find time to do so. [PhysOrg]

That Data Center Is Fully Operational!
You know that tingle up your spine you got when you first caught a glimpse of the Death Star II? Watch this fly-by video of Apple's new $1 billion iDataCenter in Maiden, North Carolina and tell me if you get the same feeling. Still, you'll probably learn to love it—in the iCloud future, this is where all of your data will be stored. (Unless it's stored on a Bloom Box-fueled Google data center, that is). [Data Center Knowledge]

Can You Hear Me Now?
Fast Company has a piece about the 10 most addictive sounds that are currently nestling their way into our brains (largely without us even realizing it). The study, conducted by Buyology Inc. and Elias Arts, ranked the top 10 branded sounds and the top 10 non-branded sounds. The most addicting sound for each, respectively: the Intel jingle and a baby giggling. The article touches on how advertisers have begun to understand our brains' addictions to these noises, and how soundbites are playing an increasingly large role in branding. All Intel needs to do is get a baby giggling "bumBUM bum BUM" and they're unstoppable. [FastCompany]

A Wired writer wanted to test just how effectively the Spot GPS Messenger could save his life. So, in the dark of night, he walked for 8 aimless hours into Tahoe National Forest. Then he pressed Spot's emergency button.

Having covered his tracks carefully and inserted himself as deeply into the forest as he could, it took only 30 minutes for a squad of rescuers, including snowmobiles, skiiers and a snowcat, to find him.

Every ten minutes, the Spot GPS device relays its location to 48 different satellites. You can have this data beamed to a website so friends and family can track your trek, but it's also available, when you hit the 911 button, to the GEOS International Emergency Response Center in Houston, Texas. When they receive the alert, they immediately determine the best rescue team and dispatch them to your exact location.

The Spot GPS is $169 with a $100 per year registration fee, but if you're adventure-inclined, it's probably worth it. [Wired]

Wintek, who supplies touchscreen components to Apple for the iPhone and iPod touch, just got "exposed" for "hazardous work conditions." One of the most severe conditions? N-hexane poisoning, which the company illegally used instead of alcohol to clean screens.

In August of 2009, 49 people were treated for N-hexane poisoning, with one dead. The BoingBoing post says that the worker died this weekend, so it seems like Wintek continued to use N-hexane even after they were punished from last year. [China Tech News via BoingBoing]

Image credit

99.99% of our photography falls within a certain acceptable range of exposure—one filled with color and detail. Last week's Shooting Challenge was dedicated to the rare .01% that's blinded by the light. The resulting shots are incredible.

Second Runner Up

I shot most of the photo with the exposure I wanted, but used photoshop to up the exposure, gamma correction, noise reduction and unsharp mask.
Lens: Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm VR
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/200
Aperture: F13
Focal Length: 50mm
[Ed note: I have a feeling that the larger you can look at this, the more you can appreciate the gradient of detail and the more striking it would be. Imagine a wall-sized print.]
-Jason Bolt

First Runner Up

Camera: Canon Eos 40d
Lens: Canon 24-70 2.8L USM
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
[Ed note: I was just struck by the simple, clever play of black and white.]
-Justin Carney

Winner

Michelangelo´s "Creation of Men" inspired me to this "Adam´s sight of view".
I shot "Gods hand" with my Canon Eos 500D and the Canon 18-55mm lens.Also used a tripod and a remote trigger. 1/4 sec. Iso 800, into the sunlight. No software adjustments except for crop and resize.
[Ed note: My mind just kept coming back to this one.]
-Roland Renne

The notable shots mentioned here barely represent the creativity and awesome execution of this week's challenge, ranging from subtle clipping to complete whiteouts. Thanks to everyone for participating, and readers, be sure to mention your favorites in the comments!

That's what Alan Kay said when Steve Jobs asked him about his thoughts on the iPhone. Knowing who Alan Kay is, you better listen up.

Alan Kay is one the greatest minds in the history of computing. He worked in the 70s at the legendary Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where he said that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it!" He did precisely that. This is what he wrote in a 1971 memo:

In the 1990s there will be millions of personal computers. They will be the size of notebooks today, have high-resolution flat-screen reflexive displays, weigh less than ten pounds, have ten to twenty times the computing and storage capacity of an Alto. Let's call them Dynabooks.

He was right. His Dynabook design was the first laptop and tablet concept ever. And his idea of always-connected mobile computing is exactly what we have today. Not only he came up with these ideas out of nowhere, but he was also responsible for the overlapping windowing graphical user interface of the Alto. That GUI was the base for the Macintosh, and all the computer user interfaces we use today—except for our iPhones and Androids. Or the iPad, when it comes out.

Lately, however, Kay doesn't seem to love the windowing GUI concept as much as he did back in the 80s, when the Macintosh came out. This is what he said to Om Malik in a recent interview, before the iPad was introduced:

When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of it. I said: Well, it's the first personal computer worth criticizing. So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you'll rule the world.

I didn't see the quote back then, but his judgement seems to me spot on. The quote was in a presentation by Evan Doll, from his class at Stanford about designing user interfaces for the iPad. In that slide, Doll quotes Kay, listing then why the iPad's user interface will change computing as we know it (something that I also said before it came out. Obviously the magic rainbow pills are working).

It's an interesting slideshow, even without his oral explanations, which covers how the "gulf of knowledge" is making many so-called experts ignore the extreme complexity of computers today, and also ignore why the iPad is the computing device for 95% of the population. Doll makes a great case for this, pointing out the uses of the iPad, and where it would fit in our daily lives—including the inevitable toilet factor:

Beyond Doll's rationale, however, I find particularly interesting that Kay—the guy who invented mobile computing and the windowing interface—is now behind the idea of a modal, always-connected tablet. Hopefully, he will be right as he was with the Dynabook. [Gigaom via Slideshare]