New Atom chips from Intel means better netbooks, right? Sorta. Here's the skinny on the new netbook brains.

Pine What?

Okay, so one of the big things about the new Atom chips is that for the first time, it integrates a graphics core and a memory controller directly onto the same die as the processor. This whole platform, that is, the processor, graphics and memory controller is "Pine Trail," while the processor by itself is "Pineview."

More specifically, the graphics core is 45nm die shrink of Intel's GMA 3100, redubbed GMA 3150, that runs at 400MHz. So, not only does it still suck, it also doesn't hardware accelerate H.264 video as AnandTech points out, meaning it's completely useless for Flash video, even with all of the new Flash acceleration hotness Adobe is delivering next year.

Instead, netbook makers will still have to bundle, at the very least, an "HD decoder" that accelerates H.264 for decent Flash playback, and it's not anywhere near Nvidia's Ion in terms of graphics performance. (This chip from Broadcom, to be precise.) And, not that you'll be pushing 1080p video out of your netbook, but video res is capped at 1366x768 out of the HDMI and DVI ports. Bottom line, Intel's stock offering still blows goats when it comes to video, and we're still waiting to see what Nvidia's going to do about it, given that they can't plug in Ion the way they used to. (Anand speculates they might just tack on through a PCi Express port.)

These are the three chips Intel's launching today, only one, the N450, is for netbooks, and as you'll notice, it's 1.66GHz single core chip (Intel thinks that's just fine) and supports just 2GB of RAM. The improvements you'll see with the N450 over the current Atom chips aren't exactly explosive—they mostly come from faster memory, and even Intel admits they're incremental.

Sure, it's 20 percent more efficient than the last Atom chips, but if you want remotely decent video performance in a netbook right now, it looks an Nvidia Ion-based system is still the way to go, even with Intel flashing new silicon. If you can stick it out for another month, it might be worth seeing what's a little further around the bend. [Intel]

Everywhere I look, I see faces. The cabinet is looking at me. The lightswitch is looking at me. The cereal is looking at me. And it's all because of your submissions to this week's Anthropomorphism Shooting Challenge. The winners:

Second Runner Up

Death Face on Muni Track in SF; Nikon D50; 55-200mm; Shot at 200mm; ISO: 200; f/5.6; 1/20 sec
-Tyler Ball

First Runner Up

This image was taken with a Nikon D200 using a 18-200mm lens in aperture mode. ISO was 200, focal length was 80mm (35mm equiv = 120mm). Exposure time was 6 seconds.
-Joe Hale

One Half Runner Up

"A robot is hiding behind the trees" I love walking the streets of Shanghai. This picture was taken with my Leica D3, f/2.8, 1/15 sec., at ISO 200.
-Ariel Borremans

Winner

Camera: Nikon D60; Lens: 50mm F1/8; ISO: 100; "sad Robot" Guess he didn't like the New York Snow...
-Jacob Santiago

Thanks to everyone for participating. There are so many fantastic shots in the mix, you'll never want to throw out anything again...lest you doom an innocent object to rot away, smiling in a dump.

For $15 a month, a Zune Pass subscription is a pretty great deal. The only catch, seemingly, is that you also have to pony up a couple hundred bucks for a Zune. Except! Turns out you don't. PocketNow shows how:

The site makes the excellent point that the music you get on Zune Pass—unlimited song downloads, 10 of which you get to keep every month—is protected under the same DRM supported by Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center. The video above explains the process in detail, but the gist is that by using the Zune desktop software, you can sync your downloads to Windows Media Player and onto your phone. You may miss out on some features that the Zune HD carries, like the ability to stream music wirelessly and to email your content to friends, but that's a small price to pay for what you're saving yourself in hardware. [PocketNow via on10]

Man alive, even Japan's Red Cross Society is technologically-savvy. Commuters rushing through Akihabara station recently were treated to an augmented reality campaign urging them to donate blood. Anime girls in short skirts = instant win for the blood bank.

NEC TVs were set up in the Tokyo station and as someone walked past, their image was captured on the screen and superimposed with a blue wig or even a nurse's dress if they were lucky. What the hell blue hair has to do with donating blood is beyond me, but it's an innovative way to turn heads. Perhaps they should trial it in the Western world, where we're not already desensitized to the image of scantily-clad cartoon characters. [CrunchGear]

It's not the first iPhone GPS car kit, but Magellan's list of features might make this one of the better ones, and it doesn't even require you to use Magellan's own GPS app.

It's got a built-in GPS receiver, so it can work with your iPod Touch, as well as a charging port (obviously), Bluetooth for hands-free calling, audio-out for car stereo support, a built-in speaker and a noise-canceling speakerphone. And it's designed to dock with your phone even if you've got a case on it.

The price is a bit steep at $130, especially if you're just using this to charge and hold your iPhone, but if you're going to use your iPod Touch as a GPS device, this provides the "GPS" part of the deal. [Magellan]

Armed with stacks of blank CDs and the original outlaw Napster, I spent my college years giving and receiving mixes. As a member of the post-mixtape pre-playlist generation, I'd like to say a word in defense of the mix CD.

Everyone has a story about some favorite mixtape they had. Books have been devoted to elegiac tales of romance spooled onto Maxell cassettes—there are countless stories in this world about how each tape told tales of moondances and Lucy in the sky or colored girls who went doo-dee-doo-dee-doo. They were decorated with Lisa Frank stickers or drawings of Debbie Harry; the songs were grouped in themes, or started out slow and then picked up the beat, or they were about love without ever actually mentioning the word "love." Wasn't it so cute the way you had to use a pencil to wind the tape whenever it got tangled? Or you used scotch tape to fix a break. You have that story, don't you. Well, screw you. I'm sitting over here with an old compilation CD, and he's about had it with all the cassette adulation.

The year 2000 was a low period for mixtapes. Today cassettes have become a kind of pop-art symbol. You can't throw a stone on Etsy without finding a tape-inspired iPhone cozy or ring or soap. Earlier in the decade, however, cassettes just seemed old and silly. Why oh why would you want to make a mix tape when you could fit so many more songs on a CD? What's more, you could add songs using Napster.

Oh, Napster. My boyfriend found 30 versions of "Happy Birthday," burned them onto a disc and gave them to me when I turned 20. He had splurged and bought a computer that could burn discs. I then listened to them using the CD player in my PC! I had a stereo, but putting it in the computer made it feel extra special. The multi-functionality of it all! What could possibly happen next? The coffee maker would probably start making cereal.

Today, we expect that each of our gadgets can pinch hit for every other gadget, but back then this kind of versatility actually meant something. Oh, what is that you're saying, mix CD? If you broke, you could be replaced unlike your cassette brethren? And you could carry how many songs? And no one had to constantly jump up to press "stop" on the radio when a song ended. You didn't even need to use Napster—you could rip your own CDs to MP3s and then put hundreds songs on a single disc. Hallelujah.

In 2000, my friend Daisy made me a mix CD. She was junior at Mount Holyoke. It was mostly filled with Indigo Girls songs, but still. She's not the most technologically savvy person in the world, so I was impressed. Not only had she curated a set of several dozen songs, but she actually went to the computer lab! Just for me. Now that's friendship.

My old cassettes are caked with dust on a shelf in a closet. And the mix CD, you ask? The music is in my iPod and the disc itself? It's right here under my coffee mug, working to keep my tabletop unmarred. Like I said: it's all about the multi-functionality.

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.

Top CC shot from smohundro on Flickr

During the last month, we've made, literally, hundreds of gift recommendations for every type of person you could possibly know. If you still can't figure out what to buy a loved one or a stranger, it's your fault. MEGA ROUNDUP:

GIFTS TO BUY FOR...

AUDIOPHILES

LUDDITES

SUNTANNERS

WHITE ELEPHANTERS

COMBO GIFTERS

DRUNKS

BOSSES

SKI BUMS

GOOD SAMARITANS

GAIJIN

WEIRD RELATIVES

KIDS

LOVERS

PERVS

DESIGNERS

PROCRASTINATORS

MANSION OWNERS

BAD DRIVERS

ASTRONOMERS

PET OWNERS

TRAVELERS

PHOTOGRAPHERS

CHEFS

RETRO-HOLICS

SCIENTISTS

APPLE FANBOYS

PC FANBOYS

GAMERS

STRESS FREAKS

AGORAPHOBES

TINKERERS

FILM STUDENTS

IDIOTS

READERS

ATHLETES

GRAPHICS CARDERS

DSLR WANTERS

POINT AND SHOOTERS

5.1 SURROUND SOUNDERS

SMARTPHONHERS

PC GAMERS

NETBOOKERS

LAPTOPERS

You're here obviously because you like what we're putting down; we as in the Gawker network of sites, and putting down as in the thing you're in the middle of reading right now. So why not help out?

We're looking for a Junior Office IT person in the NYC area. Here are the qualifications.

• Experience maintaining, building, upgrading, diagnosing and resolving PC and Mac hardware as well as software issues
• Know basic networking, Unix/Linux, unix editors (vi preferable)
• Willing to work with hardware as well as software
• Able to do heavy lifting
• Will be mostly doing desktop/laptop support, basic networking in the office with occasional trips to the data center to assist.
• This is a Junior position, the person must live in or around New York City

If you're interested, send an email to techjobs@gawker.com. If you email me I will delete your email, but not before printing it out and burning it.

I'm not a big fan of netbooks, but the Hackintoshable Dell Mini 9 is another story. Of course, that only applies to the ones that aren't catching fire and burning holes in wood floors.

Writing to Consumerist, Hannah describes what happened:

"Hi, last night I unplugged my laptop from its charger, carried it downstairs, and placed it on the wood floor of my living room.

I heard a loud popping sound and the room immediately filled with smoke while the laptop hissed and sizzled. It died down, I pushed it with my foot, and it stared hissing again. There is a large scorch mark on my floor.

It goes without saying, I am glad the laptop was not on my couch ...or in an airplane."

Consumerist put Hannah in touch with Dell, and they supplied her with a free upgraded replacement. They are also examining the crispy netbook itself, but have yet to release any details. Generally, when incidents like this occur, the battery is to blame. If Dell is at fault, I would hope that Hannah can get them to spring for repairs to her floor. [Consumerist]

The Klipsch X10i ear buds, recently revealed to Engadget during an Indiana HQ site visit, take that company's premium in-ear headphones and adds a bit of the ol' iPhone microphone and volume controls right on the cord.

The new "i" line checks in at $349, and knocks the control-less X10 down to an even $300. They won't be here in time for Christmas, or even New Year's, with their reported sell date placed ambiguously in "early 2010."

The other nugget out of Klipsch today is that the popular S4i ear buds—which reviewed favorably here at Gizmodo in August—are about the get a color refresh (as seen in the image). The price will remain $99. [Engadget]

Seriously, folks, this is not what we do with your tips when you hit Share up there in the masthead. I swear. Well, for most of them, anyway. This is actually a concept trashcan build on a popular meme.

Says designer Burak Kaynak, the 'can was conjoured up after seeing all the Share buttons that populate the Internet these days. Why not apply it trash? And so he did:

Sharing content on social networking sites is as simple as stepping on a foot pedal to open the lid and toss your trash. Share//Trash Can is a smart step-on trash can which includes a LED - live counter that counts the amount of steps that are stepped on the foot pedal.

I guess in the end I really don't see the point. Is it to shame you into wasting less, in this particular trashcan, so that you'll just go down the hall and use the next one? [Burnak Kaynak - Thanks, Camila]

There's a lot of useless accessory crap for the Wii, but the B.O.S.S. controller case looked to buck the trend by addressing Nintendo's baffling lack of classic controller support for New Super Mario Bros Wii. Too bad it doesn't work.

Ars Technica says the additional bulk just makes things unwieldy. One needs big, beefy hands to use this thing properly, they report, and the additional heft in back—junk in the trunk, if you will—only makes things worse. And since the buttons on the case are just pressing down the original Wiimote buttons below, things got a tad unresponsive. Even at $10, the reviewer "breathed a sigh of relief" when he tore it off after an hour of play time.

It's too bad. That tiny directional pad and those tiny 1 and 2 buttons really cramp me up after an extended play session in the Mushroom Kingdom. [ars technica]

Hey Seth Meyers made a joke! About the iPhone! And it was funny!

The bit came during SNL last night, and like all good jokes, was funny because it's true.

As an iPhone user, I definitely chuckled a bit, before I returned to weeping silently in a corner as my phone tried to make an outgoing call from the greater Boston area without success. Must be the storm. Must be. [YouTube via Engadget]

In 1999, 45 million Americans had pagers. They were an equal-opportunity technology, owned by drug dealers, whores, doctors and CEOs—and new college students whose parents couldn't drop the leash. At least there was the code.

Saddled as I was with my beeper, I did what I could to avoid actually picking up the phone. For Christmas my mom gave me a few rolls of quarters: a reminder that when she paged me, I was supposed to call her back. Most of my paging, however, was sending numerical messages to my friend Sarah.

My pager was green! Hers was pink! We were so very cool. This number-to-word conversion we became addicted to will probably go down as only a very minor footnote in turn-of-this-century communication, but, for kids who'd never known from text messaging and hardly used email, the idea that I could send her any kind of message and she'd get it instantly—that was pretty darn huge.

Some of our codes were super private so I can't share them, but others were standard: 411 for information, 911 for emergency, 143 to symbolized the number of letters in each word of the phrase "I love you."

There was also an accepted system of sending numbers so that, when written together, looked vaguely like letters. We'd grown up getting adults to spell "BOOBLESS" on calculators by typing in the elements of a story about Dolly Parton and then holding the calculator upside down. (Her bra size was 69 and that was 2, 2, 2 big. So, she took 51 diet pills and went to see Dr. X eight times. Now she's... 55378008.) From there, it was an easy jump to many other words. Hello was 07734. That was one of the easiest one. We said "Hello" a lot. Bitch? Why that was 81764, naturally. There were so many, it became necessary to have beeper-code dictionaries, or at least, a basic decoder.

Now, Sarah and I text using actual words written using actual letters. Boring.

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.

Holiday travel can be a tiresome experience. If you want to relax with a little Wi-Fi on the plane, MyMoneyBlog.com has compiled a list of the codes you can use to get free internet access during your holiday excursions.

Yesterday we showed you the inflight Wi-Fi cheat sheet, and according to the chart there are really only four airlines where you even have a chance of finding the internet: Delta, AirTran, American Airlines and Virgin America. The first three require a code to get free Wi-Fi, but Virgin America doesn't.

According to FlyerTalk and MyMoneyBlog.com, these are the codes you'll need to use on Delta, AirTran or AA. All expire on December 31:
• Delta: DELTATRYGOGO
• AirTran: AIRTRANTRYGOGO
• American Airlines: AATRYGOGO

Edit: Reader Fo just reminded me that these codes are for new users only, and work once per email address. The same likely applies for the codes below. (But if you have a Gmail account, you can insert random periods in the username to create "unique" addresses that all go to your account.)

If those don't work for whatever reason, FlyerTalk and MyMoneyBlog.com also reference these three codes. They should be valid until January 7:

• 2287548427snk
• 2472564126dvu
• 2285632980tlk

If you're flying Virgin America, you don't have to do anything. Google partnered up with the airline to provide free Wi-Fi throughout the holidays until January 15.

Those are your best bets. Hopefully free Wi-Fi will make your holiday travels a little more tolerable. [My Money Blog, Virgin America]

Gary at HD Guru once again snagged next week's Best Buy TV circular early, and just like last time, the deals are surprisingly good. Here's a sample, check out his site for the full list and price comparisons:

• Samsung PN50B550 50? 1080p plasma $979.99
• Toshiba 46XV645U 46? 1080p 120 Hz LCD Best Buy $999.98 with Free Toshiba BDX2000 Blu-ray player bundle
• Sony KDL-40XBR9 40? 1080p 240 Hz LCD Best Buy $1244.97 with Free Sony BDPS360 Blu-ray player and HTSS360 5.1 Home Theater in a Box system
• Sony KDL-46XBR9 46? 1080p 240 Hz LCD Best Buy $1704.97 with Free Sony BDPS360 Blu-ray player and HTSS360 5.1 Home Theater in a Box system
• Samsung PN42B450 42? 720p Plasma $624.99 Best Buy

Not too bad. Not too bad at all. [HD Guru]

Weather reports are complicated. Barometric pressure, precipitation probabilities, there's too much to keep track of. Star Wars Weather takes all that info puts it into terms I can understand: what Star Wars planet the current conditions most closely resemble.

I live in the northeast. All I really need to know for the next few months is that it'll be like Hoth outside. Once it starts turning to Endor, I'll be in the clear.

See? Simple. [Star Wars Weather via Neatorama]

Shadow Locked makes a great point about how 3D movies don't gel with our perception of the world. If you have trouble with 3D flicks, check out their tips for how to get through Avatar without getting a splitting headache.

The author argues that when we're presented with a limited depth of field in a movie, we're trained to focus on the blurred section of the frame. That's where directors traditionally hide details.

When we're looking at a shot that has a limited depth of field in 3D, though, we expect to be able to shift our gaze and focus on that blurred area. But instead of seeing that part of the frame clearly, it remains out-of-focus.

I can see how that could be disorienting for some people. I've never had a problem with 3D, but I know people who have. Hit the link for a full rundown of how the author managed to control his headache. [Shadow Locked, Thanks Martin]

I never realized we were such pillow fans: iPhone icon pillows, pillow blankets, TV pattern pillows, laptop pillows, pillow rings, extra-terrestrial pillows, wiimote pillows... it never stops. Until now. Here's the pillow to rule them all: The Condom Pillow.

Hand silk-screened, the Condom Pillow has a small pocket to put real condoms inside. Genius? I think so. It's a great reminder, in any case. You don't really want to have to use the undo pillows one day. [Etsy]

Here's Mario, and he's ready to rescue that pinky amoeba called Princess Peach. Or give you a food intoxication that will tie you to the toilet for a day. It can go either way, because he's made of glowing bacteria.

Those pixels are really genetically engineered bacteria, modified to "express fluorescent proteins and carotenoid pigments" by Team Osaka, at the nanobiology laboratories at the University of Osaka, Japan. [Microbial Art via New Scientist]