I really like my Droid, but have had the same loose battery door problem as everybody else; it usually slides off while being removed from my pocket, which makes the otherwise-heavy-duty-feeling phone feel weak. Verizon's solution? Also weak.

Apparently Flickr user Anticitizen took his Droid to a Verizon store to see what could be done about the battery door issue, and this was their solution. There's a better fix illustrated in this video, but still: What's up with the Band-Aid, Verizon? [Android Central]

Whoops! These photos of ad agency Crispin Porter's Job Manager shows dates for Windows Phone ad campaigns as going "live" January 4th and 8th.

Crispin Porter Co-Chairman Alex Bogusky (profiled here) posted the shot to demonstrate CP's massive real-time job management system, which clearly lists two ad campaigns, on January 4th and 8th, for "Windows Phone," first as "Windows Phone Q3 Media Refresh" and second as "09 Windows Phone Banners." So who knows what the actual timing for these ads will be, but its a safe bet that ads will be previewed at CES in some way. (Crispin Porter, by the way, was responsible for the Seinfeld Ad campaign).

The Coffee + Tea Maker from designer Naoto Fukasawa makes the morning that much more bearable while you wait for that first sweet hit of caffeine.

It filters water through a double activated charcoal filter in less than ten minutes, and can produce up to six cups of tea or coffee. The Coffee + Tea Maker just became available in the UK here, though there's no word yet on if or when it will come to the US. Hurry up, people that make these decisions! My Dunkin' Donuts grounds might not taste great, but with this they can at least look it. [Design Museum Shop via Unplggd]

Comedy Central's two-pronged comedic attack on news is finally going HD (1080i, actually) on January 4th. Apparently continually filmed daily shows like these two take longer to upgrade the control room, which is why it took so long—but get ready for some HD satire early next year. [Engadget]

Nick Falzone at Bit-tech has created the Chiaroscuro PC. Made of wood and inspired by the Beijing Digital building, this computer is a true thing of beauty. Absolutely amazing, in fact. The best thing: You can do one yourself.

Seriously, I wish all computers came like this from the factory. Or at least mine. Check Nick's photographies and how-to documentation at [Bit-Tech]

Looking back at vintage advertising can be a sociological horrorshow. It could never be printed now. But it also seems inevitable that some of today's tech ads will eventually seem utterly backwards, too. The question is, which ones?

I'm not talking about obvious screwups like Microsoft whitewashing their Polish advertising campaign (which they apologized for), or Intel's obviously unfortunate—but probably accidental—Core 2 Duo campaign. I'm talking about ads that never got pulled, never prompted an apology, and that, to most people, probably seem harmless. Who, dear readers, will be the 1949 GE of 2060? And for what? Racism? Sexism? Some as-of-yet-unnoticed *ism? Am I oversimplifying what constitutes progress? Difficult questions!

More to the point, will my kids watch these PSP ads in history class, come home, and ask me why I was such a terrible human, back in 2009?


Yep, probably. Post your best guesses in the comments, about, you know, the future. [CopyRanter]

This video has it all: tesla coils! The Zelda theme song! Lightsabers! Balloons that explode in flame! A pretty serious mustache! It doesn't get much better than this. [YouTube via Geekologie]

I don't know if my girlfriend would allow me to get Bart Lens' gargantuan XXXLamp—the world's largest lamp in production—but I really like the idea of it covering the entire bed, and having it close like a cocoon.

The only problem is that, at 13-foot in diameter and 5.25-feet high, I doubt it will fit anywhere in our apartment. The XXXLamp uses three white light sources, but you can order it with RGB LED sources to achieve any color you want at any time with a remote controller, like the much smaller Philips Livingcolors Lamp. Oh prettiness. [Eden Design via Dezeen]

The Wassup Boys were a glimpse at the Early 2000 Male's civilized relationship with technology. No, really.

In 2000, Budweiser brought us the inimitable—or perhaps slightly imitable—"Wassup" commercial. Okay, maybe very imitable—Grandmas, Superfriends, Teletubbies, you name it, everyone got into the action.

I always get a little misty when I think of the manners and mores of men who lived in times of yore. The way they used cordless phones and had their friends pick up the princess-phone "extension" lines in the kitchen; the way they clacked away at their clunky desktops while staring at CRT screens. Shit, I mean, they actually had spoken-word conversations with each other! Girls were girls and men were not tied to wireless devices. Those were the days.

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.

I remember watching Captain Eo back in my college days, using polarized eyeglasses. At the time I was blown away by the 3D experience, which also incorporated real life effects, like lasers and fog. Now, the 17-minute film is back.

After watching 3D movies like Up!, I have my doubts about Captain Eo passing the test of time. The movie story was crappy enough back then, and its special effects have long been surpassed. But if you are a long-time or recently-converted Michael Jackson fan—and that's precisely what the Disneyland executives are banking on—you would be able to see the short for yourself on February 2010, when it opens again in Disneyland's Tomorrow Land. [Disney Parks—Thanks BigDave]

You probably don't think there's any way you'd ever watch a 70-minute-long YouTube dismantling of the first horrible Star Wars prequel. And you'd be wrong, because this is one of the best things ever.

Seriously, just start watching the first one if you don't believe me. And really, are you going to argue with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, who discovered this and said "Your life is about to change. This is astounding film making. Watch ALL of it."? I didn't think so. [YouTube via Damon Lindelof]

This guy stole $6,000 in Apple products from a small computer dealer. In the process he drove his car through the store, tripped over cords, nearly fell over tables, and had his whole pathetic burglary caught on surveillance video.

Apparently this thief grabbed all the store displays he could find, and "didn't bother to unplug any cords, so he struggled to get the monitors free." He caused so much damage during his escapade that the owner of the store stated that he would've rather "given the man cash than go through this" mess.

Geez. When someone would rather give you money than deal with the mess you leave after your burglary, it's time to find a different gig. [KSL—Thanks, Fred D!]

Nine years ago, as a young tech reporter at Time Magazine, I co-wrote a buyer's guide with the latest and greatest gear known to man. Today, it sounds ridiculous.

• Creative's $500 Nomad Jukebox (pictured above), was not only "sleek"—at least when compared to a CD Walkman—but "can hold as much music as 150 CDs."

• The Extiva was a $350 DVD player from Samsung with the Nuon chip, so "you can also play videogames." Not sure which videogames we were referring to there.

• Our pick for digital camera was Nikon's twisty CoolPix 990, 3 million pixels for 1 thousand dollars.

• Gateway laptop with 12.1-in. display, 550MHz chip and a year of free AOL was "a great deal" at $1300.

• Two-way pagers from Motorola, $180 each, let you send messages back and forth, and came in "four hot colors."

• LG's Touchpoint 3000 smartish phone cost $400, combined an address book and an organizer, and had one killer app: "Tap someone's name, and it dials for you."

• The $300 Iomega HipZip took little PocketZip magnetic disks instead of flash memory so it was easier to "get with the MP3 revolution"—hooray for obscure proprietary formats that died within a year!

• Cybiko was invented a decade ago but promised to do almost more than what the Peek does today—with wireless messaging and an MP3 "attachment."

• "It's near impossible to find this killer game console—and just as hard to find good titles to play on it." The console? PlayStation 2.

• Handspring Visor Prism, the great hope of the PDA world, had a cartridge slot so that you could "turn it into a cellphone, an MP3 player, or a miniature digital camera." Only trouble was when the cartridges started costing more than the $450 PDA.

The whole list is pretty hilarious—I encourage you to pop over and read more. [Time.com]

I apologize for the crappy quality of some of the images—I had to go grab promo shots found out on the web. For some reason, Time didn't preserve our gorgeous photoshoot online. Guess they thought the internet was just a fad.

Step one: bring your iMac to a Panera Bread. Step two: play WoW on it. Step three: be old. Step four: win the unconditional respect of the entire internet, forever. UPDATE: This appears to be a habit.

[Reddit]

Most of us already know that it's NOT socially acceptable to talk during a movie. But to those of us who weren't born in a barn, these rude movie-goers are still a constant burden. It's time to fight back, dirty.

With Avatar in theaters, the stakes are simply too high to risk losing a film to some pudgy fat boy film school drop out who is convinced his personal commentary is just as important as the countless hours of work that have gone into the filmmaking process.

The following are a list of rules and responses that I feel, as a society, we need to deem socially acceptable to assimilate into our communal fabric.

6-Inch Voices, Or Group Humiliation
I know I'm coming off rude already. The occasional quiet comment to the person beside you, that's totally fine by me. But If I can hear you from over two seats away, chances are, you need to shut the fuck up (throughout life, possibly, but definitely in the theater). If a person makes loud comments that a single "shhh" doesn't thwart, everyone around them should stand, point and loudly ask them to leave (with liberal use of expletives). It'll be a painful, distracting experience, but chances are, it won't be needed again.

Really, It's OK To Tell People to Shut Up
I know I just made this point, but I want to make it abundantly clear: telling talkers to shut up is OK. You are doing all of the shy, weak and first daters who want to enjoy a movie but not lose out on a potential post-film grope a huge favor. Let's just make an oath, right now, to support one another against the talkers, be they intimidatingly muscley or not. Let's acknowledge a silent brotherhood, poised to attack at the slightest breach of conduct.

If You Pull Out a Cellphone During a Movie, You Relinquish All Rights to It
I don't care if you have it's on vibrate or turned to silent. Any cellphone pulled from a pocket during a movie—most probably a Sidekick—that's glowing in the corner of the entire audience's eye is now communal property. It can and should be yanked from the offender's hand and chucked across the room to break against the nearest hard surface. The offender's head is one such potential surface.

Bathroom Exits, OK, Refills, Not OK
We've all overestimated the endurance of our bladders. And as you grow older, you realize that uncontrollable bodily functions are something we all just need to be adults about. If someone walks out during a pivotal scene because they NEED to go, well, that's alright. But if they take their empty popcorn bucket with them, proceed with skepticism. Do they look like they needed to use the bathroom while they were up? No? Then tripping them on the way back is totally Kosher.

Honor Those Who Watch Credits
In the theater, credits are part of the film. It's your option to watch them, but should you elect not to, do not disturb those around you who enjoy finishing a film by celebrating all those who made it possible. That means, no standing in front of someone seated to finish the credits (a quick, polite pass is OK). And maybe save that thing you NEED to say for the hallway or the parking lot, rather than voice it right as the film fades to black. Offenses in this realm will not elicit punishment, but you may be deemed "tacky."

Oh, But None Of This Applies to Kids Movies on a Tuesday Afternoon
Once again, I'm not an evil or malicious person (by nature). If you're watching some Shrek sequel, especially during a matinee, pretty much anything goes—for children. Adults who are offending any of the above rules in ways not directly resulting from or related to a child's actions are fair game for fair punishment.

And if you have any points or suggestions that I may have missed, please, please, please list them in the comments. Two people can easily drop $40 and and a free evening to see a movie. And the first time you watch something truly special can never be rekindled.

Let's band together and see to it that movie talkers STFU for good.

Scribd, the YouTube for print, is working on a new way to get e-books onto your Kindle without buying them from Amazon.

Right now, to get one of the tens of millions of Scribd documents has — books, papers, and other content — off the web and into a Kindle, a user has to email the document to his or her Kindle email address.

Trip Adler, the company's CEO and founder tells us it will be a "seamless" experience next year.

Trip couldn't tell us if his plan was part of an official Scribd-Amazon partnership or not. He just said, "I can tell you that we talk to Amazon a lot."

Will Scribd-To-Kindle be a threat to Amazon?

For now, Scribd's store is no threat to Amazon. It's a smaller selection more heavily favoring obscure documents Amazon doesn't sell. Down the road, it represents a possible threat.

That's because Scribd is quietly developing a strong e-book storefront to match its hoard of user generated content.

This week Scribd announced that John Wiley and Sons would be selling books through Scribd's store.That gives Scribd access to the "For Dummies" series, as well as "Frommer's" travel guides. It already had Simon and Schuster on board, along with other prominent publishers.

If Scribd can put its books on the Kindle, this number should only grow, especially since it offers publishers a better business deal than Amazon.

Amazon reportedly offers a 50/50 sales split. Scribd only keeps 20% and allows publishers to set their own price.

Is this a Hail Mary for Scribd?

No. Regardless of what happens, Scribd will keep chugging along. It plans on rolling out mobile applications next year for the iPhone and Android.

Adler declined to give us a revenue number, but he said the company was profitable in the second quarter this year, but decided to hire more employees to focus on growth. It has about 40 employees.

Our back of the envelop calculations put revenue in the range of $7 to $10 million. Adler says revenue is growing 10-12% month over month.

image: Flickr/Jamesjyu

A new study shows the top 100 search terms kids used in 2009, and whoo boy are we all in trouble.

"Youtube" is the winner across all age groups, with Facebook and Google rounding out the top three. In the four hole, the teens and the tweens are both searching for "sex," which is just good life practice. But kids seven and under apparently prefer to skip the formalities and search for straight-up porn. That's more than Club Penguin, more than the Cartoon Network, and way more than Hannah Montana.

So three thoughts from this.

One: Hey, kids, stop searching for Google. It doesn't make any sense.

Two: I believe the children are our future.

Three: Our future is doomed. [Symantec via CNET]

Are planes your last refuge from this horrible, awful internet? Or are they terrifying airborne isolation chambers, which pose a dire threat to your carefully regimented Tweeting schedule? Either way, don't buy a ticket without consulting this chart. [Jaunted]

I don't know what the bloody hell is going on with Great Britain and their stolen government laptops—sixty-six so far this year, 658 in four years—but it's getting absurdly ridiculous. The last case, however, is really serious:

This has the potential to become one of the most serious security breaches at the Ministry for a very long time. An investigation by [the Ministry of Defense] police is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment further.

The laptop —which belonged to a RAF officer—was stolen right at the Ministry of Defense's headquarters, along with a USB encryption key that would unlock all the files in the computer. Apparently, this is so serious that there is a huge search going on in London right now, with the police, the military, the secret service, Sean Connery, the manufacturers of Marmite, the Queen, most of the personnel at the Ministry of Silly Walks, and Jones the Dog hunting for it. [Defense Tech]

They're chopsticks. They're a spoon. They're a massive mess waiting to happen. Spoon Chopsticks! Yeah! [Yanko via DVICE]