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  • Sheriff Says Charges Will Be Filed in Balloon Saga

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    What goes up must come down (balloons, hopes, dreams) >>>

    Jim Alderden, the Larimer County sheriff, did not say what the charges would be, but he did say the parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, are not under arrest.


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  • Samuel L. Jackson Rides Google Wave [Funny Video]

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    Best use of Google Wave this week: Pulp Fiction mashup. Samuel L. Jackson gets extra credit for his collaborative team-building skills >>>

    Still looking for a use case for Google Wave (or an invite for that matter?). Look no further than this brilliant mashup combining Samuel L. Jackson quotes with a demonstration of Google Wave functionality, including chat, wikis, and embedded videos, games, and maps.

    The video appears to have been created by Joe Sabia of Whirled Interactive. Be forewarned, it uses lots of adult language, so should be viewed with headphones on if you’re at the office. But, you probably could’ve already guessed that.

    [via Wired UK]

    Tags: Google Wave, videos

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  • The Transit Holy Grail: One Bus Away

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    More coverage of OneBusAway.org, the free bus-location service that has radically increased my ridership habits (along with my trusty OrcaCard) >>>

    onebusaway.jpg One of the hardest things about being a regular public transit commuter is the constant sense of helplessness. Sure, you're supporting your community. Occasionally you're involuntarily providing a destitute, possibly drunk man a shoulder to sleep on, you're saving money on gas, and you're helping the environment! But sometimes...you just want to know where your goddamned bus is.

    Brian Ferris, a grad student in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington apparently knows that feeling well. Some time ago he put together onebusaway.org, a site that uses and improves upon real-time bus arrival information provided by MyBus for all King Count Metro routes. The site offers an almost absurd number of possible channels by which to access this information; a phone number to call, a Google Maps mashup website, SMS interface, an iPhone optimized webpage, a text only page for older phones, and now the native iPhone App.

    While all are helpful, the iPhone app seems the most accessible. The default screen is a location-based map with nearby stops highlighted, which can be crucial when you're in a hurry and on the verge of powerwalking. Bookmark your frequently used stops and find out how many minutes you have with 2 taps.

    We certainly commend Seattle Metro for having their own iPhone App. It's a good effort and a step in the right direction, but One Bus Away is better for a number of reasons. For one, their data attempts to incorporate "info for every bus stop, not just a few timepoints". Their search is more robust with options for route, address and stop number, vs. Metro's route and more complicated intersection/location search. More importantly, its simply been more accurate. Also, it's app icon is much cuter.

    Created by a fellow frustrated bus rider, the app is just a portion of a commendable undertaking to improve a lot of people's commutes. They're not joking around about feedback and want to hear from you how to improve the service. And thanks to Nokia Research and a grant from the National Science Foundation, it's free.

    Download now.

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  • Invest in Collaborative Tools, Get More Than Double Return, Study Says

    Last week, I reported on the surprisingly low numbers of American information workers using collaborative technology (just one in four uses IM at work, for example). Another study, released today, shows why businesses should be adopting these tools: Businesses that invest in advanced collaborative technology perform better, and they net a good rate of return on their investment.

    The Frost & Sullivan report, “Meetings Around the World II: Charting the Course of Advanced Collaboration,” sponsored by Verizon and Cisco, surveyed 3,662 decision-makers in organizations in 10 countries. It found that 44 percent of organizations had deployed collaborative tools (VoIP, document sharing, videoconferencing and IM). The study found that as businesses invest more in these technologies, their return gets proportionally greater.

    return on collaborative investment

    While the study shows that companies investing in top-of-the-range telepresence and telephony systems get the most return, even organizations deploying just basic collaborative tools (like IM and web conferencing) reap a return on collaborative investment of over two times. The study suggests this is because teams using collaborative tools can benefit from a network effect — the more users on a network, the more value is realized from it.

    The study revealed some other interesting findings:

    • Collaboration technologies can help reduce stress. More than half of respondents say collaboration tools allow for greater balance between work and personal life and help them gain more control over their busy lives.
    • Confidence in virtual meeting is growing. More than half think conferencing tools are a good alternative to visiting business contacts face-to-face.
    • Telecommuting is becoming more popular. Almost half (47 percent) of respondents report having a formal telecommuting policy in place. However, less than a third (27 percent) telecommute at least once a week, and 22 percent telecommute on a daily basis. This tallies with the numbers in a Forrester study, which reported that one-third of workers telecommuted at least some of the time.
    • The environment is top of mind. More than half (53 percent) say reducing an organization’s carbon footprint and other environmental concerns are important factors in determining collaborative technology requirements.

    This report shows why businesses need to move with the times, start taking advantage of the technology and tools that are available, and improve on those numbers that I reported on last week. The good news is that more than 80 percent of organizations surveyed that have not adopted collaborative tools plan to deploy some form of them in the next two to three years.

    Does your experience tally with these figures — has investing more in collaborative tools had a positive impact on your business?



    As Q4 begins, online video is now mainstream. Read the, "Connected Consumer Q3 Wrap-up."

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  • Judgment Day: Birther Taitz Fined $20,000 For Misconduct

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    A better read than the coverage of the Judge's fining Orly Taitz $20,000 is the 43-page order he wrote doing so: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20996403/Gov-uscourts-gamd-77605-28-0

    Finally fed up with Orly Taitz's repeated frivolous and conspiracy-ridden filings in a Birther lawsuit, the judge in the case has fined the crusading attorney $20,000.

    Opening with a quote from Justice Cardozo on the privilege of bar membership, Judge Clay Land of the U.S. District Court in the Middle District Of Georgia goes on for some length -- the order is 43 pages -- explaining his reasoning:

    When a lawyer files complaints and motions without a reasonable basis for believing that they are supported by existing law or a modification or extension of existing law, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer uses the courts as a platform for a political agenda disconnected from any legitimate legal cause of action, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer personally attacks opposing parties and disrespects the integrity of the judiciary, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer recklessly accuses a judge of violating the Judicial Code of Conduct with no supporting evidence beyond her dissatisfaction with the judge's rulings, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law, that lawyer ceases to advance her cause or the ends of justice.

    Land continues:

    Regrettably, the conduct of counsel Orly Taitz has crossed these lines, and Ms. Taitz must be sanctioned for her misconduct. After a full review of the sanctionable conduct, counsel's conduct leading up to that conduct, and counsel's response to the Court's show cause order, the Court finds that a monetary penalty of $20,000.00 shall be imposed upon counsel Orly Taitz as punishment for her misconduct, as a deterrent to prevent future misconduct, and to protect the integrity of the Court. Payment shall be made to the United States, through the Middle District of Georgia Clerk's Office, within thirty days of today's Order. If counsel fails to pay the sanction due, the U.S. Attorney will be authorized to commence collection proceedings.

    [Late Update: Taitz tells TPMmuckraker: I have no plans to pay the fine.]

    Our full coverage of Taitz suit, which began as an attempt by an Army captain to defy an order on the grounds that Barack Obama is not legitimately president, is here.

    And here, as first posted by the Washington Independent, is Land's full order. He builds on and expands the fine work in his 14-page order last month that denounced not only Taitz, but her misguided movement:

    Taitz Fined $20,000

    Late Late Update: Commenter Nim notices that the judge on pg. 42 ordered a copy of the order to be sent to the California state bar, where Taitz is a member, and, in fact, already has problems.


  • HTC's First Born Official Windows Mobile 6.5 Upgrade

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    ROM Hackers of World Unite. WinMo 6.5 Updates Online Now >>>

    HTC has just released the first official Windows Mobile 6.5 Upgrade for the HTC Touch Pro2, initially a Windows Mobile 6.1 device with promissed upgrade.

    The update is a ROM update that will clear all data on your device and replace the current Operating System with the new one. Not much info on that, except for the fact that is is ROM version 1.86.401.0.

    Download from the official HTC website, run the application and follow the instructions carefully!

    Note: Make sure to backup contacts, emails, messages, call history.

    Hint: use PIM Backup for all the above.

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  • Google Wave And The Dawn Of Passive-Aggressive Communication

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    TECHCRUNCH: Point of view on the meaning of Google's Wave & How We Communicate >>>

    3424729981_b0be0eb101We’re now a little over a week into the extended roll-out of the preview build of Google Wave. This is an important time for the service because many people can now finally start using it as they eventually may — which is to say, with their friends and colleagues. Of course, the backlash is also already in full-swing, as expected. But I can’t help but wonder if this backlash and the hype that it is a byproduct of, is blinding some to the larger picture. Google Wave is not just a service, it is perhaps the most complete example yet of a desire to shift the way we communicate once again.

    The Wall Street Journal has a long article about this today, noting “The End of the Email Era.” But most of that article is spent focusing on how Twitter and Facebook, which is to say, status updates and the streams, are replacing our need for much of what email has provided in the past. Only very briefly do they mention Wave. And I think that overlooks something.

    For many of us, email is simply not cutting it the way that it used to. It’s a sedentary beast in a fast-moving web. It uses old principles for management, and this is leading to overload. I think the key statement in the WSJ is this:

    We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone.

    That’s absolutely true. But that also implies that we want some sort of always-on communication connection. I don’t think that’s the case. I think we want the option to communicate in real-time at will, but also the ability to communicate at our leisure at times. I would consider this to be a desire for a “passive-agressive” method of communication. Perhaps it would be better stated as a “passive/active” method of communication, but passive-aggressive sounds better, so we’ll go with that.

    I would consider email to be a passive form of communication. I don’t mean that you don’t respond to it, I mean that you don’t have to respond to it right away. Instant messaging is at the other end of the spectrum. If used correctly, it’s supposed to be an “aggressive” or “active” form of communication in which you respond immediately. Twitter is very passive because the use of it is such that people don’t even necessarily expect a response of any kind, even if they point a message at you. Facebook is a mixture of all of those things (more on that below).

    Google Wave is attempting to be a passive-agressive form of communication. You can actively (aggressively) engage in threads in real-time, or you can sit back and let messages come to you at your leisure (passively). Having used the product for a few months now, and after using it quite a bit more actively with my friends these past few days, I really think that Wave is onto something with this method of communication. I would argue that Google Wave’s new message alert system needs to be somewhat reworked or re-imagined, but I do think the desire to blend passive and agressive methods of communicating is there.

    Screen shot 2009-10-12 at 1.54.03 AMWe’ve been slowly building up to a system like this. Gmail has for a while offered users a nice blend of email and instant messaging on the same page. And while it is nice that there is also the option to archive all your chats for searching purposes later, there is no good way to say, see that you missed an IM if you have a computer with Gmail open at home while you’re away and checking it remotely. You also can’t check these easily via IMAP on your phone, and the like.

    And while there is the option to reply to emails by chat if that person is online, there’s no real integration between the email message and the IM message, they exist as two totally separate things. It seems like we’re at the point now where that shouldn’t have be the case.

    Others, like Yahoo Mail, are now trying to tack-on status updates and the stream to email services too. The result is a Frankenstein-like service.

    Facebook is another interesting example in that, as I mentioned, it combines all of these elements: Email, IM, status updates, and a stream. But the connection between all of these things in that system is loose at best. From a unified communications standpoint, Facebook is really kind of a mess. There are whispers of changes, and I hope that’s true, but I’m not holding my breath for a service with 300 million users to do something new and drastic that will alienate a certain (probably large) percentage of its base.

    That’s why Wave is interesting. It’s backed by a huge company, Google, but it’s not trying to shove this upon all of its Gmail users. Instead, they’re going to slowly roll this out and see how users end up using it. And maybe more importantly, they want to see how developers start using it.

    And that’s really a key that a lot of early users are overlooking. Right now, when people hear “Google Wave,” everyone seems to want to place emphasis on the “Google” part of it. But the truth is that the grand goal of the team behind the project is to emphasize “Wave” as both a platform and a new communication standard.

    Whether Google Wave succeeds is really irrelevant. More important is if the idea of Wave does. Again, the idea of passive-aggressive communication.

    Wave, the Google web-based client, will only ever appeal to a certain number of users. Does anyone really think that Twitter would be where it is today if they only had twitter.com? No. Wave desktop apps, and mobile apps, internal company Waves, and public Waves; it’s the platform, not the product, that’s interesting. Or, more to the point, it’s the key communication idea behind it.

    [photo: flickr/matheus sanchez]

    Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.




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