Stephen King Novella The Colorado Kid to Become TV Series Called Haven

The same production team that brought The Dead Zone to television screens is teaming up with Stephen King once more. This time, showrunner Scott Shepherd and executive producers Lloyd Segan and Shawn Piller will adapt King’s novella The Colorado Kid for E1 Entertainment, the studio behind Hung. The product will be Haven, an hour-long episodic series taking place in “a spooky town in Maine where cursed folk live normal lives in exile.”
The Colorado Kid is notable in King’s recent Source: SlashFilm RSS Feed

Twitter an Easy Target for Scammers, Security Experts Say

Twitter scam stories are pretty easy to ignore these days; after all, they've become commonplace. Unsurprisingly, security experts say this trend isn't going away anytime soon, especially with the holidays just around the corner. According to USA Today, attacks that targeted trending topics and scams that were spread via direct messages swamped the site last week.
The scams continue to plague the micro-blogging site because it's simple to create a fairly anonymous account, tweetsSource: Switched RSS Feed

Welcome to our Think2010 Series

In a mere few days, the 4th quarter will be upon us. Seems like just yesterday we were running our Do More with Less series to arm you with tools and tactics to show the 2009 recession who's boss.
As we start wrapping up 2009 and start thinking about what 2010 might hold, we're feeling optimistic. We're hoping we can transition from being your partner through the recession to being your partner through a recovery. That's why we're launching the Think2010: Getting Ahead of theSource: Inside AdWords RSS Feed

Retro Logos From the Early Days of Computing

Last week, we showed you the biggest exhibitions we saw at the Vintage Computer Festival East 2009. Still, we also became mildly obsessed with all the logos we saw on those retro PCs. So, we asked our photographer, Matthew McMullen Smith, to shoot some close-ups of as many retro logos (and vintage fonts) as he could find on the various restored computers that were on display.
If you're a retro PC or design enthusiast, or are just feeling nostalgic, then take a look at theseSource: Switched RSS Feed

Swag Saturday: Guitar Hero triple pack and bass pedal

It's time for Swag Saturday once again, and this week's prize is a doozy. Up for grabs we have not one, not two, but three Guitar Hero games. We've got Xbox 360 copies of Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits and Guitar Hero 5, all for the low, low price of nothing (and all released this year, if you can believe it). And, as if that weren't enough, we're throwing in an extra bass pedal (with splitter cable) too. For your chance to rock with the best of them, follow these simpleSource: Xbox 360 Fanboy RSS Feed

Dirpy Converts YouTube Videos to Audio for Later Listening [YouTube]

Many YouTube videos are just as enjoyable as straight-up audio. If you’d like to grab a lecture or comedy routine for the road, Dirby can help.

Dirpy allows you to easily rip the audio from a YouTube video and convert it to MP3 audio you can throw on your player of choice. Not only can you rip the audio but you can specify what part of the audio you need. Only want the segment from 4:39 to 23:42? Not a problem with Dirpy.

In addition to simply ripping the audio, you can also Source: TechBlogger RSS Feed

TechRadar Choice: Top 11 graphics card bargains

This week saw the launch of the latest graphics card to bare the mantle 'fastest in the world'. Yep, the ATI Radeon HD 5870 is truly an astonishing card.

The problem is that it costs over £300. And at a time when spending £300 on anything at all is a big deal, let alone a monsterous GPU that no one really needs, it just seems a bit pointless.

Strange as it may now seem then, there was once a time not so long ago when the launch of a new high-end graphics chip was an event weSource: TechRadar RSS Feed

Glasses That Don’t Tipple

Downing those umpteen shots of Vodka or Tequila, you may tipple over my friend, but these Cordial Glasses won’t topple! Tipple-Topple; get it? Tip-less Cordial Glasses are clever coz they got an indent at their bottom that fit snugly into the bobs in their ceramic tray. Six glasses to a tray that won’t tip, but if you drop ‘em, they do go crash!

Designer: Scott Denison

Source: Yanko Design RSS Feed

Microsoft Pink photos leaked online

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Mobile

New photos of the Microsoft Pink phone were leaked and appeared online yesterday on the Gizmodo blog. The design appears similar to the Sidekick with a sliding faceplate covering a full QWERTY keypad. The Pink is expected to have Windows Mobile 7 installed, the new OS that has been yet to be released by Microsoft. Windows Mobile 7 has not been given an official release date and has experienced multiple delays.

The appearance of theSource: Gadgetell RSS Feed

iriver Story ebook reader presales start

iriver’s Story ebook reader has gone up for preorder, priced at the equivalent of around $281.  Set to begin shipping on October 6th, the Story has a 6-inch E-Ink display, QWERTY keyboard and an SD card slot; iriver supply a 2GB card with the device, along with a case and two free ebook downloads.

Up to 32GB memory cards are supported, which means there should be no shortage of space for your ebooks, while the battery is tipped for around 9,000 page turns.  While the preorder page Source: SlashGear RSS Feed

Average pone thickness now below 14mm; other interesting statistics from Strategy Analytics

Strategy Analytics has issued a report regarding the new phones introduced worldwide in July 2009, and there are some interesting statistics in it.

For example: the average thickness for the new phones has dropped below 14 millimeters.

There were 109 new cell phones announced across the globe in July, but detailed specifications are available for only 53 of them. Nine of the mentioned 53 phones have WVGA (800 x 480 pixels) displays, while six of them are AMOLED-equipped handsetsSource: Unwired View RSS Feed

ATI Radeon HD 5870 blazes onto the scene, receives approving nods

Watch out now -- the evergreen revolution has arrived, right on schedule and with the promised DirectX 11 and Eyefinity in tow. AMD's new flagship graphics part, formerly known under the Cypress codename, is built on a 40nm process, sports an appropriately inflated 850MHz engine clock speed, 1600 stream processors, 153.6GBps memory bandwidth, over two billion transistors, and the freshly minted HD 5870 moniker. There'll be a HD 5850 as well, which makes do with a 725MHz core clock, 1440Source: Engadget RSS Feed

Wednesday Whatzits: A Permian caldera find, the legends of Pele and a quieting Redoubt [Eruptions]

Some brief tidbits for your Wednesday:

The view of Mt. Saint Helens from the Johnston Ridge Observatory.

• There is a decent article about research being done at a dissected caldera system in the Italian Alps' Sesia Valley. The caldera in question is the Permian in age (248-298 million years old) so don't expect to find it in the GVP database, but the outcrops of this ancient caldera are especially well exposed, allowing for a cross section of volcano and plutonicSource: Thoughts from Kansas RSS Feed

The Daily Engadget: Microsoft's 'Courier' Tablet, Mac Portable Turns 20

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Our friends over at Engadget obsessively cover everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics, which is why we compile this daily roundup of their top stuff (or, at least, what we think is tops). For more details on any of these stories, click on the Engadget links in each story below.
Microsoft Courier: the Ultimate Tablet?
With touchscreens becoming all the more common in gadgets, we're expecting some game-changers to appear in theSource: Switched RSS Feed

Rumor: Leaked Sega Document Hints At PS3 Plans - Dreamcast Games For PSN And More

Somebody at Sega is probably going to get fired. A planning document from an August 5 meeting appeared on Sega's PR site early this morning detailing many of the company's plans for its games on PS3. A Neogaf user came across the document and posted the download link for all to see. The link has since been shut down. Thankfully, the entire document was also posted on the forum, so even without the download link we can still see what some of Sega's internal plans may be. I'll break down some Source: GayGamer.net RSS Feed

Barcode scanner in Processing

Reader [Nikolaus] decided that instead of using an existing image based bar code decoder, he would write his own. Using the Processing language he created a scanner that parsed the black and white pattern when a bar code was centered on the image. His code then parsed that data and compared it with the initializing character to provide a reference. Currently his scanner supports three character sets of the Code 128 encoding, and provided his complete code soSource: Hack A Day RSS Feed

Working cello made from LEGO

LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya built this awesome functional cello out of LEGO bricks.

Watching his build progress reminded me of how the 3d printing process looks. I hadn't really made the connection before, but if home printing really does become ubiquitous, will it obsolete our coveted LEGOs and erector sets? I can almost imagine some distant future where I explain to my grandchildren about these archaic pieces that we used to have to snap together in orderSource: MAKE: Blog RSS Feed

Interval Training Goes Uber Hi Tech with ITGO for the iPhone and iPod Touch

New iPhone Development company Appnoose Ltd UK has released ITGO, Interval Trainer GO, a dedicated interval signaling application for the iPhone and iPod Touch specifically designed to offer advanced user controlled signaling in the form of vibration, sound and visual alerts while playing user-defined fast/slow interval song playlists. I wanted to design an interval trainer that would provide the most beautiful training experience possible on the iPhone Everything about Apple and theSource: Extra Technology News RSS Feed

China Mobile Now Serving Half a Billion Customers

China Mobile has become the first wireless carrier in the world to cross the 500 million subscriber-mark. The company has added 45.7 million new subscribers so far in 2009, and now has 502.9 million subscribers. (Photo by Oskay via Flickr.)

Source: GigaOM RSS Feed

Corvette ZHZ Survives Crash Week... For Now [Crash Week]

Remember that ridiculous Corvette ZHZ crash from Friday? A tipster from Salt Lake City spotted it still cruising around, waiting to once again be featured on Crash Week. Full report below.

I work at a ski resort in Salt Lake City, UT called
Snowbird. Yesterday on my way in the door I couldn't help but notice a
black and yellow Corvette in the valet lot. Remarkably it was also
missing a chunk in the fender behind the passenger headlight. As I
thought about it, ISource: Jalopnik RSS Feed

Wall Street Journal to start charging for iPhone content

Charges are going to be introduced for those who access the Wall
Street Journal’s website via the iPhone.

The charges will be introduced
within a few months and will cost $1 a week for people with an existing
subscription and $2 for others.

Around 300 thousand people have
downloaded the Wall street journal application and they have over
million paid subscribers to their website. So if the Wall Street
JournalSource: iPhone News Updated RSS Feed

RemainInPlay Offers 20 Years of Free Retro Games [Downloads]

If you’re hankering for some nostalgic video game action this weekend, you’re in luck. Check out this selection, spanning the last 20 years or so, of commercial games released as freeware.

There are a variety of web sites that catalog old games—the MakeUseOf link catalogs a number of them—but RemainInPlay takes a unique angle. Rather than include any free games from past, they only archive games that were once commercial products and released again asSource: TechBlogger RSS Feed

Xbox Weekend Warrior: Of getting out with the old, taking in with the new and pre-mature arrivals

It's been a hectic week for Microsoft, what with the big game Halo 3: ODST coming out to the market pre-maturely than they would have wanted. They also had one of their top execs, Shane Kim, move out, and in his stead were two Xbox execs.
No time to wallow indeed, especially when you have new hardware coming out, like the new Zune HD. It's not just a music/ video player, it's also a gaming gadget. Microsoft's sure upping the attacks on the competition -- let's see how they Source: QJ.NET RSS Feed

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is pirate-talkin'

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, everyone! We hope you've celebrated appropriately -- by discussing the benefits of IP blocking software and remote relay points for worry-free torrent distribution. Just kidding! Piracy is illegal. If you do it, your mom will get brutalized by a SWAT team, you'll be attacked by push broom-wielding inmates, and Klingons will make disparaging comments about your illicit behavior. Trust us on this one.
Below are our seven favorite (piracy-free) webcomics fromSource: Houstonist RSS Feed

Why I Don’t Trust the Cloud

“Cloud computing” has easily replaced “Web 2.0” as the current trendy buzzword. The state of California is even turning to it for government systems. I have to say, however, that I have serious reservations about heavily implementing cloud computing in my own work flow. I believe that cloud computing is the killer app of the future, but the future isn’t quite here yet.

Don’t get me wrong. I do make limited use of cloud computing applications, especially Gmail. ButSource: Web Worker Daily RSS Feed

People Unclear on the Concept IV

I get email.

This time, it was from VoiceAmerica and LOGO, asking if I’d like to come to a conference they are sponsoring called "Celebrate Your Life!" which will be held in Phoenix in November. If you attend this conference, what can you do? Well, they provide a helpful summary:

Immerse yourself in a weekend for your mind, body and spirit. Attend powerful life-changing workshops with the country’s top authors and teachers, be guided into a pathway ofSource: Bad Astronomy Blog RSS Feed

Superconducting Radiofrequency Cavity Advance for Accelerators and Other Purposes

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility marked a step forward in the field of advanced particle accelerator technology with the successful test of the first U.S.-built superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) niobium cavity to meet the exacting specifications of the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC).
Superconducting radiofrequency accelerator cavities are crucial components of particle accelerators or colliders, harnessing theSource: advanced nanotechnology RSS Feed

VW L1 Is Fun To Watch People Get Out Of [Frankfurt Motor Show]

The VW L1 is 3/4 of the way towards VW's goal of a 200 MPG production car. None of these creepy European journalists care. They just want to watch her get out of it.

The little VW seats riders in a tandem and uses lightweight material to achieve an 1,100-lb weight. Powered by a two-cylinder turbodiesel connected to a hybrid drive system, the L1 returns 158 MPG and does so in a sexy, rolling-suppository style. VW says it wants to produce something like this some day. DareSource: Jalopnik RSS Feed

iMainGo2 iPod Speaker Case Review

I am not a fan of headphones for most purposes, but I love small, portable speakers so I was happy to test out the iMainGo2 speaker/case from Portable Sound Laboratories, Inc. It was not long before I was a huge fan! … [visit site to ]

Filed in categories: Audio / Video Gear, iPhone related

Tagged: Speaker

iMainGo2 iPod Speaker Case Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 17, 2009 at 8:58 am.

Source: TechBlogger RSS Feed

Why You Can’t Get a Good Phone With Verizon

Why does the U.S. carrier known for the best network have the worst smartphones?

Verizon gets plaudits for its coverage and call quality, but consistently loses out to AT&T, T-Mobile and even Sprint when it comes to getting the newest high-end handsets.

“They lack the star products that their competitors have,” says Avi Greengart, research director, consumer devices for Current Analysis. “They recognize they don’t have compellingSource: Wired RSS Feed

Adobe Gets Into Web Analytics: Buys Omniture for $1.8 Billion

“This is a game changer for Adobe and its customers,” said Shantanu Narayen, chief executive of Adobe, in a statement. “We will enable advertisers, media companies and e-tailers to realize the full value of their digital assets.” Saying so he announced that Adobe will buy out web analytics firm Omniture for what a lot of analysts feel a high $1.8 billion.

The release which went out on Omniture’s site said, The combination of the two companies will increase the valueSource: WATblog RSS Feed

Philips’ Bluetooth Notebook Mouse–Elevating the Humble Pointer

Normally you think of a mouse as precious little more than a device used to point at things, but now, Philips is looking to expand the humble mouse’s role with the Bluetooth Notebook Mouse.

Granted, the name isn’t exactly inspiriting but there’s loads of time to fix that.  Anyway, the big question is how does it work.  In this case, by the sounds of it, pretty well.  It can alternate between being a normal corded mouse and a cordless mouse, with the cordSource: Gadget Review RSS Feed

Apple Tablet coming in February 2010

More rumoured new of the Apple Tablet today folks, this time the Taiwan Economic News reports that the Apple Tablet is a reality and is said to sport a 9.6 inch touch screen, aP.A SEMIprocessor, HSPDA, a “longer lasting battery”, and command a price tag of somewhere between $800 and $1000.

Apparently the same guys who make the iPhone screen, Wintek will be producing the display for the Apple Tablet and the “longer lasting battery” will be manufactured by Source: Cheap Laptops RSS Feed

Review: Wet

You have to love a game that works solely on the strength of its convictions. Deep down in the very core of its rockabilly heart, Wet knows that shooting dudes while you slow-mo dive and slide is fun. Fun enough to build an entire game around without too much ancillary garbage? Yes. A thousands times yes.
Sure, Artificial Mind and Movement has sexed it up with a gritty grindhouse feel and some outstanding music, but Wet is a game that never forgets on which side its bread is buttered. Source: PS3 Fanboy RSS Feed

InXpo raises $9M for virtual events business expansion

InXpo said today it has raised $9 million in a first round of funding to expand its virtual events business.

The Chicago-based company lets companies stage events on the web with voice chat, multimedia and other effects that create an atmosphere of being at a live event.

This kind of recession-friendly event costs less to stage on the web than a physical trade show, since it eliminates travel and booth-related costs. Since the financial collapse a year ago, theSource: VentureBeat RSS Feed

Google lays the foundation for charging for content

Filed under: Google (GOOG)

In Chris Anderson's new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price , he makes a compelling argument for why many products and services should be free (or, will inevitably become free). Of course, the driving force of this trend is Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), which has figured out how to generate billions from free offerings.

So, this is why it's puzzling that Google is thinking about building technologies to allow for the purchase of content. What'sSource: Blogging Stocks RSS Feed

Blog Followups: Weird books, steampunk snails [bioephemera]

Those of you who visited Abebooks' weird book room have had an impact - check out this story in the Guardian.

Also, I was thrilled to see photos of the Snail Art Car, the "Golden Mean," at Burning Man this week - here's why. Glad to have contributed even a tiny bit of inspiration to what turned out to be a whimsical steampunk triumph for Kyrsten, Jon and their team.

Damn, I really want to go to Burning Man. . .

Read the comments onSource: Thoughts from Kansas RSS Feed

Motorola Cliq releasing in October?

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones

This past week Motorola announced it’s new Cliq, its first Android phone, and yet another great use of the open platform. It seems to be following in the footsteps of the HTC Hero, being an Android phone that does something new and interesting with a platform that allows for just about anything. When Motorola announced the phone it was said that it would be coming to T-Mobile, there was no word on when the phone would beSource: Gadgetell RSS Feed

Synergy/DE ls class gets set

In a continuing project, I needed a Set data structure. Sets are similar to lists, but with the additional constraint that they do not contain duplicated elements. I considered creating a new Set class that would impose that constraint, but decided instead to follow the guiding principle of empowering users rather than protecting them from themselves. Thus, I added a few methods to the ls class to support set-like behavior, while not preventing you from doing decidedly anti-setlike things

Will Copying Each Other Help Social Networks Win? [GigaOM]

Social networks have been copying from one another for years, but the updates that Facebook, Twitter and Ning announced yesterday took such mimicry to new heights. At this point, however, dominance of the space ultimately depends on user base size. And from that perspective, Facebook, with its more than 220 million registered users, has already taken the crown.

In the meantime, here’s a rundown of the updates each site released:
Facebook — The social network now lets