Wired: Top Stories

Firefox Adds Experimental Gesture Support for New MacBooks

Mozilla is offering a sneak peek at the future of web browsing by releasing an experimental build of its Firefox browser, which contains unique swipe-to-browse gesture features that work exclusively on the new MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops.

23.10.2008 21:15:00 - Wired: Top Stories

Supersonic Jet Car Targets 1,000 MPH

The British team that broke the sound barrier on four wheels is back, eager to continue Britain's tradition for building the fastest cars on the planet.

23.10.2008 20:09:00 - Wired: Top Stories

Exclusive: Russian Coder Says He Hacked Georgia Sites in Cyberwar

Government and independent investigators are still trying to figure out who, exactly, hit Georgia's websites during its August war with Russia. Now, one of the hackers who claims to be behind some of the cyber attacks is telling all.

23.10.2008 20:07:00 - Wired: Top Stories

Evidence in MySpace's Code Suggests OpenID Support Coming Soon

Social networking site MySpace is getting ready to roll out support for OpenID, as hinted by some OpenID-specific links popping up in the code of members' profile pages. If MySpace begins offering OpenID to its 120 million users, it would be a huge boost for the fledgling standard.

23.10.2008 19:45:00 - Wired: Top Stories

Scott Brown on Facebook Friendonomics

Thanks to Facebook, I never lose touch with anyone. And that, my Friend, is a problem.

Hey, want to be my friend? It's more than possible; it's probable. Hell, we may already be friends—I haven't checked my email in a few minutes. And once we are, we will be, as they say, 4-eva. A perusal of my Facebook Friend roster reveals that I, a medium-social individual of only middling lifetime popularity, have never lost a friend. They're all there: elementary school friends, high school friends, college friends, work friends, friends of friends, friends of ex-girlfriends—the constellation of familiar faces crowds my Friendbox like medals on Mussolini's chest. I'm Friend-rich—at least onscreen. I've never lost touch with anyone, it seems. What I've lost is the right to lose touch. This says less about my innate lovability, I think, than about the current inflated state of Friendonomics.

Think of it as the Long Tail of Friendship—in the age of queue-able social priorities, Twitter-able status updates, and amaranthine cloud memory, keeping friends requires almost no effort at all. We have achieved Infinite Friendspace, which means we need never drift from old pals nor feel the poignant tug of passive friend-loss. It also means that even the flimsiest of attachments—the chance convention buddy, the cube-mate from the '90s, the bar-napkin hookup—will be preserved, in perpetuity, under the flattering, flattening banner of "Friend." (Sure, you can rank and categorize them to your heart's content, but who'd be callous enough to actually categorize a hookup under "Hookup"?)

It has been argued that this Infinite Friendspace is an unalloyed good. But while this plays nicely into our sentimental ideal of lifelong friendship, it's having at least three catastrophic effects. First, it encourages hoarding. We squirrel away Friends the way our grandparents used to save nickels—obsessively, desperately, as if we'll run out of them some day. (Of course, they lived through the Depression. And we lived through—what, exactly? Middle school? 90210? The Electric Slide?) Humans are natural pack rats, and given the chance we'll stockpile anything of nominal value. Friends are the currency of the socially networked world; therefore, it follows that more equals better. But the more Friends you have, the less they're worth—and, more to the point, the less human they are. People become mere collectibles, like Garbage Pail Kids. And call me a buzz kill, but I don't want to be anyone's Potty Scotty.

Second, Friending has subsumed the ol' Rolodex. Granted, it's often convenient to have all of your contacts under one roof. But the great thing about the Rolodex was that it never talked back, it didn't throw virtual octopi or make you take movie quizzes, and it never, ever poked you. The Rolodex just sat there. It was all business.

Third, and most grave, we've lost our right to lose touch. "A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature," Emerson wrote, not bothering to add, "and like most things natural, friendship is biodegradable." We scrawl "Friends Forever" in yearbooks, but we quietly realize, with relief, that some bonds are meant to be shed, like snakeskin or a Showtime subscription. It's nature's way of allowing you to change, adapt, evolve, or devolve as you wish—and freeing you from the exhaustion of multifront friend maintenance. Fine, you can "Remove Friend," but what kind of asshole actually does that? Deletion is scary—and, we're told, unnecessary in the Petabyte Age. That's what made good old-fashioned losing touch so wonderful—friendships, like long-forgotten photos and mixtapes, would distort and slowly whistle into oblivion, quite naturally, nothing personal. It was sweet and sad and, though you'd rarely admit it, necessary.

And maybe that's the answer: A Facebook app we'll call the Fade Utility. Untended Friends would gradually display a sepia cast on the picture, a blurring of the neglected profile—perhaps a coffee stain might appear on it or an unrelated phone number or grocery list. The individual's status updates might fade and get smaller. The user may then choose to notice and reach out to the person in some meaningful way—no pokes! Or they might pretend not to notice. Without making a choice, they could simply let that person go. Would that really be so awful?

I realize that I may lose a few Friends by saying this. I invite them to remove me. Though I think they'll find it harder than they imagine. I've never lost a Friend, you see, and I'm starting to worry I never will.

Email scott_brown@wired.com.

23.10.2008 18:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

Should You Trust an Internet Radio Alarm Clock?

Alarm clocks evolved from bells and buzzers to the clock radio, and now to the internet radio. We found one that makes the our old model seem like a technological relic. Our only concern: Would a WiFi clock be reliable enough to wake us up for work each day?

23.10.2008 16:58:00 - Wired: Top Stories

Retooled Foods Trick Dieters Into Feeling Full

British scientists experiment with foods that fool the body into feeling like it's had a rich, satisfying meal. By helping folks trim their waistlines, the researchers feel they're adding one more tool to the fight against obesity.

23.10.2008 14:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

Oct. 23, 2001: Now Hear This ... The iPod Arrives

2001: Apple rolls out the iPod, eventually propelling the company to dominance in the digital-music field and changing the music industry forever.

Apple's Steve Jobs, who tends to overuse superlatives ("the best ever," "it’ll put a ding in the universe"), was not far off the mark with the iPod. Despite some conspicuous flaws — a wonky scroll wheel, no Windows compatibility, short battery life and a whopping $400 price tag — this innocuous-looking device was indeed a game-changer.

The iPod was not the first MP3 player, but its simple interface and internal hard drive (which evolved to flash memory in later models) set a new standard. Another advantage was integration with the easy-to-use iTunes software. Later, support for Apple's massive iTunes library provided iPod customers (Beatles fans excepted) with a vast trove of music to populate their players.

From conception to completion, it took Apple engineers and designers just under a year to come up with the original iPod player. It featured a 5 GB hard drive and was capable of playing music in several audio file formats.

Jobs announced the iPod to the world with his usual sly flourish: The iPod "puts a thousand songs in your pocket." That's exactly what it did, with more efficiency and elegance than any MP3 player that preceded it.

Still, the iPod was not an overnight success. Early sales were sluggish, and it wasn't until 2004 that the millionth iPod was sold. Things took off after the release of a version for Windows, followed by the rapid introduction of new models, such as the Mini, the Shuffle and the Nano.

Once it gained momentum, the iPod's dominance of digital music led to profound changes in the music industry, a cloistered fraternity notoriously resistant to change.

Mainly, the iPod allowed Apple to blow up the industry's CD-based business model, by making the downloading of singles both cheap and easy. Among other things, there was grumbling from music execs over the fact that people were able to rip their previously purchased CDs into their iTunes libraries without having to pay extra for the privilege.

As a result of this and the general advance of technology, the music industry is in the painful process of reinventing itself. Whatever emerges, iTunes, now easily the world's biggest music retailer, will have to be part of the equation.

Sales of the iPod peaked in early 2008, with more than 20 million of them clearing the shelves during Apple's first quarter. Not coincidentally, it was the most profitable quarter in company history.

Today, in all its variations, the iPod commands both the U.S. and foreign MP3 markets. It accounts for roughly three of every four digital music players sold in the United States.

This kind of dominance tends to be self-perpetuating, and Apple has capitalized accordingly, cutting deals with a slew of stereo manufacturers, carmakers and even airlines to make the iPod the music player of choice, thereby ensuring its continued place at the head of the table.

Source: Various

23.10.2008 06:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

Gallery: The Best in Dead and Dying iPod Killers

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If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the iPod must be blushing its scroll wheel off right now. After the debut of Cupertino's quintessential wonder-player in 2001, a torrent of upstarts started to flood the market. Some were legitimate iPod competitors. But most were no better than well-shined turds.

Here are a few of the best and worst contenders we've seen challenge the iThrone for ultimate MP3 supremacy over the years.

Show us your favorite portable music player.

Left:

The Toshiba Gigabeat

Yes, yes, yes, we know that Toshiba still makes the Gigabeat line, but solid hardware and a slick UI weren’t enough to prevent the Gigabeat S version from being smoked in sales by the third-gen iPod.

A flash-based player, the YP-Z5 had some cool things going for it: a user interface designed by a former iPod engineer, touch-sensitive controls and, uh, a lanyard hook. But a lack of FM radio, voice recorder and adjustable EQ ultimately doomed the player to Samsung’s junk heap.

Basically a repackaged Creative Nomad, the Dell Digital Jukebox was meant to take the iPod head-on. But it wasn't meant to be. Although the hardware was sound, Dell's online music store was AWOL leaving the Jukebox line to be discontinued in 2006.

Monochrome display. FM Tuner. Blue backlight. Are these the ingredients to an iPod killer? Uh, no. They're the ingredients to a substandard music player that also had a tendency to suck its single(!) AAA power source dry in a hurry.

Looking more bath toy than MP3 player, the Mixx was Iomega's idea for a "sporty" media device but was punctuated by pokey file transfers and an inability to sync with services like Napster or Rhapsody.

With a two-year run, the 10,000-song-holding Karma went toe-to-toe with the iPod longer than most other MP3 players. But here's the thing: The Karma must have been a sinner in a previous life; not only cursed with hideous looks, it also sucked down batteries and had crash-prone hard drives.

23.10.2008 06:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories