6:53 PM
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE66E0MK20100715
DARPA's leading advocate for crowdsourcing and other ways to attract new talent is leaving to become managing director for Microsoft Research Redmond. He was with DARPA only for 1 year and is the 3rd director of DARPA's 7 major offices to leave since Regina Dugan took over in June 2009:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/darpa-crowdsourcer-in-chief-bolts-for-microsoft
DARPA's artificial arm program is about to start human trials. The prosthetic arms are fully integrated by rewiring people's brains to be able to use the artificial arms:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/human-trials-ahead-for-darpas-mind-controlled-artificial-arm
Rhode Island acquired and trained special European police dogs that search prisons for pot, cocaine, heroin, and cell phones. Dogs may be a solution to the significant problem of inmates having cell phones and planning uprisings or witness intimidation from prison:
http://www.projo.com/news/content/PRISON_CELLS_07-12-10_B4IA8P9_v76.19147df.html
A record number of out-of-state and international students will be enrolling at University of California campuses this fall, with the 8% up from the 6% from last year. The nonresidents mainly want to go to Berkeley, UCLA, and UC-San Diego, with 22.6% of Berkeley's freshman class coming from out of state, twice the proportion from last year. Nonresidents pay $22k plus regular student fees, where the higher tuition they pay helps UC's budget situation. A UC commission has suggested raising the proportion of non-California residents to 10%, which is reasonable when compared to prestigious public universities in Colorado, Michigan, Virginia and elsewhere that gets more than 30% of their freshmen classes from out of state:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc-enroll-20100715,0,2160250.story
Microsoft will apparently allow people to buy computers with Windows 7 pre-installed and downgrade them to XP until late 2014. I actually like Windows 7, one Microsoft product I think was a good upgrade from their past products:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/windows/sorry-windows-xp-downgrades-wont-be-available-until-2020-406
HP has apparently decided to stop working on their Android tablet and their Windows Mobile 7 smartphones and they will focus ALL of their efforts on the webOS platform that they got when they bought Palm:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/rumor-mill-hp-backtracks-android-windows-phone-7-support/2010-07-15
Infoworld reviewed Windows Phone 7 and says that it will be a failure that is a waste of time and money. They say that it is so bad that no carrier or developer should bother with it and Microsoft should kill it before it ships this Christmas. They say that Windows Phone 7 is a pale imitation of the *2007-era iPhone*, and the iPhone, Android, and WebOS have advanced far beyond that era already:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/windows-phone-7-dont-bother-disaster-211
Article about how Verizon has continued to increase its share of the smartphone market (from 20% in 2008 to 26% in May) even without the iPhone. The article points out that Apple gets over $650 per iPhone sold ($450+ from AT&T) and Verizon only has to subsidize less than $300 for its Android, BlackBerry, and Palm phones. Not only does Verizon pay less than AT&T for each smatphone sold, Verizon splits the revenue from Android apps with Google, while AT&T doesn't get anything from the apps for the iPhone:
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/even-without-iphone-verizon-is-gaining-on-att/?pagemode=print
Motorola stock jumped today after a Morgan Stanley analyst raised his rating on the stock because he believes that Motorola can reach higher handset margins with Android. Also, he says that HTC's problems in getting Droid Incredibles to sell on Verizon will lead to increased Motorola X sales--he increased his estimate for Motorola to 4.2 million Android phones in Q3, up from 2.8 million phones just a few weeks ago (the estimate went from 2.8 million to 3.2 million to 3.5 million to 4.2 million!). I should have bought Motorola stock because I knew that the Droid X would do well...did I mention that I ordered mine today and will be receiving it tomorrow?
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/07/15/motorola-morgan-stanley-turns-bullish-upbeat-on-android/
Apple has called a surprise press conference for tomorrow to talk about the iPhone 4, so we will see their official response to their antenna reception problem:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66D5GO20100715
Apple's senior antenna expert told Steve Jobs in the *early* design phase last year of the iPhone 4 that their antenna design could lead to dropped calls! A carrier partner (I saw a report that said it was AT&T) also raised concerns about the antenna problem *before* the device hit the market. Unfortunately, it appears that Apple executives chose this metal antenna for the iPhone 4 because it yielded a lighter, thinner handset:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-15/apple-engineer-said-to-have-told-jobs-last-year-about-iphone-antenna-flaw.html
Interesting detailed article about the big scandal at the Price Is Right when a contestant got the exact value of the showcase showdown. It turns out that they used to offer the exact same items all the time and someone memorized the exact prices and would go to the taping of the shows over and over and yell out the correct values. Now, the Price Is Right changes brands and does things like adding floor mats to cars to make it harder for someone to get the exact price:
http://www.esquire.com/features/impossible/price-is-right-perfect-bid-0810
74-year-old woman in Boise, Idaho has been arrested for repeatedly dumping maple syrup, corn syrup, ketchup and mayonnaise into a library book drop:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/13/ap/strange/main6675041.shtml