Walid Ghazal’s Weblog

Into the wee hours of the morning on Oct. 18, News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace treated Silicon Valley’s elite to a very L.A.-style party at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Thumping deejay beats, swirling lights, barely clad blonde models, and an open bar greeted Bay Area bloggers, geeks, venture capitalists, and the wunderkinder running successful Web 2.0 startups.

The message was clear: MySpace is on the move northward. Beverly Hills-based MySpace, the world’s biggest social network, is opening a Silicon Valley office and plans to hire hundreds of Valley engineers, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe had said earlier at a conference. What’s more, Murdoch and DeWolfe said they’ll make it easier for software developers everywhere to create applications for MySpace, a move made to much acclaim by rival Facebook in May.

Those were among the few nuggets of news emanating from O’Reilly Media’s annual Web 2.0 Summit, which also featured Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said as little as possible about reports he’s lining up financing that could value his company at upwards of $10 billion (BusinessWeek.com, 10/17/07).

Network  GSM900
Introduced  1995
Status  Discontinued
Form factor  Flip
Antenna  External
SAR Value  1.3 W/Kg
 
Size  Weight  193 g (including battery)
Dimensions  130 x 49 x 24 mm
 
Display  Type  Alphanumeric
 - Fixed icons
 
Features  Vibration  No
SMS  Receive
Clock  Yes
Alarm  Yes
 
Standard Battery  Type  Ni-Mh
Amperage  915 mAh
Standby Time  25 hours
Talk Time  1 hours 50 minutes
 

 In NBA ‘08, players can use the all-new progression system to earn skill and experience rewards that can be used to thoroughly customize player appearance and play styles. With upgraded controls that utilize broader SIXAXIS wireless controller functionality, gamers can also engage in an all-new variety of offensive and defensive basketball moves.For the first time NBA ‘08 also introduces a comprehensive and in-depth audio commentary with top broadcast talent Kevin Calabro of the Sonics for play-by-play, and Mark Jackson for color analysis. The game also features a retro-looking user interface and an online system with player profiles and quick play options.

General Network GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900
Announced 2007, July
Status Available
Size Dimensions 109 x 44 x 14 mm, 70 cc 
Weight 83 g
Display Type TFT, 16M colors
Size 240 x 320 pixels, 2 inches
Ringtones Type Polyphonic (64 channels), MP3
Customization Download
Vibration  Yes
Memory Phonebook 1000 entries, Photocall
Call records 20 dialed, 20 received, 20 missed calls
Card slot microSD (TransFlash), buy memory
  - 30 MB internal user memory
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
HSCSD Yes
EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G No
WLAN No
Bluetooth Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, v2.0
Features Messaging SMS, MMS, Email
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML
Games Yes + downloadable, order now
Colors Black
Camera 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels, video (QCIF), flash
  - Java MIDP 2.0
- UPnP technology
- MP3/AAC/eAAC+/WMA player
- FM radio
- T9
- Calendar
- Calculator
- Built-in handsfree
- Voice memo
Battery   Standard battery, Li-Ion 700 mAh (BL-4B)
Stand-by Up to 240 h
Talk time Up to 2 h 50 min

Facebook Inc. will step up the policing of pornography, harassment and inappropriate behavior on its social networking site, settling a consumer fraud investigation by New York State Attorney General (AG) Andrew Cuomo.

Facebook users can now report complaints about pornography, harassment or inappropriate contact either by clicking on links on the Web site or by sending email to the abuse@facebook.com address. The company will respond to these complaints within 24 hours, and it will allow an independent examiner appointed with the approval of the New York AG, to monitor the company’s compliance for the next two years.

The social networking site has been in hot water with attorneys general throughout the U.S. over perceptions it is a haven for pornography and sexual predators. Late last month, the New York AG’s office subpoenaed Facebook documents and sent CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter detailing preliminary findings of an investigation into Facebook’s safety measures.

Investigators posing as minors on Facebook were repeatedly solicited by adult predators, and the site did a poor job of responding to complaints from investigators posing as minors or their parents, Cuomo’s office said.

Not all attorneys general were satisfied with the New York settlement. Late Tuesday Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said that more needed to be done.

His office issued a statement calling for Facebook to add age and identity verification for users 18 and older, filtering technology that would weed out inappropriate content, and a variety of other steps to protect minors.

“New York’s settlement with Facebook is a step forward, but giant strides are needed to make the site safer,” Blumenthal said in the statement. “We will explore all options — including possible legal action.”

A consumer watchdog group is considering a lawsuit against Apple, after the release of a Greenpeace report that alleges the company’s iPhone contains toxic chemicals, though some critics have labeled the study a publicity stunt.

According to the conservation group’s report, scientists at Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the U.K.’s University of Exeter who dismantled the phone and tested 18 of its components found brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Greenpeace claims BFRs can release toxic chemicals when recycled, and products with PVC have come under fire in the past few years for potentially leaking harmful chemicals.

The report acknowledged, however, that the levels of both substances found in the phone were in accordance with U.S. and European government regulations.

Future editions of the iPhone are unlikely to contain the substances in question after a May announcement by Apple that it would manufacture products without BFRs and PVC by the end of 2008.

Recycling just got more satisfying – check out the Ecopod, it’s ready to save the world, one tin can at a time.

Stylish gadgets don’t often save the world, but the Ecopod does!.

Call us presumptuous, and don’t take offence, but we’re betting your kitchen bin’s rubbish.

If it’s anything like the T3 team’s trashcan, it’ll be grubby, smelly and in all probability, not very eco-friendly. That’s why we’ve fallen in love with the Ecopod.

Designed by none other than BMW Designworks, the ecopod makes recycling fun and stylish. Just drop in a can or plastic bottle, stamp on the pedal and the crushed remains are kept for recycling inside.

Glass bottles, paper, plastic bags and other recyclable stuff can be kept in the top, just like a normal bin, but with separate compartments for easy and mess-free sorting.

On sale now, it’ll set you back around £160, but that’s better than using a sloppy old bin any day – and it’ll save the world too

Get streaming folks, Philips new kit rocks.

Philips has just brought us word of their new Streamium wireless centre, the not-so-snappily titled WACS3500D.

The all-new music box, spied at IFA, will store up to 80GB of your finest Phil Collins tracks, any Huey Lewis you happen to have knocking around and, well, every darn tune in your collection.

You can either stream this little lot to five different WiFi stations, or take music straight from your PC and stream them via the Streamium.

There’s an iPod dock too and as if that wasn’t enough to keep you aurally challenged until the next side of the decade, you’ll find DAB and Internet radio too.

It’s yours from this very month for 299 nicker. Or you can just add it to your Christmas list

Sony’s hub or Cray supercomputer? Physics has made its choice.

Now yet another use for the PS3.

So you can use your PlayStation 3 for playing games, watching high def movies. And now as part of your very own supercomputer according to the guys at Wired.

Dr. Gaurav Khanna, assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, has linked eight of Sony’s finest to create his so called “gravity grid” to help measure theoretical gravity waves predicted by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

Well, it sounds slightly more fun than playing Motorstorm for the thousandth time, that’s for sure.

And with our gadget of the year coming in at a cool ten million less than a Cray supercomputer, it looks like that price cut was worth it after all

12.1 MP Super HAD™ CCD : With more megapixels than most Digital cameras, the DSC-W200 captures greater image definition so you can make big prints and tight crops without losing detail. The advanced Sony® Super HAD™ (Hole Accumulated Diode) CCD design allows more light to pass to each Pixel, increasing Sensitivity and reducing noise. Carl Zeiss® 3X Optical Zoom Lens Design : A top-quality Carl Zeiss® 3X Optical Zoom Lens design helps the DSC-W200 bring distant subjects closer and lets you frame shots quickly for better composition — a real advantage for family sports, outdoor fun and travel photos. Face Detection : By automatically controlling focus, exposure, color and flash, this new Sony feature reveals faces in shadow, makes skin tones look more natural and eliminates harsh facial glare — to help bring out every expression on every face in every shot, so you-ll capture the personalities and emotions that make memories come alive.