Continue reading Nexus One blasts off to 28,000 feet, looks slightly worse for wear (video)

Nexus One blasts off to 28,000 feet, looks slightly worse for wear (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

OK, this has been an interesting two weeks on th e-book front.

If your life is like mine, everyone is asking you, the librarian, for your personal and professional opinion on e-books and e-readers.

So, to prepare you for the family, neighbourhood and friends' BBQ's this weekend, here's some interesting tidbits to throw about in conversation:

First read the full post for this one:

Top 10 Myths about our e-Book Future

Here's the highlight list:
1. Due to an avalanche of self-published and poorly edited e-books, readers will be submerged in a big pile of suck.
2. Publishers are going to disappear.
3. Paper books will disappear.
4. E-books are going to destroy libraries.
5. All authors will have an equal shot.
6. The book world will be divided into a few megabestsellers and everyone else selling only two copies. It will be impossible for authors without platforms to get anyone to pay attention to them.
7. We're all going to drop our e-readers into our bathtubs amid a massive, world-wide power outage and multi-government e-book deletion conspiracy that causes us to permanently lose every book the world has ever published.
8. The reading world will be divided between those who can afford an e-reader and those who can't.
9. Bookstores will disappear.
10. E-books will evolve into all-knowing robots that will implant carnivorous baby e-books inside our brains and devour our heads from within.

Of course the big news was Amazon's anouncement:

Amazon: Paper Books Are Dead, Or Something

Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books. Peace. Out. Trees.

KINDLE DEVICE UNIT SALES ACCELERATE EACH MONTH IN SECOND QUARTER;
NEW $189 PRICE RESULTS IN TIPPING POINT FOR GROWTH
Amazon.com now selling more Kindle books than hardcover books

SEATTLE-July 19, 2010-(NASDAQ: AMZN)-Millions of people are already reading on Kindles and Kindle is the #1 bestselling item on Amazon.com for two years running. It's also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any product on Amazon.com. Today, Amazon.com announced that Kindle device unit sales accelerated each month in the second quarter-both on a sequential month-over-month basis and on a year-over-year basis.

We've reached a tipping point with the new price of Kindle-the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189, said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com. In addition, even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books-astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.

Kindle offers the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read. The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 630,000 books, including New Releases and 106 of 110 New York Times Best Sellers. Over 510,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 75 New York Times Best Sellers. Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle.

Recent milestones for Kindle books include:

Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books. This is across Amazon.com's entire U.S. book business and includes sales of hardcover books where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher.

Amazon sold more than 3x as many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 as in the first half of 2009.
The Association of American Publishers' latest data reports that e-book sales grew 163 percent in the month of May and 207 percent year-to-date through May. Kindle book sales in May and year-to-date through May exceeded those growth rates.

On July 6, Hachette announced that James Patterson had sold 1.14 million e-books to date. Of those, 867,881 were Kindle books.

Five authors-Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larsson, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, and Nora Roberts-have each sold more than 500,000 Kindle books.

Readers are responding to Kindle's uncompromising approach to the reading experience. Weighing 10.2 ounces, Kindle can be held comfortably in one hand for hours, has an e-ink display that is easy on the eyes even in bright daylight, has two weeks of battery life, lets you buy your books once and read them everywhere-on your Kindle, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and Android-based devices-and has free 3G wireless with no monthly fees or annual contracts-all at a $189 price.

To reiterate, those stats don't include free Kindle books. A tipping point indeed.

Of core,you'll want to remmeber that: Amazon isn't only place peole buy books and e-books, the Kindle isn't the only reader, some people borrow books (grin), paperback books are by far the biggest part of the market and Internet buyers and brodband users represent a different demographic than the average or general population at this time.

See this post:

How Many Kindle Books Has Amazon Sold? About 22 Million This Year By Jay Yarow (Silicon Valley Insider)

Yesterday Amazon announced a big milestone: In the last month, Amazon's e-book sales outpaced its hardcover sales on Amazon.com nearly two to one.

It's a nice stat, but what does it actually mean? How big are hardcover sales, anyway?
According to Nielsen Bookscan, only 23% of total dead-tree book sales this year come from hardcover books.
The rest are from paperback books. In other words, assuming Amazon's book business reflects the overall industry, Amazon is still probably selling twice as many paperback books as Kindle books.

Amazon is estimated to have 19% of the book market, which implies the company sold 15.6 million hardcover books so far this year.

In its announcement yesterday, Amazon said it sold 143 Kindle books for each 100 hardcover books last quarter. (Last month alone, it sold 180 e-books sold for every 100 hardcover books sold.)

If we use the ratio from the last quarter, it implies Amazon has sold around 22 million Kindle books so far this year. That's just the equivalent of 6% of the total print book market, which remains tiny.

Another factor that Amazon doesn't mention is that it makes less money per e-book than it does on print books, and in some cases is losing money on e-books. It's good for Amazon to attack the e-book market and try to own it, even if costs a little early on, but let's not forget that e-books don't generate the same income or sales.

Five Reasons Amazon E-Books are Outselling HardcoversBy Steven

PC Worlds Are you still holding out to see what happens with this whole ebooks fad before deciding whether to embrace it for your business? Well, the times they are a changin' and there are a variety of reasons that ebooks are outpacing printed books. Amazon reports that ebook sales are three times higher than last year, and that Kindle versions of books have outsold their hardcover equivalents by 43 percent over the last quarter. The traditional written word printed on paper will not be fading to oblivion any time soon, but here are five factors contributing to the success of the ebook

1. Cost.
2. Portability.
3. Accessibility.
4. Cross-Platform. (A device like the iPad provides access to various e-reader platforms.)
5. Conservation.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/07/20/urnidgns002570F3005978D800257766005BA5CF.DTL#ixzz0v6aeSFx4

Lastly, we have your first million seller (downloads) this month with Steig Larson.
It's a shame he didn't live this milestone.

Stieg Larsson is the first author to reach one million books sold on Amazon

So there's some interesting soundbites to throw about over hot dogs. Hey, you're the book professional so you're in the know!

Stephen

Last Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that toymaker Mattel did not own the trademarks and copyrights in the Bratz doll line, and that competitor MGA Entertainment was not liable for copyright infringement. This case properly distinguishes ideas, which cannot be copyrighted, from the protectable expression of these ideas.

The concept that ideas cannot be copyrighted, but particular expressions of ideas can, is known as the idea-expression dichotomy. By not allowing a copyright in ideas, others may build, develop, improve, and elaborate upon the same idea and express it in unique ways. It is only these unique expressions of ideas that are protected. As a result, the public is enriched with ideas while creators still have incentives to author works. In Mattel v. MGA Entertainment, the Ninth Circuit buttressed this important distinction.

The Bratz doll line is the brainchild of Carter Bryant, who developed the idea while still employed by Mattel, designing fashion and hairstyles for Barbie dolls. While at Mattel, Bryant came up with the brand name Bratz and the name of one of its dolls, Jade, while also developing some preliminary sketches and a sculpt (plastic model) of the dolls. Shortly thereafter, Bryant left Mattel to develop the Bratz line with MGA Entertainment, where it has since grown to become a billion-dollar brand. Mattel successfully argued in district court that, because Bratz was developed while Bryant was still an employee, the Bratz trademark and the copyright in the sculpt and sketches was assigned to Mattel. I will cover the issue of idea ownership in more depth in a future post.

The district court found that the majority of Bratz dolls that have been created since Bryant left Mattel infringed on Mattel's copyright in the dolls. The Ninth Circuit disagreed and found that the lower court afforded the Bratz sculpt and sketches improperly broad copyright protection. In effect, lower court provided copyright protection of both the ideas and expression of Bratz, rather than just expression. Thus, a majority of subsequent Bratz dolls were held by the lower court to be infringing.

The heart of this disagreement between the district court and the Ninth Circuit was over which aspects of the dolls were copyrightable, and which were simply basic ideas. The lower court found that a wide array of elements of the sketches and sculpt were protectable under copyright. Specifically, it decided that the following elements were copyrightable expressions rather than ideas:

1. Particularized, synergistic compilation and expression of the human form and anatomy that expresses a unique style and conveys a distinct look or attitude.

2. Particularized expression of the doll's head, lips, eyes, eyebrows, eye features, nose, chin, hair style and breasts, including the accentuation or exaggeration of certain anatomical features relative to others (doll lips, eyes, eyebrows, and eye features) and de-emphasis of certain anatomical features relative to others (doll nose and thin, small doll bodies).

3. Particularized, non-functional doll clothes, doll shoes, and doll accessories that express aggressive, contemporary, youthful style.

The Ninth Circuit, however, found that much of this was not unique expression at all, but a shared idea. In his opinion, Judge Kozinski illustrated a range of other expressions of this same shared idea:

But many fashion dolls have exaggerated featurestake the oversized heads of the Blythe dolls and My Scene Barbies as examples. Moreover, women have often been depicted with exaggerated proportions similar to those of the Bratz dollsfrom Betty Boop to characters in Japanese anime and Steve Madden ads. The concept of depicting a young, fashion-forward female with exaggerated features, including an oversized head and feet, is therefore unoriginal as well as an unprotectable idea.

While a doll maker cannot create a doll that looks exactly like Bratz's Jade, it is free to make a doll that is its own unique expression of a young, fashion-forward female with exaggerated features, including an oversized head and feet. Kozinski ensures that Mattel, or whoever owns the Bratz copyright, cannot prevent others from building upon and uniquely expressing these basic ideas that underlie the dolls.

The line between idea and expression must be properly maintained. If an idea, simply because it is somewhat detailed (like the idea underlying Bratz dolls), is deemed to be protectable expression, we will find ourselves in a world more creatively impoverished. If what are basic designs, concepts, and other ideas are improperly protected, others will not be able to build on and otherwise express these ideas. In such a world there would only be one legal form of a song that overlays rock beats with classical music or a choose your own adventure story. Copyright law is intended to encourage creativity for the benefit of the public, not to lock down every new idea. As such, what is deemed to be protectable expression must be unique and particular, and not over inclusive.

The Bratz case draws the line between idea and expression in its correct position and ensures that Mattel can't abuse copyright law to halt the valid use of an idea. Thanks to this case, future doll designers, animators, and other creators will be free to contribute their own unique expression of the ideas underlying the Bratz.

Whenever First Round Capital holds a party, we sometimes get emails from a few of our guests asking if they can bring another person with them. Maybe a VC friend of ours wants to bring another partner with him. Maybe it's an entrepreneur who wants to bring a new executive hire. Maybe it's someone who works at Facebook and wants to bring a co-worker. Unless we're dealing with a venue that has a limited space, we typically are fine with the extra guests. It's a great way to expand our network and meet new, interesting people. The few times we weren't able to accommodate those requests typically were due to hard constraints (either budgetary or the size of the venue). And when we don't have room, we tell that to the person who asked and they typically are very understanding.

I just read my friend, Roger Ehrenberg's, latest blog post on syndicating seed rounds and totally agree with his main conclusion (that rounds tend to work best if there is a lead investor to represent the interests of the syndicate). But the most meaningful part of Roger's post, in my opinion, is when he writes about how a syndicate gets chosen. Specifically, he writes: One can have a reasoned discussion concerning capacity, etc., but fundamentally if an entrepreneur wants a particular investor in I am going to make room period.' I could not agree more. I think that the entrepreneur should be the decider on the syndicate not the lead investor. The lead investor should help establish terms, provide feedback and input on potential co-investors, and bring other investors to the table if asked/needed but the lead investor should not force a syndicate on the entrepreneur.

If I'd react badly to a guest trying to force me to let another guest into my party for a few hours (ie, the only way I'll come is if you let this stranger in), I can only imagine how badly I'd react if I was an entrepreneur that was forced to spend the next 5+ years with someone I don't want. In my view the lead investor should offer feedback and offer introductions but ultimately should follow the founder's lead on syndicate composition. If the founder wants certain angels to participate done. If the founder thinks that a certain fund could add value done.

Oftentimes the first strategic discussion that a lead investor gets to collaborate with a founder on is the discussion around the syndicate. And while I'd clearly expect a reasoned conversation to occur, I believe that an early stage investor is funding a company because they believe in the entrepreneur's ability to make strategic decisions and to optimize for success. And ultimately, it should be the investor who follows the founder's lead when it comes to syndicate composition (and not the other way around).

Technology has progressed photography faster in the last ten years than over the last 100. Over the last ten years, photography has gone from a somewhat misunderstood, often thought to be overly complicated hobby to something nearly everyone takes part in. Auto-mode settings, advancements in facial recognition in cameras and red-eye reduction built-in have made just about anyone who points a camera in the right direction a photographer. During this ramp-up in interest, more gear has become available then ever before, both good and bad for photographers and budding hobbyists.

Having the best photography gear does not mean you will get the best photographs. This has been proven time and time again with the so-called mega-pixel race for those thinking the more mega-pixels something has, the better it is. Sure, it's true that at a certain point, having a better piece of gear will yield you a better shot, but only if you understand how to properly use it!

Photo by pasukaru76 (away for 2 weeks)

Cameras, lenses, filters, flashes and all the accessories that go along with photography are nothing more than tools, tools which allow you to manipulate light and capture moments in time. Before you start to make a really significant investment in any new gear, ask yourself what it is you're trying to accomplish and how this new piece of gear will really help you. Can you make something yourself that would give the same result? Can you rent or borrow the item first to ensure it's what you really need?

Gear itself does not make you any better or worse of a photographer, better gear only enables photographers with knowledge on how to use it and a creative eye the abilities to take different photographs. Ever show up at a family picnic with a DSLR and speedlight and have someone say to you, Wow, I bet that thing takes great photos huh? The reality is, modern point and shoot cameras are capable of taking stunning shots, so don't assume bigger always equals better.

Photo by mikebaird

Having an eye, continuously learning and always shooting will, in the end make you the photographer, not the gear you carry around. Gear envy and the so-called upgrade-itis syndrome is easy to fall into, but it won't help your photograph any if you aren't already using what you have to the full capabilities. Before you invest in more gear, invest in knowledge.

Photography Tutorials, Case Studies and Discounts - LightStalking Photography Newsletter.

Shared by Chuck
Sounds similar to the KeyesLabs' Automatic Application Licensing for Android apps ( http://www.keyeslabs.com/joomla/projects/auto-app-licensing/142-keyes-labs-open-sources-aal )

Nice to see the Android team officially adopt a similar model.

[This post is by Eric Chu, Android Developer Ecosystem. Tim Bray]

In my conversations with Android developers, I often hear that you'd like better protection against unauthorized use of your applications. So today, I'm pleased to announce the release of a licensing service for applications in Android Market.

This simple and free service provides a secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid applications targeting Android 1.5 or higher. At run time, with the inclusion of a set of libraries provided by us, your application can query the Android Market licensing server to determine the license status of your users. It returns information on whether your users are authorized to use the app based on stored sales records.

This licensing service operating real time over the network provides more flexibility in choosing license-enforcement strategies, and a more secure approach in protecting your applications from unauthorized use, than copy protection.

Our plan is to replace the current Android Market copy-protection mechanism with this new licensing service to protect your applications over the next few months. I encourage you to check out the Licensing Your Applications section of our Developer Guide and the Android Market Help Center to learn how you can take advantage of this new service immediately.

Shared by Jeff
"Some of that content is coming through Google's agreements with outfits like Zagats and TripAdvisor, but a ton of it is coming from Yelp content that Google is simply getting by crawling it with their search spiders. And the only way Yelp could block this content from Google's all-seeing eye is by no-indexing their entire site a move which would effectively kill them since so much of their traffic comes from Google Search results."

Earlier today, we noted that an update to Google Maps for Mobile was the clearest sign yet of Google going directly after Yelp. But it's actually even more interesting than we thought.

Key to the new Google Maps for Mobile is Places, the new establishment-centric area which Google has been building up for about the past year or so. Places is basically an evolution of Google Local, which had been around for some time to pull in the best content for various local businesses. Previously, with Google Local, Google was using content they licensed to populate their review excerpts area. But apparently, that's no longer the case. Google doesn't have such an agreement with Yelp and yet Yelp content is appearing in Google Places.

And not only that, Yelp data often constitutes a lot of the review content.

Google actually used to have a partnership with Yelp to use their licensed content (read: customer reviews) a few years back, we hear. But Yelp apparently pulled out of that deal after Google was being too aggressive in promoting their own landing pages rather than those of the partners providing the content. But a few months ago, Google changed it policies, and began using content from sources they didn't have agreements with this brought Yelp data back into the mix.

And that's what's so interesting here. Google Places is now clearly going after Yelp, and the main way they can do that is by providing users with solid restaurant reviews. Some of that content is coming through Google's agreements with outfits like Zagats and TripAdvisor, but a ton of it is coming from Yelp content that Google is simply getting by crawling it with their search spiders. And the only way Yelp could block this content from Google's all-seeing eye is by no-indexing their entire site a move which would effectively kill them since so much of their traffic comes from Google Search results.

And that's the key to all of this. It's not just Google Places, Google appears to be squeezing Yelp out of the game across the board. As Google continues to refine their search results pages, they're clearly putting an emphasis on Maps (and soon, Places) for results. This highlights Google content, rather than third-parties like Yelp. These are being pushed farther down the results page.

And even though Google is using a good amount of Yelp content to populate its review areas, they're shoving the reviews to the bottom of the results, below the reviews from licensed partners. The problem here is pages like this one for a burrito places in San Francisco. Of the 61 reviews listed, something 30-something of them are from Yelp. And yet the Yelp ones are all displayed below other ones from TripAdvisor, CitySearch, etc. Here's another example Yelp reviews start on page 11.

Obviously, the ramifications of this go far beyond Yelp. While the New York Times op/ed a couple weeks ago went a bit far in suggesting the government should oversee Google's algorithm, their main point of Google using their power to bolster their own offerings and squeeze out competitors is a very real concern. And that's exactly what this Yelp situation is all about it's just an especially sexy story since Google tried to buy Yelp last year and were scorned.

Speaking of which, some people will probably try to argue that perhaps Yelp should have seen this coming when they walked away from the $500 million+ offer from Google late last year. But this just seems unusually cruel. It looks a lot like Google is using Yelp's content to bolster their offering and paying them in swift punches to the face.

Perhaps you recall that late last year, Google was in discussions to buy Yelp. Despite a supposed offer of $550 million plus earn-outs, Yelp walked away from the deal. But that isn't stopping Google for entering Yelp's business. Today, Google continues their fast-moving assault on local and location with a revamped Google Maps for mobile.

Central to Maps for mobile 4.4 is Google Places, the newer component of Maps which shows you, you guessed it, places nearby. But it's much more than just another layer in Google Maps, with this release on every Android phone (1.6 and later), there will now be a dedicated Places icon that appears in the Android app launcher. So yes, Google just basically gave Places its own new app.

Clicking on this Places app takes you to a screen that shows you an overview of things nearby including Coffee, Bars, Hotels, Attractions, ATMs, and Gas Stations are some of the default ones. But guess what's first on that list? Restaurants. Yep, the same restaurants that are central to Yelp's core business. Of course, Google Places lacks the Yelp's community of reviewers. But as you can see on each restaurant page, they have plenty of their own reviews that they're pulling in including reviews from publications like Zagat.

With the click of one icon on these pages, you can get directions or call to make a reservation. Obviously, you can also see details such as prices and menus.

One thing Google hasn't connected just yet is the ability to check-in to these places. That's a newer feature of Yelp's mobile apps, and of course, the key ingredient of apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla. You can bet that this will come to Google Places too, as the Google Latitude API now allows for this functionality.

To find Maps for mobile 4.4, you can search in the Android Market for Google Maps (or click here on your Android phone). Google also notes that the revamped Places will be coming to BlackBerry users soon as well. No word on iPhone users.

The seed of this apocalyptic rant was planted off-the-cuffly last week when I tweeted the following:

Old JFL: "Our next act appeared on Letterman and had his own HBO special."

New JFL: "Our next act has 10 million YouTube hits."

In my first stint here, said credits usually took the form of TV shows these acts were on.

Last week, I heard Australia's Axis of Awesome lay down their YouTube stats as their cred establisher.

And they weren't alone; acts like Chris Hardwick (a.k.a. The Nerdist) and Dane Cook had their live on-stage walk-on trumpet their web 3.0 stats.

Thats's one small step for a host, once giant leap for showbiz.

So here's this week's brain-splattering lesson:

The music biz is just the canary in the coalmine; The Web is about to destroy and overhaul all of showbiz as we know it.

The evidence is everywhere.

Yowtch!

But this type of paradigm shift (now there's a term I'm sure you haven't heard in a while!) is happening everywhere in the world of leisure:

• Amazon reported that digital ebooks are now outselling its hardcovers.
  
• The geeks have inherited the earth and now rule Hollywood's roost thanks to Comic-Con.
  
• Other than tentpole events, more TV is timeshifted than watched live...and watched on devices other than TVs.
  
• Green Day is simultaneously appearing in huge outdoor concerts, on Broadway and in Rockband.

Walking the Just For Laughs site last week, the digital divide was eye-poppingly evident. Live bands were replaced by iPod-packing DJs. Promotional flyers littered the ground as kids tweeted or texted reviews of shows, and intentions of attending them. Our Zoofest shows were packed with crowds who probably never read a newspaper in their lives, let alone be influenced by ads within them.

Consider the conversation I had with Guy Gal, a 26-year-old online video producer, a few weeks ago in Toronto. He was about to attend a Just For Laughs Festival Gala hosted by Louis CK. He learned the comedian was touring from one of CK's Tweets. He clicked on the URL, and bought tickets. And here's what's scary: Despite the fact that he was going to the show, he had no idea it was part of Just For Laughs. Worse yet, he had no clue Just For Laughs was even in town.

Exponential yowtch!

The Web is changing, and will continue to at a dizzying pace, the way people find out about shows, the way they buy tickets to them, the way they attend them, the way shows are marketed and--most notably--the content of the shows themselves.

Given AttentionSpan 3.0, how can I continue to shoot TV shows on a single-focused, old-Broadway-styled stage, and present them to an at-home audience with only one moving image on screen at a time?

Jeez, do I have my work cut out for me here.

So, to channel the spirit of P.T. Barnum, I invite you to step right up. Wanna really see something spectacular? Sit back and watch the greatest show of all--The way showbiz rapidly morphs into something that looks tomorrow like Nickleodeons or Vaudeville looks like today.

To start, enjoy Axis Of Awesome...and add yet another view to their YouTube deluge.

Shared by Jeff
Its unrelated, but man, I hate The Black Eyed Peas

Continue reading Entelligence: 3D TV falls flat for me

Entelligence: 3D TV falls flat for me originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

via http://www.doe-eyed.com/illustration.php?id=nbc%20holiday%202008

[This is a guest posting by Larry [Laurence] Horn (of Yale), taken, with his permission, from a posting he made today on the American Dialect Society mailing list. If you comment on it, remember that these are his words, not mine.]

In the first paragraph of a letter to the editor in this weekend's NYT Magazine, a writer offers the following grammatical argument against the use of transgendered:

We transgender people are not "transgendered," a word that makes it sound like something has happened to us, rather than reflecting something we innately are. You wouldn't say someone was "gayed" or "homosexualed." Only verbs are transformed into participles by adding "-ed," and "transgender" is an adjective, not a verb.

The issue brought up by your questioner is a ticklish one for us: the ignorance of the general population as to what transgender people are like (hint: just like everybody else, with an important difference, much like gay people) makes us hesitant to out ourselves right off the bat (unless the object of the date is a purely sexual one), because it tends to distract others from seeing us as real people, as opposed to god-knows-what sort of stereotype. The idea that we are trying to deceive anyone is as ridiculous as it is offensive: you do not start out trying to fool someone that you have an interest in getting to know better. As you rightly point out, you don't blurt out everything on a first date.

BRIDGET SMITH
San Francisco

The problem is that the claim that "only verbs are transformed into participles by adding -ed" is untenable, as decades of studies on participial formations have shown. There are, for example, "un-passives" where there is no extant corresponding verb (or no relevant one); to say that Antarctica is uninhabited is not to presuppose that someone (maybe penguins?) first managed to uninhabit that continent. There are adjectives like blue-eyed, one-armed, and such with no corresponding verbs.

Even in the case under discussion, it's true that there's no relevant verb to transgender, but then if we speak of someone as "highly sexed", there's no suggestion that someone first (highly?) sexed them; similarly for oversexed, undersexed, differently-abled, Gendered itself is used in a lot of formations with no obvious verb source: gendered language/space/institutions/media

I remember an old paper let's see, yes, it's

Hirtle, W. H. (1970). -ed Adjectives Like 'Verandahed' and 'Blue-eyed'. Journal of Linguistics 6.19-36.

that treats some of these cases. One interesting property is the need in many cases for modification: blue-eyed, one-eyed, even two-eyed (in a contrastive context) are all fine, but eyed doesn't seem to occur with the same (possessive, non-verbal) sense; similarly legged, haired, breasted, (These are worse than Gricean pragmatics alone would predict.)

If transgendered is to be ruled out, it may be because it's blocked or pre-empted by adjectival transgender; note that "same-sexed couple" or "opposite-sexed couple" (or "mixed-sexed couple") don't work as well as "highly sexed", presumably because of blocking by adjectival same-sex, opposite-sex, mixed-sex.

The writer's comparison with *gayed and *homosexualed is also misleading because those are formed from adjectives, while transgendered, like blue-eyed or verandahed, does allow the -ed to attach to a noun, which seems to work better. In fact, while "opposite-sexed couple" sounds pretty bad, as noted, I find that "heterosexualed couple" sounds worse.

Well, OK, Ms. Smith probably isn't a linguist, and her point is otherwise well-taken; indeed, transgendered may indeed suggest that someone did something to bring that state of affairs about.

Maybe they should run letters to the Magazine by Ben first.

A cryptid is a creature who may be thought by some people to exist, but is not recognized by the scientific community. Cryptids appear frequently in folklore and mythology but as you will see tales of them appear still to this day. One cryptid that is well-known is Bigfoot. After the giant squid was discovered, I became fascinated (and creeped out) by these bizarre creatures. This list is in no particular order.

Champ and Nessie are creatures that have similar backgrounds and descriptions. People have reported seeing these creatures in Lake Champlain and the Loch Ness lake. Reports of Nessie describe the creature as being 20 feet long with dark grey skin. She is reported as having humps and at least one set of paddles. She has a head similar to a horses. Witness reports vary on the description, but not by a lot. The most reported sightings of Nessie occurred in the 1930s and still occur to this day. Champ has been sighted for as long as 400 years. Native American tribes have even older legends of a beast in Lake Champlain. Champ is also described as being about 20 feet long (lengths vary) with a serpentine body. He also is reported as having a horse-like head. Champ has had laws pushed through to protect him. The most interesting thing about Champ and Nessie is that they are thought to be dinosaurs that managed to survive. Descriptions of them are similar to a plesiosaur.

Chupacabras have been reported to suck the blood out of livestock, similar to the way a vampire would. The chupacabra has been a very confusing subject for crypto zoologists to research because descriptions vary so much. American chupacabras have been usually proven to be a canine breed. Usually, they have mange so bad that they look like another creature entirely. Researchers have found sightings as early as 1974. They have also found that the chupacabra is similar to a creature in legends of the Taino Indians. The Puerto Rican sightings have gathered the most interest. Sightings had been reported from 1995 to 1999. The chupacabra has been reported as having large glowing red or orange eyes, huge fangs, sharp claws, spikes running down it's back, and as standing on two limbs. In one sighting, the chupacabra changed colors before their eyes. One theory is that they are a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong.

These little guys were sighted in Flores, Indonesia, from ancient times to the 19th century. They're described as hairy and short with big guts. They walk like humans. They are said to have mimicked the words people said to them. Australians and Indonesians found skeletons of a new species of human at an archaeological site. They were believed to live over ten thousand years ago. The skeletons were about a meter tall. These skeletons were thought to possibly be the ebu gogo of Indonesian folklore. The ebu gogo have been used by Indonesians as a scare tactic to get their children to behave. The term ebu gogo means grandmother who eats anything. Legend has it that the ebu gogo and the people lived in peace for a while. The ebu gogo started killing crops and the humans' animals. They fled to caves when the humans started killing them. These caves were eventually set on fire after the ebu gogo stole a baby. Some were said to have fled to the Liang Bua caves, which is the cave where the archaeologists found the small skeletons.

Springheel Jack has been reported in London, New Mexico, Massachusetts, and Argentina, from 1837 to our time. Springheel Jack is thought to be a tall and thin man, who wears a tightly fitted hat and a black cape. He has large claws and sometimes his eyes are described as glowing a bright red. In 1837, a man, thought to be a police officer knocked on a woman's door, claiming to have caught Springheel Jack. She came back with a candle and the man had disappeared. She went outside to find a man by her gate. After giving the man the candle, who happened to be Springheel Jack, he attacked her. He spit white and blue flames out of his mouth and tore at her dress and face with his claws. He fled after the woman's sister came out after hearing her screams. In 1877, people reported their bullets shooting through him, while he remained unharmed. In the 1930s, he was reported being in Silver City, New Mexico, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The reports remained the same. In 2005, he has been reported as jumping from one roof to the next, up to five meters high and ten meters long. Some people link him to Jack the Ripper.

Shadow people are reported worldwide and since the beginning of recorded history. Shadow people seem to be living shadows. They are usually seen out of the corner of peoples eyes. Some people see semi-transparent dark splotches. They vanish as soon as a person realizes what they saw. When people see shadow people a feeling of despair and fear overcome them. There have been some reports of being attacked or chased by these shadows. The shadows are usually larger than a normal shadow and doesn't resemble the person's silhouette. I have personally came across a shadow like this and a dreadful feeling came over me for a brief moment. It was abnormally large and moved, when I did not.

This beast was sighted in Wisconsin, USA. It has been sighted since 1936. It runs on all four limbs, or its hind limbs. It is said to be about six feet tall, built like an athletic man and covered in shaggy hair. He has a wolf-like face with yellow eyes, that glow in the light. A woman said it was the closest creature to resemble a werewolf that she had ever seen. He has a horrible odor of decaying meat. In 1936, this beast was seen digging in an Indian burial site. The watchman prayed for his life upon seeing him. The beast reportedly said gadarah to him and walked away on his two hind legs. Gadara was a Greek city, located east of the Jordan River. It is mentioned in the New Testament. According to the Bible, Jesus met a man who was thought to have been possessed by evil spirits. This man was so strong that he could break through chains. When the man saw Jesus, he worshiped him. He told Jesus his name was Legion, and that there were many like him. Jesus cured him of the evil spirits, by transferring them to a herd of pigs. The pigs then ran into the sea and died. The theory is that the beast of Bray Road was trying to tell the man about his kind and that his kind has been around since biblical times.

This creature has been sighted in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, USA. Sightings have been reported since 1966. The moth man is a gray and winged creature with large glowing red eyes located in what would normally be the creature's upper chest. It is about six feet tall and wider than a man. The first report was made by five males who were at work in a cemetery. As they were preparing a burial site, they had seen a creature that appeared to be man-like fly over them. In another report, a group of people were chased while they were in their vehicle going at least 100 mph by a similar creature. The mothman had managed to keep up with them for a while, before flying away. They claimed the mothman did not flap his wings while flying. Some people even reported their car completely dying, momentarily, when they have sighted the creature. The mothman has also been linked to UFO sightings and seemingly legitimate claims of men in black visits at a newspaper office.

Atmospheric beasts are reported to have semi-solid bodies and are often invisible. They can fly, but have no visible wings. Sometimes atmospheric beasts are reported as UFOs. Ivan T. Sanderson claims that most UFOs are actually atmospheric beasts. He theorizes that atmospheric beasts are animals that live in the clouds. Sometimes the atmospheric beast is reported to change shape, color, and texture. People who believe in atmospheric beasts think that the creature will die if they ever touch the ground. Some people even report them spitting streams of water at them. Others report that the beasts smell like mildew and feel like a giant soft tongue. They also seem to resemble animals of the sea, rather than land animals.

The Maryland goatman has been seen in Prince Georges County, Maryland, USA, since the 1970s. It is reported as having the lower body of a goat and the upper body of a man. He also has the horns of a goat. He's about 7 feet tall and 300 pounds. The goatman was first sighted by a couple of lovers who had been making out in their car. The goatman had an ax in his hand, while staring at the couple. He then ran into the woods. A woman reported that she had seen the creature in her backyard while her dog was barking urgently. She was too scared to go outside and found that her dog had had it's head chopped off, when she went outside the next morning.

There are legends of this creature in Africa. He is said to have looked like a mix of a man and a monkey. Legend had it that the creature had magical powers and enjoyed the taste of human flesh. Female pongos turned into gorgeous women in order to get close enough to a man to eat him. Pongos and humans could reproduce hybrid kids who looked like normal humans, but had cannibalistic tendencies. In 1847, the pongo was amazingly discovered to exist. However, it is now called a gorilla and known to be a vegetarian. Okay, I admit this animal is obviously no longer a cryptid. However, it shows that reports of cryptids may sometimes be over-exaggerated, and if some are found to exist they may actually turn out to be pretty damn ordinary.

If you're anything like me, at any given time you have a dozen to two dozen tabs open across multiple web browser windows. It's great to have all these webpages open and ready to click on at any second, but it's a nightmare to try and remember where each is with so many open. I shudder to think how much time I waste on this each day. Luckily, Mozilla is working on a solution.

A new feature called Tab Candy is in the works. It's still early in testing mode, as Mozilla's Aza Raskin points out on his blog today, but it looks to be exactly what I need.

Be sure to watch the video below for a full overview from the looks of it, it seems as if Tab Candy is sort of like Apple's Expose feature mixed with their Spaces feature, both of which are baked into OS X. For those who don't use a Mac, basically these features allow you to zoom out and get a bird's-eye-view of all your windows (or tabs, in this case) that are open and you can also arrange open windows (or again, tabs, in this case) in certain spaces so they're clumped together. This allows you to more easily find what you're looking for with so many tabs open.

For example, when tabs are organized into a group, you can select that group and see only those tabs you put in there. The other tabs you have open (in another group) are still open, you just won't see them when you're focused on this particular group. And you can change the sizes of these groups in the bird's-eye-view mode to highlight certain ones. Make the group with your calendar and email bigger so that you can see what's new just by zooming out to Tab Candy. Hide the group with distractions in a corner, Raskin writes.

The best part is that you can actually test out Tab Candy right now. If you click on this link, you'll download a special super-early build of Firefox (Firefox 4 beta, to be specific) with Tab Candy. Again, it's early so there are bugs and performance issues, but this is a very, very good idea.

Are you looking to turn more Facebook lurkers into fans of your page? There's no better way to do this than with a custom Facebook landing tab.

As interest in Facebook marketing increases, marketers are looking for new ways to improve their technique.

If you're a regular reader of Social Media Examiner and also visit our Facebook Page then you've already heard about creating custom tabs using Facebook's Static FBML for engaging first-time Facebook visitors.

Here are eight different ways businesses are using landing tabs on Facebook.

#1: Ask Your Visitors to Like Your Page

Your landing tab is a great place to ask first-time visitors to Like your page and grow your Facebook community, just as Apryl Parcher does here.

Notice how Apryl Parcher asks new visitors to like her business page to grow her Facebook community.

#2: Give Multiple Invitations for Engagement

Have a look at all of the different ways Starwood Preferred Guest incites visitors to interact with them on their Facebook page. This is an example of some great landing page marketing techniques. Three things stand out:

• Long tab. A long tab where new visitors have to scroll down several screens to see everything is not always a good choice, but it can work for some businesses.

• Multiple opportunities to engage visitors. There's a poll, a game, an invitation to share photos and three other ways to engage with Starwood.

• Geo-targeting. It's interesting to note that Starwood Preferred Guest uses Buddy Media's new Platform +GLOBAL application where visitors are served a customized page based on the language and country settings within their Facebook profile. The customization obviously also uses the IP address, because I'm based in France and as you can see below, the Like button is in French even though my Facebook preferences specify English.

Starwood Preferred Guest's Explore SPG tab gives many options for visitors to interact with them. CLICK IMAGE TO SEE IN FULL.

#3: Provide Multiple Doors to Begin Interaction

Here's another interesting way to maximize your landing tab. The Facebook application TabSite allows you to make a separate navigation bar within a Facebook tab you create using Static FBML.

TabSite offers a solution for business pages that need extra tabs.

See below how Digital Hill Multimedia uses their new tab setting.

It's interesting to note the choices Digital Hill Multimedia made when selecting what to put on their main Facebook navigation bar compared to what's in this secondary navigation bar created with TabSite.

See the eight tabs below the main landing tab in the main navigation bar.

#4: Use Current Events

The Volkswagen Facebook page used promotional videos related to the recent World Cup. Combining promotional materials with current events is a marketing tactic that can work well on your landing tab too.

Volkswagen uses slide navigation with a selection of promotional videos.

#5: Link to Custom Applications

Starbucks has a link on their landing tab that launches an application to manage your Starbucks account.

Starbucks uses their landing tab to link to their custom application.

#6: Get Straight to the Point

Best Buy sends new visitors to a Shop & Share tab where they make it easy to access different categories of their shopping application.

Best Buy asks new visitors to become a fan, incites engagement and provides an easy access to get straight to their shopping application.

#7: Make Interaction Easy and Fun

Cintas Corporation invites all new visitors to tell them about their tough job and send in photos to win prizes.

Cintas Corporation does a good job at inciting interaction and building community.

#8: Use the Boxes Tab

UPDATE SINCE PUBLICATION: Facebook is likely to phase out the boxes tab down the road, so we advise you transition over to creating a custom tab using Static FBML.

Prior to creating their landing tab above, Cintas Corporation directed all of their new visitors to their Boxes tab. If you find it challenging to set up a specific Facebook tab using the Static FBML application, this may be the solution for you. Facebook pages come with a Boxes tab and they are easy to use.

It's interesting to compare this long Cintas Corporation tab created in a Boxes tab with the long Starwood Preferred Guest Explore SPG tab created in FBML above.

Cintas Corporation created a very long landing page by simply using the "Boxes" tab. CLICK IMAGE TO SEE IN FULL.

Want To See More?

Here are a few more Facebook pages with interesting landing tabs.

• Threadless is a great example of how to use the Like button on a tab.
• Revision Eyewear has a presentation of their products made in Flash.
• Harley Davidson has a variety of links on their landing tab pointing back to their own website.
• Social Media Examiner uses a landing video.
• 1-800-Flowers has a clear call to action.

What do you think about custom landing tabs? Please share the links above and tell us what you like most about them. Leave your comments in the box below.