And likely you heard about that utterly tasteless ad in Times Square from Consumer Watchdog, a cartoon of a creepy looking Eric Schmidt handing ice cream to children and asking for their secrets.

I think I can explain both events, because they are part of one campaign. Or as American Lawyer describes [PDF] the lawyers behind this, they are on a crusade against Google. The article is titled "The Google-Slayers". Guess who the lawyers on this crusade have as a client? Microsoft. They handle Microsoft's antitrust work. Guess who sent the first complainant to these lawyers, which led to this crusade? Microsoft. The jumping off point.

So. A crusade to destroy Google. By folks who count Microsoft as an important client, with new clients, at least one of them directly referred to the "crusaders" by Microsoft and the rest now under their umbrella. My stars, gentlemen. Where is your subtlety?

But there's more.

Shared by phillip
Hopefully that large landmass to the south of Texas will slow it.

Back in March I told you about a beautifully designed iPad speaker dock called Mantis from Vesta-Life which, at the time, seemed an unlikely product. I mean, iPhones and iPods are for music, not iPads, right? Apparently, wrong.

There's a huge community of folks clambering for iPad speaker docks and Philips is looking to fill that void by expanding their Fidelio line of speaker docks to support iPads.

The elegant Philips Fidelio (DS8550) design supports the Apple iPod, iPad and iPhone (even with the bumper on) using it's built-in 30-pin dock connector to charge, control and provide a clean audio line level out connection. However, you don't need to dock your device in order to enjoy great sound the Fidelio DS8550 supports the Bluetooth Audio A2DP profile enabling you to stream music to the speaker wirelessly while you watch videos, play games or music from your couch.

Not to be content with the standard Apple media experience, Philips provides Fidelio owners a free Fidelio app from the App Store which enables browsing and playing of your music playlists, control of your 5-band equalizer, and a quick-check of your docking speaker's battery life from your Apple device. The app even has a clock feature with multiple music alarms, so you can set your docking speaker to wake you up to your own music with your favorite photo on display.

These screenshots are from the iPhone app, but I'd assume the app will be retooled to accommodate the larger iPad display.

Click to enlarge

Other features include:

Rechargeable battery: The station has a battery life of five hours so you can take it out with you enjoy music at a picnic in the park, live-action sounds when playing games in the garden or sharing videos with friends.

Fidelio SoundCurve with high-end features and full range speaker drivers: The speaker wall is shaped to randomize the movements of sound waves and reflect them within the acoustic chamber.

No word on pricing or availability yet, but you can bet that Amazon will have it in stock at some point. Keep in mind that other Fidelio speaker docks will probably work with your iPad but not have the ability to charge it due to the device's unique power requirements.

Have you tried to use your iPad with a different model of Fidelio speakers? Let me know in the comments.

[View with PicLens]

[Philips]

Related posts:

1. Philips Wants Us To Know That They're Ready for iPad. Sort of.
2. Review: Apple iPad Keyboard Dock
3. Hypermac Micro, Mini Get Updated with iPad Support

For almost 12 years the incredible Duke Nukem has been living in the land of vaporware as every year there were rumors of Duke Nukem Forever coming but every time the faithful were let down.

Well no more.

It was just announced at the big PAX 2010 convention by the folks at 2K Games and Gearbox Software, the company behind the great Borderlands game, that Duke Nukem Forever was alive and well with the developers at Gearbox Software.

I am just watching the live stream of the announcement on Ustream but I will update as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: audience is being encouraged to use their cellphones and take screenshots and video

UPDATE 2: we did not get to see the intro but the live stream is showing people playing the game so expect the web to be flooded soon with reports on the game.

UPDATE 3: and we have the first of the YouTube videos showing up.

For almost 12 years the incredible Duke Nukem has been living in the land of vaporware as every year there were rumors of Duke Nukem Forever coming but every time the faithful were let down.

Well no more.

It was just announced at the big PAX 2010 convention by the folks at 2K Games and Gearbox Software, the company behind the great Borderlands game, that Duke Nukem Forever was alive and well with the developers at Gearbox Software.

I am just watching the live stream of the announcement on Ustream but I will update as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: audience is being encouraged to use their cellphones and take screenshots and video

UPDATE 2: we did not get to see the intro but the live stream is showing people playing the game so expect the web to be flooded soon with reports on the game.

Shared by AfroWhitey
Great news, now I can stream all the games with ESPN360 for free through my ip.

BYU signs on with ESPN, Notre Dame

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated Sep 1, 2010 12:56PM MDT

Provo BYU has entered into an eight-year partnership with ESPN to televise every home football game, it was announced Wednesday. At a press conference announcing the independence of their football program, the Cougars also announced a six-game series with Notre Dame that will run through 2020. BYU president Cecil Samuelson said, We are convinced we are taking major positive steps forward. BYU is leaving the Mountain West Conference for two reasons, according to athletic director Tom Holmoe. ...

Copyright 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Twenty two days ago, my periodically running script ceased to produce any check-ins on Brightkite. A quick look at the output showed that the format of the returned place object had changed. Had I used proper XML parsing, that would not have been a problem but I'm using homely grep, sed and awk Not robust code in any way, especially when dealing with XML. At least you get a nice illustration of why defensive programming with proper tools is good for you.

So here is a new update of latitude2brightkite.sh a script that checks-in your Google Latitude position to Brightkite using the Brightkite API and the Google Public Location Badge. Description of the whole contraption may be found in the initial announcement.

The changes are :

% diff latitude2brightkite_old.sh latitude2brightkite.sh
69,70c69,70
< id=`wget -qO- "http://brightkite.com/places/search.xml?q=$latitude%2C$longitude" | grep "<id>" | sed s/\ \ \<id\>// | sed s/\<\\\/id\>//`
< place=`wget -qO- "http://brightkite.com/places/search.xml?q=$latitude%2C$longitude" | grep "<name>" | sed s/\ \ \<name\>// | sed s/\<\\\/name\>//`
---
> id=`wget -qO- "http://brightkite.com/places/search.xml?q=$latitude%2C$longitude" | grep "<id>" | sed s/\ \ \<id\>// | sed s/\<\\\/id\>// | tail -n 1`
> place=`wget -qO- "http://brightkite.com/places/search.xml?q=$latitude%2C$longitude" | grep "<name>" | sed s/\ \ \<name\>// | sed s/\<\\\/name\>// | md5sum | awk '{print $1}'`

I know I should use a revision control system Posting this diff that does not even fit this blog is yet another reminder that a revision control system is not just for significant projects anything should use one and considering how lightweight Git is in comparison to Subversion, there really is no excuse anymore.

Back to the point To get the place identifier, I now only take the last line of the field which is all we need. I mdsum the place name I only need to compare it to the place name at the time of the former invocation, so a mdsum does the job and keeps me from having to deal with accented characters and newlines Did I mention how hackish this is ?

Anyway It works for me get the code !

Related articles:

• The overlooked reasons for Google Navigation and for Google Latitude
• No OpenMicroBlogging in Google Buzz and no Twitter API, but plenty of other protocols including Salmon
• Inertial navigation as a CellID sanity check

File this one under Overkill.

PhotoFast, the same crazy folks who designed a RAID 0 CompactFlash Adapter for miniSD cards, has introduced the IPADock. But if you thought it was just for your iPad, you'd be sorely mistaken.

You can charge two iPads simultaneously. Or, you can charge six iPod nanos. Or, charge four iPhones or iPods. Orwell, you get the picture. Based on the picture and video, it appears that you have to bring your own cables for each of the aforementioned iGadgets so that you can configure the IPADock to your needs.

But wait! There's more!

In addition to the industrial strength charging and syncing capabilities of the IPADock, it also comes packed with a number of useful ports and connections including four USB 2.0 ports and card reader slots for CF I / CF II / CF 3.0 / MS / MS PRO / MS DUO / MS PRO DUO / M2 / SD / MINI SD / SDHC / SDXC / micro SD(T-Flash).

The PhotoFast IPADock will set you back around $78 USD when it becomes available at the end of September.

[PhotoFast via Gizmodo]

Related posts:

1. Scosche reVIVE II Dual USB Charger Juices Up Your iPad
2. Hypermac Micro, Mini Get Updated with iPad Support
3. HyperMac Releases World's First iPad External Battery

Updated at bottom of post. The auction, apparently, has not ended.

After tossing bids back and forth last week between HP and Dell, a price of $2 billion has finally been reached in the 3PAR acquisition. That is, translated, $30 per share of the California-based storage company.

The deal is, no doubt, due to both HP and Dell seeing a sharp decline in their PC sales while sales in the cloud-based systems market continue to rise. PC Magazine tells the story that the $2 billion valuation of 3PAR by HP is the highest premium offered in such a bidding situation among more than 19 thousand different deals that have been tracked by Bloomberg over time.

With 2 billion dollars of your shareholder's money riding on the line, the deal had best take off in a huge way for HP. An continually-growing market of cloud-based resources, however, softens the potential shocking blow of the acquisition.

Edit: In an interesting twist, we were notified via Twitter from a source claiming that Dell is a client of his, and telling us that we should dig further into this. Upon digging, here's what we've found.

• 3PAR intends to take the HP deal, if Dell does not counter-offer with a better one.
• At present, 3PAR still has a merger agreement in place with Dell, so it is required to push that agreement to its shareholders.
• 3PAR intends to terminate the agreement three business days after this past Friday. The best guess, then, is that the agreement should terminate on Wednesday, barring a counter-offer from Dell.

Coincidentally, we've also learned that you shouldn't always believe what you read, because some sources make some pretty ballsy statements based on conjecture.

Original title and link for this post: The auction [not] has ended: HP might acquire 3PAR for $2 bn Updated

Google has updated their free Gmail service with what's in effect the reverse of their spam filter. Gmail Priority Inbox is an optional service that, using the same technology that powers the spam catcher, predicts which messages will be of most interest to the user and pushes them up to the top of the list. There they sit on top of any starred messages, with the remainder of the inbox underneath.

Video demo after the cut

According to Google, the system works from a user's attention history: the messages they read, and those they reply to. Incorrectly prioritized mail can be downgraded, teaching the system in the process, while missed important messages can be flagged in a similar way. Gmail Priority Inbox will be rolled out over the next few days, to regular and Google Apps users; we'd particularly love an Android version, which would be useful for quickly triaging new messages while snatching a few seconds on a mobile device.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• USB Webmail Notifier lets you know when mail is in
• GMail gets Undo Send button
• Google Buzz takes sharing realtime [Updated: Video]
• Buzz-kill
• Palm Pre to have Push GMail

The Pirate Bay - Away From Keyboard is a documentary on the founding of The Pirate Bay raising money on Kickstarter. I kicked in some money after hearing about it from Peter "brokep" Sunde. The filmmakers have been shooting for two years and are looking for $25,000 to finish the film (they're over $22K as I type this): "This campaign starts exactly one month before the Court of Appeal hearings start in The Pirate Bay trial in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2009 the founders of The Pirate Bay were convicted to 1 year in jail and to pay damages of around 4 million dollars for having 'assisted in making copyrighted content available'. The precedent in the Pirate Bay case will have consequences for the future of the internet. We will cover the upcoming trial closely."

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away From Keyboard (Thanks, Cowicide, via Submitterator!)

Customization is the name of game with mobile devices, and one of the biggest aspects is the UI. Many of them are rather rigid and very hard to personalize, like Sense. However, there are others that will allow you to do whatever you please to them, like adding functionality, theming, changing icons, and much more. To foolow in this tradition, XDA member GfanMM brings us aHome 4 Beta, which is a highly customizable UI for Android devices. The UI is in beta stages right now and it has limited functionality, but it can still give you a taste of what having total control over your phone is like.

aHome is a home replacement application for android mobile devices. You can download and customize multiple home themes, wallpapers and widgets for your android home. In addition, it extends your home functions by including features such as two bar styles, customized screen counts, and automatic wallpaper changes. aHome will make your android life fresh every day.

You can find more information in the UI thread.

via http://tbpdesign.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-01-04T20%3A45%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=20

Update: HP just upgraded its offer even further this morning. It's now offering $2 billion for 3Par, or $30 a share. Earlier story below.

The back and forth between Dell and HP regarding the acquisition of data storage company 3Par continues. Only a few hours after 3Par accepted Dell's increased $1.6 billion offer, HP upped the ante again by offering $1.8 billion for the company, or $27 per share in cash.

Dell's new offer was a mere 30 cents above HP's previous $24 per share price, and given HP's much deeper pockets (it reported $115 billion in 2009 revenue, compared to Dell's $53 billion), it's no surprise that HP retaliated. Dell's minor increase over HP's previous offer signaled to some analysts that it may give up the battle if HP came back with a much higher offer, according to the New York Times.

The battle for 3Par's hand began last week when Dell offered to buy the company for $1.15 billion. HP reportedly made an earlier offer for the company as well, but was rejected.

In a letter to 3Par CEO David Scott, HP CTO Shane Robison argued that there are strategic advantages for 3Par to join his company: HP is uniquely positioned to capitalize on 3PAR's next-generation storage technology by utilizing our global reach and superior routes to market to deliver 3PAR's products to customers around the world.

HP says that the addition of 3Par's advanced server technology would accelerate its Converged Infrastructure strategy, which provides customers with a portfolio of intellectual property across storage, server and networking solutions.

Given the increasing importance of cloud computing in which users would rely on the internet instead of their local computer for applications and storage having a company like 3Par in your corner would allow you to offer services in the cloud at a lower cost. That's certainly what Dell and HP are looking for, and I suspect we'll see further plays in this field in the coming months.

3Par has raised over $183 million since its founding in 1999, with backing by Integral Capital Partners, Alliance Bernstein, Open Field Capital, Mayfield Fund, Worldview Technology Partners, Menlo Ventures, and Van Wagoner Capital Management. It went public in 2007, even though it was losing money at the time

Tags: cloud computing, data storage, servers

Companies: 3Par, Dell, Hp

People: Shane Robison

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
YouTube Debuts New Movies Section With 400 Free, Full-Length Films (Updated) YouTube has launched a fresh Movies category on its website, gathering about 400 full-length films for your on-demand viewing pleasure, all free of charge. The renewed section, which is actually

YouTube has launched a fresh Movies category on its website, gathering about 400 full-length films for your on-demand viewing pleasure, all free of charge.

The renewed section, which is actually more like the next step in previously announced projects, comes courtesy of deals the Google company struck with U.S. studios like Lionsgate, MGM and Sony Pictures and UK service Blinkbox.

Update: Google checked in to clarify this is a UK announcement only and doesn't affect the US Movies section announced last year (see link above).

In addition, the company wanted to make clear that the MGM / Lionsgate / Sony Pictures content is currently only available in the US, not in the UK.

What can you find there? Loads of Bollywood flicks, a bunch of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films, obscure horror movies and cartoons, among many other sections.

This is one of many efforts to ensure that people can find all the different kinds of video they want to see, from bedroom vlogs and citizen journalism reports to full-length films and TV shows, YouTube head of video partnerships Donagh O'Malley told The Guardian.

We hope film lovers enjoy the range of titles in this free library, whether catching up on a mainstream hit or delving into the vast archive of classic films from decades past.

Personally, I haven't spotted many mainstream hits or real classics in the catalog, but maybe it's just me. Ah well, off to watch Teenage Devil Dolls.

If you were hoping next week's Special Event was finally going to herald the announcement of a cloud-based iTunes service, then you might want to let out that held breath.

According to a recent article by All Things Digital, an iTunes update will be announced next Wednesday yet the upcoming version will simply be an online version of the store, with increased attention giving to the social aspect of music-loving.

As many of you will already know, the current web-based version of iTunes (if you can even call it that) is ridiculously unusable. Indeed, it simply serves as the middle man opening the desktop version of iTunes as soon as possible. A true web-version would be useful: users would be able to browse through music and apps without having to have access to the program itself.

Personally, I'm expecting iTunes Cloud to come along at some point (or at least some variation on the theme). Apple's not-so-recent acquisition of Lala.com certainly seems to point towards the launch of a similar Apple-branded service. Yet, whether this service launches next week or next year is still obviously a matter of great debate.

What I find most interesting about AllThingsD's report is the speculation that Apple will be leaning towards various social networks in their upcoming version of iTunes:

If Apple makes it easier for services like Twitter and Facebook to link into the store, and share recommendations, playlists and the like, then you can imagine some pretty interesting possibilities.

Over here in the UK, the music streaming service, Spotify, allows users to interact with one another through playlist-sharing. A similar feature in iTunes would undoubtably be useful I for one love the idea of interactive playlists.

I guess we're going to be left wondering about the future of iTunes Cloud until next Wednesday comes around, and the truth is unveiled. If you want to keep up with the events as they unfold, remember to do so with AppAdvice! We've had a call from Apple inviting us to the Special Event, so make sure to head back to find out all the most important announcements as they're made!

Related Posts

• Lala Closes, Makes Way For iTunes.com?
• Read It Later Updated Adds A Whole Load Of New Features
• More iTunes Fraud: Clever Hackers, Or Vulnerable Users?
• Pull To Refresh Code Thieved By Facebook?
• Is THIS The Best iPad News Reader?

Former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman's coming out provided the media with an opportunity to review the GOP's record on gay rights and explore the Mehlman's role in crafting President Bush's 2004 re-election strategy. On MSNBC, Mehlman's revelation engendered an even more honest discussion when, during a segment with GOProud chairman Christopher Barron, daytime anchor Thomas Roberts who is an openly gay anchor discussed his orientation on air:

BARRON: We know that opinion poll after opinion poll shows that the single most important factor in determining how someone feels about gay rights or about gay issues is whether or not they know someone who is gay or lesbian.

ROBERTS: I think for probably most heterosexual Americans this isn't going to come as a big deal, but I think for millions of gay and lesbian Americans me included find this to be kind of a shocking admission, especially when Mehlman's leadership, in the positions that he held, came at a time when he was part of talks that would have put discrimination into the Constitution. When they were ramping up anti gay rhetoric and now he wants to come out say, hey I'm one of you.' So how does he go about trying to get millions of gay and lesbian Americans to believe that he is not just a big hypocrite.

Watch it:

Indeed, despite Bush and Mehlman's effort to put discrimination into the Constitution, support for gay rights is increasing across the country. As recently as 2004, same-sex marriage did not have majority support in any state. Today, according to researchers at Columbia University, 17 states are over that line. Similarly, CBS News poll found that 77% of Americans now say they know someone who is gay or lesbian, an increase of 35 percentage points since 1992.

At one point the Chatroulette V.2 anticipation was so thick over at TechCrunch HQ that even we were, how you say, premature. But not as premature as the folks over at Chatroulette themselves, who ominously lured us in yesterday in with, The experiment #1 is over for now. Thanks for participating Redesigned and updated version of the website will be launched tomorrow and then well, nothing.

The silliest part is that I've got some kind of update alarm on Chatroulette, so imagine my excitement when I heard the alarm go off at about 11p.m. YOUR WEBSITE HAS UPDATED.

Guess what the update was? Someone changed the word tomorrow to shortly on the site's cryptic Coming Soon! message. Now I'm not sure whether this means it will be launching in the next 30 minutes or the next three days (I've emailed founder Andrey Ternovskiy for an exact ETA), but rest assured, you'll hear about it here first.

Tweet: TechCrunch's own Roi Carthy