US opts to derez virtual fence along Mexico border, replacing it with more affordable measures

Remember that hugely ambitious "virtual fence" that the US Homeland Security department was so keen on blowing a few billion dollars on? Well, following a bunch of setbacks and delays in its development, it's now been determined to be too darn expensive and is being scrapped. That's not without splashing some cash, however, as it's estimated that a billion dollars has already been spent on installing sensor towers along a 53-mile stretch of the Arizona border with Mexico. The plan now is to redirect funds to more conventional (and commercially available) surveillance measures, such as thermal imaging and unmanned aerial drones, which is estimated to cost $750 million to cover the remaining 323 miles of Arizona's border. Whatever happens, keeping illegal immigration and contraband smuggling to a minimum isn't going to be a cheap task. Almost makes you wonder if this isn't a problem better solved by non-technological means.

US opts to derez virtual fence along Mexico border, replacing it with more affordable measures originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Adamo now even cheaper, slightly less powerful

It looks like Dell isn't quite sure what to do with Adamo. First, the MacBook Air competitor was bumped from Dell's marketing roster, then it was reduced from $999 to $899, and now it's got a price tag of $799. Unfortunately, the price isn't all Dell is slashing: last October the Adamo was sporting a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo SL9600 processor and 4GB of DDR3-800 memory, now we're told it's functioning on a 1.4GHz Core Duo 2 SU9400 and 2GB of DDR3-800 (with no upgrade option that we can find). Everything else is basically the same for the little guy, and Dell's Adamo page still offers the suggestion, "Prepare to Fall in Love," but we're not entirely sure we're the ones who need convincing.

Dell Adamo now even cheaper, slightly less powerful originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 23:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Three iPad dummy SKUs appear at Best Buy website

There's not much to see here, folks, just a few listings on Best Buy's website for Apple iPads that don't currently exist. They could be the result of a database error, an employee prank, or even just wishful thinking. Still, in the wake of well-placed sources informing us that a super-high-resolution, SD-card bearing, dual-mode iPad 2 is on the way and a feeling of dj vu, we can't help but think there might be a rather exciting prize behind doors number one, two and three. Or perhaps just a Verizon iPad. We're sure that would make someone's day.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Three iPad dummy SKUs appear at Best Buy website originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Children checking out vintage gadgets continues to be an enthralling experience to watch

The video we've embedded after the break has been around for a few weeks, but we simply couldn't resist posting it. As you'll see, it's a video (in French, but with English subtitles) of children contemplating a ton of vintage gear including the Game Boy, a Colecovision cartridge, and several sizes and shapes of computer discs. Their reactions -- especially if you were alive when most or all of these gadgets were the cutting edge -- is pretty incredible. Like we said, the video (with some pretty clunky subtitles) is after the break.

Continue reading Children checking out vintage gadgets continues to be an enthralling experience to watch

Children checking out vintage gadgets continues to be an enthralling experience to watch originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 20:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Switched On: Making the call on Windows Phone 7

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

CES 2011 saw the debut of what could be the biggest challenge to the Wintel dominance of personal computing since Windows 95 cemented its position. The combination of the Android operating system on ARM processors -- ARMdroid if you will -- grabbed most of the attention in the emerging tablet category on products such as devices such as the Motorola Xoom and LG G-Slate. But it was also clear that manufacturers -- unconstrained by Cupertinian notions of what operating system is best suited to what kind of device -- are willing to take the combination in new directions that come much closer to the notebook form factor. A clear example of this was the ASUS Eee Pad Slider. If having the tablet thunder stolen from Microsoft wasn't enough to make the company uncomfortable, clearly encroaching designs like this were.

And so, at Steve Ballmer's keynote, the company announced that the next version of Windows will support not only x86 offerings from Intel and AMD - themselves moving closer to ARM-like system-on-chips - but ARM designs from companies such as Qualcomm and NVIDIA a! s well. Microsoft noted that the new chip support was requested by its partners, implying that PC companies want to take advantage of the long battery life and thin form factors enabled by ARM architectures, but also bring along Windows' broad driver and software support. Microsoft clearly considers the tablet another PC, albeit one that Windows' hardware and user interface layer needs to support better. However, in striking back at Android evolution, Microsoft risks collateral damage to its own mobile OS. Can Windows Phone 7 co-exist with a ARM-based version of the real thing?

Continue reading Switched On: Making the call on Windows Phone 7

Switched On: Making the call on Windows Phone 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HDTV Listings for January 15, 2011

What we're watching tonight:

• Fox (720p) has Packers/Falcons NFC Divisional Playoffs at 8 p.m.
• Discovery (1080i) has Get Out Alive at 8 p.m.
• ABC (720p) airs the Miss America Pageant at 9 p.m.
• Syfy (1080i) presents Behemoth at 9 p.m.
• BBC America (1080i) has Primeval at 9 p.m.
• NBC (1080i) airs Saturday Night Live with Gwyneth Paltrow & Cee-Lo Green at 11:29 p.m.

HDTV Listings for January 15, 2011 originally appeared on Engadget HD on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A 3 minute film shows what its like to live in New York City

If youre a resident of New York City like our own Courtney Boyd Myers, you may receive the often-asked question, whats it like to live in New York City.

Conversely, if youve never been NYC and simply desire to know what the citys various ports of call appear like throughout the day, a great short film from Josh Owens of Mindrelic, NYC Mindrelic Timelapse, is a fascinating glimpse of life in NYC.

Have you been to NYC? Do you think the film accurately captures the essence of life there?

NYC Mindrelic Timelapse from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

From the Dropbox Gurus: Ideas for Beginners, Intermediates and Wizards

If youre like us, youre using Dropbox for all kinds of unusual tasks. But we wanted to go further, so we asked the experts at Dropbox to tell us their most unusual, unexpected and crazy ways to use this versatile software tool.

If youre not familiar with Dropbox, its free desktop synchronization software that lets you store a copy of a file on your computer and then access that same file from anywhere. You can store up to 2GB for free. Go over that amount, and itll cost you $10 a month for 50GB and $20 a month for 100GB.

Heres the scoop from our experts for three different levels of Dropbox users:

For Beginners Only

Before we get to the advanced techniques, one Dropbox expert suggested that we focus on the basics. Beginners, thi! s is for you; advanced users, you already know all this stuff, go ahead and skip to the next section.

Sync between two computers: This is the most basic task, where you install the Dropbox application onto two computers and synchronize files between them.

Undelete: We were so relieved when we first discovered this feature. Simply go to the Dropbox website, click the arrow that appears to the right of the file when you position your cursor over it, and select Previous Versions. Look at that its your own Time Machine.

Share a folder to collaborate: We do this all the time here at Mashable, where everyone has access to the same files, and if someone else is working on that file, it lets us know so we wont overwrite each other.

For Astute Users

Now that we have the basic techniques out of the way, heres where our team of Dropbox experts get into the intermediate stuff:

Learn the keyboard shortcuts: Just like any application where youre a power user, you can work much more efficiently with shortcuts, jumping all over the place by pressing just a few keys. For example, you can show/hide deleted files just by pressing d. Move up a directory with the letter u. Check out all 13 keyboard shortcuts here.

Password/Vault synching: Apps such as 1Password, KeePass and Tiny Password will let you store your secrets in your Dropbox, and then access them from any other device where you have these applications installed. Or, do like we do and use LastPass, a browser plug-in that performs all the synchronization in the cloud for you itself.

Sync between desktop and iOS device: Heres what one expert called beautiful, quick syncing, where you never have to click save to save y! our note s. Mac users, he recommends using Notational Velocity on the desktop and PlainText on any IOS device to sync notes through Dropbox. For PC users, you can store notes in .txt format (using an applet like Notepad) and save them in Dropbox, where you can open them using the PlainText app (which we love) on your iOS device.

For Smarty Pants Users

Now we get into the advanced techniques. Heres the most unusual tip we got from our experts, this from one of Dropboxs sales team:

Sync music for your car: As our expert tells it, Im using Dropbox to sync a small netbook in the trunk of my car with my music library, and then have that connected to my head unit for playback. Anytime Ive added new music to the library on my home PC, the next time I get in my car I will set my Android phone as a mobile hotspot, use that to hook the netbook up online, and I have the local Dropbox account on the machine selectively synced out of every folder except my music. It syncs the new music while Im driving around and I now have way more songs in my car than I could ever fit on an iPod, including my favorite new edition of Arcadio.

Chrome data syncing: Chrome browser users, try moving your Chrome data file to Dropbox, and your entire session everything, including windows and settings, opens just how you want on any other computer. Our expert warns of a downside, though: conflicted copies of your settings files if Chrome is open on two computers at the same time. Heres more info for the adventurous.

For Techno-Gods Only

Abandon all hope all ye who enter here, well, unless youre a techno-guru. Heres the granddaddy tip of them all, a way to get remote desktop access to all of your! machine s by using Windows Server 2008, straight from the upper echelons of Dropbox:

Compute anywhere: One of the lesser known features of Windows Server 2008 R2 (and the currently-in-beta Windows Home Server Vail which is based on R2) is called RemoteApp. Basically it allows you to launch a self-contained streaming instance of an application that is installed on the server and delivered via
a remote desktop session where you only see the app on the client side.

Its cool because, on a Windows machine, it can be run one of two ways: via an RDP file, or taking it a step further, using an MSI installer package which makes it look like the app is installed on the local machine, complete with file associations. You can also run multiple instances from multiple remote locations at the same time. This is particularly cool for special file types like PSDs where it may not be convenient or possible to install the app on the remote machine.

Tying in to Dropbox, I had two folders: one called RDP and one called MSI. I was able to take my apps with me anywhere and if it was a Windows machine I had control of, I was able to install the remote app as well. The end goal was to be able to remotely launch a single copy of iTunes from anywhere and possibly even map the USB ports (you can set that up when you make the MSI) so I could sync my iPhone remotely. It was also great for controlling apps that needed some horsepower (i.e. Handbrake) from much more underpowered devices.

Commenters, let us know how these tips worked for you, and tell us more ways to get the most out of Dropbox.

Wed like to thank all those at Dropbox who helped us prepare this post.

More About: Dropbox Tips, expert tips, file sync, hacks, how to

Only $50B? Facebook stock is still a steal

Everyone from The New York Times to Fortune to CNN has been weighing in to decry the excessive hype leading to Facebooks reported $50 billion valuation, as if theres some immutable law of nature that private Internet stocks cant be worth that much.

I dont have any inside information about Facebooks finances, and Im not a Goldman client. But Im convinced that when we look back at this investment, it will rank as one of the best stock opportunities available today akin to buying Apple stock just before the release of the iPod.

Yes, there are many examples of unjustified Internet hype in the market today, but Facebook isnt over-hyped; its simply an exception to the rule, a once-in-a-decade occurrence of a company that fundamentally changes the way we live and work, and has built a profitable business with huge growth prospects in the process. Let me explain why Im so sure of this.

Advertising isnt a business model? Tell that to Ogilvy

Detractors point to Facebooks business model advertising as evidence that the company cant possibly be a big business. Isnt advertising a $210 billion business in the U.S., and about three times as big globally? So the objection could be that Internet advertising isnt real. But hold on: internet advertising is expected to be a $25 billion business and grow 70 percent by 2015. And while SNL Kagan doesnt yet break out soci! al adver tising as a category (I bet they do soon), Facebook reportedly did close to $2 billion in revenue last year; pretty good for no business model.

Sure, there is something behind our general fatigue toward websites with online advertising-based business models. There are innumerable small, sub-scale sites that cant get the attention of premium, brand advertisers that drive the bulk of this spending, due to the small, fragmented size of their audience. But lets not throw Facebook under the bus based on this. This is a site that reaches 500 million, sorry, no, 600 million people- half of whom log in every day - with a wealth of data that allows targeting on a level never before seen. Want to run a campaign that reaches fans of Natalie Portman? Facebook just happens to know 61,860 of those in the US. What about Lady Gaga fans who speak French? 23,060. Men who like Aardvarks? 2,260. You get the idea.

Detractors point to the current state of Facebooks sales team and ad units as evidence that it wont be a big business. I sometimes hear people say well, Ive never clicked on an ad, so usually trailing off afterwards. Think of it a different way: Facebook built a business with $2 billion in advertising revenue, and youve never clicked on an ad? Imagine how big it will be when you do start clickingregularly. The television industry has had 60 years to evolve its ad formats and sales forces; Facebooks only been at it with any seriousness for the past three or four years. Give them another two or three to get it perfected.

Facebook has sound fundamentals no, seriously

Lets assume that the data reported in The Wall Street Journal is accurate, and that Facebook ended 2010 with close to! $2 bill ion in revenue, implying $500 to $600 million in profit using the range of reported profit margins. Thats a revenue growth rate of 157 percent and a profit growth rate of 150-200 percent from the $200 million in profit reported for 2009. If true, it would actually be conservative to expect their profit to double in 2011, implying a forward P/E of 42-50 for the Goldman investment, which puts it right in line with those of Amazon (53), Baidu (45), and Netflix (49). Whats so unreasonable about a forward P/E of 50 for a company like Facebook with an audience size and engagement level that implies many more years of doubling revenues and profits ahead?

The problem is that now that financial data is trickling out, were comparing Facebook to public stocks of similar size, and public market investors just arent used to companies that have more than doubled their revenue and profit in the past year and can credibly forecast to continue to do so for at least a few more years. Comparisons to Googles current financial ratios are spurious, for Googles several years of post-IPO meteoric growth are well behind it. The company has grown less than 10 percent a quarter for the past 5 quarters.

Facebook is no one-trick pony

The vast majority of Facebooks revenue today comes from one form of advertising or another. Remember last years brouhaha over Facebook Credits and Facebook taking a 30 percent cut of developers revenue? Given the size of companies like Zynga (once estimated to generate $50 million in revenue per month), wont that be an even bigger number over time? Considering that Credits werent rolled out until the end of 2010, Id think of this entire business as new over the current revenue base. And given the companys breadth and usage, whos to say that Facebook couldnt make a run at other, already proven business models like Web search and local advertising?

Think Apple Stock is too expensive? Buy shares in another visionary

Call me old-fashioned, but heres something else Goldman ! clients are buying with their Facebook shares: a team led by a visionary, not unlike Steve Jobs, whos highly skilled at predicting our future modes of personal communication and interaction. In Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks stockholders are getting someone who has the foresight to shape the future patterns of how we spend our time and keep in touch. And hes demonstrated an ability to execute on these prophecies in spite of protests by the vocal masses. Remember the uproar when Facebook released its news feed back in 2006? The company apologized at the time for a lack of communication but completely ignored the general consensus and kept the news feed intact. Anyone want to eliminate it today? Its now the focal point of the site and the basis for zillions of hours of activities and eyeballs. Remember predictions that no one would spend their time using applications on the Facebook platform? Tell that to the 18 million people that played CityVille today, and the 2.5 million developers building on the platform. And these are just a few of the many product innovations like photo tagging that Facebook has made commonplace.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, plenty of things. We all remember AOL and Myspace. This kind of skepticism has plagued Facebook at every turn - only to be dismissed as the site achieves the next milestone and continues its exponential growth without missing a beat. Im sure eventually there will be another technology juggernaut that emerges to steal back our time and scare Facebook about being disrupted. But this has never happened overnight, and no one is pointing to a company or idea currently out there that presages Facebooks irrelevance.

I look forward to Facebook going public so that we finally have access to its financial data. Only then can we advance this debate as to whether were truly looking at a once-in-a-decade kind of company. In the meantime, Im sure well see a lot more backlash against the hype. I wont have time to read it though; like a lot of you, Ill be too bu! sy perus ing photos of Bali beach vacations taken by junior high-school classmates to whom I havent spoken in years. And maybe Ill even click on an ad or two in the process.

Ethan Kurzweil is a Vice President with Bessemer Venture Partners in Menlo Park, California. He works with Internet companies of all types, including Playdom, Zoosk, Crowdflower, Twilio, Reputation Defender and OpenCandy. You can find him on twitter at @ethankurz. The views expressed in this post are his own, and do not represent those of Bessemer. Disclosure: Ethan has a very small position in a Facebook secondary vehicle, purchased in 2010.

Nike+ GPS Update Lets Runners Play a Game of Tag

Whos up for a friendly game of Nike+ Tag? Let the games begin, Nike+ GPS users theres an update now available for your iPhone app, letting you compete against your friends.

Its available for download from the iTunes App Store as a free update to existing Nike+ GPS app users, or itll cost you $1.99 for a new purchase.

While theres no physical tagging going on, the object of the game is like you might expect: Dont be it. Runners compete against each other, and whoever runs the slowest, the shortest distance, or starts running latest in the day is designated as it.

How does it work? Nike explains it:

• After a run, a Nike+ GPS App user is prompted to Play Tag
• The user can! invite or Tag as many Nike+ friends and email contacts as they choose
• The user can customize the message that goes to friends
• The user sets a game of Tag based upon either distance (person who runs shortest distance is IT), time (person who runs for the shortest amount of time is IT), or order (person to run last is IT).
• Tag begins once the user invites his/her friends
• Once Tag begins, the game will continue until each runner has taken part, or up to three days, whichever comes first
• The Nike+ GPS App tracks each time a runner is IT and NOT IT
• If no one other than the initiator takes part, he/she is not IT, the game just dissolves after three days

Unfortunately, if youre a Nike+ iPod user using a watch or shoe sensor, you wont be able to play this new game of Tag. According to Nike, the two apps were developed by completely different teams, and they use different technology. Unlike the Nike+ iPod system, the Nike+ GPS software doesnt use that sensor that fits into a shoe or is built into watch, but uses the iPhones GPS to gauge location, speed and distances.

Take a look at the cute video Nike produced in association with this app:

More About: app store, apps, Fitness Apps, free downloads, iphone, Nike+ GPS, Nike+ Tag, Tag, Update