The OpenMoko Neo Freerunner we caught back in January will be available to order on July 4th. That makes the Linux-based cellphone a perfect birthday gift for Uncle Sam, assuming he's into shell commands. It'll run $400, press release after the jump. [OpenMoko]

Openmoko Declares Independence for the Mobile Phone:
Neo FreeRunner to Hit the Market July 4

Openmoko committed to freedom for open mobile innovation
TAIPEI, TAIWAN ? July 2 2008 - Openmoko, developer of the first open mobile computing platform today announced that on Friday, July 4, it will open the online store for purchase of the Openmoko Neo FreeRunner, a OpenMoko FreeRunner mobile phonemobile device that the company says will help to enable ubiquitous computing for the 21st century. Shipping to customers will commence on July 7, 2008.

The Openmoko Neo FreeRunner utilizes GNU/Linux and comes with core software for dialing, SMS and recording contacts. Openmoko will supplement these features with periodic downloads beginning with a software suite that takes full advantage of the phone's hardware platform. The new software, debuting at Linux world in August, will provide exciting new location based applications.

Two versions of the phone will be available: 850MHz or 900 MHz Tri-band GSM to match frequencies in different countries. Black, oval-shaped and weighing 6.5 ounces, the Openmoko Neo FreeRunner features a 2.8" 480 x 640 VGA touchscreen, Wi-Fi (802.1 1b/g), AGPS, GPRS 2.5G, Bluetooth 2.0, two 3-axis motion sensors and comes with 128MB WSDRAM and 256MB NAND Flash.

Open Mobile Free
Openmoko frees developers from constraints of closed mobile architectures so they can apply the power of mobility and a flexible development platform to create mobile applications for specialized markets. Using the Openmoko mobile platform, the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community and developers can create unique versions of the FreeRunner phone, modifying the way the phone operates and even the way it looks. CAD files publicly available under a Creative Commons license make it easy for industrial designers to change the appearance of the Openmoko Neo FreeRunner and select alternate materials and finishes to tailor the phone's look and feel.

Distributors in the EU have already received shipments of the Openmoko Neo FreeRunner.

Openmoko will be at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, August 5-7, 2008 in booth 1625 and in the Linux Garage Pavilion booth 1234 in the Moscone Center North Hall.

Pricing and availability
The Openmoko Neo FreeRunner has a suggested retail price of $399. Openmoko will sell the phone directly from it its webshop www.Openmoko.com and via distributors in the EU, India and North America.

This is it, the final countdown!

2006 is fast coming to an end, and so is the Gadget Lab. Whoa, whoa, whoa -- put down that RAZR! Don't hurt yourself. The G-Lab crew is taking a break to re-tool, re-work, re-write, and re-format. We're cooking up a new and improved newsletter that'll rock your world. It'll be ready to roll later in aught-seven -- we'll keep you posted on progress.

In the meantime, worry not: The G-Lab crew will be back in a couple of weeks (just in time for that gadget-orgy overload known as CES) in the form of a brand-spankin'-new blog. It will totally rule, trust us. We'll have all the gadget reviews you desire, along with the clever writing you love, plus a few other surprises we'll reveal soon enough. And if you need something to tide you over till then (and maybe help you recover from that wickedly decadent New Year's party), tune in Wednesday, January 3, at 8 pm to check out the premiere of Wired Science, our very own, very new, and very wired TV show. Check here
for more details.

Since we'll be on a brief hiatus till then, we've got a double-barrel blast of reviews to appease your gadget lust. First up is an almost supernatural gaming PC, a smartphone with some superior styling, and a set of wireless earbuds that make riding public transit almost bearable. Next is an LCD TV suitable for a Sith Lord, the ideal online gaming companion, and a camera perfect for taking shots while, uh, taking shots. Starting January 8, we'll be running full-steam ahead on our new URL: blog.wired.com/gadgets. Until then, you stay classy, G-Labbers! -- Daniel Dumas

Marissa Mayer / The Official Google Blog:
What comes next in this series?  13, 33, 53, 61, 37, 28...  Late one night in the summer of 2000, I found myself answering user support emails in response to two new features we had just released, Advanced Search and Preferences (at the time catchily called “Language, Display, and Filtering Options” :)).

• A new configuration wizard to help ease up TVersity's initial configuration (firewall setup, service auto-start setup, Vista setup issues, and more)
• Our transcoding engine can now for the first time download FLV and MP4 videos, convert them and stream them to devices all at the same time
• We are also including in this release a web surfing toolbar from our partner Ask.com.
• This release also features support for Blackberry devices (media streaming requires OS 4.3 or higher, downloading requires OS 4.2 or higher)
  

… for Brits to emigrate to. Amazing how many Brits move there.

With high expectations, Matias Duarte, the one famous for the Sidekick’s extremely friendly UI allegedly moves to Palm.

So it’s time to bring in the big guns. With Palm’s latest disappointment with the Foleo and the not-so-great worldwide response to the Centro, Palm plans to reinvent themselves once again starting with a revolutionary operating system. In retrospect, the Palm OS was the crown jewel in the early 2000’s because of its simplicity, common sensical approach to computing. It wasn’t a heavy developer nightmare to write for and the Palm devices were attractive to consumers. Today we have that same sort of thing - but in the form of Apple’s iPhone and soon, Google Android. To wow consumers, Palm really needs to think several miles outside the box.

Personally a move to wow audiences would be to go the other direction and reinvent the QWERTY thumb board to something we’ve never seen before.

[image from Newscom]

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The BBC is reporting - online , on-radio and on-TV – on the thousands of letters to be sent out to illegal file sharers in UK on behalf of the BPI. 800 have already been sent out via Virgin Media. These are first steps, and though already criticized, the libertarians (mischievously referred to as ‘Freetards’ in some circles) should consider the comparatively liberal nature of the approach currently being pursued compared to those in the US and in France.

Realistically speaking the UK music industry’s activity with ISPs (in its current cooperative phase at least) will not turn off the tap on the majority of file sharing (it will of course never be completely turned off, but no one is aiming for that). The activity does, though, have realistic chances have having meaningful impact.

The low hanging fruit are the (conscientious) families of file sharing kids. Imagine the situation: mum or dad picks up a letter from the door mat on the way out to work, realizing to their shock that their kids are using illegal file sharing networks. Not only are they likely to enforce some household discipline they’ll be amenable to paying an extra pound or two a month for a music service from their ISP which will give their kids some sort of alternative, and keep them off the virtual streets.

These may sound like modest objectives, but trimming a few percentage points off UK file sharing penetration and converting a share of those to new music services will have a meaningful impact on the UK music market, and will be an important first step in the broader process. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the next potential target groups (students away from home, independent young adults, Carphone Warehouse customers etc.) will prove far more challenging quarry.

Kind of sad today. I sold my Mini. Make that my beloved Mini. I shouldn't be so sad, as I'll be getting a new one when I get to the "other side" next week, back home to California. Still, some cars have souls, and I'll really miss my baby. And that got me thinking about the cars I've had over the years. Some were special; some got me by -- lots of memories with all of them.

I've heard it said many times that especially for Southern California, you're defined by what you drive. Perhaps. For my first cars there, I drove things more out of circumstance than choice. But that, of course, did define me. Not much money and picking up whatever I could afford or get handed down to me.

Click to continue reading...

If you think about Gmail and Susan s reference, Gmail when it launched in beta was a fully functional email service. I personally was using it and it offered everything you d expect, but was in beta just to say that there s more to come and maybe it s not fully polished.

The reason we ve been delaying [Home] is so that we can deliver a high quality service that the users will enjoy. Even though it will be in beta, it will be a fair representation of what the service can be and its potential, so it won t be a 0.5 release, it will be a fully robust service.

I don t have any more specifics right now, but like Kaz [Hirai] said, it will go live [in the US] this summer and I think it will offer consumers everything they re looking for from us. It will offer everything they expect from us and probably a little bit more.

Filed under: Hacks, PC, First Person Shooters

We’ll be honest. We’ve got it bad. Portal, we’re addicted to it. What started off as a fling with the perceived one-night floozy of the Orange Box lineup has turned into a serious long-term relationship. We find ourselves going through the other Orange Box offerings - and real life, we’ll be honest - thinking, “Gee, I wish I had the Portal gun here.”
Thanks to hard work and years of studying (stay in school, kids) the alchemists at Primotech have transformed blood and sweat into an incredible hack that lets you create portals all over the lovely, quasi-European walls of Half-Life 2’s City 17. Some notes: you’ll obviously need the PC version, you’ll need to follow some dozen steps full of words like “hosing,” and you’ll want to keep a fresh pair of pants nearby. But before you get to all that, peep the video […]

Continue reading this post by: Christopher Grant …

We?re almost done, kiddies. This is what you?ve all been waiting for. I had a great time at Dyson learning about dust mites, chatting with James about the iPhone, watching him bash a DC24 and getting an overview of the history of Dyson. But my main objective while in Malmesbury was to design and build a prototype attachment for one of the vacuums in the line up. I own the Root 6, so I decided to build an attachment for that. Before my trip, I asked all of my friends what they thought I should build. Their answers were amusing, revolting and thought provoking. I thought about updating the Flowbee or making some animal grooming attachment, but time was limited and we needed to get something done in less than 24 hours.

Will Davies, Valerie and I sat down in one of the modeling rooms for about three hours and went through the design process from brainstorming to building on one of the CAD machines. I conveyed my thoughts to Will and sketched a few ideas out in the RDD journal (all Dyson engineers are issued a journal that becomes property of Dyson) that was issued to me at the beginning of the day. Upon my departure from Malmesbury the journal was confiscated and filed into the library of journals.

Anyway, as I said before, we had about three hours to design and submit our prototype so that it could be built in the 3D modeling machine overnight. Unfortunately, I wasn?t able to film the printing machine in action because of what was being built in it at the time. It was really, really cool. Essentially, the designs are uploaded to the machine and it begins to ?print out? whatever it was that you uploaded. There are two materials that it lays down and unfortunately I made the mistake of taking all my notes in the RDD journal, so I can?t tell you exactly what they were at the moment. The main compound is a soft plastic and around that is a gel-like material that gives the actual device support while it?s being printed and hardens. The printer basically works like any other printer you?ve seen. It slides across from side-to-side and deposits the material as it goes. My design had to be submitted by 4:30 and by 10AM the next day it was ready to go. After it?s done printing, one of the engineers scraped away the gel-like material and put it through an acid wash and then a quick blow dry to remove any remaining particles.

How did I design it? I thought about the one place that collects the most dust and dirt in my apartment and just looked down at my keyboard. Then I thought about other applications for it. I thought that PC owners would want the ability to vacuum the back of their PC case, so I added a bit of flexibility to it.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I present to you the CrunchGear Dyson Root 6 attachment. We have the only prototype and it will likely remain that way. Heh.

Of course, we had some issues with it, but they weren?t realized until after the fact. There were little nubbins inside the swivel to lock the attachment between it?s 180 degree angle and 45 degree tilt that were placed incorrectly in CAD, so they didn?t exactly come out right, hence the loosey gooseyness of it. But we had less than three hours for the entire process. There also wasn?t enough time to add bristles at the end. Overall, I can say that I?m the proud owner of a one-of-a-kind Dyson prototype. I just hope they don?t make my design better and start selling it. Heh.

on AIR is a blog run by the platform evangelism team at Adobe that focuses on discussions around the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Rich Internet Application Development.

Recent posts from on AIR:
Ethan Malasky on Developing Secure AIR Applications
Lots of Excitement for Adobe AIR in Europe
On AIR Tour Europe Almost Sold Out

Channels 9, 10, and TechNet Edge are social media communities brought to you by the Evangelism team at Microsoft. Channel 9 is a Developer community that features interviews with the people behind Microsoft Products and Technologies, a wiki and an active general discussion forum. Channel 10 is a community for the Power User that in addition to highlighting relevant Microsoft Products and Technologies profiles those people who are using technology to change our world. TechNet Edge is where IT professionals go to get the inside story on the latest Microsoft technologies, watch screencasts and learn more from the insiders.

Recent posts from Channel 9:
Charles Teague: Building Windows Live Writer Plug-ins
TechEd Amanda Silver on Visual Basic 2008 and VB in the future
This Week on C9: Jeff Sandquist and Bill Gates stories

questionpro (blog) aims to deliver the most advanced features that the online survey market demands while maintaining a balance between flexibility and ease-of-use. Customer satisfaction is our #1 priority and our software constantly improves by taking customer feedback to heart. The success of our company depends entirely on the success of our clients. Our single goal is to deliver a service that makes conducting online research easy.

Recent posts from The QuestionPro Blog:
Ironman Nice Update
Notes from CASRO Technology Conference: SMS Research
13th Annual CASRO Technology Conference

OSCON (blog) is happening July 21-25 in Portland, Oregon. OSCON is the crossroads of all things open source, bringing together the best, brightest, and most interesting people to explore what's new, and to champion the cause of open principles and open source adoption across the computing industry.

Recent posts from OSCON:
Brian Aker's Vision for a Livable Design, Looking at MySQL as OSCON Approaches
Open Mobile Exchange to Debut at OSCON
O'Reilly Radar: Call For Open Source Awards 2008 Nominations

Zoho (blog): Zoho does online office. Zoho offers a wide range of online office and productivity applications ranging from word processors, spreadsheets, presentation apps to CRM, project management, wikis and more. Zoho aims to provide an affordable suite of online applications.

Recent posts from Zoho Blogs:
Syncplicity Integrates Zoho
Zoho Business : Scheduled Maintenance on Jun 29, 2008
Zoho Show Update : Export as PPT/PDF/ODF, UI in 9 New Languages, Undo/Redo & more

Compete.com (blog) is the only online competitive intelligence service that combines web wide site metrics and search analytics in one site to help you quickly master online marketing. Our goal is to make it easy for you to keep your finger on the pulse of the whole online landscape and get the most out of your search investments to effectively drive brand awareness, drive site traffic and increase sales.

Recent posts from Compete Blog:
What You Have Been Asking For... Today We Are Launching Compete PRO …
E*Trade: The Right Stuff “Baby”?
May Online Video Market Share: ABC Signs Up With Veoh; Fancast and Hulu Tango

Samsung Wireless Phones
… Phones & Fax Machines > Wireless Phones. Wireless Phones … View All Phones. Service Providers. Shop Accessories. Register Your Phone. Support. Contact Us …
Source: product.samsung.com

Phones - Buy.com
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Source: rdre1.yahoo.com

Phones
… lists information about the various phones that BitPim knows about, and to … For other phones we have to rely on (frequently incomplete) information from …
Source: www.bitpim.org

Prepaid Phones items at eBay Prepaid Phones
Shop eBay first for Prepaid Phones items and buy or sell Prepaid Phones items online. …
Source: rdre1.yahoo.com

Free Cell Phones, Free Cellular Phone Deals & Offers
Get FREE CELL PHONES and the Best Cellular Phone Deals from AT&T/Cingular, … Get up to 5 Free Cell Phones from more wireless carriers. …
Source: rdre1.yahoo.com

Cell Phones | AT&T wireless services
Compare AT&T’s current line-up of phones to be sure your next phone is compatible with the services and features you want in your wireless life.
Source: www.wireless.att.com

IP Phones, VoIP Phone Systems & Voice over IP equipment-888VoipStore.com
IP Phones, VoIP Phone Systems & Voice over IP equipment-888VoipStore.com. For volume pricing on VoIP Equipment call 888-VOIPSTORE your VoIP supplier.
Source: www.888voipstore.com

Motorola United States - View all phones
… Cell Phones at Motorola’s HelloMoto USA. Get the latest mobile cellular phones and … Compare Phones. Compare Two Way Radios. Support. First select the …
Source: www.motorola.com

A lot of information about phones, their description and function.
This part comprise useful information about phones - their definition and information. … phones: … So far as money and display were concerned, the St phones. …
Source: dlus.tripod.com

Conference Phones
Discover conference phones from Polycom, ClearOne and Lifesize. … Conference phones manufacturer Polycom recently announced upcoming availability …
Source: www.tmcnet.com

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Thanks Matthew Burton!

Sometimes U.S. political candidates don’t answer questions directly or quote each other out of context. Speechology.org strives to resolve that so that voters can hear for themselves what’s really going on.

Speechology is an archive of political debates and campaign advertisements, all of which are subject to fact checking by our users. We created Speechology because we were tired of watching politicians fudge the truth in ads and dodge questions during debates. With Speechology, voters no longer have to wonder what the real story is. Think of it as part YouTube, part FactCheck.org.

I don?t celebrate 4th of July but since I have a lot of American visitors it?s appropriate to say Happy independece day to you all! I hope you?ll have a great day!

My wife, Lorna Harris, has been busy the past few months with a project she launched in beta last week: Boudica.com, a social news site for women.

Click to continue reading...

When word got out that the Sprint would require customers to carry a $70-per-month plan if they wanted to rock an Instinct, folks were a bit worried about whether or not their SERO plans would keep them from activating. (For those who don’t lurk phone forums, SERO is intended as a discounted plan set for those with friends/family that work for Sprint. In practice, it’s a discounted plan for anyone who can track down a Sprint employee email address)

To the surprise of many, the Instinct activated just fine on the SERO plan. No sneaky workarounds or trickery needed - it just worked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t supposed to work. Only those on the $99 SERO Unlimited plan were supposed to have been allowed.

Hoping to grab the “Worst Reaction of the Week” title, Sprint has decided to essentially push the blame onto the customers. Rather than eating the loss as a system error they should have covered from day one, they’re calling up SERO/Instinct customers and giving them an ultimatum: Change plans, or give us the phone back.

Losing money sucks, but once the customer is signed and out the door, it’s on the lap of the company that allowed the screw up to slip through. Sprint has yet to respond, though a number of customers have confirmed the situation.

[Via Phonenews]