Hmmm.... Powerful... This Laser Is

The force has come down upon a Hong Kong-based manufacturer, Wicked Lasers, who makes and sells a product  called the Spyder III Pro Arctic Laser. The problem, it seems is that George Lucas and his company Lucasfilm believes the device too closely resembles the lightsaber made famous by the Star Wars franchise, and according to a cease and desist letter "It is apparent from the design of the Pro Arctic Laser that it was intended to resemble the hilts of our lightsaber swords, which are protected by copyright."

In it's defense Wicked Lasers contends that the Pro-Arctic is "real while the lightsaber is imaginary." I'd say they have a point there... however you might want to act quickly if you intend upon purchasing one of these lightsaber like devices as I fear the force is strong with Mr Lucas.

     (Credit: Wicked Lasers)


More info at cnet news.

Firefox 4 Beta Released To The Wild

Mozilla has released Firefox 4 Beta 1 into the wild with an apparent emphasis on speed and support for new and emerging web standards. New features as pointed out by Wired's Web Monkey are:

• Support for WebM video
• More support for emerging web standards like CSS 3, Canvas and Web Sockets
• Better page rendering performance, including a new HTML5 parser
• Crash protection that prevents bad plugins from blowing up the whole browser
• New add-ons manager
• Recently updated Jetpack SDK for new-style lightweight add-ons

Sounds great, but remember this is Beta release 1 so things are bound to be broken or at least a little unstable.

Personally, I'm a longtime Firefox user who recently made the switch to Chrome for all of my personal browsing. Speed was definitely a deciding factor. I am not so far down the Google path that Mozilla can't entice me back but I'll need to see some compelling reasons to do so. I'll give it a download and let you know my thoughts.

Also, as a teaser, tomorrow marks one month of using the iPad for me and I hope to put together my thoughts in a post later this week, so stay tuned. 

Biometric ATMs Appearing in Europe

Hitachi has produced a finger tip scanner that scans patterns of micro veins beneath the surface of the skin rather than finger prints and has managed to get the scanners installed in ATM machines in Warsaw, Poland.  Poland's cooperative BPS bank claims to be the first bank in Europe to install biometric identity verification on it's ATMs.

Hitachi claims the likelihood of a false positive is about 1 in 1 million, or roughly as accurate as an iris scan which is generally accepted as the most secure of methods to date. Perhaps I watch too many spy movies but the first thing that came to my mind was quickly dispelled as I read further in CNN's article, "And before you ask, no -- it doesn't work with fingers that have been chopped off,"  said Peter Jones, Hitachi's head of security and solutions in Europe. (Admit it, you were thinking it too!)

I hadn't realized that Poland was so forward thinking but Jone's goes on to say "It's no surprise that Poland is the first in Europe. They are one of the most proactive at addressing the challenges of the information age. When they host the EU presidency in 2012, they want to say to the world: 'Look at what we've achieved.'"

Twitter's New Revenue Generator

Business Insider is reporting that Twitter is finding new ways to monetize and the latest appears to be via an account called @earlybird. Twitter PR told ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick,  "There are interesting things in store for @earlybird. Keep waking up early and you might be the first to find out what they are." Looks like they are taking a page out of Dell's book.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/twitters-newest-revenue-plan-daily-deals-2010-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Falleyinsider%2Fsilicon_alley_insider+%28Silicon+Alley+Insider%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#ixzz0snd8Og7h

Geek Beat By Cali Lewis

One of my favorite Internet celebs has a new show on Revision 3. Cali Lewis of geekbrief fame is now on the Revision 3 network with a new video show called GeekBeat.TV, you'll get the same Cali and plenty of product reviews ala Geek Brief. I'm embedding the show here using the sites self updating embed code, so you can simply bookmark this post if you choose. Check it out here or on Rev3 @ http://revision3.com/greekbeattv

The Starbucks Lean Startup - A How To

Starbucks has taken some of the financial pain out of buying a latte and surfing the web in their stores by offering up free Wi-Fi to customers in Canada and the US. "Enjoy great coffee and the Internet at your fingertips." says the companies website. 


Om Malik, is adding to the mix by letting us all in on his little secrets about lean startups and maximizing your business startup experience at Starbucks expense:

• Almost always favor a single location. It makes it easier for your contacts to drop in for meetings.
• Learn the names of most of the baristas and also take time to have a conversation with them. It helps build a human connection.
• Make the baristas involved in your venture – share your news and make them feel part of your struggle.
• Make sure you buy coffee or something at least three times a day.
• Tip generously – up to $10 a day will ensure that folks at the store don’t view you as a freeloader and a pest.
• Don’t spread out your stuff and take up too much space at the store.
• Invest in great noise-cancelling headphones (to counter the loud background music).
• Keep your mobile phones on vibrate and leave the store for conversations.
• Make sure that the number of people attending a meeting is fewer than four so that you can all circle around a single table.

Think I need a latte.

The Facebook Movie Trailer - The Social Network

In case you were unaware, there is a movie coming out this fall that chronicles the raise of Mark Zuckerberg and his little website Facebook. "The Social Network" has a number of A list Hollywood actors and apparently has Zuck a little pissed. Recently the trailer was released on the site 500millionfriends.com

Foursquare Raises $20,000,000 Round B Financing

The one and a half year old location-based social sensation Foursquare has just secured a $20 million Series B investment led by VCs Andreessen Horowitz, with Union Square Ventures and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures also participating. According to Business Insider:

• Foursquare can finally start working on its product again after moving a lot of resources to building out its infrastructure, which was crumbling after its huge growth.

• Foursquare can finally start hiring again because it's moving into bigger offices. Before, it couldn't physically put more people in the room.

• For the forseeable future, Foursquare will continue to be one main app -- not a bunch of apps for different purposes.

The deal values the company at $95 million pre-financing.

We have several players in our office and the competition is really heating up... Congrats Foursquare! We look forward to seeing more great stuff now that you've got the money behind you.

Monkey-Pirate-Robot-Ninja-Zombie

There's a new game in town and you'll probably all flock to it like Farmville on a work PC. Introducing, via boingboing, Monkey-Pirate-Robot-Ninja-Zombie! It's a new variation on an old game, except with sound effects, and it goes something like this:

Monkey
* Monkey fools Ninja
* Monkey unplugs Robot
Suggested noise: ee-ee-eek!

Robot
* Robot chokes Ninja
* Robot crushes Zombie
Suggested noise: ex-ter-min-ate!

Pirate
* Pirate drowns Robot
* Pirate skewers Monkey
Suggested noise: arrrrr!

Ninja
* Ninja karate chops Pirate
* Ninja decapitates Zombie
Suggested noise: keeee-ah!

Zombie
* Zombie eats Pirate
* Zombie savages Monkey
Suggested noise: braaaaaaaaaainsss!

Now call me a traditionalist but I still prefer rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock, although the sound effects are kinda cool!

Doodle Jump - 5 Million Downloads And Still Jumping

What started as an attempt to make a little extra money by two Croatian born brothers has turned into an iPhone sensation with a reported 5 million downloads to date. Doodle Jump is a $0.99 download from the iTunes App store and  Igor and Marko Pusenjak believe their little game is the first to reach the 5,000,000 download mark. The brothers have quit their day jobs and now dedicate all of their time to iPhone - iPad development through their company  Lima Sky.

“I remember a moment of frustration when we were selling only 20 or 30 copies a day,” he said, “then we made it into the top 25 apps and we’ve been there for almost a year now.” Growth of sales is also aided by their fans who post videos showing off their skills and via a number of Facebook groups dedicated to the game and it's fans.

Well done Igor and Marko! Great success story.


Credit: NY Times Bits Blog