September 05, 2006, 3:58 PM PDT
3GDR442, who are you?
Posted by: Wayne Cunningham

SearchPlates.com is a new Web site that lets people send e-mail to others based on their license plate numbers. Want to make contact with that cute guy or girl driving next to you? Want to rant at the jerk that cut you off? Write down their license number and enter it at SearchPlates.com. Of course, this site depends on people voluntarily entering their license plate number and corresponding e-mail address. If the honey you want to get in contact with isn't in the SearchPlates.com database, you're reduced to driving the same road over and over again, hoping for a repeat encounter.

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September 05, 2006, 3:56 PM PDT
The electric Mini
Posted by: Wayne Cunningham

It may sound like a new dance, but an electric motor company built an electrically driven Mini as a demonstration vehicle to show off its technology. PML Flightlink Ltd., a British company with a product line that includes flight simulator joysticks and industrial electric motors, ripped the drivetrain out of a Mini, replacing it with four in-wheel electric motors, a 300-volt lithium-polymer battery, a 350-volt ultracapacitor, plus a 250cc two-cylinder engine to generate extra electricity, as needed. PML claims 80mpg and a top speed of 150mph. Zero to 62 mph is a blazing 4.5 seconds, and the car can run for four hours on electric-only, according to the company's Web site. The four in-wheel motors also work as regenerative braking systems and as a traction control system. PML calls the car the Mini QED.

This demonstration car points to an interesting future trend of new component makers entering the automotive arena as drivetrains diversify. Currently, automakers run their transmission and engine manufacturing as separate lines of business, installing them in their own cars and selling them to clients. The addition of electric components to drivetrains opens up the business to companies such as PML that have expertise in those areas but aren't traditionally automotive suppliers. The Mini QED could signal a large-scale economic shift.

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September 05, 2006, 3:55 PM PDT
Details of the Samsung P310 revealed
Posted by: Nicole Lee

We haven't seen an official announcement about the Samsung P310 from Samsung yet, but images and specifications of the slim handset have already made their way to a few blogs. The P310 is touted as an upgrade to the calculator-like SGH-P300, which we reviewed about four months ago. While the P310 appears to maintain the same tiny credit card-size form factor, it no longer has the calculator-style buttons of its predecessor, making it look more like an actual cell phone. Also, it will apparently feature a 2-megapixel camera, a Micro SD card slot, a music player, Bluetooth 2.0, and even a cool-looking OLED 256,000-color TFT display. No word on pricing or availability of course, but we're guessing you'll have to buy this phone unlocked if you're in the States. We'll let you know more about the P310 if and when we get our hands on it.

Source: Slashphone and Electroplankton via Gizmodo

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September 05, 2006, 1:41 PM PDT
Microsoft Word 2000 zero-day attack
Posted by: Robert Vamosi

A previously unknown flaw within Microsoft Word 2000 running on Windows 2000 systems has been targeted with a new zero-day attack. Several antivirus companies have reported seeing a new Trojan horse which, when executed, downloads another Trojan, and in turn downloads yet another Trojan onto the vulnerable system. The catch: a user on a Windows 2000 system running Word 2000 must first open the infected file. Such a complicated delivery system means that this attack is limited and an unlikely candidate for a widespread worm attack in the near future. Microsoft has not commented on whether it intends to patch the new flaw within Word 2000. News.com has more details.

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September 05, 2006, 1:39 PM PDT
Facebook feeds you your friends
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Facebook launched useful new features today. The site now has feeds of personally relevant information. It will show everything that's happening in your network--when people "friend" each other, when people add photos, when new members join your network, and so on. Individuals also get their own mini feeds: when you go to a friend's page, you can see everything that person has done on the site recently.

Both of these changes make it much easier to keep up with your groups and your friends (or to stalk them, if they haven't configured their privacy settings appropriately). Other social networks that don't have similar features (I'm talking to you, MySpace) would do well to add something similar, although there are already third-party tools that will do this for you.

CNET's Neha Tiwari interviewed Facebook director of business development Jed Stremel back in August. Watch the video here.

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September 05, 2006, 11:04 AM PDT
Notches in your bedpost, now online
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Want to keep track of all your sexual activity? Write it down! In a book! Then lock the book in a safe. That's my advice after checking out the online database MyBlackBook.org. This Web service lets you record, in great detail, who you had sex with, when, and how. The stated goals are twofold: First, to give you a secure place to record your activity. And second, to help users understand their lifestyle so that they can, "assess their sexual behavior...and make changes in their life," according to site creator Robert Ianuale. If you like, the system will even let you know your probability of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, by comparing your activity to national statistics.

It's a noble experiment, but there is a risk to using this site. While the passwords in the system may be secure, how much do you trust the database itself? Even banks and search companies occasionally release or lose data. A smaller criticism: the service demands too much. You can't enter a record without entering in the exact age of your partner and other highly personal information. Do you always know? And what if you don't want to enter "Hotness?"

MyBlackBook.org will be useful for people who are very interested in keeping detailed records of their activity. But unless you view your sex life as a science project, you'll probably arrive at the same conclusion I did: some things really are best kept off the Web.

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September 05, 2006, 10:48 AM PDT
Microsoft announces Windows Vista pricing
Posted by: Robert Vamosi

Last Friday, Microsoft released Windows Vista RC1 (build 5564) to a limited group of testers, with a broad public release expected by the end of this month. Today, Microsoft announced official pricing for the new operating system. Pricing for full retail versions of the software will be Windows Vista Ultimate, $399; Windows Vista Business, $299; Windows Vista Home Premium, $239; and Windows Vista Home Basic, $199. For more, see this News.com article.

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September 05, 2006, 9:10 AM PDT
Japan-only Panasonic laptop battery recall
Posted by: Dan Ackerman

Another day, another laptop battery recall. This time it's Matsushita, parent company of Panasonic, recalling lithium-ion batteries used in Panasonic laptops sold in Japan. Unlike the Dell and Apple recalls, which involved nearly 6 million batteries, this is a drop in the bucket--only 6,000 suspect units.

The problematic Dell and Apple batteries were made by Sony, but Matsushita, without revealing the manufacturer, says that neither Sony nor Panasonic supplied the bad batch currently being recalled. According to the company, the problem lies not in the battery circuitry itself, but with a faulty spring-loaded latch, which could jar loose and cause a short if the laptop is dropped or hit. No cases of actual fires have been reported.

The recall affects Let's Note CF-W4G laptops produced in April and May 2005 and sold in Japan.

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September 05, 2006, 9:10 AM PDT
Confirmed: Apple event on September 12
Posted by: Matthew Elliott

Core 2 Duo iMacs? New Nano? Feature films in iTunes? Apple hardware for the living room? We'll know one week from today. Until then, enjoy the rumors and speculation.

Steve Jobs is set to take the stage for a press event next Tuesday, September 12. Though that date marks the opening of Apple's Expo in Paris, Jobs will pontificate closer to home--from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco. AppleInsider posted a good roundup yesterday, leading with the rumor that at least one Hollywood studio will make its movies available for download via iTunes for $9.99 a pop. With no rumors of a touch-screen, wide-screen video iPod circulating, the thinking is that you'll watch the films you download from the comfort of your living room with a new Airport Express that will be able to smoothly stream video. Either that or you'll go out and grab the rumored 23-inch iMac, which may be able to do HD. The iMac is also expected to lead the transition to Intel's new mobile Core 2 Duo chips. We anticipate MacBooks and the Mac Mini to follow suit, sooner rather than later.

Last and certainly least (in size), the iPod Nano is expected to hold more songs and less scratches.

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September 05, 2006, 9:04 AM PDT
Sony updates its UMPC
Posted by: Matthew Elliott

Only a few months after its release, Sony's UMPC has received an update. The new UX280P doesn't appear to solve any of the problems we found with the UX180P, namely its high price, poor battery life, and less-than-ideal typing experience. The new model is even pricier at $2,000, and it features the same design and same 1.2GHz Core Solo processor as its predecessor. What has changed, you ask? Only the memory (doubled to 1GB) and the hard drive (up from 30GB to 40GB).

To be fair, the UX180P already packed an impressive amount of features--Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a full version of XP, not one but two Webcams, a QWERTY keyboard, a fingerprint reader, and a 4.5-inch wide-screen display--into a small package. Despite this impressive list, we're not sold on the UMPC concept. What are your thoughts? Would you buy one? Would you use one if your company purchased one for you? Or does this convergence product solve a problem you don't have?

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