Filed under: Editor’s Picks, Top Lists

Facebook is all over the news lately, but the headlines aren’t all about valuations and advertising - there’s been plenty of good old-fashioned sex and scandal as well. Here’s a roundup of recent and not-so-recent misfortunes that have befallen those who carelessly post pictures on the limelight-stealing social networking site — you’d think that people would have learned by now. Whether it’s the fuzz or a hilarious Hindi a cappella group (see video above), you never know who might be prowling through your profile. As a public service, we offer our top five cringeworthy Facebook humiliations.

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Java developers are up in arms over the recent release of Mac OS X Leopard, and the sudden silence from Apple regarding the future of Java 6 on the Mac. Not only did Leopard not ship with Java 6, but Apple has quietly taken down the developer preview of Java 6, and is reportedly deleting threads in the Apple developer forums asking why.

As anyone who has attended a developer conference in the past few years can attest, developers as a group are some of Apple’s best customers. If only Apple treated its developers with as much reverence.

In a post on The Java Lobby entitled So Long Apple. The Party’s Over, Michael Urban summed up the situation nicely:

Not only did Leopard not ship with Java 6, but Apple, in typical fashion, apparently thinks it has no obligation to its customers to inform them about why the plans changed, and when (or even if at this point?) Apple will ever have a working copy of Java 6.

Now, it’s obvious that Apple hasn’t dropped Java completely. As many developers have pointed out, Apple did do plenty of work on its version of Java 5 for the Leopard release. Ben Galbraith recently gave a run-down of his favourite Java improvements in Leopard, based on Apple’s Release Notes for Java 5 on Leopard, for example.

But still, despite what is now going on two weeks of furor in the Java community, there is no word from Apple about the state of Java 6 on Mac OS X.

On the one hand, there is speculation that its release is imminent, based on Apple’s history of releasing Java 5 within weeks of Mac OS X Tiger. On the other hand, the significant improvements Apple made to Java 5 for the release of Leopard cast doubt in my mind over whether Apple has done any work on Java 6 lately.

None of this would be anywhere near as frustrating if Apple would simply break its stony silence. It’s one thing to hold back announcements of new products to maximize their marketing impact, but keeping your most important allies—developers—in the dark about the future of major technologies like Java is no way to do business.

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

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Filed under: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, RumorMonger, Family Films, Harry Potter, Remakes and Sequels

In the last installment of wonderboy magician, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry finally got to get his smooch on with Cho Chang. With another book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and older, more insistent adolescent urges, it’s Ron Weasley’s (Rupert Grint) turn… with a certain girl named Lavender Brown. A whole bunch of hopeful kids, around 7,000, tried out for the role, but a Reuters source says that it has gone to 20-year-old Jessie Cave. The actress hasn’t had too much work, but she did appear with Helen Mirren in Inkheart, and will star in a BBC drama called Summerhill next year.

Rupert Grint told CBBC’s Newsround: “I was involved with the Lavendar Brown audition and the whole Lavendar thing. Her name’s Jessie, and she is really cool, and it’s going to be really funny.” Man, what a tough job — getting to go to a casting call and smooching who knows how many girls? I would hope they at least whittled the hopefuls down a little first. While it sounds exciting, smooching 7,000 girls has to give a guy chapped lips, at the very least. Emma Watson, everyone’s favorite Hermione, also chimed in about the casting: “She seems really sweet and perfect for the role of Lavender. The casting is so good and I am looking foward to her scenes with Ron. I think it’s going to be quite a comic film.”

If you’re itching to know who else is cast, you won’t have to wait too much longer. Reuters says the full cast will be released soon.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Chalk up another one for the LTE team, as it has yet another big proponent in the ever-raging 4G war. Not even two months after Verizon gave LTE the nod over WiMAX / UMB, the board of the GSM Association has now voted to support Long Term Evolution as the mobile broadband solution to follow HSPA. The GSMA also noted that it would be interfacing with other outfits / organizations that are developing LTE technology and begin work with the NGMN (Next Generation Mobile Networks) initiative. Furthermore, Rob Conway, the entity’s CEO, reportedly called on the International Telecommunication Union to “ensure the industry wins the spectrum needed to offer mobile broadband.” ‘Course, we’ve already heard that things are shaping up nicely (in testing) for the standard, but winning over the GSMA is likely to incite some serious celebrating in the offices of LTE backers everywhere.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Frugal Food, Dinner, Vegetables, Recipes, Real Kitchens

Even when my kitchen is fairly bare, there are still certain things you can count on to be in my fridge or veggie bin. I always have milk, butter, flour, spices and onions. If you are like me and on any given day have these ingredients in your home, you can quickly whip up a pot of Cream of Onion Soup (from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest) for a weekend lunch or a hurried evening dinner. It’s warming, cheap and can be ready in less than an hour. Pair it with a salad, or, if you’re really down to the dregs, the last of that bag of frozen peas from the freezer or a perfect winter meal. The recipe is after the jump.

Continue reading Cream of Onion is a basic soup for a winter’s day

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Filed under: Videos and Screenshots

What better way to look at our one year retrospective than to go all the way back to launch? The PS3 launch was a nightmare. With supplies in incredibly short stock, people went a bit crazy trying to secure one. People were shot, and as seen in this video, people were probably trampled too. Of course, once people actually secured a system, they immediately sent it to eBay, trying to mark it up to ridiculous $1000+ levels (one auction went for over $10,000!). To think, a year afterwards, the system is still in third place in the next-gen console wars and is now available for $399. A lot has changed over the past twelve months, and we’re certain that the next twelve will feature even more drama and turmoil.

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Word has it that the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and giant notebook manufacturer Quanta are currently collaborating on a “virtual computer that can run without any hardware”. This sounds like Virtual Machines that would run from a server and require only a keyboard and a TV on the user’s side. If that’s true, it’s simply a poor way of communicating about this, because “running without hardware” is rather confusing and false.

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Courtesy NARS

If you are looking for a fashionable addition to your fall makeup bag, look no further than these delightful palettes inspired by runways shows. Nars has teamed up with chic New York designer J. Mendel to produce this berry lip palette, and Christian Dior has chanelled the wit of John Gallian’s latest extravaganza into their newest lip kit. Get the full scoop, including buying info, at BellaSugar.com.

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Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Internet, Google (GOOG)

According to today’s U.K. Guardian, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been meeting with American Idol guru Simon Fuller about partnering on an internet project that he says is a “big idea on a global scale.” While no details were disclosed, Fuller compared the impact of the project to that of iTunes on the music industry.

My first thought was that Google was going into original programming, for which Fuller has been a cash machine. However, a couple of shows, even if very successful, do not the foundations of entertainment shake. Google has also crapped out on a pay-per-view models, and I’d be surprised if that resurfaced. With its purchase of YouTube, though, it owns the mother of all footprints in online video.

As a WAG, perhaps the plan might be more along these lines: A producer creates a show, partners with Google to market it for internet delivery. The show is delivered with advertising content via the Google/YouTube network. For each viewing, advertisers pay a fixed rate, and Google divvies up the ad revenue with the producer. In essence, Google replaces the television network’s role, using its ubiquitousness to market content to those it identifies as the most likely to view.

Any plans coming from the Google/Simon confab need to be taken seriously. They are, after all, two American Idols.

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Filed under: Audio/Video, Computers, YouTube

YouTube, an online video sharing service that you may have heard of at one point or another, is upping its resolution.

At the NewTeeVee Live conference yesterday, co-founder (and now super-mega-rich) Steve Chen confirmed that high-quality video streams are on the way. But it won’t be exclusionary: he said their aim is to make YouTube content available to everyone, so they’re now testing a player that actually detects the speed of the viewer’s Internet connection, and on slower lines, serves up higher-quality video only if the viewer wants it.

Also interesting is that in YouTube’s internal archives, all video is stored at the native resolution in which it was sent — meaning even much of the old stuff will now be in high(er) resolution than it is now.

Expect high-quality videos of kittens kneading their paws into fluffy pillows within three months. We’re already counting the days.

From CNET

Related links:

• M.C. Hammer launches video sharing site
• Oprah launches YouTube channel

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