This is just too cool. To promote the release of the forthcoming Nexus S, the latest Google-branded smartphone, those zany Googlers sent seven of the phones into the highest reaches of the atmosphere. The phones were running various Google apps like Maps, Sky Maps and Latitude to see how they would function under the different environmental conditions. Check out this insane video from one of the weather balloons Google used to send the phones up.

Just a heads up - if you're scared of being 100,000 feet above the earth and/or easily get motion sickness, probably don't click play. If you want to see awesome vistas of our planet and the admittedly adorable little green android, go ahead and click play.

The Navy is joining NASA in the search for most ridiculously badass way to use rail guns. Because y'know, having more nuclear warheads than anyone else in the world isn't nearly enough to ensure national safety.

Gizmodo reports:

The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), can move a 100,000 pound jet 240mph across a 300 foot runway space. According to the Navy, not only is EMALS is a smaller and more efficient method of launching planes than steam turbines, it can deliver 30% more power. The Navy says they will to use this system to launch all aircraft from carriers going forward, including heavy strike fighters and lightweight drones.

Motorola was once the name in cell phones, and to a lesser extent, portable consumer electronics. If you can harken all the way back to 2003 and 2004, the Motoral Razr was the hottest phone on the market. By October of 2005 it had sold nearly 40 million units. That's a helluva lot of phones in a pre-iPhone world. As the Razr became a ubiquitous phone in the hands of everyone from tweens to business mogels who still couldn't fully rely on their Blackberries and Palm Treos, it soon began to languish as the advent of the smartphone came and said "Can we come out to play?" As the Treo and Blackberry evolved, adding rudimentary apps and extra functionality that even the Razr V3's "iTunes compatibility" began to be too little, too late. Once the iPhone came on the market it was over for anyone who didn't have a direct competitor.

There's been a lot of hullabaloo over the iPhone 4 and its alleged antenna woes. I've experienced the issue a few times myself, but it hasn't been anything that has caused a dropped call or anything. More troublesome, to me, is the increased sensitivity of the proximity sensor, which has helped me to do things like unintentionally create conference calls, put people on mute, hang up on people and put them on speaker. However, the antenna issue is getting all the attention.

Jon Gruber over at Daring Fireball has a hilarious take on what Apple is really trying to say in their press release, which claims that the iPhone has always used the wrong formula to indicate AT&T's signal strength. Apple kind of reminds me of a boss I used to have who would always blame the same one person whenever something went wrong.

Well. It's AT&T's fault. Helllllooooooo Verizon!

Gruber's thoughts:

Translation From Apple’s Unique Dialect of PR-Speak to English of the ‘Letter From Apple Regarding iPhone 4’

Friday, 2 July 2010

Source: “Letter From Apple Regarding iPhone 4”.

The iPhone 4 has been the most successful product launch in Apple’s history. It has been judged by reviewers around the world to be the best smartphone ever, and users have told us that they love it. So we were surprised when we read reports of reception problems, and we immediately began investigating them. Here is what we have learned.

We cannot believe we had to write this fucking letter.

To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones.

We cannot believe we’re getting shit for this.

But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.

(No translation necessary.)

At the same time, we continue to read articles and receive hundreds of emails from users saying that iPhone 4 reception is better than the iPhone 3GS. They are delighted. This matches our own experience and testing. What can explain all of this?

It really is a better antenna and gets better reception, overall, than any previous iPhone. That’s really the hell of this whole goddamn situation. It’s like a two steps forward, one step back design, except maybe more like three steps forward, because this thing is faster at downloading, 10 times faster at uploading, and most importantly is better at not dropping calls with a weak signal. But, yes, there’s that one step back, wherein it can suffer from unintended attenuation when you bridge the lower-left antenna gap with your skin, and frankly, we’re a little pissed that this one step back is getting all the attention.

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

We are going to blame AT&T.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars.

We decided from the outset to set the formula for our bars-of-signal strength indicator to make the iPhone look good — to make it look as it “gets more bars”. That decision has now bit us on our ass.

Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

Yes, with no case on the phone, your signal strength can drop by about 20 or even 30 percent depending how you hold the phone. We’re going to change the bar algorithm so that you’ll only lose one bar (maybe two, if you’re holding the phone obnoxiously tight or have gross sweaty palms) if you’re holding it that way.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

We are braced for the backlash when, after installing this update, people who weren’t experiencing any problems at all with their iPhones start complaining, loudly, that their phones which used to get five bars now only get three or two or whatever from the same locations, and we all know — us and everyone reading this — that Gizmodo will immediately declare that the update has made iPhone 4 reception worse, even though we’ve just explained that we’re not changing anything related to actual reception, but rather only to how we indicate signal strength.

We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

(No translation necessary.)

We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same — the iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused.

Don’t fuck this thing up for us. We mean, have you seen the Retina Display?

As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

We dare you.
And take your class action suits filed four days after we released the goddamn thing and stick them up your fucking asses.

We hope you love the iPhone 4 as much as we do.

Seriously, have you seen it?

Thank you for your patience and support.

Don’t hold it that way or buy a case.

Okay all you Verizon junkies and funky monkeys, it looks like your time has come. After three tedious years of being tied to AT&T and their apparently questionable service, various sources are reporting that the iPhone is finally going to rest its svelte little figure in the laurels of Verizon.

Ladies and gentlemen, pornography has spoken: Adobe's Flash is dead.

This is NSFW language-wise, but SO worth the watch.

So like many of you, I spent hours upon hours yesterday trying to pre-order the iPhone 4. I worked out a pretty sweet deal where I was actually going to end up MAKING twenty bucks off buying it (more on that in a second), but thanks to the 1.7 trillion people who were trying to log onto either Apple or AT&T's website, I was faced with server errors and butt plugs and fairy pixies and a lot of this may be related to the three tabs of acid I took at 7 am. And the butt plug sale at ButtPlug-Mart.

First of all, how much do we love that title? Yes. We love it. Anyway, according to Popular Science, some blokes in San Francisco (or bears*, possibly) have decided that cell phone makers have to now provide hard-to-read graphs illustrating how much electromagnetic whatchamacallems enter your brain.

HULK SMASH!

My whole reason for quitting Facebook (I know...I know...you told me so) was because of the opaqueness of Facebook's whole approach to privacy. As I'm so sure you all read my treatise on the subject, you'll be well versed in my reasoning. However, Facebook announced a few days ago some changes that negate some of my concerns. The keyword here is some.

So for those following at home, I'm now on the fence. 51% of me wants to stay off of it and 49% wants to jump back on...we shall see.

For now, I hope you are...I don't know...smelling good.

Ridiculous!

"Radio Station banned from Facebook for talking about privacy issues"

Is it just me or is that kind of the wrong way for Facebook to regain their user's trust?

Facebook: Yes yes, give us all your data so we can sell advertisements better.
User: So, I can still practice my 1st Amendment rights?
Facebook: Your what?
User: You know, freedom of speech? Freedom of the press? One of the founding principles of America?
Facebook: Ameri...what? Is that part of Farmville?

Yay freedom!

And I just can't find a reason to care.

Coverage after the jump.

Thanks to John Gruber (@gruber) over at Daring Fireball for pointing this out, I probably would've gone all day thinking "Cool logo" and never noticed the "Insert Coin" option.

Tell me you feel safe after reading this:

Facebook Knows Who You're Going To Hook Up With (And May Not Be Afraid To Use It) (From Gawker)

I don't think I'll be able to get an erection for a week thinking that Zuckerberg might be calculating at this very moment who I'll hoo...oh. Nope. Yeah there it is.

Still, the whole thing is messed up, no? Excuse me.

You've seen them. Oh I know you've seen them. They're not quite as "hip" as a "hipster" but they're not quite as geeky as a full-time geek. Technology bloggers, half the population of San Francisco, and the greater Seattle area are full of the hip-geek, or "gip" as I like to call them.

After exhaustive research in the area, I've compiled a list of 10 things that you'll find attached, tethered or otherwise near every gip. Who knows, you may even discover that you're a gip.

Oh, and if you read the title and thought "Is there such thing as a pre- or post- modern geek?" then...good on ya. I don't know. It just sounds good.

I'm on Facebook. You're on Facebook. We may or may not be friends on Facebook.

While I'm possibly a little late to jump on the "What the shit is Facebook doing with my privacy?" bandwagon, I do feel like it might be worth my time to add my two cents to the pile of...two-cent pieces. Let's start from the beginning.

I was against Facebook from its onset, partly because I wasn't currently among the collegiate, and partly because I thought "Who wants Facebook? On MySpace I can have MUSIC that automatically plays on my page and annoys people who were already listening to music!" Then MySpace got reallllly boring and buggy as it collapsed under the additional weight of its own growth.