Denmark and Sweden are better than the United States in its ability to exploit information technology and communications

GENEVA (AP) - Denmark and Sweden are better than the United States in its ability to exploit information technology and communications, according to a poll released Thursday. The United States, which topped the World Economic Forum in the "Networked Readiness Index" in 2006 before slipping down the standings, climbed to third place in the latest edition of the survey. The study was widely blamed for poor policy and regulatory environments of the United States to offset some of the benefits of the world's most competitive economy. The index, which measures the number of factors that affect the country's ability to harness information technologies for economic competitiveness and development, also cited America's low use of mobile phones, a lack of government leadership in information technology and low quality of math and science education. Yet, even amid an economic crisis, the report indicates the U.S. is well positioned for a technology-based recovery because it has the top research institutes in the world and better collaboration between universities and industries. Singapore, the first country in Asia, and Switzerland rounded out the top 5. Nordic countries Finland, Iceland and Norway followed, with the Netherlands and Canada complete the top 10. China has jumped 11 points No. 46, leading the group of large emerging economies. India is 54th, five places ahead of Brazil, while Russia was down at No. 74. The report covers 134 countries, with Chad, East Timor, Zimbabwe, Burundi and Bangladesh at the bottom. (Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material May not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Tesla $ 50,000 Four-door Model S Electric Sedan leak, at-Giant Screen Panel

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Silicon Valley, John Mayer, just got a little S Tesla plans to escape him. S, $ 50000ish Tesla electric 4-door Sedan, is expected to be unveiled in Los Angeles today. What's more interesting for lovers of technology is that the middle panel seems to be a gigantic screen. Is it touch? I fucking hope so. The pure electric car manufacturer has already delivered $ 100,000 Roadsters, which are fun to drive, but easy to get in accidents. (I saw one myself last week.) Even Governor Schwarzenegger wants his return, but only because it is a bit too big to fit. The S, on the other hand, can be very interesting stage of electric car design and manufacture of Tesla manages to provide enough of their service more than just a niche market. Moreover, the price is only $ 50,000 when you're in the $ 7500 tax credit. It actually starts at a base price of $ 57,400.

[Kevin Rose's Flickr']

Canon EOS Rebel T1i First Hands On: 50D's Sensor, 1080p Vids, $899 (!!)

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The rumors were true. Canon has piled up $ 1500 of the sensor 50D and 5D Mark II 1080p-like video capture $ 899 entry-level Rebel. We ran through the test for a few hours, and it is great. So what we have here is almost exactly the sensor 50D-15.1 Megapixel CMOS with sensitivity up to ISO 12800 at its high-end H2 stimulate. And almost the same HD capture 5D Mark II, the only change is that the video is captured 1080p 20fps, a decrease in the 5D Mark II to 30 fps. You can get the 720p video at 30fps, even if for the same delicacy of butter, we have seen on the 5D Mark II. Other aspects of the video capture mode has been improved over the 5D Mark II, which we will do in one second. Canon EOS Rebel T1i + Hands On Product Shots But insofar as the features go, it's almost a hybrid of pure 50D and 5D Mark II, two cameras that are decidedly more pro-banked, placed in the top range of their level of entry of the rebels ( over the XS and XSi). Crazy stuff: • H.264 video capture and 720p/30fps @ 1080p/20fps with mono sound • DIGIC 4 • Nine-point auto • 3.4fps shooting burst of 170 JPEG images or RAW 9 • 50D the lens correction d lighting device • Three-inch, 920,000-dot LCD (the same as the 5D Mark II) • Built-in sensor dust removal system • Live view • Canon Creative Auto "mode of exposure to the light adjusts the full auto - • Backup to SD / SDHC cards (Class 6 or higher recommended) • $ 899 kit lens, $ 799 body only, available early May We had a few hours to take photos and video with a pre-production of the EOS Rebel T1i in Manhattan, and here are our impressions: Image QualityI've never shot with the 50D, but from what I read, the 50D's sensor is about as big as Canon can and must push a APS-C sensor, sage megapixels while preserving image quality and high ISO performance. When he was released just seven months ago, it was found to be a good artist, but not much better than the 10-megapixel 40D high-ISO.

Here, you're getting effectively the same sensor (Canon says there are a few minor differences that shouldn't effect output in any significant way) for almost half the cost. So while you still won't be on the noise-busting level of the full-frame 5D Mark II, you're going to come mighty close, especially at 1600 and below. Here's a quick unscientific comparision @ ISO 6400:

Our favorite retail laptops

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We've spent the last eight weeks testing and reviewing almost two dozen retail fixed-configuration laptops. Those are the specific models you'll find listed in Sunday newspaper sales circulars and boxed up and ready to go at big brick-and-mortar outlets.

The HP G60-235DX.
In the entry level category, which refers to laptops under $599, you're going to find systems that are functional, but not particularly exciting. Faster dual-core processors and bigger screens are the main reasons to trade up from a similarly priced Netbook. As long as you keep your expectations modest, an entry level laptop can be good for either cash-strapped students or those with modest computing needs.
The majority have AMD processors, but we found two with Intel Core Duo CPUs (the cheaper cousin of Intel's mainstream Core 2 Duo). Those two Intel laptops were faster than the competition, and of the pair, we preferred the HP G60-235DX for its 16:9 wide-screen display, separate number pad, and better-than-expected battery life.

The Gateway MD7818u.
Stepping up to the budget category, which includes laptops from $600 to $899, we found a wider range of features, screen sizes, and components. The majority of the systems in this category had Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs (the 2.0GHz T6400, to be exact), though there were a pair of AMD-powered laptops that lagged behind in our benchmark tests.
The Gateway MD7818u was our overall favorite in the category, thanks to its large 500GB hard drive, 16:9 wide-screen display, and generally upscale look and feel. Also notable was the Toshiba Satellite A305-S6916, which costs a little more and loses a bit of hard drive space, but adds a 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 graphics card, which is about as good as you're going to do for graphics in this price range.

The Gateway P-7805u FX.
Finally, we looked at a handful of mainstream laptops, running from $900-$1,200. Our overall favorite is the latest version of Gateway's FX-series 17-inch, the Gateway P-7805u FX. Gamers on a budget will love the 1GB Nvidia GeForce 9800 GPU, but the 17-inch display deserves a higher screen resolution (which the previous model had). A rare entry in the 15-inch gaming laptop category, we also liked the Asus G50VT, which packed in a 512MB version of the GeForce 9800.

While ordering a laptop direct from a PC maker such as Dell or HP gives one an opportunity to custom-build a machine from scratch, there's clearly a big demand out there for boxed-up, ready to go systems. If you're looking for that kind of instant-gratification retail therapy, there are some good deals out there--just make sure to check the component list carefully, making sure you're getting what you need, and are not paying for too many features you don't want.

We Discover the Dark Side of the New iPod Shuffle

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKnI51HOy9w

The new iPod Shuffle might seem innocent enough, but after having to listen to your music selection hour after hour, even it reaches its breaking point.
We teamed up with our friends over at UCBComedy.com to create this, our first original comedic video. It was written by myself and Mark Wilson, directed by Will Hines, edited by Nate Dern, and stars me.
Let us know what you think! Unless you don't like it, in which case keep your opinions

How a Brainy Worm Might Jack the World's PCs on April 1

It is lurking in millions of PCs in the world. It is incredibly sophisticated and resilient, thanks to p2p and digital code-signing technology. It welcomes the killing of security software. On 1 April, Conficker activate the worm. The most frightening Conficker worm is that literally millions of infected Windows PCs could be connected to do its bidding. The second most frightening thing is that nobody really knows what its creator is going to do with this virtual army on April 1 when it is planned to contact a server for instructions. It is so bad, Microsoft has a $ 250,000 operating grant to the author, dead or alive. (Well, probably they want in life, but they hate his courage.) The New York Times John Markoff rounded up some of the most ingeniously evil possibilities in an article requiring the most sinister of being a "black Google", postulated by the University of California at San Diego researcher Stefan Savage, which enable poor people scour zombie machines in the world for the data to sell to other poor people.
But let's back up a bit. Conficker—whose weird name is a combination of "configuration" and a slightly more polite word for f***er, according to Urban Dictionary—actually began life as a lowly, "not very successful" worm in November, says Vincent Weafer, VP at Symantec Security Response. Weafer told us it exploited a Microsoft remote server vulnerability that had already been announced and patched the previous month, so the only systems that were vulnerable were the ones that weren't up to date.
The B release, pushed in December, on the other hand, was "wildly successful," says Weafer, infecting millions of unpatched computers because it's an aggressive little bastard—the first worm in years on a scale like Blaster. It has built-in p2p capabilities, and brute forces its way into open shared folders or printers, so it can crawl an office network quickly. It also piggybacks onto USB flash and hard drives. On top of all that, it's designed to be incredibly resilient, killing security software, disabling Windows Update, and digging down deep.
The C release came out this past month. It doesn't go after new machines—it's actually a payload for computers already infected with B. It transformed Conficker from a sneezing pandemic into a seriously nasty plague. With C, its p2p powers are extended further, with digital code-signing, so it only accepts trusted code updates from itself. That means security experts can't simply inject code to neutralize it. The patch also made Conficker better at killing security software. And it expanded the scope of the domains it tries to contact for instructions from 250 to 50,000, completely neutralizing security experts' previous tactic of seizing the domains. There's effectively no way to the cut the head off of this demon snake. The stage is set: On April 1, Conficker will reach out for the millions-strong zombienet's next set of instructions.
So what will happen? Well, no one knows for sure. Conficker's creator can do whatever he wants with his army. Launch massive denial-of-service attacks, setup the "Dark Google" syndicate, target millions of new machines, or generate a tidal wave of spam that'll crash against servers all over the world.
Most likely though, Weafer told us, Conficker's creator is motivated by money—they'll rent it out. And if Conficker's used as a massive doomsday tool, they'll "quickly lose the ability to make money" with it. A low key operation harnessing the power of computers that are mainly located in developing nations may not have a big impact, though it would certainly set a terrible precedent: Whatever Conficker's results, they will lead others to develop this idea in frightening new directions.
Conficker's innovative approach that utilizes p2p, code-signing and a distributed domain setup will very possibly serve as inspiration to other malware writers, who Weafer said "you can bet" are watching Conficker's success very closely, just as Conficker's creators have clearly learned from past malware. It's like evil open source.
That doesn't mean April 1 will be a "digital Pearl Harbor." If your machine is patched and up to date, the Microsoft Report's Ed Bott tells us, you'll probably be totally fine. And yes, you can get rid of it if you happen to be infected. There is an outside chance Conficker could turn into a massive parallel computer that borders on self-aware, come April 1, but more than likely, the day will come and go without you noticing anything weird, just some extra spam in your box for some V@ltr3xxx.

Wii to Support SDHC, Not a Hard Drive

During Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's GDC keynote today, the company revealed that the Wii will finally get SDHC support (that means compatibility with bigger SD cards) through an update that's available now.
With the new Wii Menu 4.0 update, you can download content directly from the Wii Shop Channel to your SD/SDHC, and the card will show on the Wii's main menu. You can then open the card to see your content in Channel format (up to 240 SD Channels are supported).
Given that the SDHC format reaching 32GB (12GB more than the hard drive in the original Xbox 360), supporting the open standard sounds like a much better solution than a honking standalone box anyway—at least to me. Other thoughts

President Shifts Emphasis From Wall Street to Budget

In attempting to exploit public anger over the financial crisis on behalf of his budget, President Obama is uncomfortable with the policy that the success of its long-term agenda and recovery on Wall Street are linked.

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Changes chairman Emphasis From Wall Street to the budget
Obama Defends Push to Cut tax deductions for charitable donations
This recognition is reflected in the passage of the President in the tone of his town hall appearances storm last week in California, Tuesday evening at the more sober assessment of who is responsible for the frozen credit markets, banks and bankrupt 'real estate bubbles burst.

He condemned Wall Street "Ponzi schemes, even when they are legal, where relatively few do so while speculating on the middle class is losing ground" March 18 during an event in the hotel City of Orange County, California, who is now the primary school closures because of falling property tax revenues. Back inside the Beltway, the President said at his first press conference as some of us can not afford to demonize all investors and entrepreneurs seeking to make a profit. "

In the balance as he tries to walk that line is Obama's long-term agenda, embodied in the budget, it was for sale on Capitol Hill yesterday and passed a House committee on a party-line vote late last night. To strengthen public support for $ 3.6 trillion of its package of proposed reforms of health care, energy and education, Obama is attempting a kind of transfer - to persuade Americans that crystallized the excesses by premiums for the unit of AIG in the center of the financial collapse can be determined by the review system of the economy represented by its budget.

If Obama is successful, it would not only strengthen the case for his budget but also relieve some of the political pressure on Wall Street, which will help determine the success of his first term. But it is not an easy linkage to make, because it means transferring public desire for immediate action -- and even retribution -- to the promise of a longer-term transformation of the country.

"I'm as angry as anybody about those bonuses that went to the very same individuals who brought our financial system to its knees, partly because it's yet another symptom of the culture that brought us to this point," he said Tuesday. "But one of the most important lessons to learn from this crisis is that our economy only works if we recognize that we're all in this together."


Obama's attempt to channel public anger reflects the White House's belief that he is constrained against engaging in too much Wall Street bashing -- or outright punishment -- by his reliance on the financial sector to fulfill Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner's new plan for rescuing the nation's banks. After declaring that his administration would "pursue every legal avenue" to block the AIG bonuses, Obama was by Sunday signaling that he did not approve of legislation sweeping through Congress to slap a 90 percent tax on the payouts.

Adding to that constraint is the fact that Obama's campaign received considerable financial support from Wall Street, and that his advisers include several proteges of Citigroup executive Robert E. Rubin, a former Treasury secretary.

Dean Baker, co-director of the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research, said Obama would have been better off capitalizing more fully on public ire but was being held back by the Rubin proteges.

"He hurts himself enormously by being seen as associated with the bankers," Baker said. "Purely pragmatically, you have an opportunity here where these Wall Street guys are really hated, they've been a really pernicious presence in the economy for a quarter-century, and the idea of jumping on them when they're down makes a lot of sense. This idea that they're going to help things -- well, they're not our buddies. There's a real fundamental conflict there, and he's hoping he can paper it over."

But Obama's preference for talking about "the system and culture" that produced the bonuses instead of chastising executives more directly also reflects his tendency to analyze problems in the abstract instead of personalizing them. Throughout the campaign, he cast the country's ills as part of an overall imbalance, an off-kilter economy and a broken political culture. There was populism in his pitch -- he had started out as a community organizer, after all -- but it was not the sort given to rousing diatribes.

To the extent that Obama has moralized about the financial crisis, his pique has mostly been addressed at broad trends and policy questions instead of named targets. His budget proposal was introduced with a stern tone that implied that his plan, with its tax increases for the wealthy, was the real answer to Wall Street excess. "We arrived at this point as a result of an era of profound irresponsibility," he stated in introducing the plan. Pitching the budget at the White House last week, he cast this decade's prosperity as a "bubble economy" based on "reckless speculation" and Wall Street "shenanigans."

A similar moralizing tone was evident in his defense of his budget Tuesday night. Even as he urged against demonizing the business class, Obama made clear that he thinks affluent Americans have not been doing their fair share as he defended his plan to shrink tax deductions for wealthy taxpayers' charitable contributions and mortgage interest payments.
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President Shifts Emphasis From Wall Street to Budget
Obama Defends Push to Cut Tax Deductions for Charitable Gifts
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"If it's really a charitable contribution, I'm assuming that [smaller tax savings] shouldn't be a determining factor as to whether you're giving that $100 to the homeless shelter down the street," he said. "I think it is a realistic way for us to raise some revenue from people who benefited enormously over the last several years. It's not going to cripple them; they'll still be well-to-do. And ultimately, if we're going to tackle the serious problems that we've got, then in some cases those who are more fortunate are going to have to pay a little bit more."
Michael Maslansky, a Republican-leaning pollster, questioned whether Obama could succeed in channeling public anger toward his longer-term goals after having initially helped stir the anger with his vow to retrieve the AIG bonuses. It would have been truer to Obama's approach if he had right away put the episode in the context of his overall agenda, Maslansky said.
"It was a strategic mistake," Maslansky said. "He's supposed to lead, to skate to where the puck is going to be. Going after the bonuses was looking backwards. He should have said right away, 'These bonuses are the last gasp of a dying culture.' He would've been much better off if this AIG thing hadn't become such a big issue. . . . Now the White House says, 'Wow, they really are angry, they have the pitchforks out, and they're trying to kill the people I need [to fix Wall Street].' And the American people are watching and asking, 'Is he a populist, or is he a cool, collected leader?' "
Just how fine that line is was clear as Obama spoke last week in a sweltering convention hall at the fairground in Costa Mesa, Calif. He pushed up his sleeves and loosened his tie before letting rip.
"You're out there earning a living, and we've got to reward people who are working hard, not the bubble-and-burst economy we've experienced in recent years," he said to raucous applause. Then came the link to his budget: "That's only going to happen if we pull together and focus on the big things, focus on the long term. We've got to get past this petty bickering, the constant trivialization of politics, and focus on getting the job done."
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Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin said the approach Obama has settled on is the best available: sharing the public's ire, but not inflaming it further, which would not be his style, and instead directing it to his plans.
"It wouldn't be convincing if he came on as a real populist and also probably not necessary," Kazin said. "What he's got to do is depend on his strengths in sort of calmly explaining things to people and telling them, 'I've got this.' "

Adam Lambert hit all the right notes on `Idol'

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NEW YORK – Adam Lambert showed his softer side on "American Idol," earning a standing ovation for his smooth performance of "The Tracks of My Tears."
Guest mentor Smokey Robinson, who originally performed the classic song with the Miracles, rose to his feet after watching the 26-year-old theater actor hit all the right notes during Wednesday's Motown-themed installment of the "Fox" singing competition.
Lambert, who's from Los Angeles, ditched his rocker duds for a sleek silver suit and smoothed his black hair back into an Elvis-style pompadour.
Judge Simon Cowell said Lambert delivered the night's best performance and became a star in his eyes. Fellow judge Kara Dioguardi agreed, saying Lambert showed "true artistry."
The four judges were also equally impressed by the vocal stylings of Allison Iraheta, Matt Giraud and Kris Allen. Cowell liked Allen's cover of "How Sweet It Is" but said the 23-year-old married heartthrob from Conway, Ark., needs to show more swagger and confidence.
Lil Rounds and Danny Gokey scored mixed reviews for their respective renditions of "Heat Wave" and "Get Ready." Cowell told Rounds, 24, of Memphis, Tenn., she'd missed a potential "Idol"-defining "moment" by picking the wrong song (he'd rather hear the soul singer belt "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"). But the cranky judge had harsher words for Gokey, deeming the 28-year-old crowd pleaser "clumsy and amateurish."
Michael Sarver and Megan Joy had a tougher time on stage. Judges slammed Sarver's cover of "Ain't Too Proud To Beg." Even sugary-sweet Paula Abdul chimed in, comparing the 27-year-old oil rig worker from Jasper, Texas, to an old-school Vegas lounge act.
Joy, 23, of Sandy, Utah, was targeted for her shaky take on "For Once in My Life." Cowell called Joy's performance "horrible" while Randy Jackson declared it a "train wreck" and "mad crazy."
One of the 10 finalists will be sent packing on Thursday's elimination show — unless judges act on the new rule that allows them to save a favorite contestant they feel has been unfairly booted by voting viewers.