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(Credit: CC Amb Haims)

Ms. Collins, who was not one of the most popular contestants on the show,Cubic Zirconia jewelry, was arraigned for “assault,Cartier Watches, menacing, harassment and criminal possession of a weapon.” Was the weapon the cat? Or the laptop?

You will all collectively breathe again when I tell you that the laptop was not, apparently,Gucci Watches, her first weapon of choice. No, that was the cat.

She allegedly threw poor Tiddles (yes, name made up by me) in her ex’s face. He covered himself with a blanket. So what would pierce the blanket’s hardy defenses? Yes, the trusty laptop.

After the hard-shoe conspiracy shuffle danced by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak this week, I now bring you Kenley Collins, a finalist in season 5 of “Project Runway.”

This, allegedly, was tossed shortly after she had closed the bedroom door on his head. It was followed by apples and water.

Please believe me, I have tried to find out what brand of laptop it was and whether it has received appropriate care since the incident. I have failed.

Kenley was arrested early Tuesday morning after allegedly assaulting her ex-fiance with, among other things, a laptop.

Welcome to “Reality TV meets Tech In A Nasty Head-On Collision Week.”

May I ask if any of you has ever been assaulted by a laptop-tossing lover?

This is not Kenley’s cat. But can you imagine throwing either of these little cuties?

Does this mean anything? Not sure. I do know that MySQL was recently bought for $1 billion and I haven’t seen anyone buying up EnterpriseDB, Greenplum, and other PostgreSQL companies (though this isn’t to say, by any means, that it won’t happen). But clearly the messaging on community mailing lists is a very imperfect means to measure popularity.

I’m surprised. A (highly imperfect) Google Trends analysis shows MySQL (blue) dwarfing PostgreSQL (red) in terms of search interest (but both are on the decline):

Maybe there’s still some fight in the PostgreSQL competition, after all. [Update: Or maybe it has more to do with internal changes at MySQL - see below.] According to data compiled by MarkMail, PostgreSQL messaging traffic dwarfs that of MySQL’s, suggesting that the Postgres community is more active than MySQL’s:

UPDATED: I received a useful bit of information that likely explains why MySQL’s messaging traffic appears to have hit its peak in 2001 to 2003, and declined since then. This almost certainly relates to MySQL moving its general and bugs discussions from the mailing lists to forums and bugs system. In other words, traffic hasn’t gone down…it has just moved to different forums that MarkMail doesn’t track/host.

Of course, if you do an (also very imperfect) Alexa analysis, MySQL(.com) is way above Redhat.com, postgresql.org, sugarcrm.com, and jboss.org.

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Comparing PostgreSQL and MySQL is kind of interesting. With all the talk about the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP-Perl-Python) architecture you’d think MySQL had a lock on the open source database market, but based on simple message traffic analytics, PostgreSQL has a much higher level of community involvement. Looking at January 2000 onward, the MySQL lists have amassed 340,000 messages with about 3,000 new messages each month. In the same time period, the PostgreSQL lists have hit 583,000 messages with 7,000 new each month.

(Credit:
Arbor Labs Inc.)

The new smart scissors feature lets users pick out someone from a photo like they would with Photoshop's magnetic lasso, although with a little more ease.

In addition to the pro-oriented tools, FotoFlexer has also added new color effects (like Photoshop’s filters), along with a new way to add borders to photos that makes the process require less clicks.

One feature that may useful to people who use the service often is a new preference saver. It will automatically tune itself based the tools used on a regular basis and have them set the next time the user logs in. It’s easily comparable with Photoshop’s workspace preferences, letting users adjust what tools they want open each time they start editing a photo.

Web based photo editor FotoFlexer has been given an update this morning that’s specifically designed to accommodate the needs of advanced users. The company is calling it “pro,” although it’s not quite a full replacement for traditionally “professional” photo editing applications such as Adobe’s Photoshop. It’s also not going to be a pay service, despite the pro moniker.

Among the major additions is the inclusion of curves and high resolution editing, which let users work with large pictures in their native resolutions. The new features also let users adjust coloring, contrast, and exposure. There’s also a new feature called “smart scissors” that resembles the magnetic lasso tool found in Photoshop, although it uses FotoFlexer’s “Predictive Pixel Partitioning” technology to determine the object’s borders without user input.

I’m still partial to competitor Picnik when it comes to online photo editing because of its deep level integration with Flickr and Box.net, but FotoFlexer definitely remains one of the best online editors, especially for users who don’t want to shell out the $25 a year for Picnik’s pro offerings.

What will be the results of Wikia’s human-editable search results?

( surveys)

Wales put a video demo together for Wikia Search. Click to view.

The editing you can do on Wikia Search is extensive. If you think a result on a search result page is too low or too high in the listings, you can influence its position by rating it. You can delete entries entirely or hand-write new ones. You can also rewrite the text of a search result, including adding code to the result (to insert, perhaps, a site-specific search, like Google’s search-within-search).

Wales said to me, regarding the concept of sorting results individually based on their social network (see Delver), “I’m not convinced that it will be all that useful,” but it could be a “piece of data we would use” in the future.

The engine will launch with a smallish subset of machine-indexed pages, about 30 million, which will form the baseline that Wikia Search will let users go to town on. It’s “hardly a full crawl” of the Web, admits Wikia (and Wikipedia) co-founder Jimmy Wales, but it’s a start.

Starting today, if you do a search on the engine and don’t like the results, you’ll be able to change them. Your changes will apply not just for yourself, but rather for everybody.

For people accustomed to the cold (if hidden) logic of purely algorithmic search, these are scary options. It means that your search results are, in part, up to the whims of capricious or crazy humans, or perhaps people trying to game the system to promote some sites while burying competitors.

One variable that won’t influence Wikia Search results: your social network. If your friends rate certain sites higher than the population at large, that fact won’t be reflected in the results you get.

To counter this, Wikia Search changes are all done all wiki-style. They’re transparent, and they can be reverted by users. Hopefully that will offset the gaming of the system.

If you’re lucky, though, your search result may be positively influenced by topic experts, your friends, or just other generally well-meaning people. And that’s the hope. For the most part, this philosophy works for wikis. Wales obviously thinks it will work for search as well.

That’s probably just as well; the concept of search results directly changeable by users will be weird enough for users to get a handle on.

See also: Anoox.

Ah, that's better. I voted Webware to the top of the results for the query, "Webware." I'm about to do the same for "Web 2.0." Is this kosher? Take the poll at the end of this post.

This morning, Wikia is rolling out cool features on the controversial Wikia Search engine (previous review).

I hope it does. I like the idea of an open and transparent search engine. But I’m skeptical, for the sole reason that there’s more at stake in search then there is on most wikis. How sites place on search engines has a material impact on how much money they make, so the more successful this engine is, the more people there will be trying to game this system.

You can’t make your Nikon D200 DSLR into a D300. If you want the new one, you must buy it.

New woofers and tweeters

(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)

Take Zu Audio. The company offers an upgrade kit that’ll transform any Druid speaker built from 2001 forward into the current Druid Mk 4/08 model for $600 ($800 upfront, with a $200 refund with return of original drivers). Since a pair of new Druid MkIV/08 go for $3,400, the $600 fee seems very reasonable to me. Complete new Zu speakers are sold factory direct with a 60-day money-back guarantee. They are manufactured by Zu Audio in Ogden, Utah.

Zu even produced a how-to DVD that shows the installation in real time. Druid owners who’d rather not roll up their sleeves can ship their speakers back to Zu and have the pros handle the job–for free–but the owner pays for shipping. I needed around 50 minutes to complete the upgrades, and I was taking my time. I wanted to get the job done right. The first time.

Even Steve Jobs can’t transform last year’s iMac into the latest, greatest iMac. And you can’t add HDMI switching to your 4-year-old Sony receiver. But…that’s exactly the sort of upgradeability that some high-end companies offer.

The upgrade kit includes a pair of new woofers and tweeters and all of the necessary tools to get the job done. Examining the quality of the parts and build integrity of the Zu’s designs from the inside of the speaker only increased my respect for the design.

Last year, I raved about the Druid MK IV speakers and dubbed them Speaker of the Year. So I was eager to install the kit and see for myself if the smart folks at Zu could actually improve this great speaker.

I popped on a few CDs to check out the new sonics. The treble is now clearer, more detailed, and more dynamic. Bass is also improved, it goes a wee bit deeper and definition gets bumped up. Imaging was always exceptional, and now it’s even better. The sound is more holographic and three-dimensional. Owner feedback on the Zu site confirms most of my impressions.

But I’m not so sure all the changes are for the best. Yes, I just ticked off a string of improvements, but for me the pre-change Druid MKIV was more fun to listen to. The un-modded speaker is less good in an audiophile way, but it provided a stronger emotional connection to the music and the upgrade feels less involving. I “get” the improvements, but my gut feeling is stick with the original.

As always, your mileage may vary.

Zu's newly reworked tweeter and woofer

(Credit:
Zu Audio)

All we need now is another Digg acquisition rumor, and then I’m about ready to call it a week.

First, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington wrote on Tuesday that a source told him that a Bebo acquisition was “definitely happening.” The company was in the process of negotiating a $1 billion sale, he said, but didn’t know who the buyer was. Arrington speculated it could be Google, considering that Bebo’s user base has “very little overlap” with that of Google’s in-house social network, Orkut–the former has a youth-skewing base and is extremely popular in the U.K., whereas the latter is geared more toward adults and is big in Brazil and India. But with its OpenSocial developer initiative, Google seems like it would rather have influence across the entire social-networking landscape rather than choose one to operate. (Orkut was created by Google engineers, not acquired.)

The second rumor is a bit more detailed: tech gossip blog Valleywag reported on Wednesday that Plaxo has been sold to cable conglomerate Comcast for $175 million. Last week, the rumor was that Google had bought Plaxo. But Comcast, Valleywag’s Owen Thomas pointed out, already has a deal with Plaxo to handle address book applications for its Internet customers.

“Who’s going to buy Yahoo?” isn’t the only big question in mergers and acquisitions this week. Over the past few days, rumors have circulated that social-networking site Bebo and contacts management site Plaxo are either in negotiations or already sold.

But Arrington also noted that the Bebo buyer, if there in fact is one, could be just about any big name in media or technology, from CBS to Viacom.

Nobody’s commenting, obviously.

Mere speechifying by Washington politicians can’t prohibit an otherwise legal product, of course. (If that were the case, surely some Democrats would have shut down ExxonMobil and some Republicans would have pulled the plug on Playboy Enterprises years ago.)

NebuAd has repeatedly refused to disclose what advertising networks it uses or what broadband providers it counts as customers. It has said that it does not collect or use personally identifiable information and does not store raw data linked to “identifiable individuals.” Rather, it says, it creates and continually updates anonymized profiles with information “about the user’s level of qualification” for certain types of ads.

It’s like “you go to CVS and there’s someone behind you making notes…and that becomes part of a data bank they send to someone,” Dorgan said. “Someone is gathering information about where you travel and what you viewed and that goes into a data bank and can be sold or resold.”

Dorgan said that he had invited a selection of unnamed broadband providers–presumably including Charter and CenturyTel–to testify at the hearing but they “declined the invitation.” He promised a second hearing that would focus specifically on them.

After pressure this spring from some members of the House of Representatives, companies including CenturyTel and cable providers Charter Communications and Wide Open West recently have suspended plans to use monitoring-and-ad-delivery technology from NebuAd, a secretive Silicon Valley start-up.

Also on Wednesday, Dorgan wondered whether search engines “likely have information about where I’ve been traveling” on the Internet and mentioned hypothetical searches on WebMD about gout, dementia, and post-nasal drip. A representative from Google (Facebook and Microsoft also had representatives present) said the company doesn’t know what people do when they’re not using the Google.com site.

After being asked what would happen if the U.S. Department of Justice were to serve NebuAd with a subpoena asking for information about people who searched for explosives, Dykes replied: “We would not be able to provide names or even IP addresses.”

Monitoring customers’ Web browsing to serve up targeted advertisements is coming under increased political scrutiny on privacy grounds, making the future of the controversial technique among Internet service providers less than certain.

That nevertheless likely violates federal and state wiretap laws, unless customers give unambiguous consent to this eavesdropping on their Internet connections, says the Center for Democracy and Technology. CDT, which receives the majority of its funding from technology companies, published a report (PDF) on Tuesday that concludes: “Especially where the copying is achieved by a device owned or controlled by the advertising network, the copying of the contents of subscriber communications seems to be, in the absence of consent, a prohibited interception.”

A hearing convened by a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday is the latest potential obstacle to widespread adoption of the practice, which relies on intercepting customers’ Internet packets and building anonymized profiles that can be used for topic-based advertisements.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., suggested that the procedure amounts to “wiretapping” and promised a followup hearing in the near future to explore the subject further. “We need to take a closer look at Internet users’ privacy,” he said.

For its part, NebuAd says it’s doing nothing untoward. CEO Bob Dykes told the Senate panel that “my lawyers have told me we’re in compliance with the law.”

In addition, NebuAd has hired at least five employees from Gator, which changed its name to Claria five years ago to distance itself from associations with spyware. Symantec offers a Windows application that removes Claria’s Gain software.

But the problem for NebuAd and its ISP customers is that–as we reported in May–a collection of federal laws written back in the 1980s create a treacherous legal landscape for broadband providers that are engaging in this kind of Web monitoring. Some of those laws restrict deep packet inspection by any broadband provider; the Cable TV Privacy Act singles out cable providers for the most extensive opt-in regulations.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

The application still shows up in the App Store search, but upon clicking on the title, an error message appears. Baby Shaker, a game in which the user is invited to silence a baby’s cries by violently shaking an
iPhone, appeared on the App Store Monday despite Apple’s policy of banning “offensive” iPhone applications.

Company representatives have still not responded to inquires about how Baby Shaker made it into the App Store in the first place. In the past, Apple has shown no hesitation in rejecting iPhone applications that it felt contained offensive language or objectionable content.

Apple appears to have pulled Baby Shaker from the App Store.

Apple has removed the Baby Shaker application from the App Store, just hours after it was discovered.

The parallel is that Apple is forcing people who buy this device with preloaded music to buy its music, Pakman argues.

“When Apple came out with the iPod, only Apple could deliver music to it,” Blecher said. “They accused Apple of exclusion. When they did the
iPhone, it was impossible to shift to other carriers. They said that was exclusionary…any time you have high market share and restrict competition in any way, you’re going to raise antitrust concerns.”

Maxwell Blecher, an antitrust expert with the Los Angeles firm of Blecher & Collins, agreed that Apple could face legal challenges for bundling if other music vendors are indeed prevented from distributing songs to such a gadget. “Apple is going to argue that they compete with lots of other similar devices,” Blecher said. “You have to look at whether there are exclusionary aspects or conduct. In that debate lays the outcome of any lawsuit.”

In France, a consumer group has alleged that Apple has violated that country’s consumer laws by failing to mention that the iPod is “allegedly not compatible with music from online music services other than the iTunes store” records show.

The talks are preliminary and no agreements have been reached, the source said. That hasn’t stopped some of Apple’s competitors and antitrust lawyers from sounding alarms.

UPDATED 2:55 p.m.
(To include legal challenges to alleged anticompetitive relationship between
iPod and iTunes.)

Universal Music Group has already signed a deal with Nokia to enable buyers of some of its devices to gain access to all of Universal Music’s library. The music industry source said that UMG is in talks with several other handheld manufacturers as well. But no handheld maker has struck a deal with all four of the top music companies. Apple could be the first.

Critics say that Apple, which sells 70 percent of all digital music devices, could use its overwhelming market share to wall out competitors. No other music services–download or subscription–could sell songs to such a device. Music listeners wouldn’t need to get their music anywhere else. Competition among digital music retailers would suffer, said Pakman.

Apple is in for a fierce legal fight should it ever release a device that offers all-you-can-eat music, according to David Pakman, CEO of rival digital music service eMusic.

Such a plan “would produce a long and drawn out fight in both the U.S. and European courts,” Pakman said.

But just because smaller players in the market may have similar deals may not be enough to prevent Apple’s deal from being challenged, said Blecher.

The answer is yes and they have been challenged in U.S. and European courts. A year ago, two separate lawsuits, which have now been consolidated, accused Apple of unfair competition, maintenance of a monopoly power and “unlawful tying.” That case and a similar one, Black vs. Apple, are pending, according to documents Apple filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Apple is in talks with the four largest record labels about offering a device with access to the entire iTunes music library. A source close to the negotiations confirmed the report in an interview with CNET News.com and said the offering would be free initially but device owners would later be charged subscription fees.

“It smells like classic Sherman Antitrust Act to me,” Pakman said. “I only know what I’ve read but the plan sounds very similar to the tying practices Microsoft used with Windows/Explorer. And Microsoft is still paying the penalties for that one.”

Pakman says Apple is following Microsoft’s lead. In 1998 the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit accusing Microsoft of monopolistic practices by bundling Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system. The case was settled in 2001. In that case Microsoft had monopolistic position in operating systems with Windows, the government charged. The company achieved dominance in browsers by forcing Windows buyers to use Microsoft Explorer.

What’s the difference between a device that bundles music and the relationship between iTunes and iPod? Weren’t they tied together?

An Apple spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on rumor or speculation.

The event gets better every year, largely because it’s no longer a vendor strategy show. It’s increasingly an IT strategy show focused on open source, one where you can walk the halls and expect to have conversations with the best in the business like Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL, Jon Williams, CTO of Kaplan, and so on.

I say “as expected” because attendance from the IT community has been on the upswing since the second show back in 2005. Each time we’ve increased the number of developers, architects, CIOs, etc. who attend the event. The content has partly been the cause, but it’s also important to remember that as open source has gone mainstream, IT executives are increasingly allowed to be publicly interested in open source.

InfoWorld just sent me the registration numbers for the upcoming Open Source Business Conference, March 25-26 in San Francisco. As expected, we’re significantly up on IT executive attendance.

We’ve come a long way, baby!

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Mark your calendar. You belong at OSBC.

Fabrizio, Funambol’s CEO and a good friend, has been very smart about how Funambol approaches the market. Fabrizio doesn’t try to upsell his community. He doesn’t sell to consumers or the enterprise, but rather charges (as he terms it) “people who don’t like open source.” In other words, service providers and Telcos that don’t want to think about the risks associated with sharing code. So, they buy their way out of the obligations of open source and simply derive its benefits.

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With a mobile revolution on the rise, it’s significant that Funambol just notched two significant wins to shore up its position as the mobile open-source leader:

With 3.3 billion (with a “B”) mobile phones in the world and only two percent accessing email from those 850 different phones, Funambol has a huge, untapped market ahead of it. The company’s technology is already capable of reaching 1.5 billion of those devices, and its open-source nature helps it to get broader device coverage faster without the company having to invest in doing so. Its community of users (two million downloads and counting) does much of the work.

$12.5 million in Series B investment from lead investor Nexit Ventures, as well as Castile Ventures, Walden International, and HIG Ventures. To date, Funambol has raised $25 million.
Signed AOL as a customer so that the company can “synchronize mobile and online messages.”

Funambol remains one of the more interesting open-source projects, one worth watching.