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“There are a tremendous number of first-time voters who will be crucial in this election, and Youth Vote ‘08 will provide direct insight into the issues they are facing along with their mindset,” Ben French, vice president and general manager of UWIRE, said in a press release.

In partnership with CBS News and Washingtonpost.com, UWIRE has selected 50 young journalists–including columnists, editorial cartoonists, photographers and news reporters–to cover the presidential election from the perspective of young voters.

UWire, an aggregator of student-generated content, on Wednesday launched its election blog Youth Vote ‘08.

“Pollsters are saying the youth vote will decide this election,” contributor Alvin Chang, a senior at New York University, wrote on Youth Vote ‘08 Wednesday.

20 August before the World Cup held in the Great Wall of digital activities online quiz with prizes award ceremony on August 3, 2010 AM studio recording is completed in bubble net, marking the Great Wall of Digital World Cup Carnival Everything, closes . After the baptism of the World Cup, the Great Wall of digital development in the future what sort of plan? The award ceremony, Mr. Pei Zhiqiang, director of the Great Wall of digital sales (hereinafter referred to Bae total) as a guest to attend the prize presentation ceremony in the PEI total focus of attention on the numbers of visitors had to answer the question and received the award presentation ceremony, media interviews, on the Great Wall Planning for the digital products in detail. The following is the contents of the selected live interview.

Moderator: The quiz event for the biggest gain for the Great Wall of what? Great Wall handheld TV market in driving sales effectiveness?

PEI General: The Great Wall of digital joint large bubble nets and IT168 for friends and fans during the World Cup held in the large network quiz activities, the results obtained is beyond the expected, from the activities initiated, the majority of Internet users actively involved in, concerned about was increasing, the activities of the network more than 1.78 million the number of participants, this event is organized by the Great Wall of digital this year’s second major brand marketing campaigns. For the first time this year in April, a joint in the wide spread all over the country’s "100 city and shops tour" activities, the activities of this network is the second large-scale quiz activity a series of events brings the two aspects to the Great Wall is not Philippine harvest, the first is the impact of terminal sales, and the second is from the consumers of the Great Wall brand awareness and product recognition improved.

Sales statistics for the terminal, the terminal during the World Cup more than 200% sales growth for the brand and product awareness, but also because of this event involved more than 170 million users, has been very good communication and I believe We will organize more such activities and consumers interact.

Moderator: We note that the Great Wall in addition to CMMB handheld digital television, the first half also introduced the MP3, MP4, MP5, etc. number of new products, how does the Great Wall to meet the digital challenges and fierce competition in the market?

PEI General: The Great Wall of digital into the digital area is relatively new, but also as the Great Wall specialize in digital brand business units set up time is also less than a year later as those who need a lot of places to learn and improve, but to enter the field or from the product Qianqi market research, market timing, product analysis, technical reserves, and other long-term preparations done. Technical reserves in particular, from this event closely linked to CMMB handheld television, we have done 3 years of independent R & D investment and technical reserves, three years, to serve as a strategic partner Guang, mainly for some industries made products, with the CMMB official business, the Great Wall of digital combination of technology and experience of 3 years, also launched handheld TV products and ideas into the digital arena, we believe that, as a domestic independent R & D and technology vendors reserve that is important.

On the other hand, after entering the digital field, CMMB TV is that we focus on developing hand-held direction, the face of market competition, the Great Wall of digital field advantage is a result of the Great Wall brand in IT have a certain influence, but the Great Wall of power in the field to the consumer brand force deep-rooted, so bring the digital extension of the field to give the Great Wall brand had a certain difficulty. But the importance of external resources, the Great Wall of digital integration, the Great Wall TV not only as a hand-held long-term strategic partner in the wide, wide, or in the official designated special gift, I believe, in the continuous inputs and technology to increase, we can ensure that in this emerging field breakthroughs.

Moderator: After the World Cup, the Great Wall of digital marketing promotion plan next?

PEI General: Although the World Cup has passed, now we have them fully into the summer promotion, the main benefit is to allow consumers across the board let, with new product introduction, the current activities are being carried out to provide our users be able to buy during this period their favorite digital products.

Moderator: Many users are very concerned about the Great Wall, the new digital plan, can give us about the second half of the new plan?

Pei Total: our digital products is a total of three class composition, as well as desktop and handheld tools for these three categories have different product launch in the second half. Handheld TV with one or two new products, e-books in the field to put in more research and development, including the ink color screen and launched new e-book category, the characteristics of the product synthesis: first, the future embodied in the product more cost-effective on Second, we stress the product aimed at the small screen, "pocket" for the big-screen e-book highlights 3G extensions, third, in the second half of the conventional MP4 online launch MID product key.

Moderator: CMMB consumers are most concerned about the content of hand-held TV and tariff issues, you have the kind of insight?

Pei Total: widely disseminated to all currently available audio and video content, now essentially able to receive 4 sets of radio, 6 sets of TV shows, step by step later in the financial, navigation, reading, rich media such as increased hand-held TV added value. It is borne by the manufacturers 3-year tariff, consumers can watch for free, but the digital product market changes quickly, so three years later, can not say specifically, but generally speaking, the trend of the total tariff reduction, or take gifts such as none other specific or widely spread under the policy to be.

For wholesale mp4 player , MP3 player , 8GB MP4 Players and cell phone about tamom.com and registration for a wholesale buyer account, visit http://www.tamom.com/MP4-players/

Updated 3:50 p.m. PST to clarify that AOL was first Web chat app chosen for
iPhone demo, but may not be the only one to run on it.

AOL’s AIM chat application just got a major boost–it’s the first “official” native Web chat application for the iPhone.

AIM on the iPhone was demonstrated earlier on Thursday at Apple’s announcement of the iPhone software development kit in Cupertino, Calif.

AOL was chosen to build a test version of AIM for the iPhone in two weeks, Apple said at the event. No word on when iPhone users will be able to use it.

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The AIM on iPhone application offers a buddy list, the ability to easily toggle among multiple instant-messaging conversations with a finger swipe and the option of using a photo on your iPhone as your buddy icon.

With AIM being the top IM client, it’s no wonder Apple chose AOL over Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google. But it’s got to be a snub to Google, its partner on other iPhone applications.

AIM, meanwhile, is interoperable with Google Talk, so maybe I’ll be able to get to my Google contacts on the iPhone like I can via Gmail.

AIM has about 50 percent of the IM market, followed by MSN/Windows Live Messenger with about 33 percent, Yahoo Messenger with about 30 percent and Google Talk with about 2.5 percent, according to Nielsen Online. The figures are close estimates based on the percentage audience each IM application has of a total unique audience. That’s why the percentages of market share add up to more than 100 percent.

We previously got an exclusive early hands-on look at the Dell Adamo, the new luxury 13-inch that’s one of the most buzzed-about new laptops of 2009. That was a pre-production model in black (Dell calls it “onyx”) and now our final shipping version of the Adamo has arrived, and this is the white “pearl” version.

As a Core 2 Duo laptop that’s less than 0.65-inches thick, the Adamo is much more powerful than other new slim systems such as HP’s 12-inch Pavilion dv2 (with a new AMD Athlon Neo CPU). It’s also much more expensive, starting at $1,999 and running to $2,699.

We’re running our benchmark tests on the Dell Adamo right now, so stay tuned for a full review. In the meantime, check out these new pics of the new white Adamo and our original first look video.

Unboxing the Dell Adamo (Pearl)

No, it's not white, it's "pearl."

MP3 Mailbox Monday is a recurring feature in which I answer a selection of questions about MP3 players and accessories, such as headphones, speakers, and music services and software. Check back often to see if the advice presented here might be of some use to you, or send your questions directly to me. (Note: We never include last names, but if you prefer to remain completely anonymous, please state as much in your e-mail.)

(Credit:
Creative)

(Credit:
Etymotic)

(Credit:
SanDisk)

(Credit:
CNET Networks/Corinne Schulze)

Sansa Fuze likes the library and won't break the bank.

Q: I love your Web site and I have been using it to get my friends gifts for a while now. Anyways, I have been trying to get the right pair of headphones, and I am confused by a few of your site’s comments. For one, it says that the UE Super.fi 3 Studios are the best headphones for a hundred bucks, but it says that the Etymotic ER-6s, which are priced the same, are the headphones that your editors use to test MP3 players because they’re your favorites, so that is a bit contradictory. It would be awesome to find out why that is.–Gregory, via e-mail

Zens are good for audiobooks, but only for Windows users.

Audiobooks are great on-the-go entertainment, but they cost about twice as much as a standard hard copy of the material. With that price difference, I’d rather read it myself. Happily, for those whose eyesight isn’t what it used to be, or others who just prefer the soothing sound of a narrator, there is a way to enjoy digital books without lightening the wallet: public libraries. Many city libraries are now offering audiobooks as free downloads…but there’s a catch. Find out what it is below. Also this week: why it’s important to pay attention to review dates.

Etymotic ER-6 Isolators: not used for MP3 testing anymore, but still great.

Q: My needs are simple. I would like to be able to download books on CD (from my public library) to a portable device that I can listen to while walking. It would need a bookmarking feature, about 25 hours of memory, and long battery life. I do not need to surf, text, listen to a radio, or even have a screen. Does such a creature exist?–B., via e-mail

My other recommendations include the Creative Zen V and Zen V Plus, both of which offer about 20 hours of audio playback. The Zen players have manual (also known as active) bookmarking, so you can set bookmarks wherever you want in each file, but you must remember to set them before exiting the file. There’s also the Zen Mozaic, a recently released player with the same bookmarking capability and a rated battery life of 36 hours for audio.

A: Regarding the UE Super.fi 3 versus the Etymotic ER-6, it really relates to when the review was written. At the time the Etymotic review was written, those were the best headphones we had come across in that price range, but by the time the Ultimate Ears came out, they were considered the top choice for $100.

Unfortunately, we aren’t able to continually update the text of a review as time goes by, so it’s very important to take the post date into account when evaluating the content of the review. In fact, we no longer use the Etymotics for MP3 player testing–we use a couple pairs of Shure headphones. It’s always a good idea to check out the How We Test page for the most up-to-date info on testing methods and devices. Still, that doesn’t mean they’re not good headphones–often, you can find some excellent deals on older headphones with great sound quality.

My first recommendation is the SanDisk Sansa Fuze, which offers a 28.2 hour battery life for audio. The bookmarking feature is automatic (or passive) for audiobooks; that is, it remembers where you left off in each file, but you have no option to set multiple bookmarks in a single file. The Sansa Clip offers the same bookmarking capability, but the 14.1-hour battery life may not be long enough for you.

A: Several such creatures exist! Of course, a screen comes in handy when using the bookmarking feature on most devices. Also, the player should support protected WMA, as that is the format most libraries use for audiobooks. There are plenty of options out there–I am going to stick with budget recommendations, as you needn’t spend a lot to get what you’re after. One note: MP3 player memory goes by space rather than time. For audiobooks, you can expect about 70 hours worth of content to fit on a device that offers 1GB of memory.

Writing on the JQuery blog, John Resig said that mobile phone heavyweight Nokia also is adopting JQuery as part of its application development platform. As is the case with Microsoft, he said, Nokia isn’t looking to make any changes to the library, and its developers will contribute to the JQuery project.

Sample JavaScript using JQuery.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Nokia is looking to use jQuery to develop applications for their WebKit-based Web Run-Time. The run-time is a stripped-down browser rendering engine that allows for easy, but powerful, application development. This means that jQuery will be distributed on all Nokia phones that include the web run-time…

Resig, a lead developer of JQuery, wrote:

Microsoft said Sunday that it plans to ship the JQuery JavaScript library with its Visual Studio developer tool suite.

A big part of the appeal of jQuery is that it allows you to elegantly (and efficiently) find and manipulate HTML elements with minimum lines of code. jQuery supports this via a nice “selector” API that allows developers to query for HTML elements, and then apply “commands” to them. One of the characteristics of jQuery commands is that they can be “chained” together - so that the result of one command can feed into another. jQuery also includes a built-in set of animation APIs that can be used as commands. The combination allows you to do some really cool things with only a few keystrokes.

Guthrie also pointed to a newly posted tutorial on Scott Hanselman’s Computerzen blog about integrating JQuery with ASP.net Ajax.

The software powerhouse said that jQuery would be one of the libraries used to implement higher-level controls in the ASP.net Ajax Control Toolkit, and would also have a role in new Ajax server-side helper methods. The 15KB JQuery JavaScript library will be distributed as is, with no forking, and files will continue to adhere to the JQuery MIT license.

In addition, Microsoft said that it would contribute tests, bug fixes, and patches to the JQuery open-source project and that later this year it would extend product support to JQuery.

The announcement came in a blog post by Scott Guthrie, a vice president in Microsoft’s developer division, who described the library’s attraction:

…The jQuery test suite is already integrated into the test suites of Mozilla and Opera and this move will see a significant level of extra testing being done on Internet Explorer and WebKit - above-and-beyond what is already done by the jQuery team.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has asked the agency’s inspector general to look into complaints about the d-block auction, a Reuters story said.

Under the rules set by the FCC before the auction started in January, the winner of the d-block licenses would be required to partner with local police, fire departments, and other public safety groups to provide a nationwide interoperable public safety network. This type of network is sorely missing in the U.S. And such a network was recommended to be built by the 9/11 Commission that investigated the events surrounding the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. in 2001.

In the meantime, the FCC has officially “de-linked” the d-block spectrum from the other blocks offered in the auction, so that it can be auctioned off later. The FCC said in a press release on Wednesday that it will not re-offer the d block spectrum immediately in the subsequent Auction 76. Instead, it will consider its options for how to license this spectrum in the future.

“It is a travesty that our nation has failed, so far, to meet this urgent public safety challenge,” Commissioner Michael Copps, said in a statement. “Now we have another chance to build the network that public safety and the American public need. I remain committed to working with my colleagues to succeed in this most important task.”

That said FCC Chairman Martin and the other commissioners said they were committed to making spectrum available for a nationwide interoperable public safety network before the February 2009 Digital TV transition.

But consumer groups aren’t the only ones concerned that the d block didn’t sell. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and telecommunications subcommittee chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) are already planning a hearing for early next month to consider whether the public-private partnership model for building the wireless network for emergency responders should be changed or if the reserve price should be lowered.

The 700 MHz spectrum auction racked up a record $19.59 billion, but no one in the auction was willing to pony up the government’s minimum price of $1.3 billion for the d block spectrum. The lone bid recorded for the d block was $472 million.

But even before the spectrum auction began, the only major contender in the auction, a company called Frontline Wireless, went out of business. The company had apparently been unable to secure funding.

On Wednesday, a coalition of nine consumer advocacy groups, including the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and the Media Access Project, sent a letter to the chairman of the FCC asking the agency to investigate whether the public safety requirements for “d” block license were too stringent. The groups also want the FCC to study whether plans for the shared public-private network are even still viable.

A company called Cyren Call had been selected to act as the intermediary between public safety agencies and whichever private sector company won the spectrum licenses.

Now, consumer groups and lawmakers are asking whether the reserve price was too high or if the strict public safety requirements were too difficult for a company in the private sector to meet.

Consumer watchdog groups and some lawmakers want to know why the block of spectrum reserved for public safety in the Federal Communications Commission’s 700 MHz auction didn’t hit its reserve price.

Even so, Microsoft can’t live with the cathedrals anymore without protecting the bazaar. Open source doesn’t work that way. It’s simply not possible.

commentary

Microsoft is not alone in being threatened by open source. Everyone is to a greater or lesser extent, including open-source companies. MySQL’s biggest competitor is not Oracle. It is fee-free use of MySQL. Ditto for other open-source companies.

The most critical element that emerged from Brad Smith’s OSBC keynote is the importance of protecting the downstream. By “downstream” I mean those users who may come into contact with open-source software beyond the immediate licensee. One of the benefits of open source is that once released under a certain license, the code endures under that license.

During the discussion, de Icaza explained that anyone who downloaded Moonlight from Novell was protected by the company’s licensing of Silverlight codecs from Microsoft through the company’s own cross-licensing agreement. Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering from Mozilla, then raised the question that if he downloads and then distributes the code for Moonlight, would he get the patent protection?

James Bottomley, maintainer of the SCSI subsystem on the Linux kernel, repeatedly pressed Brad on this element of Microsoft’s open-source strategy, and Brad/Microsoft lacked a good answer. I’m not sure there is one, other than Microsoft capitulating, which Brad indicated is not an answer.

“There is a patent covenant for anyone that downloads (Moonlight) from Novell,” answered de Icaza, who then acknowledged that “as to extending the patents to third parties–you have to talk to Microsoft.”

I think there are good reasons for Microsoft taking a cagey position on patents, reasons that have nothing to do with open-source developers and have everything to do with billion-dollar street brawls with other cathedrals.

To work within the open-source community, which Microsoft will absolutely have to do if it wants to remain relevant in the 21st century of the Web, Microsoft must stop polluting the downstream with patent encumbrances. Period. Full stop.

Bingo. I don’t blame Miguel for this, and I don’t even blame Microsoft for it. It’s a difficult issue.

But Microsoft has acted alone in taking up an aggressive stance against open source. Why? Microsoft has more to gain from open source than it has to lose. As a platform company, there is no reason that it can’t be the preferred home for open-source projects. It won’t take up that mantle, however, until it stops polluting the downstream, which it implicitly does with each patent-licensing deal that it makes.

This answer led Schroepfer to point out the inconsistency between having products that are called open source but are “patent-encumbered.” “There are a lot of complicated IP patent-licensing restrictions,” he said. “Even if you have open-source (products), you can’t get the end result you’re interested in.”

Patents foul the water. As emerged from the question-and-answer period, while Microsoft may prefer to deal with other “cathedrals” (e.g., its agreements with Novell, LG, etc.), in open source you simply can’t avoid the bazaar (e.g., downstream developers who may come into contact with the code). This is why at Microsoft’s Mix conference, Mozilla’s Mike Schroepfer took issue with Miguel de Icaza’s suggestion that his Moonlight code is protected from patent claims:

(Credit:
Google)

“What’s more impressive than simply overtaking them is the speed with which this happened,” he added, pointing to a graph showing the meteoric rise of Unicode.

I picture it happening this way. The Roman alphabet is on the run, pursued by a much larger army of Arabic characters with long scimitar-like ligatures, Chinese characters that look like throwing stars, and European peasant letters bristling with umlauts, cedillas, and tildes.

Google just converted to Unicode 5.1, he added, “so people speaking languages such as Malayalam can now search for words containing the new characters,” he said.

Unicode has overtaken ASCII as the most popular character encoding scheme on the World Wide Web, Mark Davis, Google’s senior international software architect, said in a blog post. Also vanquished at almost exactly the same time was the Western European encoding.

Google’s a fan of Unicode Web sites. When it processes data from Web sites, it converts it into Unicode first if it’s not already there. That improves international search abilities.

Unicode vanquished ASCII and Western European within 10 days in December, Davis said.

One disadvantage Unicode has over ASCII, though, is that it takes at least twice as much memory to store a Roman alphabet character because Unicode uses more bytes to enumerate its vastly larger range of alphabetic symbols.

“The continued rise in use of Unicode makes it even easier to do the processing for the many languages that we cover,” he said.

Unicode is a character encoding standard that gracefully accommodates dozens of languages as well as Roman characters with diacritical marks. ASCII, a tried-and true, decades-old standard, is limited to 128 or 256 characters and has a hard time extending beyond the range of a century-old Remington typewriter.

Unicode now is the most common character encoding method on the Web.

I’m not saying all PC speakers suck, just that the smaller they get, the smaller they sound (M-Audio’s hefty Studiophile AV 40 ain’t bad). Hey, if your space is that cramped it might make more sense to use headphones rather than any speakers at all. Take Grado’s SR60 headphones, they sound worlds better than any micro-mini speaker I’ve heard.

Sadly, 21st century audio technology has mostly been used to create ever cheaper and crappier audio–witness the boom of computer/PC and
iPod speakers–but they’re all laughably pitiful devices compared to what I was listening to 40 years ago. Yes, my long lost XAM brand speakers were comparatively gigantic but sounded awesome blasting Led Zeppelin and the Kinks. Music was so important we all wanted it to sound as good as possible; nowadays most buyers opt for the smallest possible speakers and/or cheapest possible price over sound quality. Good enough is a pretty low standard.

All of the technology advances of the intervening decades can’t make a pint-size speaker sound like a hefty bookshelf or floorstanding model. Size definitely matters.

Yes, they promise “studio quality” sound, but compared to any sort of decent bookshelf speaker, PC speakers sound like toys. They miniaturize not only sound, but also the music’s soul. So it means less.

When I was a kid in the 1960s I was obsessed with the future. The space program was in all its glory, the moon landing was within our grasp, and that, combined with rock music being at its creative peak, what more could a teenage boy ask for? The future looked bright, science would soon feed the starving, cure all disease, and technology would bring prosperity to the entire world. Once those humdrum needs were satisfied we could get to the fun stuff and develop personal flying gear, teleportation machines, and start colonizing other worlds. For kids, at least nerdy kids of my generation, the future couldn’t happen fast enough.

Which one sounds better?

One of the prime 1960s future fantasies involved the “food pill.” They predicted that in the future we would no longer need to eat food, we would just pop a pill that would provide perfectly balanced nutrition. The pills would supply the taste illusion of gourmet food, but without all the hassle of actually growing and preparing the food. Lucky for us the pills have yet to arrive, instead we got the Food Network, so millions of people can watch other people eat the yummiest food. Somehow the tiny pills turned into these awful little speakers.

(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)

Except now that the future has arrived it’s kind of a letdown. Funny, back in the ’60s we never imagined the internet and Dick Tracy never used his wristphone to listen to the Beatles. Strangest of all, no one dreams about the future any more, I guess we’re done.