And what's with the clipart background, anyway. Consider yourself ironbarred. [AOL]

Remember when Verizon had the best network and the worst phones? Actually, you don't have to remember, since that's still (subjectively) true right now, but not for long—the Big Red's upcoming Android lineup is looking outrageously promising, with the Hero, Sholes, Droid, Calgary, and now a mysterious new handset called the HTC Desire. We spied the name on a Verizon inventory list a month and a half ago, and now we've got a photo of it—and it looks, well, sort of like the Hero. It's clearly boasting HTC's Sense UI and we can very faintly make out a trackball. The only other thing we're pretty sure about is that the Desire will be a touchscreen-only phone: No keyboard here, folks. Honestly it looks a lot like the Hero, but it may have some distinguishing feature we just don't know about yet. [Boy Genius Report]

Yahoo is getting ready to launch a new news blog, which will consist of both original reporting and linking out to other sites, because that's how journalism is done nowadays. They've recruited Andrew Golis, publisher of Talking Points Memo, and will incorporate the new blog into the already popular Yahoo News page. Why's it in Remainders? Because I really, really doubt anyone bothered to read this far into a post about a Yahoo news blog. [Giga Om]

Vuzix's new Wrap 310 video glasses, which begin shipping today, are much in the same vein as Vuzix's previous products, only slightly less silly-looking. This time, they've opted for the "dorky Oakleys" look, while giving a 16:9 picture that appears the same size as a 55-inch picture at ten feet. It also includes, in case you forget, noise-isolating earbuds and compatibility with a whole mess of different video sources (including all iPhone and iPod with video models). It ended up in Remainders because who wears video glasses besides that Reading Raindbow guy? As a side note, sort of, did you guys know that Reading Rainbow has left this mortal coil? Usually I scoff at old people who get teary-eyed about the way things used to be (ha, newspapers!) but seriously you guys we will have to officially cede the title of Greatest Country in the Universe if our bright-eyed children don't have access to Reading Rainbow. [Vuzix, Videogum]

AOL hinted, at the Web 2.0 Summit today, that they've got something big up their sleeves. "We have been working on something for the last three months that I think is a fairly substantial shift in our technology," said Tim Armstrong. CNET surmises that this big shift is something to do with their extensive roster of blogs, since Armstrong mentioned AOL has been poaching writers from respectable publications like the Wall Street Journal and ESPN. Thrilling stuff, you guys. If you have to ask why this is in Remainders, congratulations for not falling asleep already. [CNET]

Current Wall Street Journal writer Jason Zweig used to work for a Time-Warner-owned magazine, and when Time Warner merged with AOL, he and his colleagues all received free AOL email accounts. Zweig gave his to his wife, who used it up until last year.

But recently, Zweig started receiving phone calls from AOL's customer service reps in India, saying he owed $103.60 for an upgrade he knew nothing about. Turns out the terms of agreement he signed years ago may (or may not) have included a section allowing AOL to upgrade his service and charge him for it. Zweig point-blank refused to pay for any ridiculous upgrade that may well not exist, and AOL tried to bargain him down to $85.

The argument devolved into AOL insisting they would attempt to collect through legal channels, and Zweig welcoming them to, as he plans to file a fraud report before they'd be able to do anything of the sort. We guess when you've floundered as much as AOL has in recent years, all you can do is try to extort old customers. It's just bad luck one of their targets happens to write for one of the country's largest news organizations. [Wall Street Journal]

The app does what was touted this year at the iPhone 3.0 event: display notifications when the app is closed, show you how many outstanding messages you have and basically keep you "connected" to the AIM service even when you're not actively using the app. The free version is here and the pay version is here.

We personally would go with the free version until the pay version of the better IM apps (Beejive, for example) go live. Boy Genius says it's live now, but we're still seeing the old version in the store. [TechCrunch]

Laserdiscs

When Laserdisc player production finally spun down a month or so ago, it wasn't much of an occasion. I mean, aside from inspiring a little grade-school nostalgia and upsetting a hobbyist or three, the event wasn't materially notable. For us, that is. It turns out that Laserdiscs were much more popular in Japan than America during their heyday—about 500% more popular.

Why? The Japanese success of the Laserdisc (or Videodisc, as they were marketed there) comes down to the two things: money and anime. From launch, Laserdisc prices were lower in Japan than in most other markets, which accelerated adoption. Anime fans appreciated the format's improved fidelity, which drove sales at the time and eventually led to the still-active secondhand LD market. Laserdisc players, though no longer produced, are still available in the shops of Akihabara and elsewhere. At a Best Buy in Akron? Not so much.

Nokia Phones

When Nokia does something interesting, we take notice. Otherwise, in the US the company exists in an awkward netherworld of ultra-high name recognition and almost infinitesimal relevance. To most Americans, Nokia looks like a budget-phone maker. To most of the rest of the world, they're the undisputed king of cellphonery, and not just in name—they're by far the largest manufacturer of handsets on the planet. They literally dwarf their competition, selling double the volume of their nearest competitor, Samsung.

By the numbers: Nokia moved 113 million mobile devices in the last quarter alone, their entry-level 1100 handset has sold over 200m units, and at one point the N95, a precocious, clunky do-it-all handset topped the mobile phone sales charts in the UK. Where does the US stand in all of this? Of those 113 million mobile devices sold last quarter, just five million found their way to North America. Even the iPhone matched those numbers while RIM's BlackBerry nearly doubled them. Nokia is the gadget equivalent of the BBC—most Americans know about it, but the rest of the world depends on it.

Mobile TV

I'm not talking about expensive, pixelated video-over-3G services here. No, I mean full-fledged digital TV streamed straight to your handset, PC or PMP. Brazil has it, South Korea has it, and of course, so does Japan. The tech used in Japan and Brazil is known as 1seg, and it broadcasts over UHF alongside regular HD content. In Japan, more than two thirds of new mobile phones support the standard, which is a part of daily life for many people. Here, it's basically unheard of.

DMB is a alternative standard, targeted at a much wider audience. Developed in South Korea, the satellite and terrestrial version of the tech (S-DMB and T-DMB, respectively) are already in widespread use there and T-DMB is being deployed across much of Western Europe—trials appear to be going fairly well. Unfortunately for us, the VHF and UHF bands used by the T-DMB standard have already been claimed by preexisting TV programming and the military, so don't expect to see terrestrial TV on AT&T or Verizon phones anytime soon, though yours might be capable of the pay-for-play MediaFlo service that nobody uses.

Osaifu-Keitai, or, Your Phone Is Your Wallet

In much of the world, including the US of A, mobile payment systems have been ignored or abandoned after fitful starts. Not in Japan (if you're noticing a trend here, good job!). Osaifu-Keitai, the e-wallet standard adopted by Japanese telecom heavyweights NTT DoCoMo, SoftBank and au, essentially renders wallets obsolete. Phones equipped with Osaifu-Keitai can be charged with money, download tickets for anything from a sporting event to a plane trip, serve as official identification or link to a credit card.

Due to uncertainties about demand for such a service and loads of red tape , no comparable standard has emerged stateside, and it's a shame: If you can come to terms with the nebulous privacy issues associated with carrying so much private information on a losable device, it does seem like the plain, obvious and fundamentally good type of technological progress that is probably, with or without our assent, inevitable. Oh well.

Next-Gen Instant Messaging

AOL (emphasis on the A), burdened with decades-old stereotypes about its tech-tarded users and a persistent association with both geriatrics and late-'90s Meg Ryan movies, doesn't have the best public image. But they do still run the nation's most popular messaging platform! AIM, despite being a vestige of a service that its parent company doesn't really care much about anymore, is the de facto standard for messaging in the US (and Israel, strangely). As we saw earlier though, that doesn't always mean much.

Worldwide AIM/ICQ/iChat numbers are massively outclassed by MSN, or Windows Live as it's been called for the last few years. In China, the largest IM market, most people don't bother with either, opting for the Tencent QQ service. Both were born a solid five years after AIM, but their extra features—mostly messaging add-ons meant to appeal to a younger set—are questionably useful. It's not so much that sticking with AIM has left Americans on an inferior service, it's that it has isolated us, in a small way, from the rest of the messaging world.

MiniDisc

The story of the MiniDisc epitomizes tech regionalism: A solid, capable contender for recordable audio format dominance, the MD was met with enthusiasm in Japan. It was extremely advanced for its time, rolling fantastic, CD-like audio quality with the recording abilities of a cassette, all in a package that was more portable than either. Despite being introduced in the early '90s, the format held up well against the first generation of MP3 players, which, with their limited capacities, slim feature sets and high prices, didn't really provide a perceptible advantage over the venerable MD units. Sony had a solid product—and even a bit of a hit—on its hands.

At least, that's how the story went in Tokyo. Despite Sony's best efforts—and what seemed like an endless string of product revamps—the MiniDisc was never more than a marginal player in the US. Sure, it earned plaudits from audiophiles and musicians (check out the recording information for the thousands of concerts on Archive.org if you don't believe me), but the format never took off, either as a recording medium or, due to risk-averse record companies and the high cost of the actual media, as a competitor for the CD. When MP3 players came of age, the MD's door to America finally latched shut for good. Sony, of course, took a while to get the message, and Steve Jobs was laughing the whole time.

Going through our logs we can tell that nearly a dozen of you are still using AOL via dial-up. For lots of people in remote locales it's their only choice, and starting at the end of the month their bills are going to be going up a whopping $2 a month from $9.99 to $11.99. That's about 20%, but they don't have to pay it; AOL is offering users the chance to keep their $9.99 plans if they pinky swear to not call technical support if its not a connection-related issue. How exactly does this work?

Does AOL give them a different support number so they can tell who's who? Does the technician's caller-ID pop up and display, "This is a $9.99 customer, do not help"? Are they shunned in AOL chatrooms as being unclean? We're not sure.

We're pretty sure AOL is doing this because there are many people who would call AOL support for non-dial-up related problems. Grandma knows they can help with some problems and assumes they're there to help with all problems. While it's weird making customers choose a different plan to avoid this problem, we can completely understand. [CNet, via Consumerist]

1. Eat a live cockroach.
2. Get a Darth Maul facial tattoo.
3. Start running.
4. Date any of the contestants from The Bachelor.

For those who have already completed alternatives 1-4, feel free to hit the jump to scope the details.

Speed Installs in seconds and launches fast — so you can begin browsing immediately, without signing in. The new browser has been completely rebuilt to allow for maximum compatibility and quicker page loading.

Tabbed IM and Browser
Tabs on the browser and instant messages give you easy access and an uncluttered, organized view for all of your windows. AOL Desktop for Mac — Your Online Life Organized.

Custom Toolbar
Keep your favorite AOL sites right at your fingertips. You can select from more than 25 different AOL channels and features to add to your AOL toolbar. Want to add a "Write Mail" icon to your toolbar? No problem!

Easy Transition
New functionality allows for fast, easy transfer of your AOL Favorites and mail (from AOL for Mac OS X personal filing cabinets) plus icon tooltips, a new AOL Support Portal for Mac and the Mac@AOL product blog to guide you through all the cool new features.

Tiger and Leopard Compatible
AOL Desktop for Mac runs natively on your PowerPC or Intel-based Mac. The all-new AOL application runs at full speed on any Mac that supports Tiger or Leopard (Mac OS X 10.4.8 or higher).

System Requirements
PowerPC G4 or Intel Macintosh (minimum)
Mac OS X 10.4.8 or higher
Minimum of 256MB of physical RAM
Minimum of 60MB of available hard disk space
28.8 Kbps or faster modem/existing Internet connection

The AOL Open Mobile Platform is based on proven technology acquired by AOL that has been deployed across more than 150 different handsets on carrier networks in the U.S. The platform will consist of three components: an XML-based, next-generation markup language; an ultra-lightweight mobile device client; and an application server. A dynamic presentation layer will allow for rapid deployment of new features and easy optimization for a wide variety of mobile devices, allowing developers to build and update applications once, and then distribute them across all supported devices and platforms.

In addition, it will be possible to integrate applications built using the AOL Open Mobile Platform with third-party APIs, as well as with AOL's open APIs for AIM, AOL Mail, AOL Video, MapQuest, Userplane, Truveo, Winamp, and others. The AOL Open Mobile Platform will also give developers the ability to monetize their mobile applications by utilizing advertising resources, such as clickable banner ads, provided by AOL's Platform-A.

The goods should be available later this summer for your tinkering pleasure. [AOL Dev Network]

The content? Well, it's going to have TV clips from NBC and Fox, plus films from their respective movie studios. You'll be able to watch ad-supported shows like 24 and Heroes for free, and they're working on more deals with Sony and Time Warner to supply shows and clips. Sounds like we've finally got someone to stand up with GooTube in a non-theoretical way. – Jason Chen

Squawk on the Street [CNBC]

Thanks Ray!

Of course, there's DRM involved in the form of AOL's comically-named "Hi-Q Delivery Manager," and it only works with Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6.0 or 7.0. Hey, you better hurry, because the whole beta experiment ends on Groundhog Day. You wouldn't want to miss out on all those great free movies, now would you? – Charlie White

Video Beta [AOL]

The Wi-Fi will allow you to download music suggested to you and even allow for streaming Internet radio. And best of all—it appears that this player has a stainless steel look to it, which is sexy. This player is just in the initial phases, so don't expect to see it on the shelves until the second or third quarter of 2007. –Travis Hudson

AOL's Upcoming Wi-Fi Player [dapreview]

Current owners can download Sonos 2.1 software which adds support for these new music stores as well as Apple iTunes 7 volume normalization and Windows Vista and WMP11 support. – Jason Chen

Product Update Page [Sonos]

Thieves raid Apple employee store for third time [AppleInsider]

Thanks Edward!

Berliner Zeitung (Translated) [Via I4U]

What's the worst product, sitting at the top of the shitlist? Wait for it—it's the loathsome, noob-infested AOL, bringing home the bacon for Worst Tech Product of All Time. The runner-up was one of our most-despised annoyances: the nagging, presumptuous and obnoxious RealNetworks RealPlayer.

May this entire rogue's gallery rest in peace atop the ash heap of history, never to be seen or heard from again. – Charlie White

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time [PC World]

They still have an India and Albuquerque call centers, but things are looking rough across the board. In another striking cost-saving move, AOL is also refraining from giving out free trial subscriptions—they're still sending out some CDs, said the tipster, but not nearly as many as they used to—and going to charge folks immediately. Perhaps the AOLCD and/or AOL itself will also hit the dustbin of history?

The incoming calls are transferred through the AIM service and for $14.95 you can make unlimited calls to anywhere in the US.

AOL to launch free AIM phone service [News.com.com.com]

Their theory is this: if you have to pay to send email, you won't send spam. This theory has a gaping hole—spammers will pay to send you spam. It all depends on your definition of "spam"—and how lax AOL or Yahoo's definition will be.

Our thoughts after the jump.

The only true anti-spam method is challenge-response, AKA the spammer Turing test. ("Hi, this is Joe's mailbox. Just hit reply to prove you exist and you'll never see this message again.") This test already costs plenty in terms of CPU cycles and bandwidth and the pay-for-play vision is a distant cousin to this same process. ("Hi, this is Joe's mailbox. Pay me to send this message.")

The way AOL's system works is frustratingly similar to the Marijuana Tax—you pay for "stamps" in order to access AOL's bulk email system. If they pay, organizations like the Red Cross and Red Envelope can spam you willy-nilly while the rest of the po' folks with the penis pills will have to contend with spam filters—the same filters which they have been bypassing quite handily already. This sounds like a way for these big guys to get a little cash and for the other big guys to feel like their doing their part in not pissing you off.

Trust us, guys, you are pissing us off.

It's the mail handling protocols that are broken. The creators designed them to ensure ease of use, which led to the rise of spam. What we need here aren't ways for AOL and Yahoo to bankroll their next corporate retreat in Bali, but an entirely new system of email "subscriptions" which ensures that email to and from the folks from whom you want to receive email makes it to your mailbox, and everyone else's is buffeted back. This will take a concerted effort by open source/academic folks to adopt and maintain this new system which will then trickle down to the corporate level. Of course, new systems for spam-resistant email have been in the cards for years, but no one—even people not trying to make money on the side—have been able to come to any sort of agreement.

Let's talk about next-gen mail handling protocols in the comments, because there has to be a better way.

E-mail charging plan to beat spam [BBC]

The gay community has so much of its own culture at this point, so why not a music channel on AOL? No reason at all, it seems. Looks like AOL has launched a site called "G-Sides, Music for the GLBT Community," which features all the "gay and lesbian artists we love." Obviously, lots of Boy George and Melissa Etheridge, and today's launch also includes an interview and DJ session from Cyndi Lauper and videos of the Strokes. So there's that.

"This site will talk about all different facets: gay artists, music that has a strong LGB fan base, and even videos that you might not think have relevance to the gay and lesbian community — but do."

...says M. Tye Comer, senior programming manager for AOL Music. Oh, and expect a bunch of Madonna links as well. To check it out, click here. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

AOL Music launches gay music site [Reuters]

If you've been dying to perform Web searches on your cell or PDA, AOL believes it has the magic bullet. The recently announced AOL Mobile Search Service actually adapts your search to the smaller LCD screens using content-analysis and transcoding tech from a company called InfoGin. The differences between this and other mobile services, if you're wondering, is that before, you could only download full web pages that were WAP-enabled. This works like any search would on a desktop computer.

AOL develops new mobile search feature [Cnet]