According to Project on Government Oversight's Senior Investigator, Peter Stockton, this incident "is a new twist in the long history of screw-ups by Los Alamos." I can't really blame him for saying that when testing a gun results in several million dollars of structural damage, propels doors away from the building, and leaves pieces of the weapon spread out on the ground outside. Geez.

Let's look at the positive side of this though. The gun was a mess, but they discovered a heck of a bomb here, no? [Pogo via Wired]

Update: Wired reports that they've received an email from National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Damien LaVera which implies that what we've first heard might not be the exact story:

Here are the facts: On December 16, Los Alamos conducted a standard proof test on a new design for a catch tank in the target chamber for one of our large bore powder guns (LBPG). These types of experiments are routine and responsible. The LBPG is used to conduct measurements of material properties at pressures needed for understanding nuclear weapons performance. During this particular test, unexpected explosive damage occurred and, because that damage could result in $1 million in damages, an investigation was automatically triggered. That investigation will seek to identify the cause of the incident and any changes in procedures that might be required. NNSA, Los Alamos, and all of our facilities take their commitment to safety very seriously. It is important to note that no personnel were injured from this event, no hazardous or radioactive materials were involved, and that lab's incident response mechanisms appear to have performed as intended.

What's interesting isn't Dodge lobbing the bomb that Microsoft is the new Big Blue because "after 20 years they are losing the innovation edge," but he insinuates that if Bill was still running the show it'd be different: "The transition was smooth, but not having Bill there every day has far-reaching implications."

Bill was a geek. Ballmer's a suit. I suppose we shouldn't expect anything different. [Seattle PI]

Moore was speaking at the Connect! tech conference in London, where he also admitted that Microsoft is "still playing catch-up" with Apple. I guess that's true, in the way that Wile E. Coyote is still playing catch-up with the Road Runner. Windows Mobile 6.5 is a joke, and the punchline is that Windows Mobile 7 has just been pushed back until late next year.

It's one thing to be caught napping, Microsoft. It doesn't excuse falling asleep at the wheel. [9to5Mac via Cult of Mac]

Consider the big picture laid out in the WSJ piece: Blu-ray, as a format, despite costing more per individual movie, only pulls around 14 percent of the revenue that DVD does. If you compare the formats at the same year in their life cycle, Blu-ray, in its fourth year, only has revenues that are about a quarter of what DVD made in its fourth year. Hrm, I guess those Flipper discs make a lot more sense now. [WSJ]

Update 2: Google speaks!

Update: We're hearing from our sources that it's the HTC Passion. We're not sure if it's the same Passion we saw a few weeks ago, but we're on the lookout for pics.

Assuming this isn't some sort of coordinated Twitter joke (trust me, it happens), here are the details we can extract:

• It's running Android 2.1 on HTC hardware (the Passion, see above)
• It should be coming out in January
• Employees were given unlocked versions
• "It's beautiful," "a sexy beast."

No one grabbed any concrete hardware details, but hopefully those are the next to come around. Great White Snark elaborated on his original tweet in the comments over at TechCrunch:

Yeah, it's a hot, sexy mess. And I mean that in a good way. Similar form-factor to the iPhone, but with a smooth-brushed-metal-looking shell instead of a glossy one. And perhaps a smidgen lighter.

Super fast, speech-to-text in EVERY app, awesome "live wallpapers" in the background that respond to touch in really beautiful ways. Like water ripples that emanate out from a touch.

Confirmation, or mass hysteria? It's confirmed, see above. Whatever it is, we'll be on the lookout for more details. [TechCrunch]

Anderson writes the Strategic News Service newsletter, widely followed by technology execs, venture capitalists, and horse bookies. His argument is that, right now, the smartphone world is where all the action is for consumers, and that will extend to everywhere else.

He is right. The concept of task-oriented, touch-based applications—simple enough for anyone to understand, unlike traditional desktop apps—is taking the consumer market, showing a new way to computing that is truly transparent for all kinds of users. Everyone gets it, and everyone is moving in that direction.

Anderson argues that Microsoft doesn't have consumer DNA, and that's where I disagree. As shown by the Xbox—and, albeit too late, by the Zune HD—Microsoft can get consumers. Certainly, not as well as they get the corporate world, but enough for them to counterattack the Apples and Googles of this world. But Anderson is right again in his conclusion:

The computer world is splitting apart, into two separate continents, consumer and enterprise.

The question is: Can Microsoft be a big player in both continents, or would they have to surrender in one of them? [NYT]

The NY Post somehow got their hands on these text messages which were exchanged by Tiger Woods and Jaimee Grubbs. Reading them almost feels like an invasion of privacy, but at the same time I can't stop thinking that Tiger sounds like a fourteen year old boy who finally found a girl who won't slap him for being a bit cheeky on occasion. Basically, he sounds like many of us do in text message conversations with a lover.

He gets lusty:

Tiger: I need you
Jaimee: then get your tight ass over here and visit me! I need u
Tiger: I will wear you out soon

He ignores the dangers of sexting:

Tiger: send me something very naughty
Jaimee: some things are worth waiting for lol ... besides im at work
Tiger: go to the bathroom and take it
Jaimee: haha ur too much

He gets jealous:

Jaimee: I drove out for the night to surprise a friend with a present for there birthday
Tiger: what kind of present your naked body
Jaimee: haha no a watch I slept alone
Tiger: alone with him that is
Jaimee: haha I wish
Jaimee: miss u
Tiger: now that's hot so who is your new boy toy

He gets tortured:

Jaimee: if we hang out on a Sundway we can watch desperate houswives again haha
Tiger: oh god
Jaimee: take a break from watching boring old golf
Jaimee: I mean the amazing sport of golf ;)
Jaimee: [more than an hour later] babe I was kidding

And he fails to give the sweet and tender response that's expected:

Jaimee: I have fun with u, you always make me smile and I am not afraid to be myself or say anything to u ... the day I met u I thought u were going to kick me out a few times but for someone reason you didn't and u have told me numerous times I talk to much but slowly as I get to know u iI think your absolutely amazing
Tiger: you are wrong I'm bone thugs in harmon

You can check out the rest of the text messages over at the NY Post, but come back after you do and tell me if I'm just imaging the normality or if maybe Tiger really is just like any other texter, all ridiculous and prone to lousy grammar. [NY Post]

It's a curious use of a positive word: This isn't an incentive in the sense of the prospect of a nice dinner with your wife if you can close your store by 7:30; it's an incentive in the sense of not having said shop burned down because you didn't pay $1000 to that moody man and his friends who come by on the last Friday of every month. Unless AT&T is planning on dropping prices for light smartphone data users and increasing data prices for heavier users, these "incentives" aren't likely to save anyone any money.

This is far from the first time this exec, Ralph de la Vega, has hinted at plans like this, and it won't be the last. AT&T seems destined to tier their data plans—we're just waiting to see how. [NYT]

Bartz couldn't resist a shout out to the beleaguered golfer when speaking to analysts in New York yesterday afternoon. Yahoo's traffic has been doing gangbusters since the Tiger story broke, which in some ways validates their strategy to be a "portal" rather than a search company. When something big and gossipy like this happens, Yahoo's multichannel setup allows them to cover it from a number of different angles. On the other hand, if your sprawling search and content company is set up so that a single tabloid story can "make" your quarter, well, what happens if that story doesn't break?

Oh, that's right. Google drinks your milkshake. [WSJ via Huffington Post]

And she has good reason to be scared that an entire generation doesn't find a television to be an essential household item. People are flocking to the web to watch streaming shows, but the networks still aren't making any money off these views. Hulu, the largest streaming site, is getting over 40 million visitors a month who are viewing 5 billion minutes of shows and clips. And that number is only going up, while TV viewership is going down.

These content creators need to figure out a way to monetize this phenomenon, and fast. Because the genie is out of the bottle, and there's no putting him back in. [NY Times]

In claiming the Hulu is safe from potential fees, Burke is speaking of behalf of the Comcast's recently absorbed NBC Universal, which has a 27% stake in the Hulu venture—the same as News Corp and ABC. In other words, while Comcast execs are now privy to whatever discussions are going inside Hulu, they can't really guarantee anything without cooperation from the site's other partners. Including the one that's loudly demanding that Hulu develop some kind of pay service, soon.

In other words, Burke's answer assures one thing: that nobody, especially Hulu, knows exactly how the site will change over the next year. [Silicon Alley Insider]

To Microsoft's credit, it really isn't clear what exactly is going on here. PC World reports with confidence that the issue is related to changes that a November 10th security update makes to the Windows Access Control List. And security firm Prevx even has a fix. That all fits together. But!

Microsoft's update apparently doesn't touch Windows' aforementioned sensitive bits:

While these reports weren't brought to us directly, from our research into them, it appears they're saying that our security updates are making permission changes in the registry to the value for the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell key.

We've conducted a comprehensive review of the November Security Updates, the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, and the non-security updates we released through Windows Update in November. That investigation has shown that none of these updates make any changes to the permissions in the registry. Thus, we don't believe the updates are related to the "black screen" behavior described in these reports.

They point to malware as a possible culprit, which would be fascinating: That would mean that an unluckily timed Windows Update was lumped in with a malware attack by merely happening in the same timeframe. Either way, the "Black Screen of Death" is too catchy to let die, no matter who ends up owning up to it.

UPDATE: Now even Prevx is letting Microsoft off the hook, which narrows the possibilities down to... everything else in the entire world except for that November 10th update. Microsoft was right:

Having narrowed down a specific trigger for this condition we've done quite a bit of testing and re-testing on the recent Windows patches including KB976098 and KB915597 as referred to in our previous blog. Since more specifically narrowing down the cause we have been able to exonerate these patches from being a contributory factor.

Malware? Mystery? Who knows. [Microsoft Technet]

For me, it's nonsense to say that there are forces coming back from the future to stop the machine from working. It really is just ridiculous to think that is the case. If people could travel forward or back in time, why wouldn't they have done something better or worse for humanity than coming and twiddling around with the LHC?

If it does destroy the world, there's no-one in the future to travel back in time to do anything about it. It's all a bit Back to the Future really. It's part of this whole mystery about the machine — people are willing to believe anything. Physicists sometimes shoot themselves in the foot by not saying, 'We won't destroy the world with black holes,' because they work on probability. Saying, 'This won't happen,' is just not ingrained into them.

Good. But that doesn't explain this. Or the fact that an LHC scientist confused Star Trek with Star Wars. That last thing, my dear friends, is what really has me worried. [Crave UK]

McLaughlin, a major supporter of net neutrality rules, made the comment in a telecom law conference last Thursday by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln law school. Reaction was swift from AT&T's chief lobbyist, Jim Cicconi:

"It is deeply disturbing when someone in a position of authority, like Mr. McLaughlin, is so intent on advancing his argument for regulation that he equates the outright censorship decisions of a communist government to the network congestion decisions of an American ISP. There is no valid comparison, and it's frankly an affront to suggest otherwise," Cicconi said.

Maybe so, but it's a slippery slope. At any rate, the bottom line is that ISPs are going to end up screwing us one way or another—either with some sort of tiered internet, or pricey data caps. [Washington Post]

Obama said those words while presenting his "Educate to Innovate" campaign, which aims to promote the development of new inventions by students all around the country.

Aside from blaming the victims, I don't exactly entirely agree with Apple's statement. It's not the actual jailbreaking that exposed iPhones to these ridiculous worms, it's simply the fact that a lot of people install and enable SSH without changing the default root password. If you don't miss that important step, a jailbreak could almost be considered an improvement. After all, it allows you to use Google Voice, multitasking interfaces, and a bunch of apps otherwise unavailable. So don't let the big A scare you. Just practice safe jailbreaking, kids. That's all.

PS: If you still don't know how to protect yourself from this silliness, it's easy: Go into Cydia, install the MobileTerminal app, and use the passwd command to change the default from "alpine", to something that won't leave you in need of a de-worming. [Loop Insight]