From a trusted Crispin Porter + Bogusky source, we've learned that some sites have jumped the gun and that the Microsoft Gates/Seinfeld ads have not been axed. It's true, Microsoft apparently asked the agency to focus on the new "I'm a PC" spots. And it's true, the agency has gotten plenty of "I don't know what this means" response in their measured statistics of the Gates/Seinfeld ads. But no one has pulled the plug on the dynamic duo just yet.

In fact, CPB has another completed spot featuring the lovable, affluent couple in the can, ready to air (even though it won't quite yet). And while the agency has prioritized development to the anti-Mac ads, there are still full plans to go ahead and produce more Seinfeld/Gates spots unless Microsoft were to pull the plug first (which, once again, they have not at this time).

It's good to know that in a time of economic uncertainty, Gates and Seinfeld haven't been laid off just yet.

UPDATE: We talked to our source again after speaking to Rob Reilly from CPB. While Rob Reily has denied that another Gates/Seinfeld ad is sitting in the ready, our source confirms, once again, that it is. Our source explains that if the Mac/PC ads running now prove to be successful, there's a good chance that last Gates/Seinfeld spot will air.

However, there's even more of an indication now that Microsoft aggressively cut the Gates/Seinfeld spot production short, canceling the shoot for a fourth spot just three days into production. The spots were intended to be part of a running series with up to 12 planned spots conceptualized. Now it's unclear whether or not we'll even see the last spot air, let alone Seinfeld come back for a reprisal.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that there will be no new version of the Kindle this year. A new version is possible sometime next year at the earliest.

Oh well, maybe next Christmas. Sorry Timmy, don't cry. Santa still loves you—it's Jeff Bezos who doesn't. [NYT]

While moving hard drives have higher power requirements on paper, in reality, those peaks are only reached when random data is being searched out. On average, these drives have become very power efficient and rarely peak even when data is being accessed.

SSDs, on the other hand, pretty much have an "on" mode and an "off" mode. That's it. So while you are using your hard drive, that mode is pretty much always going to be the "on" one. SSD manufacturers haven't focused on other power saving principles at this time. And until they do, don't expect things to get any better.

Note: the benchmarks were all completed on the same Dell laptop. A 5400 RPM hard drive would have even lower power consumption than the 7200 RPM model tested.


As for buying that new SSD for your notebook...I'd suggest you wait a bit longer, even if you have the cash. [Tom's Hardware via Crunchgear]

NASA said in a statement today that they haven't talked with any German student and that, from what they have read, he's absolutely wrong. The student said that NASA's math was erroneous because they didn't take into account the probability of Apophis hitting a geosynchronous satellite, which would have made the "apocalyptical" piece of rock hit the Earth in its next orbit, basically killing most life in the planet a lot of the life over a large region, with an impact energy estimated in 880 megatons of TNT, Jerry Bruckheimer-style.

To give you an idea of how powerful this is, the original atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima unleashed only 13 kilotons of TNT, while the combined energy of all explosives used in World War 2 was an estimated five megatons. Or compared to a more modern example: the largest bomb ever detonated in this planet was 50 megatons, the Soviet RDS-220 hydrogen bomb or Tsar Bomba (you have to love the fact that Humanity can be more destructive than any asteroid passing by.)

The space agency, however, says that there's no chance of Apophis hitting a satellite because it's not going to get anywhere near the "main belt of geosynchronous satellites," saying that the Near Earth Object Program at Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory maintains their previous hit estimate: 1 in 45,000 chance of Apophis destroying some Earthlings in 2035. And a 1 in 23 million hit probability in 2037.

This makes Apophis a type 0 in the Torino scale. In other words: "NO HAZARD. The likelihood of a collision is zero, or is so low as to be effectively zero. Also applies to small objects such as meteors and bodies that burn up in the atmosphere as well as infrequent meteorite falls that rarely cause damage." Quite far from the other extreme alternative, the type 0: "A collision is certain, capable of causing global climatic catastrophe that may threaten the future of civilization as we know it, whether impacting land or ocean. Such events occur on average once per 100,000 years, or less often."

But even if it Apophis hit Earth, according to NASA it would not be devastating for planetary life. The effects would have been bad, yes, depending on the composition and the area of impact, but it wouldn't have been enough to start a global climate change according to the projections. It could have destroyed something like the West Coast with a giant tsunami, if it fell on the Pacific, but not obliterate all life in the Northern Hemisphere.

In any case, we are glad that this is the case. First, that a) this German kid is an idiot, b) the news agencies are stupid, and c) we are even more stupid for believing them. Still, our favorite tin foil hat theory is that this may all be a conspiracy to hide Humanity from the prospect of certain extinction. Your bet, in the poll:

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NASA Statement on Student Asteroid Calculations
WASHINGTON — The Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has not changed its current estimates for the very low probability (1 in 45,000) of an Earth impact by the asteroid Apophis in 2036.
Contrary to recent press reports, NASA offices involved in near-Earth object research were not contacted and have had no correspondence with a young German student, who claims the Apophis impact probability is far higher than the current estimate.
This student's conclusion reportedly is based on the possibility of a collision with an artificial satellite during the asteroid's close approach in April 2029. However, the asteroid will not pass near the main belt of geosynchronous satellites in 2029, and the chance of a collision with a satellite is exceedingly remote.
Therefore, consideration of this satellite collision scenario does not affect the current impact probability estimate for Apophis, which remains at 1 in 45,000.

[Apophis, Torino Hazard Scale, NASA Near Earth Object Program, and NASA News Release]

Microsoft, which has stopped making an HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, would continue to invest in its Xbox Live online service that already lets users rent hundreds of movies, including ones in high-definition.

According to this source, these are not the MacBook Pros you are looking for:

I just printed the inventory at FutureShop, the store I work at, and found new MacBooks... NOT MacBook Pros. The items are APPLE MACB MB402LL/A and MB403LL/A. I saw this posted in other places, but the prices is what will interest you. They're listed at 1149.99 and 1349.99. These are Canadian prices, mind you, so I imagine they'll be less in the states. Take a look at the picture, the two I'm mentioning are at the bottom.

Of course, Obi Kenobi here could have printed this out off Excel. But Macrumors recently got a separate source showing similarly low prices attached to the new model numbers.

Q. What is the expected timeline for the availability of Windows 7?

A. We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and expect it will take approximately 3 years to develop. The specific release date will be determined once the company meets its quality bar for release.

Assuming that it doesn't hit any major roadblocks and testing blunders, that means the soonest we'll see Windows 7 is somewhere around 2010/2011. If it does hit Vista-esque snags in development, that means it could even be pushed back to 2012/2013, which wouldn't pretty at all. [WinVistaClub via Inquirer]

Ross, a Giz reader, managed to download the software while it was still available and writes to tell us about his experience. As you can see from the gallery below, the software seems pretty basic, and includes a player and a web browser (surfing Giz no less). However, when he tried to download a song, all he got was a message saying "Downloads coming soon!!".
He also tells us that the program came with a few bookmarks, including Skreemr, a web search engine for MP3s, and a section that promotes an add-on to make the songs iPod compatible. These links scream "dubious legality" to us, and the Qtrax program itself simply looks like a skin on the open-source Songbird API, where the iPod add-on comes from.

So what is the real story behind Qtrax? Were there ever major deals in place? Is someone getting fleeced? If you have any info, send it to us. [BBC]

Thanks for the help, Ross!

The original article appeared in Realtid.se, a gossip online mag that according to our sources in Sweden lacks any kind of credibility and "should be avoided at all costs." In the article, Carl Freer talks about launching a new Gizmondo with a wider screen and a possible co-op with an unnamed telco where customers will be offered a Gizmondo for free, just for signing up for a data transfer subscription.

Freer, long-time friend and associate of famed Ferrari-crasher, fraudster and fellow ex-convict Stefan Eriksson, was recently arrested in the US for impersonating an "anti-terrorist agent" and illegal possession of guns. He was also previously convicted in Sweden for fraud and fined $265,000 in Germany in 2006 for writing bouncing checks as a car dealer during the '90s.

The Realtid report spread then to two other, more serious newspapers: Veckans Affärer and the Dina Pengar. The latter quoted both Realtid and Veckans Affärer, tying up all the speculation with the last piece of the puzzle, a flash animation hosted at Gizmondolive.com. According to one source, the Dina Pengar article "is not good. They are just quoting other sources and try to put two and two together and end up with three."

Whois shows Gizmondolive.com was registered by Domains by Proxy, Inc., an anonymous web domain registration system designed to hide the identity of the real owner of the site. At this time, the owner of Gizmondolive.com remains unknown. Meanwhile, Gizmondo.com, the actual domain in which any of this would have actually happened, remains parked and in the property of Gizmondo Europe Ltd. (which presumably is owned by the company's debt liquidators.)

So yes, the November 2007 quote by Freer is allegedly real. As another source, Swedish IT journalist Joacim Melin, puts it: "in plain English, he [Freer] is probably bullshitting to attract any kind of venture capitalist" just like they did with the original Gizmondo. The rest, however, is just castles in the air and speculation at this point.

Our guess, looking at the evidence, is that the site was made by some joker following up the November 2007 quote. But who knows, maybe the next Vapormondo will have "psychic powers," as they say. In either case, with the history above, don't count on this happening. And good riddance, is all I can say.

UPDATE: In addition to all this, reader Sean sent us this flash template, which apparently was used in the the Gizmondolive.com animation and further shows that it's probably the job of a prankster.

[Realtid.se, Dina Pengar and ekonominyheterna - In Swedish. Additional sources: MoneyWeek]

It's a 1080p camera that shoots anywhere from 1P to 60P a second, so 24P shooting (the exact framerate of film) is no problem. As for what it records to...the movie claims the video was captured on an SD card.
That's not quite the case, since such a puny card could never write an uncompressed 4:4:4 (full color space) image in real time. Instead, filmmakers probably used Sony's SRW-1, which can hook directly to the camera to allow both easy shooting and recording speeds of 110MB/sec (versus an SD card's 20MB/sec).

So how much would it cost to score an F23 of your own? Sony hasn't made that number public, but their next camera down runs $115,000. And while we know Cloverfield's main character was a hotshot VP of some sort, he probably didn't invest that much into his Coney Island video* fund.

*You know, that movie he made to cover trying to shoot his girlfriend naked in the morning that seemed to tie the movie together so poignantly.

[sony]

So just when is HD DVD dead in Microsoft's eyes? It's "over when Toshiba says they're not doing HD DVD anymore." And despite the typhoon slamming their sails this week, we're pretty certain Toshiba is staying on on the boat until it hits the sea floor. [Giz's HD DVD Coverage]

The ship date used to be December all the way back in May, so either Impress is late with the postponement part of their story, or they're a bit off. Either way, if you've preordered the keyboard, Art.Lebedev will actually ship you a keyboard in December, but you won't be able to use the firmware because that won't be ready until February. [Impress]

Update: Optimus themselves have updated the situation, saying that standard shipments are still on track for February, but if you want a unit they will deliver it soon (but with only PC software, Mac software won't be ready until late January). Nothing's really changed, but they did explain that the slowness in development was caused by a Philips coprocessor that was so new that they had to work with draft documentation.

We're very happy being a platform agnostic company and have moved up the ranks the past three years from #11, to #9, and now stand at #6 in terms of our market share by units among third-party publishers. We like our current strategy and have no plans to change in the middle of this outstanding growth.

So no Dreamcast 2, just a renewal of the trademark—which means we'll have to stick to hoping there's an Ikaruga 2 for PS3/Xbox. [Gamedaily]

...the hacked phone was never an nbc or writer decision. it was done out of convenience since that was the only way to shoot a phone with all of its features. if u look closely, in both spots you can see "NO SERVICE" in the upper left corner of the phone.

SCEE's David Reeves also mentioned he was "disappointed that such extremely sloppy journalism has resulted in this totally inaccurate story." We are too, Mr. Reeves. Just like we're disappointed by the lack of Blu-ray 1.1 spec in the new firmware, disappointed that difficult PS3 development has led to lousy ports and disappointed...ah, we kid. In fairness, SCEE actually went on record to say that our sister site Kotaku was not part of said disappointment, which has to be worth something. And that, friends, is why we have rumors. [kotaku]

Also, in case people forgot, Zune Social is the name of their cool new social networking site where you can see what your friends have been listening, to as well as check out stats under each band to see who's listened to them the most. Prepare to see our names under Pat Benatar.

Most of the speculation stemmed from the new model needing 65W less to operate—a power savings of around 30%. So while we're still interested to see where Sony found all this energy savings, it wasn't from a smaller chipset. And ultimately, all this matters a lot more for Sony's profits than it does our enjoyment. Ratchet & Clank, anyone? [heise.de via engadget] [image]

The Orange County Register reports (and we confirmed with Cisco) that the Linksys brand is staying put, and will not be phased out in favor of consumer-branded Cisco equipment. This is important because Linksys is such a trusted name in consumer networking, as opposed to Cisco, which is only recognized by people in the business. So for the "near term," the Linksys brand will stay. In the long term, they will "examine their branding strategy going forward." So no promises. [FreedomBlogging]

It is fake—not for obvious reasons, like "Steven P. Jobs" being in focus while the surface onto which it has been stamped is not—but because we actually have the real picture. Which shows that the image above has been retouched—intensely— after the jump.

Looking at the photo posted by FSJ and other blogs, you don't have to be Gizmodo's local pixel pusher and expert barman to see the Photoshop job. Anyone with two eyes and even more margaritas in their bloodstream than me will be able to see that the name "Steven P. Jobs" is in focus while the rest of the picture, specifically the corner in which it is placed, is not. Somehow, Steve is moving but his name is staying in focus, frozen in space and time.

Maybe his RDF is so strong than one of his many powers is that His Name always stays perfectly visible and sharp. But then again, if that's true, we just can't imagine His Steveness holding something as naff as a leather Windows machine with his full name stamped on it. We just can't. Or can we?

Actually, the truth is that he may have a ThinkPad Reserve, but the photo shown by FSJ has been manipulated to hide the Real Truth!

This image proves beyond any doubt that the photo posted by FSJ was obviously doctored. It also proves that 1) Steve is a Monty Python fan (understandably), 2) Steve doesn't use iPods or iTunes, preferring vinyl LPs on his Technics turntable and 3) Steve's admiration for Johnny Cash is pure façade: he is a super-disco man all the way. This last bit is further confirmed by his obsession with shiny surfaces and mirrors. Now we can only hope that Steve gives us more boom, bass lines and some Dancing Queen in the next keynote.

So there you go. Another mystery solved by Gizmodo's CSI brigade so you can continue with your lives knowing that we are here, defending Truth and Justice. And tequila cocktails. And wet T-shirt contests. Especially wet T-shirt contests. Or something. Uhm. Carry on, Citizens. –Jesus Diaz

Yes this is me, holding a windows machine [FSJ via Engadget]

Think about it for a sec. If Apple's displays were even 5% brighter now than before, don't you think that'd be one of their selling points? They're a company known for picking the "optimum" (some would say misleading) test results and figures and using that as something to boast about.

If you wanted to make a slightly more scientific test between the two displays, here's how.

First, you need to give CCFL displays a half hour to warm up to full brightness. Then, turn plug both MacBook Pros in and turn them up to full brightness. You'll need two "new" laptops as well—that 6 month old laptop you got for Christmas won't make for an accurate assessment.

A couple more things to note. The best way to test the displays are to calibrate them with an external device. Also, the LED display can run at very low brightnesses, but the CCFL one can't. That's why 50% brightness on LEDs is not as bright as 50% on CCFLs.

Then again, Apple may want to save their "it's brighter!" selling point for a case when it's 30% or 50% brighter than the previous generation. Saying it now and having people not be able to tell that it's brighter kind of hurts their rep. – Jason Chen

Dell say they soon make even more TV, include 40 inch and 46 inch. Ungar no trust Taiwan media now on. – Jason Chen

Dell denies plan to exit LCD TV business [Yahoo]

Bach: When we finish our fiscal year in June we'll have sold a little over a million Zunes, so we feel very good about that.

So Microsoft actually has yet to sell that millionth Zune, and has one month left to do it. – Jason Chen

Microsoft's Zune: Still Shy of 1 Million Sales [Business 2.0]