I’d like to wish you a happy New Year, but I’m afraid I have a different sort of prediction.

You’re in for very bad weather. In 2008, your television will bring you image after frightening image of natural havoc linked to global warming. You will be told that such bizarre weather must be a sign of dangerous climate change — and that these images are a mere preview of what’s in store unless we act quickly to cool the planet.

Unfortunately, I can’t be more specific. I don’t know if disaster will come by flood or drought, hurricane or blizzard, fire or ice. Nor do I have any idea how much the planet will warm this year or what that means for your local forecast. Long-term climate models cannot explain short-term weather.

But there’s bound to be some weird weather somewhere, and we will react like the sailors in the Book of Jonah. When a storm hit their ship, they didn’t ascribe it to a seasonal weather pattern. They quickly identified the cause (Jonah’s sinfulness) and agreed to an appropriate policy response (throw Jonah overboard).

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year’s end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record — it was actually lower than any year since 2001 — the BBC confidently proclaimed, “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”

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Apple Inc. is preparing to announce next month the long-rumored launch of a movie rental service through its online iTunes Store, as well as a groundbreaking licensing deal of its anti-piracy technology — moves that could dramatically boost the appeal of digital movie distribution.

News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox is one of the first studios that has agreed to make its films available for rent digitally through iTunes, according to a Financial Times report Thursday that cited unnamed sources.

Apple also has agreed to license for the first time its copy-protection platform called FairPlay so the technology would be built into Fox DVD releases, allowing users to easily transfer the movies from the disc to a computer or an iPod for playback.

Representatives at Apple and Fox declined to comment.

Apple has been in talks with major film studios over the past year, and analysts have speculated that it was only a matter of time before licensing deals on online movie rentals would be worked out.

Fox and other major studios are already experimenting with digital movies to rent or buy through other online services such as Netflix Inc. or Vudu Inc. But the popularity of Apple’s online store and iPod media players makes iTunes an attractive distribution outlet, especially as more consumers are expected to latch onto getting their entertainment anywhere — from their PCs and TVs to their handheld gadgets.

“The iPod is the most important media player right now, and if you’re one of the studios, you’re going to want to play with Apple here,” said Michael Gartenberg, a Jupiter Research vice president.

Full-length films are available on iTunes — but only for sale so far, and consumer interest in movie downloads has lagged behind music purchases.

“People want to watch movies but not necessarily own them,” Gartenberg said. “If Apple can simplify the digital movie services like they did with music, then we’re talking about a very significant change in the online video rental landscape.”

Who says there’s nothing new on your TV?

As the Hollywood writers strike drags toward 2008, the video game industry is hoping a lack of fresh episodes in prime-time could motivate more people to pick up video game controllers instead of remotes — especially with the millions of Wiis and copies of “Call of Duty 4″ under Christmas trees this holiday season.

“If you’re a fan of network programming, maybe seeing another repeat of ‘Pushing Daisies’ or ‘Cold Case’ will inspire you to finish that level of ‘Ratchet and Clank Future’ instead,” suggests Joseph Olin, president of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

Because game publishers rely almost completely on nonunion talent to create video games, the Writers Guild of America walkout, now in its eighth week, hasn’t been an issue for the gaming industry. Only a handful of game writers are represented by the WGA, and they fall outside of the jurisdiction of the current strike.

“There’s a much better relationship between game developers and publishers than there appears to be in terms of all the polemics between the writers, producers and studios,” says Olin.

The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists voted to strike against game publishers after they rejected an agreement seeking to boost pay for voice acting in games. Ultimately, game publishers refused to dispense residuals — a slice of profits from every game sold — but agreed to a 36 percent pay raise.

“The game production model has always been predicated on a buyout of performance,” says Olin. “Games were sold in toy stores. For a long time, production teams only consisted of two people: an artist and an engineer. Now that technology has expanded, it’s a lot more complicated.”

Game developers sometimes hire authors or screenwriters to pen the thousands of lines of dialogue players may encounter in a game. When publisher Ubisoft tapped Telltale Games to create video games based on “CSI,” the developer consulted with the CBS show’s writers, but hired “CSI” novelist Max Allan Collins to write the dialogue.

“Anytime we have the ability to work with writers, it improves the quality of the game,” says Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale Games. “They’re a great body of talent that generates a ton of creative work.”

Connors says no union scribes have composed quips for “Sam & Max,” Telltale’s popular episodic comedy-adventure game series based on the comic book of the same name. Instead, everyone who’s contributed to “Sam & Max” has worked in another capacity on the game, like in programming or designing.
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Hola technorati !

Technorati Profile That is it.

If Google succeeds with federal regulators, it could change the way millions of Americans use their cellphones and how they connect to the Internet on their wireless devices.

In the Internet giant’s view of the future, consumers would buy a wireless phone at a store, but instead of being forced to use a specific carrier, they would be free to pick any carrier they wanted. Instead of the wireless carrier choosing what software goes on their phones, users would be free to put any software they want on it.

Google believes that the cost of voice calls and data connections to the Internet may be partly subsidized by advertisements brought to users by Google’s powerful online advertising machine.

There might even be a Google phone.
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A team of computer security consultants say they have found a flaw in Apple’s wildly popular iPhone that allows them to take control of the device.

The researchers, working for Independent Security Evaluators, a company that tests its clients’ computer security by hacking it, said that they could take control of iPhones through a WiFi connection or by tricking users into going to a Web site that contains malicious code. The hack, the first reported, allowed them to tap the wealth of personal information the phones contain.
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First, Barbie had Ken. Now, Barbie has a docking station.

A new doll hitting retail shelves this week is familiar in many ways — she’s got outfits galore — but she also has some unusual features: this Barbie, who is smaller and less shapely than her standard namesake, functions as an MP3 music player.

And when her feet are plugged into the iPodesque docking station that she comes with, she unlocks pages and pages of games, virtual shops and online chatting functions on the BarbieGirls.com Web site.

The new doll is a roundabout way of charging for online content. Instead of asking young Web surfers to punch in their parents’ credit card numbers, BarbieGirls.com and other sites are sending customers to a real-world toy store first. Some of these sites (like the Barbie one) can be used in a limited way without purchasing merchandise — the better to whet young appetites — but others, like the popular Webkinz site, are of little or no use without a store-bought product or two (or three, or a dozen).
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MIT School of Engineering have launched a video sharing website called “MIT Tech TV” for showcasing lecture recordings, student presentations and other video content particularly about science, engineering and technology.

While the MIT TechTV videos can be viewed by anyone on the web, only members with an @mit.edu email address - students, faculty, MIT staff or even the alumni - can upload videos on the MIT TechTV portal.

MIT TechTV website, which looks the same as Blip.TV with a new skin, has no connection with the TechTV channel (now G4TV).

This is MIT’s second attempt to share knowledge with the outside world. Earlier, MIT had launched the very popular MIT OpenCourseware project to make the course materials used in the teaching of virtually all of MIT’s courses available on the Web, free of charge.

Researchers at University of Maryland have developed a prototype of what may be the next generation of personal computers. The new technology is based on parallel processing on a single chip and is ‘capable of computing speeds up to 100 times faster than current desktops.’ The prototype ‘uses rich algorithmic theory to address the practical problem of building an easy-to-program multicore computer.’

The remains of a dodo found in a cave beneath bamboo and tea plantations in Mauritius offer the best chance yet to learn about the extinct flightless bird, a scientist said on Friday.

The discovery was made earlier this month in the Mauritian highlands but the location was kept secret until the recovery of the skeleton, nicknamed “Fred,” was completed on Friday. Four men guarded the site overnight.

Julian Hume, a paleontologist at Britain’s Natural History Museum, told Reuters the remains were likely to yield excellent DNA and other vital clues, because they were found intact, in isolation, and in a cave.

“The geneticists who want to get their hands on this will be skipping down the street,” he said, after bringing the last of the remains to the surface.
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