What really makes television what it is? Is it the fact that it’s sitting in some dedicated space in your living room? Or is it the fact that it’s probably one of the larger monitors in your apartment or house? Maybe it’s not connected to a computer, and that’s what makes it a television (although they’ll all soon be computers). Whatever it is, Facebook is going head on with television not only through their new Brand Lift service but also through their numerous Ustream partnerships lately.

I’ve written numerous times about how social networks have rapidly become the new television…

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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – AT&T Inc said any new “net neutrality” rules imposed by U.S. regulators need to apply to Web companies like Google Inc as much as to phone companies to ensure a level playing field.In a letter Friday to the head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau, the biggest U.S. telephone company argued that Google would have an unfair advantage if its Voice service is not subject to the same rules proposed by the FCC on phone operators.”To the extent ‘net neutrality’ is animated by a concern about ostensible Internet ‘gatekeepers,’ that concern must necessarily…

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[Norman] spent three years developing and building his own Edison cylinder phonograph with electric pickup. We’re glad he did, and that he shared it with the world because the product is a thing of beauty. Every part is clean and precise with plenty of room for adjustments to accommodate differences in media. He’s reused the head from a VCR and attached it to a CNC machined polypropylene mandrel. The needle is interfaced with the cylinder via a delicate passively driven carriage. This consists of an aluminum rod with the cartridge at one end, and two wheels at the other.…

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The loans market may be recovering, it has been claimed, after a major loan provider reduced the interest rates it charges on personal loans. Nationwide is now offering personal loans at 7.7% APR, leading Tim Moss, head of loans at moneysupermarket.com, to say: “Loan rates have been going up since the start of the credit crunch – in April 2008 best buy loans were around 7.34 per cent, but have now risen to closer to 9 per cent.” He went on to say that Nationwide`s cut in interest rates is the first suggestion that the worst in the loan market…

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[Reza] sent in his mood rock. Unlike other “mood” devices, instead of showing what mood you’re in, it shows what mood the internets are in. Two ShiftBrite modules are controlled by an AVR ATmega8 which then connects to a computer via USB. The assembly is placed inside of a piece of alabaster.
USB communications are controlled by the ATmega8 running V-USB (formerly AVR-USB) firmware. [Reza] wrote some code to control the colors from the web using Perl and AJAX. Head over to the web interface to set the colors yourself. We’d love it if a live webcam was added…

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[Totoro] sent in this cool little email notification device he made. Using a paper model of Wall-E, he added some servos and connected it to his computer using a PIC. Mail-E has independent arm rotation and head rotation. He admits that the PIC processor is major overkill and plans some upgrades such as making it wireless and using a little better suited chip to control it. Not bad for a proof of concept.

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LONDON (Reuters) – Healthy investor appetite for corporate bonds should help Kraft Foods Inc and other companies fund mergers and acquisitions, given bank loans are still scarce after the credit crisis. U.S. food group Kraft is seen as a likely candidate to take the “bridge loan to bond” route to provide money should its proposed takeover of British confectioner Cadbury go through. “Banks will be very happy to offer bridge financing on a 12-month basis but, ultimately, for a deal of this size it would have to be brought into the public bond markets,” said Patrick McCullagh, head of…

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Max New York Life Insurance Co. Ltd, one of India’s leading insurance companies today announced a strategic tie up with LifeCell International (“LifeCell”) India’s first and the largest stem cell banking service provider, and a pioneer in stem cell research and technology. As LifeCell ensures biological insurance for children by banking their umbilical cord blood stem cells for future therapeutic use, MNYL will offer life insurance options to LifeCell customers helping them meet the future financial needs of their children. Commenting on the tie-up, Mr. V. Vishwanand, Director and Head – Banca and DST, Max New York Life Insurance Company,…

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