Now that AT&T has joined the Android revolution, the first question new Android users will ask is what Android apps should I download? Luckily we've created a simple guide to get you started:

First we'll start with the operating system version of the Motorola Backflip at launch, which is version 1.5 the latest and greatest to date is 2.1 (with majority of users on 1.6). This may affect your ability to download some apps as they are compatible with higher versions of the OS. Why is the OS version so out of date? Motoblur Motorola tricked out the software for social networking ease however they have not released Motoblur on the latest and greatest Android OS. Don't fret an update is coming soon.

Now that we're over the OS hump, we'll recommend some of the best Android apps for your Motorola Backflip many for free!

ASTRO File Manager

Browse and Search files on your SD Card and phone with Astro File Manager.

Advanced Task Killer

Close individual or all apps and background services with Advanced Task Killer.

Meridian Player

Meridian Player for Music & Videos.

Dolphin Browser

Dolphin Browser allows you to browse the web using Tabs and create shortcuts using Gestures.

Handcent SMS

Handcent SMS offers text messaging like on iPhone, get T9 text capabilities and text signatures.

Shazam

Shazam... simply awesome! Get any song by simply letting your phone listen to it!

i Music Tao

i Music & i Music Tao allows you to download free MP3s.

Pandora Radio

Stream music for free with Pandora Internet Radio.

Gmote

Turn your AT&T Backflip into a media remote with Gmote and even control your computer via phone!

ShopSavvy

Scan bar codes of products in stores to find best pricing nearby or online with ShopSavvy.

Google Shopper for Android

Photo scan products to get pricing and details with Google's Shopper

Aloqa Always Be A Local

Aloqa location-based app finds places nearby you versus you searching for it.

Abduction!

Abduction! Is an additive game using your phone's accelerometer.

Robo Defense

Robo Defense is a classic tower defense game for Android phones.

Mystique. Chapter 2: The Child

Check out parts 1, 2, and 3 of the Mystique 3D horror puzzle game series.

Wixel

Like words games? Try Wuzzle for hours of fun!

Jewellust

Kill time with addictive Jewellust game

Solitaire

You can't forget a classic time-killer like Solitaire.

What the Doodle!?

Guess what others are drawing while they guess your drawing all online with What The Doodle!?

BlackJack Pro

Satisfy your Vegas crave with Blackjack Pro!

If you download all these apps you might run out of space on your Backflip! Do check these apps out and tell us what you think in the comments.

As more wireless carriers adopt Google Android, many new consumers ask frequently how to do common tasks on their Android phone. This section is dedicated to offering Android Advice to new and experienced Android consumers. There will be more to come, however here are the top 6 frequently asked questions by new Android users:

1. What Android apps should I download?

There are many list all over the web, even many on our website (coming from Blackberry to Android see this list). We'll list a few must have best Android apps to get you started:

• Must Have: Astro File Manager, use this app to browse files on your SD card. Bar Code Scanner, use this app to scan the QR bard codes with all of our reviews to quick link you to apps in the Android Market!
• Task Management: TasKiller
• Battery/Power Management: Power Manager or Screebl
• Email: K9 Mail or Exchange by Touchdown
• Music: Pandora or Meridian Player
• Home Screen Customization: aHome or SlideScreen
• Productivity & Note-Taking: Astrid or Evernote

Keep visiting www.AndroidTapp.com for the best Android app recommendations.

2. How do I setup email accounts?

First gather your POP3 or IMAP protocol access information. Launch Email > type email address and password > Choose either POP3 or IMAP account > enter Incoming POP3 or IMAP protocol information > enter Outgoing information > choose whether email account is default.

3. How do I save battery power?

Try turning off Bluetooth, Wifi and GPS when not needed. Try to minimize update intervals of some apps such as Facebook and Twitter from the settings menu. There are apps to help manage battery power for you such as Power Manager.

4. How do I Customize my phone?

There are many home screen customization apps to give a completely different experience; popular apps include aHome, Open Home and SlideScreen.

5. How do I set Ringtones?

Either purchase them from sources like Amazon MP3 or download free with Mabilo Ringtones.

To place your own MP3 songs as ringtones go to the Android Market to download Rings Extended. Plug your phone to computer via USB cable. An icon will appear in the top left notification bar, slide the bar down (this is called the window shade). Tap USB connected > Mount > on your computer a new drive will appear > drag your own MP3 files to the drive > tap home button > Menu button > Settings > Sound & display > Phone ringtone > choose Rings Extended to browse your MP3 files on the phone.

6. How do I import my Contacts from SIM card?

From home screen tap Menu > Contacts > Menu > Import contacts > Import All (Import allows for single imports)

Have more questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or Contact Us!

RockOn is a music player with cool album-art navigation UI, auto art dl and concert info. You can download the full version from the website (free) but if you do like the concept and wish to support further development please consider buying it from the Market (1.33 ).

Price: Free

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Unique twist in the interface and navigation
• Find and download album artwork automatically
• Save and share playlists
• Multi-task. Play music in the background and launch other Android apps

Cons

• Often glitchy
• Although the UI is cool, there could be more finesse regards to smoothing out the edges versus jagged edges on albums
• Automatic album art discovery needs manual tweaking to get the best results
• Processor intense, better use on Android phones with higher processing capabilities or more internal memory storage

Features:

RockOn Music Player is an Android music player with a unique twist in the interface and navigation it displays music 2D perspective. On the left pane is the current track playing with music controls, on the right is a list of albums on your SD card. Swipe the right pane to bring albums only to front view. Amongst playing MP3s you can save and share playlists.

Usefulness:

RockOn Music Player allows you to find and download album artwork automatically, even if it is not saved with albums on your SD card (a cool resource to have). However some manual intervention is needed for some album covers.

Ease of Use:

Its nifty UI brings everything all on one screen, so operation could be any easier.

Frequently Used:

Dependant on how often you listen to music on your Android phone.

Interface:

The user interface has a different twist, though it's no TAT Home experience it has room for improvements!

Scherillo v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 2010 WL 537805 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 17, 2010)

I teach my Cyberspace Law students that the most effective online contract formation process is a "mandatory non-leaky clickthrough agreement":

* mandatory = the user cannot proceed to the destination without going through a screen soliciting their consent to the user agreement.
* non-leaky = there are no alternative ways the user can reach the destination. I realize this is redundant with "mandatory," but I remind students that a seemingly mandatory process can have leaks. For example, if customer support representatives will manually set up user accounts occasionally, the mandatory online process has become leaky because now a few users reached the destination without consenting to the agreement.
* clickthrough = the user manifests assent to the contract by clicking, and the user is told that the click signifies assent.

There are other ways to form online contracts (e.g., email exchanges), but if executed properly, the mandatory non-leaky clickthrough process should do very well against contract formation challenges. But even this description leaves open a number of user interaction judgments. Does likelihood of contract formation vary if:

* the agreement terms are presented on the clickthrough page itself or are only available for review by hyperlink?
* the agreement terms are presented in a scrollbox? If a scrollbox is used, must the user be forced to scroll through the scrollbox?
* the user is asked to check an additional box, such as a certification that the user has read the agreement?

In all of these cases, I believe the contract should be properly formed whether the answer to these questions is yes or no. However, I'm now a fan of adding a bonus mandatory checkbox as part of the formation process after reading today's opinion. A user mounts a sophisticated challenge to a mandatory non-leaky clickthrough process, and the bonus mandatory checkbox helps squelch the challenge. I think the court would have enforced it without the checkbox, but it sure put the user in an awkward/untenable position.

Scherillo bought a financial report about a company from Dun & Bradstreet's Small Business Solutions website. Scherillo alleges that the report painted an overly rosy picture of the company, leading him to make bad investment decisions that cost him money when the company tanked. Scherillo wants D&B to cover his investment losses.

Scherillo is almost certain to lose on the merits. Indeed, this case brought to mind one of the earliest cyberlaw cases, Daniel v. Dow Jones, 520 N.Y.S. 2d 334 (N.Y.C. Civ. Ct. Spec. Term 1987). (This case is a fun read--see how the court discusses electronic networked communications almost a quarter-century ago). That case involved Dow Jones' publication of an ambiguous report via a dial-up online service that led the plaintiff to make a bad investment decision. The court said that any tort claim for publishing inaccurate information required the plaintiff to show that it had a "special relationship" (analogous to a fiduciary relationship) with the information vendor, and an ordinary customer-vendor relationship did not qualify as a special relationship.

Interestingly, D&B would rather hear the case in NJ rather than keep it in NY and hope to benefit from substantive NY law that surely would doom Scherillo's case. (Perhaps NJ has a similar law). To move the case to NJ, D&B invoked the venue selection clause in its user agreement. Let's look at the online contract formation process. The court says:

"since 2007, the SBS website has included a page that requires users to register before purchasing a Dun and Bradstreet product ("the registration page"). On the registration page, users input information, including their e-mail address and name. The bottom quarter to third of the page contains a scrollable text box with the title "Terms and Conditions" [which contained a mandatory venue selection clause designating NJ]. Directly below this text box there is more text that reads: "I have read and AGREE to the terms and conditions shown above." Immediately adjacent to this text is a much smaller, empty box ("the terms and conditions check box"). Also at the bottom of the page is another box containing the phrase "Complete Registration" ("the Complete Registration box"). Clicking on this box completes the user's registration. McDonald testified that if a user clicks on the Complete Registration box without checking the terms and conditions check box, the user is unable to complete registration and is returned to the registration page."

Check out the page yourself as I saw it in Google Chrome on Feb. 18 (with cropping). The formation process looks pretty standard to me.

Scherillo attacked the formation process by saying he never consented to the agreement because "it was possible for him to unknowingly and involuntarily 'check' the terms and conditions check box." Not only that, he lined up Sean Chumura, "a cyberwarfare and computer forensics expert" who is also [LINK NSFW] helping Perfect 10 in its lawsuit against Google, to testify that "it was possible for plaintiff, while 'tabbing' through the registration page, to inadvertently hit the space bar and thereby 'check' the terms and conditions box."

[Snarky paragraph alert] First, this may prove the adage that you can find an expert to testify about ANYTHING. Second, Scherillo alleged $75k of investment losses. For a low-value lawsuit like that, he needs a cyberwarfare expert??? Third, I believe Chumura has a MySpace page. Really...? I wonder if he uses an AOL.com email address too. The MySpace page also reveals that its author appeared to attend the Dan Quayle school of spelling.

OK, back to the case. The judge was no more tolerant of this nonsense than I am. He resolves the factual dispute by saying:

even under plaintiff's theory--that, while "tabbing" through the fields on the registration page, he accidentally hit the space bar key and thereby "checked" the terms and conditions box--plaintiff would have seen the check mark appear in the box and then still would have had to hit the "return" key (or clicked the "complete registration" box with the mouse) to complete the registration and advance to the next screen. Plaintiff would have had an opportunity to see that he checked the box inadvertently before he then hit the return key on the "complete registration" box. Thus, to accept plaintiff's theory, the Court would have to find that plaintiff hit two keys accidentally-the space bar and the return key-and that he was then involuntarily and unexpectedly sent to the next screen where he nonetheless proceeded to enter his credit card information and complete the purchase of the report. This alleged chain of events is simply not credible.

Therefore, Scherillo's click on the "Complete Registration" box manifested Scherillo's assent to the terms, even if Scherillo chose not to review them. The court says that the fact that the terms were in a scrollbox is immaterial, and the fact that some sites require the user to scroll through the scrollbox before proceeding doesn't affect the effectiveness of D&B's implementation.

I believe this court would have upheld the formation process even without the bonus checkbox, but you can see how the checkbox defused the withering assault of a cyberwarfare expert. Thus, you might consider implementing the bonus checkbox to discourage similar silly attacks against your contract formation process in the future.

We Americans like to think of ourselves as trendsetters for the rest of the globe, but when it comes to cell phones, we're still playing catch-up with countries such as Japan and Korea.

In general, Asians use their cell phones in more robust ways than the typical U.S. resident as TVs, wallets, GPS devices, and music players. Japanese cell phones can double as a house key, a credit card, and an ID. Users can even use their cell phones to send their vital signs straight to their doctors.

In recent years, U.S. companies have made baby steps toward incorporating more advanced cell phone features, particularly in the areas of mobile banking and video broadcast. Meantime, the Asian cell phone market continues to be a good predictor of features that could soon be included in American cell phones. For example, Japan had cameraenabled cell phones two years before Americans ever went gaga for them.

Curtis Schenck, a manager of corporate relations at NTT DoCoMo USA, gave TechNewsDaily the scoop on the hottest features in the Japanese market right now. Try not to be too jealous.

1. Personal Butler

Customers don't have to Google for information, since i-Concierge acts as their butlers or personal assistants and caters to their every need. Users can input their food preferences, neighborhoods they like, and entertainments that they enjoy. When new information is downloaded into the system, they get push notifications that are based on their preferences. For example, if they like Thai food and a new Thai restaurant that is opening nearby, their cell phones will notify them.

2. Investigative Visits

This takes the Verizon commercials to a whole new level. If a users' five-bar reception signal drops to three bars or if they have a dropped call, they can call customer service and a team will be sent out to investigate the problem.

3. Barcode Reader

Japanese phones can read QR marks, which are sophisticated barcodes for businesses. If an Asian cell phone user is walking down a Tokyo street and walks past a restaurant that isn't open, they can point their camera to the QR mark and their phone's browser will automatically be routed to the restaurant's Web site.

4. Free TV on the Phone

Subscribers can surf 13 free TV channels on their phones. DoCoMo has also launched their own channel called BTV to air programs that are filmed specifically for the mobile phone.

5. Phones as Payment Systems

Osaifu Keitai, also known as the mobile phone wallet, lets users load up credit card information onto their phones. If stores have a reader, users can swipe their phones over it to pay for their purchases. Cell phones can also be used to pay for subway and train tickets.

6. Send Money to Other Subscribers

Some Asian countries allow users to send money using their cell phones. Users simply input another person's phone number and the amount they owe them and like magic, the money is transferred.

7. Internal Wi-Fi Spot

Japanese cell phone users can download a movie onto their mobile phones and show it on their TVs. This is another way to get entertainment on demand. A femtocell base transceiver station (BTS) in the home hooks up mobile phones to the DoCoMo network through a broadband line such as an optical fiber. The femtocell BTS lets a person with a cell phone download videos and music files. Through femtocell BTS, a person can set up a private wireless network for their home appliances, entertainment systems, and other devices.

8. Home Security Service

Japanese cell phone users can lock their doors and manage their home security systems remotely using their mobile devices. They can also adjust appliances and set environmental controls, so their lights and heat can be switched on before they get home.

9. Environmental Awareness

DoCoMo has deployed environmental sensors throughout Japan and people are now able to monitor air quality, temperature, and UV rays around them using their cell phones.

10. Reads Vital Signs

In the same way that we might plug headphones into our iPhones, Japanese cell phone users can plug in equipment such as a blood pressure monitor to their phones and send vital signs directly to their doctors. This helps save some people a trip to the doctor.

• Mobile Phone Use Soars
• 10 Profound Innovations Ahead
• Americans Are Info-Junkies

The O!Play streamers are very highly-regarded here at Gizmodo, especially when considering they don't cost more than 200 notes. The addition of Wi-Fi 802.11n, along with a multi-format card reader and ethernet port, for 129.90 in Italy (around $177), is definitely worth the few extra bucks. [ASUS via Slashgear]

Credit card usage is slowing. Revolving credit largely made up of credit card debt fell by nearly 20% in November, the largest drop on record, according to the Federal Reserve, reflecting less borrowing by consumers and banks' tighter lending standards. Through October, the number of new credit card accounts was down 46% from the same period in 2008, according to Equifax.

But abandoning credit cards is a much more radical step than using them less. Consumers who don't own a credit card often have a hard time renting a car. Some hotels won't book rooms to travelers who want to pay with a debit card or cash. Those that accept debit cards may place a hold on several hundred dollars in the customer's bank account, which could cause checks to bounce. And many consumer experts say that responsible use of credit cards is one of the most effective ways to build a good credit record.

It will be interesting to see what the long term implications of this will be, because I sense a lot of people now run with the baseline perception that banks and credit card companies exist only to screw their customers.

When the folks at Netbook Navigator first asked me to write about the company's new 9 inch tablet PC I had a hard time getting past the high price tag of nearly $1200. But that price was for an early model that packed 3G capabilities and was intended for early adopters. Now Netbook Navigator has updated the pricing for the Nav 9 tablet and the base model costs just $799. Yeah, that's still enough money to pick up 2-3 netbooks, but here's what you get for the money:

• Display: 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel multitouch display
• CPU: 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• Storage: 16GB SSD
• RAM: 2GB
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, LAN, optional 3G HSDPA or CDMA
• I/O: 3 USB ports, MiniSD card slot, SIM card slot, port replicator w/VGA/LAN adapter, 1.3MP webcam
• Battery: 3 cell, 1700mAh (2.5 hours max)
• Dimensions: 10 x 6.6 x 0.8
• Weight: 2 pounds
• Other: car charger

The 3G module will cost you extra, as will a higher capacity battery which is good for up to 4 hours of run time. You can also get the Nav 9 with a 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB SSD. The most expensive unit will run you $1399, but the $799 starting price is certainly much more appealing than the $1200 the company was charging earlier.

Netbook Navigator has also put together a handy chart comparing the Nav 9 tablet to the upcoming Apple iPad and the already-on-the-market Archos 9 tablet. The long and short of it is that the Nav 9 supports multitasking, supports USB peripherals and SD card expansion, and comes in more varieties. Oh yeah, it can also run most Windows applications. On the other hand, it's thicker and heavier than the other tablets.

Post from: Liliputing

Netbook Navigator's Nav 9 slate PC gets affordable, guns for the iPad

Today, the other key part of the equation has just gone live in the App Store, the PAYware Mobile app. This free application, when paired with the hardware, allows you to use your iPhone to easily accept credit card payments, just as Square does. Still, as Dorsey noted in the original video we took with him (second video below), Square is being aimed at a broader market of people who may not have merchant accounts but still wish to be able to accept payments. Also, while VeriFone's hardware is clearly better designed for use with the actual iPhone, Square's method of using the headphone jack is so that it will be able to be used with other mobile devices eventually (Square is currently working on an Android app, for example). VeriFone promises support for other platforms as well, but this particular hardware unit will only work with an iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS.

VeriFone also clearly believes its solution is the safer bet for merchants thanks to its secure payment gateway. Truth be told, running transactions on this device does feel a bit safer than Square's, but there are also a range of confusing options. And setting the thing up is kind of a pain. You're also paying for this extra security. VeriFone's solution has a $49 activation fee, along with a monthly fee of $15 on top of the 17 cents you're paying on each transaction. Square gives its hardware and accounts away for free, but plans to take a small percentage of each transaction. This will be an interesting battle to watch.

Watch a quick demo of VeriFone PAYware Mobile in the video below. You can order the hardware here. And you can find the app in the App Store here.

It won't.

I was talking not long ago with editorial folks at an unnamed media company that rhymes with The New York Times. There was some possibility of my blogging over there. They were intrigued, but couldn't fit it into their grand plan, at least not right away. The problem was resources were already allocated and such an endeavor takes months to mount and costs tens of thousands of dollars.

No it doesn't, and that's the problem with Big Media.

When I was at PBS we did occasional redesigns and I never knew what they cost because for most of my 11 years there I was just a paid contributor. But toward the end of my tenure I became a producer which means I was finally exposed to budgets and was, to some extent, even responsible for paying some of them. And I was shocked to learn that my final design for a Moveable Type blog over there did, indeed, cost tens of thousands of dollars many tens of thousands of dollars.

PBS isn't a company that rhymes with The New York Times but it still qualifies as Big Media, so the pricing was more or less confirmed.

Now look at the screen you are reading right now, my Wordpress blog at cringely.com. It cost me NOTHING to design. I did it myself in a single night with the help of an experienced and generous friend, Benjamin Higginbotham of Spacevidcast.com. This blog is hosted by Media Temple in Los Angeles and costs me $50 per month, which is a lot compared to most blogs, but then I'm getting more than a million page-views per month. One more Christmas card or IBM column and I might bump up to $100 per month just to get some more resources, but I think I've made my point: a good Internet media product doesn't have to cost a lot of money. This is my living, remember, that's putting three kids through school. What are my gross margins 10,000 percent?

While those are my gross margins they aren't the gross margins at PBS or at a company that rhymes with The New York Times. Those outfits have overhead I don't. They have legacy relationships and obligations I can't even imagine. They can't just go from there to here in an instant even if they wanted to.

Which brings us back to the iSomething to be introduced tomorrow. No matter how great it is, it can't support the legacy infrastructure of Big Media, which includes mid-town office buildings and business lunches (hence my picture of New York's 21 Club, if you hadn't already figured that out).

Big Media wants revenue approaching what they could charge if a web site was a printed magazine. Remember the original lure of the Internet for publishers was the idea that there would be more profit without the expenses of printing and distribution. But it didn't work out that way because Internet users won't generally pay for content.

But Apple has the mojo. Steve Jobs has been firm from the start that content should be paid for and his generally is, except of course for my podcast on iTunes. Big Media likes the way Steve thinks. And so they can with one breath condemn him for killing the music album, yet in a second breath they can see him as the savior of magazines, newspapers, and good-but-thinly-watched TV series.

And Apple CAN be that savior, but only after a rationalization and severe downsizing of Big Media overhead, which I am not at all sure Big Media is really ready to do.

Based on the rumors I've heard so far I'm guessing the new Apple product will be like the Apple TV a hobby, a critical success but a business failure, though one with enough potential that Apple will give it a few years to succeed. It's in giving those few years where Apple really can save Big Media, which will undoubtedly by then be not so big.

• Aldiko: outstanding e-book reader (better than Kindle on the iPhone in terms of feature set; obviously the book store is not quite as good, but the integration with free eBook download sites is a plus). Currently reading Makers by Cory Doctorow.
• Amazon: search the full Amazon catalog (can use barcodes or photos in addition to typing or speaking your query), track orders in my account.
• APNDroid: useful if you want to disable your phone's cellular data connection (useful if you're often on WiFi and want to turn off your EDGE or 3G data connection)
• AppReferer: builds a QR code (a 2D barcode) that makes recommending an app to another Android user in person a one-click affair.
• Battery Graph: shows a nice chart (exportable, even) of battery usage, which is helpful if you're trying to isolate when the battery started to drain.
• Coin Flip: silly app that lets me flip a coin. Use it mostly to settle disputes between the kids. :)
• Congress: built by Sunlight Labs, a phenomenal "pocket Congressional directory" that includes contact info, committee memberships, news, and YouTube vids of every Senator and Representative.
• DroidLive Lite: Streaming radio (via Shoutcast) from 1300 radio stations around the world.
• Facebook: news feed, photos and profile info for friends
• Fandango: Order movie tickets from movie theaters so I can bypass lines at the ticket counter.
• Finance: Google Finance app
• Flashlight: turns screen bright white to use in dark rooms
• Foursquare: app for playing Foursquare, also has a nice widget for my home screen
• Gmote: turns my Nexus One into a touchpad remote (when paired with a computer running the Gmote server software). Handy for giving presentations, or just doing something nerdy and cool.
• Google Goggles: search Google by taking pictures.
• Google Sky Map: the one app that consistently blows people away. Load it up, turn your camera toward the night sky and you'll get a real-time view of which stars, constellations and planets are above you. An awesome accompaniment to a telescope.
• Jewels: Bejeweled-like game.
• Layar: Augmented reality app that displays info on screen in realtime through your phone's camera.
• Locale: very sophisticated app for scripting events to happen based on certain triggers. (When I'm at home, disable the data connection and connect to my home wifi access point. At 11pm, turn off the sound and put the phone to sleep; at 6am turn the sound back up; when I'm at work, put the phone in vibrate mode; etc.)
• Metal detector: actually works.
• Movies (aka Flixster): Lots of info/trailers/reviews about new and upcoming movies, also integrates with Netflix for DVDs
• My Tracks: built by some Googlers, great app for keeping track of runs/bikes/ski runs you've done; captures altitude, distance, etc., then uploads to Google Maps My Maps.
• OpenTable: make restaurant reservations from the phone.
• Owner: adds my contact info to the unlock screen ("If found, please contact Rick Klau...")
• Pandora: streaming music channels.
• PapiJump: great little game using the phone's accelerometer.
• Pintail: monitors your phone's SMS messages for a message that says "locate" (plus a PIN); once received, activates the GPS and replies with the phone's location. Helpful if you've got a lost phone.
• Robo Defense: addicitve game.
• Scoreboard: Tracks scores of your favorite teams, with realtime updates and notifications as score changes.
• Seesmic: Great Twitter app.
• Shop Savvy: grab a barcode, find out who sells it and for how much.
• TiVo Remote: works with any TiVo HD unit over WiFi.
• TripIt: phenomenal itinerary manager for all travel info.
• Voice Recorder: does exactly what it says it does.
• Yelp: Local reviews.

One of the side effects of being bipolar is that many of your senses are heightened. For example, there are times when I will smell gas on fire, when there is none, or a knock at the door when no one is there. As a kid, seeing flashes of people out of the corner of my eye made me believe my house was haunted (and kept me scared of the dark for most of my life). Even feeling hands on my leg or as if someone was in the bed with me freaked me out.

Of course, being me, I swore I had super powers. I knew I could see, hear, smell and feel better than anyone. (Taste was one I never spent much time with, dunno why) I remember things in images. When I used to take tests, I could see the specific page the answer was on, and I would imagine myself reading that page. Even now, I can remember weird facts and places, even as I forget the most mundane things (I have no idea where my keys are).

I know I had super powers.

I spent time looking in the mirror at each millimeter of my face and body. When I see people in photos I will absorb the photo, memorizing the crease under the right eye, or the slight dimple that only appears when the person is half-smiling. I note the curve of the forehead and the shape of the nose. The nape of the neck. The slope of the shoulder.

Its not just people.

I will notice the smallest spot on my dogs snout, where hair doesnt seem to grow, or the change in her skin tone depending on her level of activity. When I go to movies I spend time looking at the entire screen, trying to understand where the characters were coming from, why the set was built in the way it was. Where the story was going. Could I see the monster before it jumped out of the tree?

Over the years its has become not just visual. I try to observe emotion and body language where I can. Sighed just a little too long? IM responses are really short? Perhaps you are talking excitedly, but your eyes are tired.

Often I mis cues (especially in terms of relationships and romantic interest. Man, do I miss that stuff), but many times I am right. Which in many ways, is awesome.

But there is the opposite side. I see all my negatives. I see all the negatives of people around me. Friends will tell me how a particular woman that I am hanging out with is super hot, and I will see the white hairs and the standoffishness. People will show me what they are working on, and I can see the holes, and why something cant work before I spend time worrying about if it can.

Growing up, I used to joke that if I brought home a report card full of A's with a single A minus, the conversation at home would be about the A minus. My parents spent more time discussing the things I could improve on, than the things I doing well.

In my first couple of positions, and certainly at my company, that was the standard. You are expected to do a great job. Not a good job. Because you are expected to excel, lets spend our time on correcting the errors. Ive never much believed in bonuses or commission plans, after all your motivation should be perfection, not hitting some (semi)arbitrary numbers or goals.

In the past year or so, I have started to change how I look at things. I still see everything. I try to use that to understand the holes and the positive directions we are moving in. I have stopped spending time in the mirror looking at me (although, on occasion, I still do it), and when I do, I try and force myself to look at the positives. At work, I have started to do the same. In all situations, there are positive elements and negative elements and spending time on any specific element is not holistic. It is not a complete approach. It is a failure waiting to happen.

Now as a bit of a tangent (I promise to come back to center), each year, it seems that I am inspired in a large way by a single individual. In 2008 it was Jeffrey Kalmikoff, and in this past year (as a whole), as I think about, it kinda surprised me, but it was Michael Galpert. Neither of these guys said or did anything specific TO me, it was more how they conducted their lives, the struggles they dealt with, etc. In fact, I have a pretty good idea who might be my inspiration/muse for 2010, but I will wait a year to see if I am right.

Last year, one of the things that MSG did that I really liked is that he recorded his interactions with the world. Either a quick video or a photo.

I dont do that. I see nothing but negative in photos of me. There is a reason that about 15 pictures of me exist in the world. (BTW, I used to say that one day I would be rich and famous, so less pictures meant they would be more valuable. Always squeezing a dollar out of 15 cents)

So, as I start to try and see myself holistically, I am going to start recording my interactions (and allowing others to record my interactions) with the world. I am going to try this coming year to take a photo of myself every day. I have started to play with DailyBooth, which is wonderful (except I want an RSS feed of my own photos *AHEM*).

I might spend a bit more time in front of the video camera. After all, I do have a lot of things to talk about with the launch of a new company, and other cool stuff that I will talk about later (that, my friends, is an admission that I have nothing else interesting to talk about. Yet.)

Its all about absorbing life holistically. Let the absorption begin.

With the imminent release of the Motorola Droid I am more excited about mobile media production than I have been for nearly two years. Sure, I rock the iPhone but have you ever tried to do work on one?

What you see above was my solution about 18 months ago to subvert my dependence on using my iPhone to create and deliver media to the internet without having to take my computer with me or find wifi.

This solution worked great. From left to right is the MicroSD card, MS Pro Duo adapter, SD adapter, USB stick that holds all 3 and a Verizon SMT 5800 with slide out QWERTY. The Verizon phone was able to handle the 8GB MicroSD card like a champ and access any media that placed on it. Since the phone was running WM I could actually work on documents without having to get a third party app. I digress.

I was able to take this posse of electronic goodies with me in my pocket and 10 megapixel camera in my hand to get great shots and put them up on Flickr. Sure it would be easier if the camera on the phone was higher quality but it wasn't an option then and still isn't today in a design that lends itself to mobile media production of all types.

Images and videos need context . . . that context comes from metadata beyond geo location, timestamp or anything else beyond EXIF data. The ability to enter that efficiently with a slide out QWERTY is unmatched by touch devices.

I have gadget crush on the Droid and I've never even put my hands on one. The biggest reason is that I want to be able to have the control over what type of media I am able to produce when on the go without much restriction. The ability to replicate the solution at the top of this post with a device that also shoots video and has a 5 mp camera with flash is exciting.

If I were building a startup today I would be looking at aggregating all of this mobile media in a clean interface and partnering with as many carriers and mobile blogging sites. As these devices hit the street and more newbs hook it up with simply what's on deck there will tons of filtering that needs to be done to make it useful.

What is your ideal mobile media maker arsenal? Keep in mind that it must have ability to get your content online.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Mobile Media Maker Arsenals is a post from: TechStartups.com

Filed under: Handhelds

Amazon clarifies Kindle book-deletion policy, can still delete books originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Getting started with the site is quite easy, because Outright has recently partnered with a number of financial services: you can import invoices from Freshbooks, receipts from Shoeboxed, your PayPal transaction history, as well as your credit card transactions through a deal with Expensify, which supports 94% of US credit cards. You only have to do this once once you've linked your account, they'll keep automatically updating until you unlink them.

Once you're done with the initial setup, everything on Outright is fairly self-explanatory (which is sort of the idea). The home screen presents you with a chart pitting your costs against your income to give you an at-a-glance look at your business's health. At the top of the screen you'll see tabs for Income, Expenses, Taxes, and Reports, where you can hone in on the transactions you're looking for. Transactions are automatically sorted into different categories (for example, the site knows that your airline's tickets belong under the Travel' category), and you can also generate reports on a per-customer basis, which would be helpful for eBay sellers. Beyond that the application helps with taxes by offering reminders when a deadline is coming up and an estimated amount that you'll have to pay.

Outright isn't as robust as some other financial services out there, but if you're looking to keep things simple it's certainly worth a look. The company was formerly called GoBoostrap.com, but changed its name in conjunction with news of its $2 million funding in February.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

This isn't the first time I've noticed things online disappearing over time. My first two years of blogging are gone. Some of that was backed up by the wayback machine.

I've seen other people's blogs, or other online items go away too. Hey, quick, find some of your Tweets from just four months ago. They are all still online, but you probably can't find them. Me neither.

Or, wait until you are hacked and don't have a backup, like happened with me. I love the folks who say you should have backed up. How do you back up everything you do online? You can't. Quick, back up all your Google Docs, your Tweets, your Flickr photos and all the metadata surrounding them (comments, tags, etc), your Facebook items, etc etc. You will die trying.

I know, I've been backing up like a crazy man lately since I got hacked. What's funny is one of my brand new hard drives died. Luckily I had a backup of that. But what if I didn't?

What if my house burned down tonight? I wouldn't be able to save everything. Heck, I'd be worried about getting my family out and screw the hard drives.

So our online lives leak away.

It gets worse after you die.

You think your family will be able to save your Flickr photos? Not if you don't give them your passwords. Here's why: they won't be able to find them.

I let my Flickr Pro account lapse cause I was too lazy to put in a new credit card. I couldn't even find my old photos. Why? Because Flickr's search only shows the last few photos and they turn off the calendar and all sorts of things if you stop paying for the pro account. Yowza.

Reminds me of an interview I had with Jeremy Toeman who built a new company called Legacy Locker. But now we need to put enough cash in there to keep Flickr accounts paid up so my sons will be able to see their photos after I die.

Some best practices I've learned:

1. If you care that it stays around, use services from big companies. Google will probably stick around for a while. Twittergram? Gone.

2. Put your stuff in multiple places. Why? Because maybe Yahoo will decide to turn off the Flickr service in 10 years. So, make sure your photos go to other services.

3. Back up what you can, but that won't help long term. Quick, if your dad handed you a hard drive with 10,000 photos would you be able to find anything on there? What if you got that hard drive in 30 years? Would you be able to even look at what's on it? Remember, when I was in college my entire life was on floppy disks. I can't even read those now.

4. Print out stuff that you really want to save. I still have my trunk of photos from my childhood, but lots of my photos taken digitally over the years are gone or hard to find.

5. Use services like Legacy Locker to ensure that your kids at least will have your passwords and rights to your stuff and accounts.

Any other best practices?

The Booklet 3G's key specs include an Atom Z530 processor, 120GB hard disk, 1GB RAM, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and HDMI. It's pretty thin (just 0.78-inches), and will have a hot-swappable SIM card slot and integrated Ovi maps. [YouTube via Engadget]

20 all-new designs from 20 great artists!

It's Dunny Series 2009!

Dunny is back in 3-inch form and morphed into pop art masterpieces in ways you've never seen him morphed before.

Get ready for Dunny editions of Devilrobots' To-Fu Head Son and Mori Chack's Gloomy Bear, plus a new bunch of wild figures equipped with the accessories necessary to wreak havoc on your collection.

Keep an eye out for 2 chases that slipped into the line-up, plus Golden Tickets redeemable for an elusive 3-inch Dunny by the NYC-based artist Pon. Not available for sale anywhere!

Each Dunny sold with a collectible insert card starting September 10!

Artists in this series include Amanda Visell, Andrew Bell, Amy Ruppel, Brandt Peters, Dalek, Devilrobots, Gary Taxali, Mori Chack, Huck Gee, Jeremyville, Kozik, Kronk, Luke Chueh, Mad, Pon, Shane Jessup, Shawnimal, SupaKitch, Travis Cain, and Thomas Han.

The Toys

Last month, we brought you the story of how 15 year-old Dustin Simantob used the iPhone's Find my iPhone feature to catch the thieves that had stolen it. The feature, powered by MobileMe, lets you track down your stolen iPhone via GPS, change the home screen message, and even wipe your phone's content.

If Simantob's story hasn't convinced you to activate Find My iPhone, maybe this one will. An unidentified victim was robbed at gunpoint by two men at 1 A.M. in Shadyside, PA. They demanded and took his wallet, PIN numbers, and his iPhone. It's a sad but all-too-common story, until you get to the part where the man's iPhone helped police arrest the suspects.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the two men, Bryant Rather and Brent Ray Potter, were caught with a third associate, Myron Knox, after the unidentified man used his computer to locate his iPhone at a Wal-Mart in another suburb.

The men, after using his stolen credit card to purchase items, then moved on to a restaurant and then to a gas station, where police detained them and charged them with access device fraud, conspiracy, receiving stolen property, possessing instruments of crime, as well as robbery for the two men who committed the original crime.

With GPS technology becoming more and more prevalent, we're hoping to hear more of these stories, and that they will make crooks think twice before committing robbery or a more serious crime. Find My iPhone is just the beginning of a new technology wave that helps us fight back.

Tags: apple, find my iphone, gps, iphone, Mobile 2.0, mobileme

But reading over the fine print, it doesn't appear that you need to use the money for back-to-school shopping. And in fact, the rules state that you have to be over 18 to enter the contest, so unless parents are doing it for their kids, or it's all college kids entering, it doesn't really seem all that student-friendly. And that's good, because it will increase my chances of winning and using the $500 on something more desirable than protractors like maybe beer.

Here's how the contest works: Starting tomorrow, the Bing Cashback Twitter account will start tweet out a trivia question. Anyone who @replies back the correct answer within an hour, is then eligible to win the money for that day.

This is a good idea by Bing because the trivia will be Bing Shopping and Cashback-related, so basically you have to use Bing to find the answer. And you are required to use the #cashbackpack hashtag in your public tweet to ensure others will start following the content. Not to mention that you will have to be following the @bingcashback account closely all 7 days to see when it asks its question.

Unfortunately, this contest is only open to those in the U.S.

Come on Bing, beer me.

[photo: flickr/elvissa]

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Video

Disney to offer films on microSD cards, consumers to pass on by originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Inspired by the look of the personal web page of interface designer Tim Van Damme, the team over at Harkness Labs set out to build a service where people can easily add their online profiles, pick a theme and create a good-looking online mini business card of their own in just a couple of minutes. Having lots of experience with quickly setting up and launching light-weight Web services (check out the CrunchBase profile for the company's founder Daniel Blake for a list of other projects), it didn't take them too long to come up with a good enough concept.

After a month or so of coding, Card.ly is now live. I love it (here's mine), and I'm going to send the link to a bunch of my friends. It's a bit more limited in scope than Chi.mp (our coverage) and a different approach from Unhub (our coverage), but I doubt there's an easier way to create custom social hubs that look so damn good than Card.ly.

Once you add personal details and your various online profiles (nearly 50 are currently supported, from LinkedIn to Yelp and our own CrunchBase), you can pick a custom theme out of nearly 30 proposed designs - most of which are free, others are only available with premium accounts - and automatically have your online business card published. It's hCard compliant and people can download a vCard from your personal Card.ly profile by clicking the recognizable icon under the title.

You can also embed widgets for your profile, which I have done at the top of this post. Finally, some themes support a Stream' tab, which basically doubles as a lifestreaming web application by pulling together all the activity from the profiles you added to your Card.ly account.

Card.ly is free when you're content with a limited choice of skins and RSS feeds, as well as couple of other restrictions, but there's a premium version that will set you back $24.99 a year. The paid account comes with more themes to choose from, unlimited RSS streams, and more goodies like advertisement-free cards. Not as cheap as I'd like it to be, but I paid for it just for the fact that I can link to my Google Analytics account and get advanced statistics on my personal card.

Your opinion?

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Ryan Scherf has created a simple jQuery plugin that "uses Mobile Safari's built in touch events to allow jQuery binding of swipe events to any DOM element. You can override the swipeLeft and swipeRight defaults functions to create your own custom process when the gesture is detected."

It can be used as simple as:

You can tweak the threshold for the swipe, and take a peak at the demo which is shown here:

Jon Raasch has also updated his QuickFlip plugin that flips any piece of HTML like a card. The flip effect is similar to the UI animation on the iPhone, and uses an animation trick that is barely noticeable when fired quickly.

QuickFlip 2 resolves a number of usability and performance issues in
QuickFlip. The $.quickFlip() function can now be chained from any
jQuery selector, attaching all the styling and markup it needs
automatically. Additionally a new $.quickFlipper() function makes
triggering the flip effect a piece of cake. Other than that, minor
bugs have been fixed and performance has been tuned.

For more info:

• see the docs
• check out the examples

Extended care warranties, car rental insurance, trip cancellation protectionyou know they're just margin boosters for companies, but you can't shake that vulnerable feeling. Personal finance author Ramit Sethi says you need only look in your wallet.

Photo by TheTruthAbout.

Sethi, author of the I Will Teach You To Be Rich blog, and book of the same name, notes that most credit cards extend purchase warranties to one year automatically, on top of the 30- or 90-day standards included in the box. Car rental insurance is also included in most card policies, and even if the airline tries to stiff you for a "late cancellation," many credit issuers grant their users $1,000-$2,000 per year in trip cancellation paybacks.

Sethi details these perks and others in a recent CNBC appearance, along with a free book chapter and related posts linked below.

[YouTube Video]

What "secret" credit card perks have you discovered, accidentally or through fine print research? Share the hidden wealth in the comments.

Yesterday's announcement of Google's Chrome OS plans were met with plenty of discussion about what it might mean for the future of computing. The OS is essentially a lightweight version of Linux designed to run the company's Chrome browser to access Google's (or other third-party) cloud computing services, such as Gtalk, Gmail, Google Docs, and more. While there are numerous benefits of using such cloud serviceslike data persistence across multiple machineswhat happens when the servers that run those services run into trouble, burn down, or lose power?

Unfortunately, it seems, there aren't any new answers since we examined this issue almost one year ago. In the last week alone, there have been several high profile outages at data centers that host sites, such as video site DailyMotion, credit card authorization service Authorize.net, and Microsoft's Bing Travel. Even the Google App Enginea platform for third-parties to run their own cloud servicesexperienced performance issues that resulted in high latency and even data loss.

Getting through to the 5-18 year old demographic is increasingly becoming more and more complicated. Parents are more vigilant, multiple channels exist, and most of us in social don't know where they hang out in the first place. (Here's a hint: it's mostly mobile and will continue to go in that direction.)

How can you break through and communicate/engage with the kids without being mistakenly harangued by Chris Hansen? Good question and I don't necessarily know if direct social engagement is the right place to grab their interest.

It comes back to a simple tenet: Add Value. How can you effectively add value for a teen? Talk about sensitive issues like P&G (Beinggirl.com)? Provide information about cool products and their customizable options (Lego City)? Or just be a fun place to hang out (I looked, but anything I put here will be outdated by the time this post goes live)?

The key will being able to get in front of the child/teen and engage them in a dialogue that is beneficial to them, supported by/parent friendly, and is not intrusive. Mobile opt-in is a good place to start here. However, you have to really break down what kind of information you are sending to kids.

Partnering with a popular television show, movie or toy would be the best place to start. This way you already have a built in audience. Most marketing campaigns to kids start and end at this point. Do you have to stop the conversation though? Or can you continue to add value to the audience that you gained over the course of your program. The answer? Yes.

This can't be a half-hearted attempt to change the dialogue. You really need someone that can nurture the community, provide leadership within, and push the community to action when needed.

Best way to do this with kids? Free anything.

Children and teens both have a desire to conform, be cool, and acquire massive amounts of free anything. To inspire a community: simply make them feel welcome, give them a voice, and provide them with cool stuff/schwag. (Yes, that's it.)

Have any other suggestions on how to effectively transform the marketing experience of kids/teens online? How can we effectively build communities that add value? Do you have any other examples?

The new browser wars on on. More than a decade after Microsoft killed off Netscape with Internet Explorer, competition in the browser market has never been stronger. Just last week, Mozilla released Firefox 3.5, which has now been downloaded nearly 14 million times. Earlier in June, Apple released Safari 4. In March, Microsoft introduced Internet Explorer 8, and Google came out with a speedier beta of its Chrome browser.

Some early data is coming in showing relative market share and how fast people are upgrading. If you look at the chart above from Statcounter, it indicates that since March Internet Explorer has lost 11.4 percent market share to other browsers. That is the combined market share of IE8, IE7, and IE6. Certainly IE8 (the light blue line) has been growing strong since its release last March, capturing 16.7 percent of the market as of July 4. Those strong gains make up for most of the drop in IE7's market share from 49.1 percent in March to 30.1 percent yesterday, indicating that Microsoft is doing a good job of getting existing IE7 users to upgrade at a steady pace. And in mid-June, IE8 finally surpassed IE6, which still stubbornly holds a 7.6 percent share. Add those three up, (IE6+IE7+IE8), however, and IE all together holds only a 54.4 percent market share versus the 65.8 percent combined share in March, 2009.

In just over three months, Internet Explorer has seen its overall market share erode by 11.4 percent. Where did that go? It went to Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. Nearly 5 percent of that, or about half, went to Firefox 3.0, which currently has 27.6 percent market share. That doesn't count last week's upgrade. See the dotted line just below the light blue IE8 line? That is a combined set of other browsers and appears to include Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome 2.0.

If you look at a 30-day version of that same chart, it shows Safari 4 with 4 percent market share and Chrome with 3 percent market share. It doesn't yet break out Firefox 3.5, but if you assume that makes up the bulk of the remaining dotted line which jumped to nearly pass IE6 in the past week, you can figure out more or less which browsers are taking share from Microsoft. (I've used data from the most recent daily chart in this post, but embedded the monthly chart below which has data as of June 30).

As I said, this is early data from one source. Net Applications, another commonly cited source for browser market share, is currently reviewing its June numbers, but I have a feeling they will show similar trends. (This Wikipedia page shows other browser market share sources, most of them haven't been updated since March). It is difficult to make any firm conclusions at this point, since market share is shifting so rapidly as every major (and minor) browser tries to convince users to upgrade.

But we are in the midst of a major upgrade cycle simultaneously across IE, FireFox, and Safari (with the Chrome wild card thrown in). When all is said and done, we might see a major shake-up in market share and almost definitely will see leadership pass from IE7 to another browser. The question is will that be IE8 or Firefox? Whichever one wins, the good news is that IE6 is finally dying.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Browser Version Market Share

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

The Change your number functionality, as spotted today by Boy Genius Report, is great news for users like me. Unfortunately, it will cost you to change it. There's a one-time $10 fee, which in my mind is well worth it. Best of all, Google Voice will activate your new number right away and still keep your old one active and forwarding to the new one for three months.

What's also nice is that in picking your new number, you can search by area code and by a word that you want your number to contain. So for example if I search for area code 408 and the word tuna, I can get a 408 number that ends in 8862 (T-U-N-A on a keypad).

Here are the details:

There is a $10 one-time fee to change your Google Voice number. Here is how it works:

• Pick a new number in the area codes we have.
• Pay $10 with Google Checkout, using your credit card.
• Your new number becomes active right away.
• Calls to your old number will keep coming to your Google Voice account for three months, so you have time to tell everyone about your new number.

We're still waiting on number portability (the ability to use your existing numbers as Google Voice numbers), but this is a nice start.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Max Ray Butler, 36, faces up to 60 years in prison for the two felonies under law, but his actual sentence will be influenced by a number of factors, not least a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that was filed under seal Monday.

Wearing an ill-fitting orange jail uniform and round glasses, his hair cut short and neat, the six-foot-plus Butler towered over the burly deputy marshals that brought him into the court room. Once he settled into his seat, he spoke softly and evenly as he answered questions from the judge, frequently drawing admonishments to speak up for the benefit of the court reporter.

I actually did the actions that are relevant in the indictment, and I am guilty, Butler said, at one point.

Butler identified himself in court as Max Vision, the name he gave himself in the 1990s when he became a superstar in the computer security community. At that time Butler was billing himself out as a $100-an-hour computer security consultant, and he earned the respect of his peers for creating and curating an open source library of attack signatures used to detect computer intrusions.

But it turned out Butler was staging recreational hacks on the side, and in 2001 he was sent to federal prison for 18 months for launching a scripted attack that closed security holes on thousands on Pentagon systems, and left backdoors behind for his own use.

While in prison, Butler met more serious criminals, and he was befriended by a professional swindler named Jeffrey Norminton. After his release, Norminton introduced him to an Orange County, California entrepreneur and former bank robber named Chris Aragon.

Butler admitted Monday that he began hacking banks, merchants and other hackers to steal credit card numbers, then sold them to Aragon. Aragon, who's pending trial on related state charges in southern California, turned that stolen data into near-perfect counterfeit cards, complete with holograms, and recruited a crew of shoppers who used the cards to snap up designer merchandise for resale on eBay. Aragon earned at least $1 million in the business, police say.

Butler became a priority to federal law enforcement officials in 2006, when, under the handle Iceman, he staged a brazen takeover of the online carder forums where hackers and fraudsters buy and sell stolen data, fake IDs and specialized underground services.

He hacked into the forums, wiped out their databases, and absorbed their content and membership into his own site, called CardersMarket.

On one of the sites he hacked, called DarkMarket, Butler later discovered that an administrator named Master Splyntr was logging in from an FBI office in Pittsburgh. Butler partnered with a Canadian hacker to try and expose Master Splyntr as a fed, but his claim was largely dismissed in the underground as inter-forum rivalry. DarkMarket went on to become a full-blown undercover FBI operation, and the FBI and Secret Service began an investigation into Iceman.

(I wrote about Butler in the January issue of Wired. I'm now working on a book about him and the carder forums for Crown publishing).

Using informants and some genuine electronic gumshoe work, the feds identified Iceman as Butler about a year later, and arrested him in September 2007 at a corporate apartment he used as a hacking safe house.

When the feds seized Butler's hard drive, they found five terabytes of encrypted data on his harddrive, the government said Monday. They later cracked Butler's crypto, and discovered 1.8 million stolen credit card numbers belonging to 1,000 different banks. The banks tallied the fraudulent charges on the cards at $86.4 million.

But Butler's defense attorney told U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill Jr. Monday that Butler and his associates weren't' responsible for all of the fraudulent charges.

Butler, noted federal public defender, Michael Novara, frequently cracked the computers of other members of the underground, and stole their stuff. Some of the credit card numbers found on Butler's hard drive had been in the hands of cyber thieves before Butler began his hacking spree.

Max is kind of a hacker's hacker, said Novara. There was a lot of stuff on his computer that he was not responsible for, and did not intend to use.

I don't think I ever heard the expression, a hacker's hacker' before, said Judge Cohill, with a smile.

Sources say Butler's plea deal will also wrap up a separate federal case in Virginia, in which Butler is charged with staging the first documented spear phishing attack against employees of a financial institution, gaining access to the corporate network of Capitol One bank.

Butler was calm and attentive at Monday's proceeding, which opened with federal prosecutor Luke Dembosky crossing to the defense table to shake hands with the hacker, who smiled and nodded.

Through his attorney, Butler released a two-paragraph statement following his plea.

Max Vision, known in this case as Max Butler, pled guilty today as a first step toward getting this sad chapter of his life behind him. It is unfortunate that his life circumstances in 2005 led him to participate in this criminal conduct, and he very much regrets doing so, he wrote.

Max has always preferred using his extraordinary computer skills his computer vision for the good of society and the cyber world, and he hopes that he will be given the opportunity in the future to once again don the white hat.

Asked afterward what kind of sentence the government expects for Butler, Dembosky was vague with reporters. Suffice to say, it won't be probation.

See Also:

• Notorious Crime Forum DarkMarket Goes Dark
• Cybercrime Supersite DarkMarket' Was FBI Sting, Documents Confirm
• 56 Arrested in DarkMarket Sting, Says FBI
• One Hacker's Audacious Plan to Rule the Black Market in Stolen Credit Cards
• A White Hat' Goes to Jail

• Built-in cameras. The kids have had a ton of fun snapping pictures with the built-in cameras (there's both a user-facing camera as well as a camera that faces away from the user) and using the DSi's image editor to distort the pictures. (Nothing quite like a 7 year-old's face stretched to three times its normal width.)
  
• Wireless gameplay. There's actually three different ways for the DS to play wirelessly. Having seen it in operation with two kids, it's great.
• Certain games - like Brain Age, Mario Kart DS, both of which we have - give multiple players with a DS the ability to wirelessly download a companion version of the game and play together. (On the game boxes, this is called wireless multi-player download, details here.) This requires you to only own one game card, but multiple players can play.
• Other games support multi-card wireless play mean that if every player owns a copy of the game, they can connect to each other to play head-to-head. We haven't bought them the same game yet, so we haven't played with this version yet... now it's up to the boys to decide if they want to spend their gift cards and chore money on copies of the same game. :)
• Nintendo WiFi Connection. Yet other games can play head-to-head over the Internet. My nieces both have DS Lites; with copies of the same game (say, Mario Kart) the cousins can all play together over the net from 3,000 miles away. That's pretty darned cool.
• DSi Shop. If you connect the DSi to a broadband connection before October 5, you get free points to spend on free games from the DSi shop. The boys picked different games, and the quality isn't bad for free games. There's not much to pick from right now, but I'm sure there's more coming.