How does Facebook get its revenue? wonder??

The obvious answer is advertising. However, you can now purchase "gifts" to send to your friends. This month's featured gift is Aviator Sunglasses, "limited edition," at 1,000,000 units for a price of $1. Thats a lot of one dollars! I guess that's how they generate at least a portion of their income.
Facebook still makes most of its money from advertising...
Facebook, like many other community based web sites, generates the majority of it's revenue through what is called "pool investing." In Layman's Terms, pool investing consist of a number of investors pouring their money into a particular investment such as Facebook. Simply put, the more investors the more money, the more money, the more revenue.
.....in regard to the above paragraph about "pool investing" and the notion that "Simply put, the more investors the more money, the more money, the more revenue" -- there's a term for that: PONZI SCHEME!

Apple lost their precious IPhone 4G Prototype? True? Fake?

Gray Powell—a North Carolina State University 2006 graduate and talented amateur photographer—is an Apple Software Engineer working on the iPhone Baseband Software, the little program that enables the iPhone to make calls. A dream job for a talented engineer like Powell, an Apple fan who always wanted to meet Steve Jobs.

On the night of March 18, he was enjoying the fine imported ales at Gourmet Haus Staudt, a nice German beer garden in Redwood City, California. He was happy. [UPDATED] After all, it was his birthday. He was turning 27 that very same day, and he was celebrating. The place was great. The beer was excellent. "I underestimated how good German beer is," he typed into the next-generation iPhone he was testing on the field, cleverly disguised as an iPhone 3GS. It was his last Facebook update from the secret iPhone. It was the last time he ever saw the iPhone, right before he abandoned it on bar stool, leaving to go home.



It a simple, honest mistake in the middle of celebration. Something that anyone, from Steve Jobs to Jonathan Ive, could have done. Knowing how ferocious and ruthless Apple is about product leaks, those beers may have turned out to be the bitterest of his life.

(Almost) Impenetrable Security
Until now, Apple's legendary security has always worked perfectly. Perhaps there was a blurry factory photo here, or some last-minute information strategically whispered to some friendly media there. But when it comes to the big stuff, everything is airtight. At their Cupertino campus, any gadget or computer that is worth protecting is behind armored doors, with security locks with codes that change every few minutes. Prototypes are bolted to desks. Hidden in these labs, hardware, software and industrial-design elves toil separately on the same devices, without really having the complete picture of the final product.

And hidden in every corner, the Apple secret police, a team of people with a single mission: To make sure nobody speaks. And if there's a leak, hunt down the traitor, and escort him out of the building. Using lockdowns and other fear tactics, these men in black are the last line of defense against any sneaky eyes. The Gran Jefe Steve trusts them to avoid Apple's worst nightmare: The leak of a strategic product that could cost them millions of dollars in free marketing promotion. One that would make them lose control of the product news cycle.

But the fact is that there's no perfect security. Not when humans are involved. Humans that can lose things. You know, like the next generation iPhone.

Lost and Found
Apple security's mighty walls fell on the midnight of Thursday, March 18. At that time, Powell was at Gourmet Haus Staudt, just 20 miles from the company's Infinite Loop headquarters, having his fun. Around him, other groups of people were sharing the jolly atmosphere, and plenty of the golden liquid.

The person who eventually ended up with the lost iPhone was sitting next to Powell. He was drinking with a friend too. He noticed Powell on the stool next to him but didn't think twice about him at the time. Not until Powell had already left the bar, and a random really drunk guy—who'd been sitting on the other side of Powell—returned from the bathroom to his own stool.

The Random Really Drunk Guy pointed at the iPhone sitting on the stool, the precious prototype left by the young Apple engineer.

"Hey man, is that your iPhone?" asked Random Really Drunk Guy.

"Hmmm, what?" replied the person who ended up with the iPhone. "No, no, it isn't mine."

"Ooooh, I guess it's your friend's then," referring to a friend who at the time was in the bathroom. "Here, take it," said the Random Really Drunk Guy, handing it to him. "You don't want to lose it." After that, the Random Really Drunk Guy also left the bar.

The person who ended up with the iPhone asked around, but nobody claimed it. He thought about that young guy sitting next to him, so he and his friend stayed there for some time, waiting. Powell never came back.

During that time, he played with it. It seemed like a normal iPhone. "I thought it was just an iPhone 3GS," he told me in a telephone interview. "It just looked like one. I tried the camera, but it crashed three times." The iPhone didn't seem to have any special features, just two bar codes stuck on its back: 8800601pex1 and N90_DVT_GE4X_0493. Next to the volume keys there was another sticker: iPhone SWE-L200221. Apart from that, just six pages of applications. One of them was Facebook. And there, on the Facebook screen, was the Apple engineer, Gray Powell.



Thinking about returning the phone the next day, he left. When he woke up after the hazy night, the phone was dead. Bricked remotely, through MobileMe, the service Apple provides to track and wipe out lost iPhones. It was only then that he realized that there was something strange that iPhone. The exterior didn't feel right and there was a camera on the front. After tinkering with it, he managed to open the fake 3GS.

There it was, a shiny thing, completely different from everything that came before.

He reached for a phone and called a lot of Apple numbers and tried to find someone who was at least willing to transfer his call to the right person, but no luck. No one took him seriously and all he got for his troubles was a ticket number.

He thought that eventually the ticket would move up high enough and that he would receive a call back, but his phone never rang. What should he be expected to do then? Walk into an Apple store and give the shiny, new device to a 20-year-old who might just end up selling it on eBay?

The Aftermath
Weeks later, Gizmodo got it for $5,000 in cash. At the time, we didn't know if it was the real thing or not. It didn't even get past the Apple logo screen. Once we saw it inside and out, however, there was no doubt about it. It was the real thing, so we started to work on documenting it before returning it to Apple. We had the phone, but we didn't know the owner. Later, we learnt about this story, but we didn't know for sure it was Powell's phone until today, when we contacted him via his phone.

Coverflow Music app coming soon

The makers of Landscape Pro have done it again and are currently developing iMeLo is a music player application that will have the interface similar to iphone’s coverflow, the application is still development an not release now but preview version coming out soon

* Developing for N97/5800XM/i8910HD and non-touch phone

Check it out in action

Intel's Next Processor Details Leaked?

A Taiwanese publication is reporting that Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) plans to release three Nehalem quad-core processors at the end of the fourth quarter, complete with specs on the new chips. DigiTimes, based in Taipei, cited motherboard vendors as its sources, many of which are also based in Taipei.

The official model names have not been set, but the specs list the three CPUs – with the codenames XE, P1 and MS3 – at clock speeds of 3.2GHz, 2.93GHz and 2.66GHz, respectively. All three have a thermal design power (TDP) envelope of 130W, 8MB L3 cache and come with simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) technology, which will allow for two threads per core, the report said.

In addition to the chips, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) will also launch the X58 and ICH10 chipset combination to support these processors. These will use the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) architecture, replacing the venerable frontside bus design.

The TDP seems rather high, given Intel's top Core 2 processors run at 95 watts and the top Xeons run at 120 watts. Part of the reason is that the on-die memory controller will add a good 15 to 20 watts to the processor, since it is no longer a separate chip. But also, reasons the analysts, that's the top end of the power rating.


"For all I know, that could be a maximum rating just so you could design a heat sink for worst case scenario," said Tony Massimini, chief of technology for Semico Research. "It was probably something on a spec sheet, but right now I would guess those spec sheets are a boiler plate and will be the maxed on the top end. I would think when these [processors] are announced they will put out more precise spec sheets."

Nathan Brookwood, research fellow with Insight 64, was of the same mind. "This is the max they can put into a desktop, air cooled platform. Clearly over time that number will get better," he told InternetNews.com.

Intel declined to comment on the DigiTimes story, saying only that it was on track to release Nehalem in the fourth quarter of this year.

Nehalem is a major new architecture from Intel, one that finally puts the venerable frontside bus and external memory controller out to pasture for good. It adds a memory controller to the CPU and a high-speed interconnect, meaning the architecture will be very similar to AMD's Athlon, Opteron and Phenom designs.

Nehalem will scale from two to eight cores and features the return of multithreading, allowing each core to run two threads at once. Its design will be used in commercial desktops, laptops and server processors, so it will cover the range of Intel designs.

The clock speeds are pretty much in line with what's available today, but the on-chip memory controller and Quickpath will make it much faster. "While it's going at roughly the same clock rates as today, because they have much more memory bandwidth and much less memory latency, they should get some substantial improvements in performance," said Brookwood.

The specs DigiTimes cited also listed support for up to four PCI Express 8x slots and support AMD's Quad CrossFireX technology for running multiple GPU cards. However, there was no word on whether Intel will or wants to license nVidia's SLI technology, which does the same ting.

It seemed odd that Intel would work with the company that's suing it for antitrust over the company that's just kicking at its ankles. Massimini thinks a deal will eventually be made.

"Everybody's out to make money," he said. "They can argue and sic each other's lawyers on each other but ultimately, they have to sell parts, and it's kind of a tug of war, love/hate relationship in this business. But it's in Intel's interests to show they are willing to work with companies and not shut anybody out."

He said it's just a matter of ironing out details. Brookwood said he wasn't sure why Intel was working with AMD (NYSE: AMD) but not nVidia (NASDAQ: NVDA).

Asus U5: The Latest Green Laptop

Asus has thrown it's hat in the ring of TreeHugger-friendly laptops (we've mentioned others before) with it's latest model, the U5. Built to comply with the European Union's standards to limit the use of toxic substances, the U5 is Asus's first lead- and halogen-free laptop. They got the lead out because it's the wrong kind of heavy metal, and halogens include an icky assortment of chemicals, including chlorine, that are decidedly bad for us TreeHuggers. The laptop itself is well-apportioned, with 512MB RAM, lots of wireless connectivity with built-in Bluetooth and WiFi, one FireWire and three USB ports, and a fast Pentium M, all weighing in at about three pounds. No word on price just yet; more info will be coming later this month, according to the manufacturer.

Apple Unveils Green Ultrathin Laptop

Apple today debuted its new très trim MacBook Air that is not only thin enough to slip inside a manila envelope but was made without many of the environmentally harmful chemical compounds used in older PCs.

Environmental activist organization Greenpeace just months ago criticized Apple for using bromine—whose vapors are toxic when inhaled—in its hugely popular iPhone. But the company now appears to be making good on its earlier promise that all new products would be free from brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a chlorinated plastic, by the end of this year. Apple says the new MacBook Air is made from "brominated flame retardant–free material for the majority of circuit boards as well as PVC-free internal cables."

The three-pound (1.36-kilogram) laptop, which Apple calls "the world's thinnest" and expects to sell starting at $1,799, also has a recyclable aluminum enclosure and Apple's first mercury-free LCD display with arsenic-free glass. MacBook Air measures 0.16 inch (0.41 centimeter) at its slimmest point and 0.76 inch (1.93 centimeters) at its thickest.

Greenpeace is generally satisfied with the message that the new MacBook sends about cutting back on the environmentally unfriendly materials used to build PCs, but the conservation activists believe Apple can do even better. "We can say that Apple is getting greener, but it's still not green enough," says Zeina Alhajj, coordinator of the organization's international e-waste campaign. Although the new laptop contains less PVC and BFRs, "it could have been made without them entirely, and that would have made Apple an ecological leader." Still, she acknowledges, Apple CEO Steve Jobs emphasized the environment during his Macworld keynote today, "and that's a good start."

The company's bid to eliminate or reduce its use of environmentally harmful chemicals is an encouraging sign that they are trying to keep last year's promise. "I think Apple's extremely serious about improving their environmental footprint, but it takes time to find the new materials to replace what they're currently using," says Shannon Cross, an analyst with technology research firm Cross Research based in Livingston, N.J.

Apple says the 13.3-inch (33.8-centimeter) MacBook Air, which begins shipping at the end of the month, consumes the least amount of power of any Mac, and its retail box, made primarily from post-consumer recycled material, is 56 percent smaller by volume than the previously smallest MacBook packaging. Users will be able to get up to five hours of uninterrupted computing time from a fully charged battery. The laptop is available with either a 1.6 gigahertz or 1.8 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with four megabytes of L2 cache. Standard features include two gigabytes of memory and an 80-gigabyte, 1.8-inch (4.6-centimeter) hard drive as well as 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and Bluetooth 2.1.

The company today also introduced a number of complementary features, including a compact external storage drive, the ability to wirelessly rent movies from its iTunes store and a wireless file backup called Time Capsule.

Sony’s Green Laptop (Literally)

At the Consumer Electronics Show, Stan Glasgow, the head of Sony Electronics in the United States, alluded to the arrival, in a not-too-distant future, of a laptop capable of rendering three-dimensional video. As it was, though, he settled for four new Vaio notebooks, each with its own personality. Here’s a brief look at each of them:

W series “eco-friendly” Mini. We won’t call it a netbook, though that’s pretty much what it is. The angle is that the green-tinted (we get the hint) plastic enclosure is made of 23 percent recycled CDs (from overstocked Sony artists?), and that the carrying case is made of recycled plastic bottles. The 10-inch screen is LED-lit, and it runs Windows 7 Starter edition.
Z series lightweight. Called an ultra-portable by Sony, the aluminum-encased Z is about three pounds and ships exclusively with solid-state drives, up to a 512-gigabyte model. It starts at $1,900 and can go way up (a Blu-ray player is optional, as are Intel Core i7 and i5 processors ) from there.

F series. The latest entry in the multimedia entertainment portable space, the F has a just-right-for-movies 16.4-inch screen and likes to stay at home on a desk.
Y series. This is the semi-lightweight (four pounds) MacBook fighter that delivers up to seven hours of battery life and incorporates a 13-inch screen. Starts at about $800.
Sony showed off a slew of other new products beyond the new Vaios, including new Cyber-shot digital cameras and camcorders, home theater audio systems, and an intriguing touchscreen Internet viewer for the desk called the Dash.

Mr. Glasgow also said that Sony would now market SD (secure digital) memory cards, even though it has long been pushing its propriety flash storage technology, the Memory Stick. Mr. Glasgow said the decision was prompted by the need to “give consumers a choice.”