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Yoda Botches Sound-Booth Session, Use Google Earth to Spy on North Korea

There's a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can't cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web.
  • Geek drivers probably know about GPS provider TomTom, and that the company has recently released new voices for your dash-mounted navigator -- straight out of 'Star Wars.' Yes, you can have Darth Vader tell you, "Go around the roundabout -- the circle is now complete," basically ensuring that, if you haven't already roofied and snared a mate, you will never get laid again. At least TomTom has a sense of humor about it all, chronicling its behind-the-scenes problems with Master Yoda's sound-booth session. Check out the video at the link. [From: YouTube]
  • Sad news for Newsweek's Tumblr followers! Mark Coatney will be leaving his position as editor of the magazine's Tumblr... for a position at Tumblr. If you are one of Newsweeks's 10,400 Tumblr followers, you will probably miss Coatney as the guiding editorial voice. [From: Business Insider]
  • Want another reason why Google is going to take over the world? It may have better intelligence than our regular ol' government spies. Some Google Earth users and amateur sleuths have uncovered what could possibly be underground airfields at several military bases around North Korea. We're just hoping that the Defense Department knew about these already -- just like those WMDs in Iraq. [From: Wired]
Got a tip? Want to talk to us? In need of more choice links like these? Drop us a line on Twitter and check out our Tumblr blog.

'BlackBerry Protect' Brings Mobile Backup and Remote Wipe to Your Phone

BlackBerry Protect
BlackBerry isn't in danger of becoming irrelevant anytime soon thanks to its deeply entrenched enterprise install base. But it would be foolish to pretend there were no threats to the throne. Apple's iOS and Google's Android have been adding enterprise-friendly features, and Microsoft will soon be introducing the exciting looking Windows Phone 7 later this year. Recent teasers of BlackBerry OS 6 have revealed a company in the midst of a severe identity crisis that, rather than doing what it does best, is trying to compete with the other boys on the block at their own game. That's why we're excited to see BlackBerry Protect, a new distinctly business-user-friendly tool to secure your RIM handset (or fleet of handsets).

BlackBerry Protect offers remote management tools that should come by default (and for free) on every modern smart phone. First, the service will back up or restore your data over 3G. In the event you lose your precious CrackBerry, Protect can set off an alarm to help you locate your phone or remotely wipe it to protect sensitive information. If you still think you've got a chance of uncovering your phone, BlackBerry Protect can lock your handset and use GPS to locate it on a map. All of these features will be accessible through a handy Web interface.

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Barnes and Noble to Launch NOOKstudy, We Wax Optimistic About Students' Futures

NOOKstudy concept
Say what you will about the iPad ("Ugh, I can't video Skype on it!"), or about e-books in general ("Overpriced hooey!"), but, readers, please calm your vitriol for a moment. The real advantage of this hand-held tech is not the fact that you can download your latest Patricia Cornwall novel wirelessly, nor that you can smite some sows with bitchin' birds in full HD. Portable devices like these are, truly, best suited for students.

We know this sentiment has been bandied about since the launch of the first Kindle, and especially so since the iPad debuted. But Barnes and Noble, that Starbucks of the bookseller trade, is now experimenting with a learning tool called NOOKstudy, a piece of software for both Mac and PC (not e-readers or iPad, just yet) that will organize all of your class texts into a single location. According to the company's website, "NOOKstudy keeps your eTextbooks, class handouts, course syllabi, lecture notes, even your leisure reading, instantly accessible right on your computer." For software owners, Barnes and Noble is making available 500,000 free e-books, as well as the rest of its paid Nook content.

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YouTube 'Partner Grants' to Offer Money to Video Creators

YouTube Video
With hopes of producing more high-quality content, YouTube is ready to provide financial support for some of its amateur auteurs. According to The New York Times, YouTube announced last Friday the creation of a $5 million Partner Grants program, which will provide some lucky YouTube users with stipends, ranging from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand dollars. So just how does a budding filmmaker get his or her hands on this cash? The details aren't clear, but YouTube is looking for work that appeals to both mainstream audiences and advertisers. If your video meets those requirements, YouTube will mysteriously "reach out" to you, and offer you the dough.

Will this program lead to 'David After Dentist 2: Root Canal's Revenge' or 'Charlie Bit Me... Harder'? That's more likely than the initiative leading to an Oscar winner. The site simply wants to help create content that will generate more hits, which, in turn, will attract bigger advertisers with more money and reach. That's fine by us -- as long as we get more videos of cute kids saying goofy stuff. [From: The New York Times]

AT&T May Be Right: Smartphone Customers Underuse Mobile Web

Mobile Data Usage
An uproar ensued when AT&T discontinued its unlimited data plan last month, and the company defended itself by arguing that 98-percent of its customers never used more than the 2GB allotted by the DataPro plan. Turns out, AT&T might even have been understating its case against the unlimited plan if the numbers from a new Nielsen study are to be believed.

Nielsen has been tracking the mobile data usage of some 60,000 smartphone-owning customers for the past year, and, though the average amount of data used has skyrocketed (by almost 230-percent since the same time last year), most customers come nowhere near the 2GB limit imposed by AT&T. Average monthly data use was up to 298MB per month in early 2010, but 99-percent still registered under 2GB. In fact, the top 6-percent of users accounted for over 50-percent of data used, while a full 25-percent of smartphone owners used no data at all. That's roughly 20 million American smartphone owners treating their fancy handsets like a common RAZR. A true crime if you ask us.

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Marc Jacobs Discovers E-Commerce, Somehow NYT's Style Section Is Shocked

In a class-war-baiting article typical of the Sunday Style section, the New York Times published a piece describing fashion's fall from grace and into the common world of the Web. Years ago, luxury clothing-makers scoffed at the Internet, and favored the dignified experience of shopping in a real, brick-and-mortar boutique, but, says Stephanie Clifford, "in came the recession, and out went the ...

Consumer Reports: iPhone 4 Reception Problems Due to Faulty Design

Apple may still refuse to admit that its iPhone 4 is plagued with design flaws, but Consumer Reports certainly won't. In a recent blog post, the company's testers confirmed that the signal problems many have noticed with the new iPhone are, indeed, the result of faulty design. After testing different phones in a so-called "radio frequency isolation chamber," engineers noticed that when they ...

French President Sarkozy Asks Facebook for Feedback, Gets Read Le Riot Act

In Italy, high-level political scandals involve tantalizing things like underage girls and Mediterranean sex parties. In France, they involve boring things like campaign finance and L'Oreal. Still, in a country starved for any opportunity to pounce on its diminutive president, Nicolas Sarkozy, rumors involving dirty money and the heiress of a corporate empire are enough to make headlines across ...

Reddit Asks Users for Donations to Stay Afloat, Despite Success

Reddit needs help. And it's asking its readers to provide it. In a recent, doleful blog post, programmer Mike Schiraldi implored the Reddit community to donate resources to the site in an effort to ease the workload of the four engineers who work around the clock "just to keep things going." Even as its traffic has ballooned to about 280 million page views per month, the site continues to function ...

Best Portable Outdoor Speakers for Pool Parties, Beach Bums and More

Share Summer is a time for outdoor parties, wherever possible -- be it the beach, rooftop, courtyard or front stoop. And with traditional boomboxes having gone the way of the dodo, you'll need something else to blast your digital music. We've rounded up some of our favorite portable speaker options on the market. All are iPod and iPhone compatible (with shielded speakers to prevent ...
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