According to 4chan’s Twitter account and status update blog, they have been “explicitly blocked” by the Verizon wireless network.
Chris Poole (4chan Founder) wrote yesterday afternoon, “Over the past 72 hours, we’ve been receiving reports from Verizon Wireless customers having difficulty accessing the image boards. After investigating, we found that Verizon is dropping traffic… only on port 80 (HTTP). No other subdomain/IP/port is affected, which leads us to believe this block is intentional.”
However, a couple hours ago, Poole posted, “After an hour and a half on the phone, we’ve received confirmation from Verizon’s Network Repair Bureau (NRB) that we are ‘explicitly blocked.’”
Multiple Verizon FIOS/DSL customers have let us know that the boards are still accessible from other devices not on the Verizon wireless network. However, we’re confused as to why Verizon wireless would block a website and still allow access on other parts of its network.
Before any phone is released onto the market it goes through a series of test. Some to test the hardware. Others the operating systems. And others, to see how who can break it first. We have come across two videos in which the new Nexus One from Google is put through a series of tests to see how durable the phone is and to show the public just how such a strong phone is actually built.
We don’t get to see any of the phones break into smithereens (I don’t think my heart could take it!), but it’s pretty cool to watch them bend, flex, bounce drop and crash around the testing lab! Check out the short film (which is episode three in the series) in the HTC testing labs.
The next video in the series is the mass manufacturing of the device. As the films narrator rightly points out, the manufacturing of this phone is like no other in that quality is given prominence. Some of the machines and techniques used are pretty cool. You also get insider information from the experts.
Millions of Americans, and indeed people around the world, tuned in to watch the highlight of the US sporting year, the Super Bowl. As Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, hinted yesterday, Google did indeed run an advertisement during the Super Bowl for the first ever time.
The ad has since become a hit around the Internet, especially on sites such as YouTube on Twitter, all within a few hours of being broadcast in the third quarter ad break of the Super Bowl. I watched it on YouTube, and I have to say it’s pretty well done. It basically summarises Google’s search functionality in a way which I’m sure has millions of US families going ‘Awwwwww’. Check it out below.
There’s a strong rumor saying there’s an internal Facebook project developing to be released to the public soon: Facebook’s Webmail.
As greedy as it could sound to you, it really doesn’t seem like a big shock, Facebook is the biggest social network available with over 350 million users and with an amazing growth in the last few years. Constantly looking for new ways to expand; a while ago we’ve showed you an interview of Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckeberg, that said Facebook is not intended to be a simple website, they are looking to represent your identity in Internet.
There isn’t much information about the project, which already has a codename: Titan and that your mail address will be the same used in your vanity URL. In my case should be augusto.a.alvarez@facebook.com. And of course, you will be able to set E-Mail Clients like Outlook or Thunderbird to access your mail using POP or IMAP protocols.
The webmail really sounds like a very possible next step. Could we expect next a bigger instant messaging experience?
YouTube has been the dominant social space for videos around the world. The most highly searched video site has everything fromentertainment, DIY videos, music, clips, and more residing on the Google servers and made accessible to all of us with a simple search. With over 1 million searches a day, they are doing something right.
Most recently YouTube made big news with the release of their Univision channel for the growing Spanish speaking market. This brings into the fold a whole demographic that may have been apprehensive to use Google due to language barriers, but now content in their native language will be something that they can adapt to, and YouTube will surely reap the benefits. This is the fruits of a deal that was agreed upon and announced to the press back in November. With Univision providing full content, whether it be clips or entires shows, the video are now searchable from within YouTube giving exposure to both brands in an amazing way.
This is a huge move for Univision, as this is the first time their content has been made available on the internet outside of their own proprietary websites. Combining content from Univisions major networks, Univision, TeleFutura, and Galavision, the network plans to expand its content, seek original programming for the internet, and have notable celebrities share weekly wrap-ups of shows to keep users caught up on everything happening at the station.
Handsets are hot, the Nexus One, iPhones, and more to come that are sure to burn a hole in our pockets as we look for the best form and function phones we can use. Most recently Android has become the new mobile OS that is driving the market crazy, perhaps even surpassing the usability of the iPhone OS. There seems to be little room for the Windows OS on mobile platform, but they still power some pretty nice handsets, and the new upcoming Sony Ericsson Aspen is just one of them.
Planned for a Quarter 2 release with no price tag attached, the Sony Ericsson Aspen is part of the company’s GreenHeart line. This means you’re going to find a much more eco-friendly handset then in previous models. To set this handset apart the site states that the Aspen will “offer eco-friendly features like a power saving mode, eco mate application, electronic manuals, waterbourne painting, and a body made form recyclable materials.”
While a Windows OS phone may not seem attractive, the Aspen is, and with new developments to the OS, it’s sure to go hand in hand very well. The device will offer a full QWERTY-keyboard for quick messaging, microSD storage, a 2.4in QVGA screen, 3.5mm head phone jack, FM radio, GPS, WIFI, Google Maps and so much more.
We love our audio, there’s no doubt about that. Whether it’s music or a DVD we pop into our system, we love adding external speakers to heighten the experience. Now unless we’ve been able to find a portable sound system for our mobile devices, finding good portable speakers can be tough. There’s a lot of brands out there, but how do we know it’s going to give us what we’re looking for? It was not that look ago that we reviewed a product on here called Kerchoonz that basically turned surfaces into speakers for your sound. Now another product has entered the market that is much more aesthetically pleasing than the design of the Kerchoonz, and that’s the new Tunebug.
The new Tunebug uses Surface Sound Technology to give your audio that heightened sound you’re looking for by turning any surface into a speaker, but hollow surfaces work better. Retailing for $70, the Tunebug features a small triangular body of polished metal with an illuminated power button in the center. It comes with a standard 3.5mm input, but the real magic is the NXT-powered Surface Sound Speaker.
For use on your laptop, desktop, mp3 player, or mobile device it works to turn your environment into the speaker that you don’t have to carry with you. How’s that for a flat panel speaker?
It’s important to carry around protection. We’ve heard this time and time again. Carrying around protection gives you the edge you need to ensure you keep yourself safe from the varying harmful effects that can overcome a person without it. If you’re thinking of radiation, then you’re right. Radiation from our mobile devices seems to be a hot topic for those looking for ways to protect themselves. Just like they tell you not to stand in front of a microwave, it’s harder not to put a mobile phone to your ear to hear.
The new Pong Anti-Radiation iPhone Case will keep the radiation from your day to day calls from melting your face….okay, perhaps not that severe, but tests have proven that the amount of radiation emanating from your device is greatly reduced by carrying around this handy protective case. It’s currently designed for the iPhone 3G and 3GS models and “features an integrated Pong-developed Gold PCB module to redirect cellular radiation away from your head, while the silicone case protects your phone and ensures maximum signal strength thanks to its special silicone blend.”
The site is pretty extensive with tests and sample videos of how the radiation is redirected and sent out, away from your head. While that may be how the protective case works, I’m not so sure about maximizing signal strength. If it can do that, I’m sure a great number of iPhone users will run out and get it only because of how many dropped calls they are experiencing on the network.
It has been announced that Southwest Airlines in the USA are going to be rolling out in-flight Wi-Fi.
Basically, it looks like Southwest is planning to start by installing the equipment on 15 planes per month and later increase that to 25 per month. In the end though, they are estimating that “by early 2012” they will have Wi-Fi on more than 540 planes.
As far as the service itself, that will be provided by Row44, however pricing is still being worked out. According to Dave Ridley, who is Southwest’s senior vice-president for marketing and revenue management;
“We’ll have a decision on price in the second quarter of 2010, rest assured that, just like our fares, it will be a great value. You can count on it!”
Sounds good, but there are plenty of people that think the fares are high, so we will have to wait and see what the public thinks about the Wi-Fi pricing. And until then, there are other airlines already offering in-flight Wi-Fi.
The Mobile World Congress will be held in Barcelona this year and just in a few days more: February the 15th. And it is almost confirmed that Windows Mobile 7 will be presented to the community, taking a good overview of the incoming features.
For the rumors that leaked already, seems that it will have important enhancements (regarding with interoperability mostly) and some other similarities with other mobile OS. Let’s take a quick look:
The UI will be quite similar that we’ve seen in Zune HD, with a few changes to be confirmed.
Full Zune and XBOX integration.
Full support with Facebook and other social networking mobile apps.
Windows Mobile Device Center: No more. All of the sync options will be replaced by Zune software.
No multi-task support. Here comes the first similarity with iPhone OS; the applications will be paused while working in background.
No Flash support. Hmmm… seems that I’ve seen this before.
Applications will not be available to install by a separate storage. The only possibility to install applications will be using the “MarketPlace”. No, no “AppStore”, the name is “MarketPlace”.
MarketPlace will have a very cool option: “Try before you buy”.
There will be no support for OEM Interfaces. That means Sense UI, SPB Mobile Shell, Point UI, Infinity, and many others will not be allowed.
Daytum is a web application that lets you set up any number of various displays tracking virtually anything you want, and presents it in a beautiful way.
Daytum is a great tool for goal tracking. For example, maybe you want to track how many minutes you run every day, or even track how many words you write on a daily basis.
The point is, anything you can think of can be tracked. Daytum includes the ability to create lists, charts, averages, time statistics, and even the latest, largest, or smallest entry.
At the past CES Slacker has mentioned that they were developing a webOS and had even shown demos to a few people. Well, in a little bit of good news for those sporting a webOS handset—that app is now available.
The app, which became available earlier today is currently listed as a beta, and is at version 0.9.4. Users can find and download the Slacker app in the official App Catalog.
As always, there are two listening options available, either listen for free and listen to an ad every so often, or upgrade to the Slacker Plus account which costs $3.99 a month (billed annually).
According to 4chan’s Twitter account and status update blog, they have been “explicitly blocked” by the Verizon wireless network.
It has been 
Daytum
At the past CES Slacker has 
