Police and press wise up to crime clips on YouTube

We've just witnessed a potentially disturbing marriage of basic street crime and the instant worldwide audience provided by video sharing and social networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace.

Criminals have often recorded their exploits for fun, but the ease of online sharing means that almost everyone can now witness assorted muggings, fights, and robberies from the safety of a laptop screen. At the same time, crimes posted to the Web get instant attention from law enforcement and the press, essentially acting as online wanted posters for the perpetrators. A perfect example is a recent subway attack video first discovered on YouTube on November 7, and since covered by the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Court TV's The Smoking Gun Web site, and other media outlets.



The video, allegedly shot by a New York film student named Kadejra Holmes, shows a group of teenage girls riding New York's A train, arguing with, and eventually attacking, a male passenger. After the incident, Kadejra posted the video on YouTube, naming the clip Jump up to get beat down, after an old Brand Nubians track called Punks jump up to get beat down.

Holmes was soon contacted by The Smoking Gun, and after she denied being part of the group, claiming to be just an innocent bystander with a video camera, she deleted the video from YouTube and took down her MySpace page. But, nothing that's been posted online is ever really gone, and popular blogs
Read more »

Some speakers are still firing on all cylinders

For a while there we thought the trend of portable cylindrical speakers, which seemed so hot at times this year, had been snuffed out by more beastly competitors. But apparently they're alive and well, as evidenced by this set--they've just been broken in two.

Depending on how much space you have, this compact set can either be kept intact in one piece or separated for wider stereo angles for any device with a 3.5mm jack. What we like most, however, is that it seems perfect for travel: The pieces have a scratch-resistant rubber (and dirt-hiding) black rubber shell, and at a combined length of 5 inches they can be stowed just about anywhere. And they sure beat a pair of ugly tin cans.

Via Crave CNET

The transistor turns 60

Sixty years ago, on December 16, scientists at Bell Labs--William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain--built the world's first transistor and nothing has been the same since. We'll be covering the anniversary in subsequent articles, but here's a smattering of some of the implications, in somewhat chronological order, of the event:

1. The dawn of electronics. Vacuum tubes consumed lots of power and were fragile. ENIAC, one of the world's first computers, weighed 28 tons, consumed 170,000 watts of power and required several operators. It conducted 5,000 operations a second. Since the 1930s, Bell Labs had been looking to replace tubes with an electronic switch.

2. The birth of the insane boss. Technically speaking, Bardeen and Brattain invented the first transistor, a point-contact transistor. Shockley, who had been researching the problem for years, came up with the junction transistor, which became the basis of commercial transistors. Brilliant, imperious, and arrogant, Shockley ended up getting most of the credit. (Another Bell Labs employee, John Pierce, came up with the name.)

3. Silicon Valley.
Read more »

Get AIM (or ICQ) in your Gmail

Instant messaging (IM) in Gmail has been around for a while. You find it along the left side of the screen after logging in to Google's email service. All this time, this is limited to using the Google Talk service and so only lets you communicate with friends who are also using Gmail. Well, today's good news is the Gmail team has integrated AIM into this chat box, too.

AIM, you say? Yes, it isn't the most popular messaging service around this part of the world, but it does own ICQ, one of the pioneers in this space which was once very popular in Asia. If you are one of those still using ICQ, you can log in using your Gmail browser window. Just key in your ICQ login details when it asks for your AIM login, and voila, your long list of contacts will appear.

So how is this useful? Well, if your company blocks you from using IM clients on your computer, this will circumvent that. Chat with your friends while all this time, your autocratic IT admin thinks you are just checking your email. The only problem we foresee is that most of your friends probably ditched ICQ for Windows Live Messenger already. Well, you can make new AIM friends then, as there are millions of them in the US.

The Official Gmail Blog (via Notcot)

Sony VAIO VGX-TP1G hits retail stores

After ripping one apart for our reader's viewing pleasure, the home entertainment desktop from Sony is now available to Singaporean consumers.

It is possibly the first small form-factor desktop to use a round chassis, which entailed cutting the mainboard to fit into the unique casing. Like the iMac, the VGX-TP1G is based on a notebook chipset but has the distinction of using a faster desktop harddisk for its larger storage capacity. When we peeked at its innards, it became apparent to us the lengths at which Sony had undergone to ensure that the spinning of the hard drive platter would be whisper quiet.

While the design is certainly appealing, and we can forgive the notebook chipset for its power-saving features, what we do not like is that this VAIO is based on yesterday's Intel 945GM technology. The latest Santa Rosa chipset comes with the Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics platform, which is certainly head and shoulders above the older Intel GMA 950 used in the VGX-TP1G. This unit is now available in Singapore for S$2,199 (US$1,616.91) inclusive of taxes.

Crave is...

The name says it all. Crave is our new blog about cool gadgets and other crushworthy stuff.

Drop us an email if you have tips or suggestions.

Crave for...

» Mobile Phones (840)

» Digital Cameras (460)

» Notebooks (556)

» PC & Peripherals (608)

» Handhelds (287)

» Printers (46)

» Home AV (561)

» Music & Play (465)

» Gadgets (1059)

» Future Tech (187)

Previously...

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

Subscribe to
Crave

Today on CNET |  Reviews |  Crave |  Blogs |  CNET TV |  Digital Living |  Downloads