iSlate is an eBook reader by Apple, not a Tablet

From: http://www.quickpwn.com/

Many rumors of Apple launching an Apple tablet, which is believed to be a large tablet version of the iPhone/iPod touch have been spreading around. The latest rumor suggests that it will be called an iSlate. Our sources have told us that the rumor about Apple launching a product with the iSlate name is true, but the product won’t be an Apple tablet, it will be an eBook reader. The iSlate will be a competitor to the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and other e-readers that are out there. Our sources have also told us that the iSlate eBook reader will run on Apple’s upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 software and will include a seperate App Store for eBooks. Apple will be announcing the iSlate eBook reader at WWDC 2010, which our sources says is being held on June 7.

We’ve created an iSlate section in our forums at this link, feel free to join and talk about the iSlate.

High-Tech Glitter to Create Flexible Solar Panels

By Adam Hadhazy, Special to LiveScience

From: http://www.livescience.com

Tiny solar cells may be a big step forward in expanding the use of solar power. Credit: Murat Okandan/Sandia National Laboratories

Researchers have unveiled super-small solar cells no bigger than the pieces of glitter on your holiday ornaments and cards. These highly efficient photovoltaics could be game-changers in the burgeoning field of solar power, allowing arrays of microcells to be placed on bendable or curved surfaces and even woven into clothing.

Unlike the conventional, rigid solar cells deployed as flat panels on rooftops, for instance, the new miniscule cells could be encapsulated in flexible plastic and made to fit virtually any object.

"With this technology, one can envision ubiquitous [solar-powered] devices," said Greg Nielson, lead investigator at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

The prototype versions of the microcells are stored in vials of isopropyl alcohol, and, in keeping with the winter season, if you shake the vials "it does look like a snow globe with flakes swirling around inside," said Nielson, as the tiny, shiny contraptions catch the light.

How it works

Like most snowflakes, the microcells are six-sided to maximize available space by interlocking like honeycomb, or the panels on a soccer ball.

In the lab, these hexagonal microcells have achieved photovoltaic efficiencies of about 15 percent, denoting the percentage of light shone on them that is converted into harvestable electricity. High-end commercial-grade solar cells can reap about 20 percent currently, though Nielson thinks the microcells can more than match this.

The microcells, made of the crystalline silicon found in standard solar cells, have already demonstrated higher efficiencies than so-called thin film solar technologies presently being explored that use other, cheaper materials, such as cadmium telluride.

Instead of converting a whole wafer of silicon into a typical solar cell, the Sandia team's manufacturing method yields thousands of microcells on thin slices of the wafer, like when making a microchip for a computer.

This technique leaves plenty of raw material to produce more microcells and requires 100 times less silicon than for conventional, thicker solar cells, said Nielson. The microcells themselves range in size from 0.00098 to 0.039 inches (25 micrometers to one millimeter) across and from 0.00055 to 0.00079 (14 to 20 micrometers) thick. (For reference, a human hair is about 0.0028 inches (70 micrometers) in width.)

Although the microcell manufacturing process is complex, the material and photovoltaic efficiency of the microcells should still result in reduced costs compared to today's solar power, Nielson said.

"It's great and important that we reduce cost potential by going this way," Nelson told LiveScience, "but what's more exciting is what you can do with these cells that you can't with anything else."

Many possibilities

Making the microcells ultra-thin opens up many possibilities, the researchers say.

"You don't have large-area wafers that are rigid and don't bend," said Nelson. This means the microcells are conformable and can be tailor-fitted to objects from building facades to sloping car roofs, much like how smaller-sized tiles can be mortared to make a curved mosaic.

The tiny solar cells can also be embedded in plastic sheets. The resulting photovoltaic material might then be crafted into tents or store awnings, Nielson suggested.

People could also wear miniature solar cells woven into the fabric of their clothing to power personal electronic devices. High photovoltaic efficiency is very important in this case because the limited dimensions of the human body offer relatively little space to capture sunshine, said Nielson.

Homemade Luke SkyWalker Tauntaun Costume

crystalkiss.com — This guy must be big fan of Star Wars.

Click here for this incredible walkthrough D.I.Y.

Plastic Surgery: Dissecting Barbie Packaging

• WallStats.com
• http://www.mint.com/
  

If you spent most of your Christmas morning tearing and swearing as you tried to get the packages open, you may be wondering if all of this wasteful packaging is really necessary. Consider these facts about the role of packaging in our consumer economy. One third of our waste comes from packaging from the 430 billion dollar global packaging industry. That’s larger than the global auto manufacturing industry. So what can you, as an individual, do about it? Here is one look at the disposable stuff that comes with a famous 11.5 inch doll, herself an icon of American consumer culture.

10 mobile phones that defined the decade

Trend-defining mobiles that rang our bell in the noughties

By Phil Lattimore

From: http://www.techradar.com/

The Vertu: not a credit crunch handset

The last decade has been revolutionary for the mobile phone.

Not only has ownership rocketed, the cellular phone been transformed from a gadget for simply making and taking calls or texting into an astonishingly powerful hub for multimedia entertainment, internet surfing, social networking, GPS location-finding, camera snapping – plus lots more that there's an app for…

So what were the handsets that rocked us during the last decade and defined the noughties?

1. Nokia 7110 (1999/2000)

While we partied like it was 1999 and the clocks chimed in the Noughties, hip phone-slingers were slipping the spring-loaded slider and calling on the smartest handset in town – the WAP-packing Nokia 7110.

The first phone to deliver up the mobile internet, we surfed to see where to go next as the New Year kicked in…and waited….and waited…The internet in your pocket (well, sort of in a rubbishy, snail-slow way) had arrived.

2. Nokia 3310 (2000)

Many people's first mobile phone, like its 3210 predecessor the Nokia 3310 was one of the early mobile-boom smash hits.

Not only was it cheap and cheerful, it offered a smidgeon of style, with swappable customisable covers, an internal antenna, T9 predictive text messaging, downloadable ringtones and voice dialling. And there was Snake II, too. It was a doddle to operate, helping to cement loyalty to Nokia in many a phone buyer.

3. Vertu (from 2002)

The mobile phone as money-no-object noughties boom-time status symbol. Ultra-premium brand Vertu was established by Nokia to offer opulent crafted handsets in luxury materials to those with huge quantities of cash to splash.

No 'free with contract' deals with Vertu – handsets start at several thousand pounds each and go up to six figures. It's not that the phone features were that outstanding – although the personal concierge service was none too shabby… Despite the credit crunch, Vertu is still going strong.

4. Sony Ericsson W800i Walkman (2005)

While not the first phone to have an MP3 player onboard, Sony Ericsson shifted music playing on mobiles to prime-time by reworking the iconic Walkman brand into a music-centric handset package.

Equipped with a decent quality tune player, earphones and memory card, the W800i Walkman concept helped establish mobile phones as an everyday music player alternative.

5. Nokia 7650 (2002)

Remember when phones didn't have cameras built in? The Nokia 7650 was the decade's snap'n'send ground-breaker, with a VGA shooter tooled into the back of Nokia's debut Symbian Series 60 smartphone.

Nokia's high-end trend-setter may not have been a best-seller, but its instant-snapping legacy has redefined how we now use our phones (and embarrass our mates…).

6. Motorola RAZR V3 (2004)

Jaws clunked open and phone geeks visibly dribbled when Motorola first unveiled its RAZR – an ultra slim object of clamshell desire. It was a handset that pulsed 'must-have' from its gorgeous flat metallic keypad to its unfeasibly thin flip lid.

And then Motorola rode the design for all it was worth, pushing it from high-end aspirational boy-toy to mass-market standard-issue best-seller, with over 110m variants of the RAZR sold worldwide.

7. Nokia N95 (2007)

Reflecting the technological savvy and smartphone know-how of the world's number one phone maker, the N95 was a powerhouse of a multimedia device. Packing all the latest leading edge gadgetry and features – from top-grade camera and music player to GPS – it epitomised the assured pre-eminence of Nokia in the high-end arena. After all, who else was there to duke it out with…?

8. HTC Dream (a.k.a T-Mobile G1, first Android phone) (2008)

Out with the old, in with the new… As the decade comes to a close, the Android smartphone platform looks set to become the new game in town as far as smartphone makers are concerned.

The HTC Dream was the first (slightly ungainly) shape of things to come, but with more refined models like the HTC Hero arriving and momentum among other manufacturers growing, the Android OS could be the hot mobile ticket for the new decade.

9. Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry (2002)

From Wall Street two-way paging niche to worldwide messaging phenomenon, the RIM BlackBerry epitomised the always-connected mantra of the noughties, from boardroom to bedroom.

Devilishly addictive, the Qwerty keyboard-packing, push email-delivering BlackBerry phone not only boosted productivity, it also gave us a reason to keep checking our mobiles 24/7.

10. Apple iPhone (2007)

And there's one more thing… First released in June 2007, overnight Apple's iPhone single-handedly changed the game for mobile makers, putting sheer intuitive usability and a great user experience top of the agenda.

Sure, the first version lacked some phone feature standards, but the iPhone subsequently set the pace for rivals, making touchscreens essential gadgetry, reinventing the way smartphones are expected to work (ie: easily) and raised the bar for phone apps.

All About The Times Square New Year's Eve Ball

Each year, millions of eyes from all over the world are focused on the sparkling Waterford Crystal Times Square New Year's Eve Ball. At 11:59 p.m., the Ball begins its descent as millions of voices unite to count down the final seconds of the year, and celebrate the beginning of a new year full of hopes, challenges, changes and dreams.

New Video: Making the New Year's Eve Ball

For 2010 Waterford Crystal has designed a new sparkling "Let There Be Courage" triangle. The crystals feature a unique interlocking ribbon pattern woven into the Celtic knot. The triangles, each about 3/8" thick and 6.8 ounces in weight are custom made and built to exacting standards to withstand the stresses of high winds, precipitation and temperature fluctuation that exist over 400 feet above Times Square. 288 are being installed alongside crystal installed in previous years. Waterford has also released a New Year's Eve iPhone app called "Clink-Clink"! More >>

The "New" New Year's Eve Ball

On November 11th, 2008, The co-organizers of New Year’s Eve in Times Square (Times Square Alliance, Countdown Entertainment) unveiled a new Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball at a press conference at Hudson Scenic Studio in Yonkers, New York.

The new Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball is a 12 foot geodesic sphere, double the size of previous Balls, and weighs 11,875 pounds. Covered in 2,668 Waterford Crystals and powered by 32,256 Philips Luxeon Rebel LEDS, the new Ball is capable of creating a palette of more than 16 million vibrant colors and billions of patterns producing a spectacular kaleidoscope effect atop One Times Square.

The organizers also announced that the new Ball will become a year-round attraction above Times Square in full public view January through December.

“For one hundred years, the Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball has attracted millions of revelers to Times Square on December 31st to celebrate the beginning of the New Year” said Jeff Straus, president of Countdown Entertainment and co-organizer of Times Square New Year’s Eve. “The new Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball will be a bright sparkling jewel atop One Times Square entertaining New Yorkers and tourists from around the world not only on December 31, but throughout the year.”

“The New Year’s Eve ball is bigger, better and brighter than ever, just like Times Square itself,” said Times Square Alliance President Tim Tompkins. “And like Times Square, it’s not afraid to show off. That’s why we’re proudly putting it on display year-round so visitors to the neighborhood can enjoy a true Crossroads of the World icon.”

WATERFORD CRYSTAL created an exclusive “Let There Be Joy” design for the crystal triangles on the new Ball. Designed and crafted by Waterford artisans in Ireland, “Let There Be Joy” features the design of an angel with arms uplifted welcoming the New Year on each of the 1,728 new crystals. The remaining 960 triangles are last year’s “Let There Be Light” design of a stylized radiating starburst.

"The new 2009 Times Square New Year's Ball represents the perfect blend of time-honored craftsmanship and state of the art technology," says Pete Cheyney, Director of Corporate Communications for Waterford Crystal. "The theme for the Waterford crystals on this year's Ball, "Let There be Joy" reflects our belief that New Year's Eve is a time when happiness and optimism for the future should be at the forefront of everyone's thoughts. We at Waterford consider the Ball to be of our Company's greatest achievements."

PHILIPS LIGHTING provided the new solid state lighting technology for the Ball, resulting in an astounding increase in impact, energy efficiency, and color capabilities. Capable of creating a palette of more than 16 million colors and billions of possible patterns, the 32,256 Philips Luxeon LEDs in this year's Ball represent more than three times the number of LEDS used last year, to deliver a brighter and more beautiful New Year's experience than ever before. And this year’s Ball is 10-20% more energy efficient than last year’s already energy-efficient Ball, consuming only the same amount of energy per hour as it would take to operate two traditional home ovens.

"At Philips Lighting, we are proud to be driving innovative and energy-efficient solutions for the world's broad range of lighting applications - from celebrated landmarks to consumers' homes -- and we're especially delighted to be the official Lighting Partner to the iconic New Year's Eve Ball in Times Square," said Philips Lighting Company Director of Corporate Communications Susan Bloom. "Now bigger in size and incorporating even more powerful and energy-efficient Philips Luxeon LEDs than last year, this year's Ball will deliver a New Year's Eve experience that will be brighter, more beautiful, and more sustainable than ever before."

FOCUS LIGHTING created a spectacular and unique lighting design that utilizes over 3,500 lighting cues to orchestrate the colorful moving patterns of light radiating from the Ball. Theatrical techniques were used to show the beauty of each facet of each individual crystal, making the sparkle visible whether viewed from 5’ away (as members of the press have seen it) or from 500’ when viewed from the streets of Times Square. It is like accenting a performer on a stage.

“We tried to create a beacon of light in the sky over Times Square,” says Paul Gregory, Principal Lighting Designer for Focus Lighting.

The companies listed below also provided essential contributions to the development of the new Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball:

E:Cue Lighting Control provided lighting control system

Hudson Scenic Studio provided structural engineering design and development

Landmark Signs assembles and operates the Ball

Lapp Group provided power and control cabling

Lighting Science Group provided the 672 LED modules and technology integration

History of the Times Square New Year's Eve Ball

Revelers began celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square as early as 1904, but it was in 1907 that the New Year's Eve Ball made its maiden descent from the flagpole atop One Times Square.

The first New Year's Eve Ball, made of iron and wood and adorned with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs, was 5 feet in diameter and weighed 700 pounds. It was built by a young immigrant metalworker named Jacob Starr, and for most of the twentieth century the company he founded, sign maker Artkraft Strauss, was responsible for lowering the ball.

As part of the 1907-1908 festivities, waiters in the fabled "lobster palaces" and other deluxe eateries in hotels surrounding Times Square were supplied with battery-powered top hats emblazoned with the numbers "1908" fashioned of tiny light bulbs. At the stroke of midnight, they all "flipped their lids" and the year on their foreheads lit up in conjunction with the numbers "1908" on the parapet of the Times Tower lighting up to signal the arrival of the new year.

The Ball has been lowered every year since 1907, with the exceptions of 1942 and 1943, when the ceremony was suspended due to the wartime "dimout" of lights in New York City. Nevertheless, the crowds still gathered in Times Square in those years and greeted the New Year with a minute of silence followed by the ringing of chimes from sound trucks parked at the base of the tower - a harkening-back to the earlier celebrations at Trinity Church, where crowds would gather to "ring out the old, ring in the new."

(Above) New Year's Eve Ball, 1978. Photo credit: The New York Times.

In 1920, a 400 pound ball made entirely of wrought iron replaced the original. In 1955, the iron ball was replaced with an aluminum ball weighing a mere 200 pounds. This aluminum Ball remained unchanged until the 1980s, when red light bulbs and the addition of a green stem converted the Ball into an apple for the "I Love New York" marketing campaign from 1981 until 1988. After seven years, the traditional glowing white Ball with white light bulbs and without the green stem returned to brightly light the sky above Times Square. In 1995, the Ball was upgraded with aluminum skin, rhinestones, strobes, and computer controls, but the aluminum ball was lowered for the last time in 1998.

For Times Square 2000, the millennium celebration at the Crossroads of the World, the New Year's Eve Ball was completely redesigned by Waterford Crystal. The new crystal Ball combined the latest in technology with the most traditional of materials, reminding us of our past as we gazed into the future and the beginning of a new millenium.

About "Time-Balls"

The actual notion of a ball "dropping" to signal the passage of time dates back long before New Year's Eve was ever celebrated in Times Square. The first "time-ball" was installed atop England's Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1833. This ball would drop at one o'clock every afternoon, allowing the captains of nearby ships to precisely set their chronometers (a vital navigational instrument).

Around 150 public time-balls are believed to have been installed around the world after the success at Greenwich, though few survive and still work. The tradition is carried on today in places like the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, where a time-ball descends from a flagpole at noon each day - and of course, once a year in Times Square, where it marks the stroke of midnight not for a few ships' captains, but for over one billion people watching worldwide.

The Times Square New Year's Eve Ball 2000-2007

The 2000-2007 version of the Times Square New Year's Eve Ball, designed by Waterford Crystal, made its first descent during the last minute of the 20th century, at the Times Square 2000 Celebration.

The Ball was a geodesic sphere, six feet in diameter, and weighed approximately 1,070 pounds. It was covered with a total of 504 Waterford crystal triangles that varied in size and ranged in length from 4.75 inches to 5.75 inches per side.

For the 2007 New Year's Eve celebration, 72 of the crystal triangles featured the new "Hope for Peace" design, consisting of three dove-like patterns symbolizing messengers of peace. The remaining 432 triangles featured Waterford designs from previous years, including the Hope for Fellowship, Hope for Wisdom, Hope for Unity, Hope for Courage, Hope for Healing, Hope for Abundance, and Star of Hope triangles. These crystal triangles were bolted to 168 translucent triangular lexan panels which were attached to the aluminum frame of the Ball. The exterior of the Ball was illuminated by 168 Philips Halogená Brilliant Crystal light bulbs, exclusively engineered for the New Year's Eve Ball to enhance the Waterford crystal. The interior of the Ball was illuminated by 432 Philips Light Bulbs (208 clear, 56 red, 56 blue, 56 green, and 56 yellow), and 96 high-intensity strobe lights, which together create bright bubbling bursts of color. The exterior of the Ball featured 90 rotating pyramid mirrors that reflect light back into the audience at Times Square.

All 696 lights and 90 rotating pyramid mirrors were computer controlled, enabling the Ball to produce a state-of-the-art light show of eye-dazzling color patterns and a spectacular kaleidoscope effect atop One Times Square. The now-retired 2000-2007 New Year's Eve Ball is the property of the building owners of One Times Square.

China launches world's fastest train

China has launched what it claims to be the world's fastest train that can travel more than 390 kilometres per hour.

China launches world's fastest train Play video

It embarked on its maiden 621 mile journey from the central city of Wuhan to the southern city of Guangzhou.

Traveling at an average speed of 218 miles-an-hour, it can travel up to 245 miles-an-hour, cutting the journey time from the original 9 hours to about 3 hours, the state media said.

The Wuhan-Guangzhou railway is the fastest and longest high-speed railway in China, costing 100 billion yuan ($14.6 billion USA). It has taken four years of construction to complete it, China's official news agency Xinhua has said.

‘Pot Town, USA’: We gotta make a living, man

By Peter Hecht, McClatchy Newspapers

McClatchy photos

Cultivation Director Kevin Jodrey inspects marijuana plants at the Humbolt Patient Resource Center in Arcata, Calif., Dec. 1.

Marijuana products on sale at The Humbolt Cooperative in Arcata.

ARCATA, Calif. — Stephen Gasparas was destined for this fog-chilled, redwood-shrouded coast — America’s most renowned region for legal cultivation of marijuana.

He started growing skunky-smelling pot as a young man, in the closet of his mother’s suburban Chicago home. Later he visited cannabis fields in India. Ultimately, he shared spiritual puffs at a gathering of the famous moveable commune, the Rainbow Family, where a grizzled hippie told him Humboldt “is the place you ought to be.”

Today, Gasparas, 39, is a medical marijuana entrepreneur operating legally in Humboldt County. He has moved from cultivating pot for personal use to heading a cannabis growing and buying collective he says has served 4,000 medical marijuana users.

Humboldt County — and in particular the college town of Arcata — has become an epicenter for political and legal debate over the unintended consequences of Proposition 215, California’s “Compassionate Use Act” for marijuana.

Since passage of the act in 1996, medical marijuana users have streamed into this county, a liberal and libertarian bastion that decades ago began attracting pot growers.

Their now-legitimate business — aided, legal experts say, by Proposition 215’s vagueness on personal pot-use limits — has turned a so-called crop of compassion into a lucrative industry.

With the most wide-open cultivation policy in California, Humboldt County allows individual growers of medical marijuana three annual indoor harvests of 100 square feet, 99 plants and up to 3 pounds of dried marijuana at any one time.

In 2003, the state Legislature approved restrictions that limited medical marijuana users to six mature or 12 immature plants and 8 ounces of pot at one time. But the law allowed local governments to approve looser limits.

So in Humboldt, medical pot users converted small town houses into growing factories — and bountiful earnings from sales to patient collectives and pot dispensaries across California.

In a North Coast “Kush” rush, local outfitters such as Humboldt Hydroponics in Arcata stack shelves with growing trays, high-intensity lights and plant nutrients called “Big Bud,” “Bud Candy” and “Voodoo Juice.”

Pot production — from nurseries that provide irrigation and growing supplies to dispensaries that generate sales tax — is a mainstay of the local economy.

“I would say that in 99 percent of cases, people growing medical marijuana are growing it for profit,” said Humboldt Sheriff’s Sgt. Wayne Hanson, who specializes in narcotics enforcement.

“It is the source of income for the county of Humboldt. Nobody wants to say that,” he added. “But there is no logging here anymore. Fishing is sporadic. And people make their living growing marijuana.”

Under California law, anyone with a doctor’s recommendation for medical marijuana can join a patient cooperative and get compensated for providing the network with pot for its members.

But few envisioned the burgeoning industry that has taken root in Humboldt, where medical marijuana users are marketing their excess plants to cannabis cooperatives and dispensaries hundreds of miles away.

“Many growers are exploiting vagueness in the medical marijuana laws and will continue to do so until the law is clarified,” said state Deputy Attorney General Peter Krause.

State law permits nonprofit cooperatives, such as the Humboldt Patient Resource Center in Arcata, to grow medicine for members.

In a fragrant room where he tends plants for hundreds of patients, gardener Kevin Jodrey shows off pot “cultivars” like a winemaker touting prize-winning varietals.

Hazy laws

California’s cultivation laws are hazier when it comes to some of the other medical marijuana operations sprouting in Humboldt. Authorities and growers alike report instances in which as many as a half-dozen medical marijuana users join together to grow hundreds of plants in a single home. They dry and package exotic marijuana strains they sell directly to multiple dispensaries and networks in Los Angeles and other major California cities.

Krause said state law is unclear whether “collectives in urban areas can have remote members in distant counties whose only job is to grow the medicine.”

Besides legal growing, Sgt. Hanson said, Humboldt authorities confront illegal operations, including grow houses that vastly exceed plant limits and have little to do with medical use. He said local growers are also victimized in pot-seeking home invasions.

Even in Humboldt County, marijuana tolerance has its limits. The city of Arcata got fed up with stench-filled pot houses disrupting neighborhoods and creating fire risks with 1,000-watt grow lamps and dangerous wiring.

Last year, it restricted medical pot growers to 50 square feet of growing space — still more than most everywhere else in California — and set limits on electricity use. The county is considering a similar policy.

Randy Mendosa, Arcata’s police chief and acting city manager, said the town is sick of its notoriety. America’s Arts & Entertainment network recently dubbed Arcata “Pot Town, USA,” and its cannabis culture drew coverage from the Sunday Telegraph in London.

“We have been over-saturated with this,” Mendosa said. “It’s becoming damaging to the community. We just don’t want to be the national ‘spokescity’ for marijuana.”

Even Gasparas was shocked by the pot prevalence when he came to Humboldt in 2004.

“I didn’t know there was a waterfall of weed,” he said.

Gasparas’ iCenter medical marijuana collective now operates dispensaries in the Humboldt County towns of Arcata and Mill Creek, as well as Redding in Shasta County. He says the nonprofit network pays him a “compassionate” salary of over $100,000 a year.

In Arcata, The Humboldt Cooperative — a nonprofit known locally as “THC,” the medicinal compound in cannabis — pays $3,200 a pound to its network of up to 150 medical pot growers.

“We’re a paradox. We’re a legal business in an illegal world,” said THC director Dennis “Tony” Turner, whose cooperative has provided pot to 8,500 California patients since its inception in 2003.

Turner figures the collective pays its growers between $35 and $60 an hour, depending on whether they are “journeyman-level” cultivators or supervising floricultural technicians who ensure that the medicine flowers without toxic materials or pesticides.

“Not everyone can grow medical weed,” Turner said.

But the pot-grower market may be expanding soon. Last year, a state appellate court threw out restrictive plant limits for pot patients that are standard in most California counties. If the state Supreme Court upholds the ruling in a decision due in February, Humboldt-style medical cannabis harvests could become more common elsewhere.

Humboldt medical growers watch anxiously as signature gatherers circulate petitions for four 2010 ballot measures seeking to legalize marijuana for all adults.

Gasparas fears legalization could replace Humboldt’s medical growers with big agribusiness and low-grade “factory bud” that diminishes the “spiritual experience.”

But Turner is setting up a computerized “virtual grow room” to organize his Humboldt cultivators to compete in a fully legal pot market.

“The people who do this legally are good people,” he said. “We don’t want to be outlaws. We want to be survivors. ... We want to avoid seeing our local economy go into the toilet.”

The Complete Guide to Setting Up Your New Xmas Smartphone

The moment you unpackage a new smartphone is a magical one. Don't let the moment right after that, when you realize that it's practically useless out of the box, cancel that out. Here's everything you need to know:

What You Need to Buy

There are plenty of smartphone accessories that are worth considering, and a few that you actually need. Proceed with caution, but don't be afraid to treat your new smartphone, and yourself, to a few goodies.

A Case: They look goofy, Jason hates them, and they screw with your device's carefully designed curves. But here's the thing: smartphones are fragile. They aren't like dumbphones, and a single fall—especially with devices with a glass screen—can poop all over your new smartphone party. Until you're trained, play it safe. Wrap your unit. Case brand isn't important, so just take your pick from your local Best Buy or wherever. Just make sure your device's corners are covered, because it's edge impacts that break the most glass. Just remember, you're stuck in a multi-thousand dollar contract with this device, which itself would costs hundreds of dollars to replace. It's actually kind of terrifying! Pretend it's a baby, if that helps.

Headphones: Your smartphone is now your primary media player, too, so you're going to need to ditch the headphones or headset it came with. Yes, they all suck; no, your phone's aren't the one exception. If you don't care about a microphone, treat yourself to a decent pair of in-ear headphones. If you do, get a midrange wired headset.

Storage: Phones either come with internal storage, like the Pre or the iPhone, or taunt you with "expandable" storage, which pretty much means they've got an empty microSD slot. If your phone comes with less than 2GB of space and has said slot, you need to fill it. Buying a microSD card is a little different than buying a regular SD card, because speed doesn't really matter, and nothing you're using your phone demands particularly high transfer speeds. This is a place to store your music, photos and videos—that's it. Buy these online, where branded 8GB cards regularly dip below $20—in stores, you'll pay much, much more. Also, don't worry too much about getting a full-sized SD adapters, as pictured above. Most phones will allow you to mount your smartphone's microSD card as mass storage when they're plugged into a computer, so removal is rarely necessary.

Cables: Pick up a spare charging cable for your phone. For most smartphones this is a simple mini/microUSB cable, while for iPhones it's an iPod dock connector. Why worry about the spare? Think of it this way: if you lose your only iPod cable, you can't listen to music until you buy another one. If you lose your only iPhone cable, you're out of touch with the rest of the world in a matter of hours.

What You Don't

Of course, the temptation of new accessories is great, and there are legions of companies waiting to seize on your post-transactional bliss. When buying smartphone accessories, proceed with caution.

A dock: Again, people have a tendency to confuse their PMPs with their phones, which may look and act similar, but are used in a completely different way. Unless you want to dock your smartphone near your bed to use as an alarm, it's going to be charging—and syncing—with your computer whenever it's not in your pocket. An impulse-purchased dock will, in all likelihood, live a lonely life. Don't let this sad thing happen!

A branded navigation mount: These are almost always overpriced, and all they really do is hold your phone in your line of sight. Just buy a dirt-cheap windshield or dash mount, buy a 12v DC converter to plug your USB charging cable into, and you've got all the functionality you need for about $20.

Cleaning Kits: Cleaning your smartphone isn't hard, and it shouldn't cost you much at all. Just follow our instructions, and avoid any smartphone-specific cleaning kits. They're a guaranteed waste.

Bluetooth anything: Bluetooth headsets can make anyone look like a dweebish soccer dad, and while they might make chatting on the phone while driving more legal, they don't really make it much safer. Just hold your phone like a normal human, put it on speakerphone, or take the call later. You should avoid Bluetooth headphones too, but for a different reason: they suck. They sound terrible, they'll drain your phone's battery and they're overpriced. If you have to buy a pair, spend as little as possible.

Getting Started

If your smartphone is a newborn, this is where we teach it to walk.

Contacts: Somehow, in over two decades of cellphone development, we haven't settled on a simple way to transfer contacts from one phone to another. Here's how you should proceed through this somehow-still-painful process:
• Get your carrier to do it. If you're upgrading handsets on one carrier, they should be able to transfer your contacts, and probably for free. If you're switching carriers, there may be a small fee. Don't spend more than five bucks.
• Use your SIM. Are you on AT&T or T-Mobile? Is your smartphone on the same carrier as your old dumbphone? Most phones will have an option to write all contacts to a SIM card, which is the little chip that your phone uses to identify itself on a cell network. Do this, pop your old card out, pop it into your new smartphone, and transfer all your contacts from the old SIM onto your new phone's memory. Sadly, this won't work with Verizon or Sprint phones, which are CDMA-based, and therefore don't have SIM cards at all.
• Google Sync. Through a protocol called SyncML, Google Sync supports quite a few features phones, and can pull all your contacts into your Google account. Your new smartphone can then yank them back down from the cloud. Bonus: they're now backed up to Google server's, too.

Email: Email, you'll find, is one of the best things about owning a smartphone. Setting up your email varies from smartphone to smartphone (iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, Windows Mobile) and service to service (Exchange and Gmail setups will be completely different, obvious) but there are few rules of thumb to keep in mind during account setup. For example, use IMAP (versus POP) whenever you can—this will keep your messages and their read/unread statuses in sync with your desktop clients. And since most of your email downloading will be happening over 3G, set the individual message size limit at or below about 10kb. This will ensure your messages come in quickly, but also that you have something to read once they arrive.

Calendars: If you keep a Google Calendar, having it sync with your smartphone is a revelation. Android phones will automatically sync with your default Google account's calendars, as will the Pre, while the iPhone will need to be configured with CalDav. If you don't keep a calendar, your new smartphone is a good excuse to start.

Media and Syncing: Most smartphones rely on some kind of desktop software to transfer personal info, music, video and photos to and from the handset. For the iPhone, this basically means downloading iTunes—which you have to do anyway. For BlackBerry, this means downloading BlackBerry Desktop Manager. Windows Mobile phones are best served by Windows Device Center, while Android and Palm phones—and optionally Windows Phones, iPhones and BlackBerrys—play nice with doubleTwist, a cross-platform music player/media syncing app.

Converting Video: You can't just copy your torrented videos or home movies over to your smartphone; you need to downsample those videos, stat. Just download Handbrake for this—it's basically magic, and it works on Windows, OS X and Linux. These instructions are iPhone-centric, but videos converted to 320x240 h.264 will be suitable for most new smartphones.

Apps! Apps! Apps! Apps!

Without apps, smartphones are nothing. With apps, they're practically anything. Every smartphone platform has an app storefront now, from Apple's pioneering App Store to BlackBerry's App World to the Android Market, and they're all, to different extents, treasure troves.

iPhone: First stop, Gizmodo's Essential iPhone Apps Directory. These are the best of the best, and everything you need to make your iPhone into a mobile powerhouse. If you're averse to spending money on your new iPhone—this thing wasn't cheap, after all—check out our Essential Free Apps. We do regular posts and weekly roundups around here too, so just keep an eye out.

Android: It's got the second best app selection, which is to say there's some really great stuff out there. Our Essential Android Apps roundup cuts through the noise of the App Market, while our monthly roundups keep you up to date with the latest additions to the store.

BlackBerry: We cover the biggest new additions to App World, but it's best to defer to a specialist site like CrackBerry for this one—they have their own app store too, which isn't really much better or worse than BlackBerry's janky official shop.

Palm: We've just pulled one of our patented "Essential" roundups fresh out of the oven, so consult that first. Beyond that, PreCentral's official app reviews are fairly fantastic. Also worth checking out is their extensive homebrew app gallery, which has about as many decent apps in it as the official Catalog.

Windows Mobile: App development for WinMo isn't exactly picking up nowadays but there's a tremendous backlog of useful reviews and materials at WMPowerUser, WMExperts, XDA and MoDaCo. And yeah, we occasionally still do Windows Mobile app roundups, though until things get exciting again, expect less, not more.

Living Happily Ever After

Lastly, a few odds and ends to make sure your metal'n'plastic darling lives a happy life, at least before the end of its two-year contract.

How to back up your smartphone: Your smartphone probably contains as much personal data as your computer, and it's subjected to way more physical risk. Preempt the pain. Back it up.

How to keep you smartphone clean: These little machines are fantastic at collecting fingerprints, dust and grime. Wipe them off every once in a while.

Any other tips for new smartphone owners? Chuck them down in the comments. Happy Holidays!

Send an email to John Herrman, the author of this post, at jherrman@gizmodo.com.

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Marijuana Potency Testing Business Thrives In Colorado

By Steve Elliott

Photo: Westword

Full Spectrum Laboratories: Finally, a more detailed analysis of marijuana than, "That's good shit, man!"

​One of the biggest question marks with the medical marijuana industry is the lack of quality control. As Joel Warner points out at Westword, it's difficult to know just how potent herbal medicines and edibles are until you use them.

Full Spectrum Laboratories to the rescue. The four-month-old Denver company is making a business of analyzing medical marijuana samples.

Dispensaries are delivering small samples (about 500 milligrams) of the pot they're getting from growers to Full Spectrum, which uses high-performance liquid chromatography to determine their potency. The tests reveal amounts of THC and other cannabinoids, the active ingredients of cannabis.

The service costs $120 per test, or $60 per test for 40 or more samples.

"Dispensaries are getting all this really cool stuff, but it turns out 80 percent of the edibles aren't being made properly, so it's not as active as it could be," said Bob Winnicki, Full Spectrum's 35-year-old co-owner.

Winnicki said the only other company he knows of running tests similar to Full Spectrum's is Harborside Health Center in California.

The company has been receiving more than 100 samples a week, and is already considering new ventures such as a certification process for marijuana growers.