At the South by Southwest Interactive festival, a Ford systems engineer opines on what consumers may be able to expect in terms of hardware/software platforms in their cars five years from now.

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At SXSWi, two band members tell CNET that Chatroulette is a natural home for Devo and note that the Net is a lot cheaper than TV for promoting a big project.

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Devo’s presentation at SXSWi was a no-doubt-about it business pitch, yet it was so silly that people were nearly falling out of their seats.

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No question Twitter is still huge here, but Foursquare and Gowalla have to be considered a major part of people’s organizing principle.

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Designed to help SXSW attendees exchange profiles with a smartphone scan, the system was seen by many as requiring too many steps. However, it is likely a good first step toward something strong next year.

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It may not mean anything, but a check reveals that the account ID associated with Twitter’s newly announced platform was registered more than two years ago.

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One of the most anticipated talks at SXSWi failed to deliver on that energy. After the @Anywhere news was announced, the audience left in droves.

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The “IMAX: Hubble 3D” film–a feast for the eyes–details the risks and rewards of keeping the Hubble Space Telescope functional.

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At Digg’s packed South by Southwest party Saturday night, CEO Jay Adelson surprised the audience by announcing a revamped version of the service with a big slate of new features.

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At about 8 p.m. central time Saturday night, the word spread on Twitter like wildfire that Conan O’Brien was joining Internet TV network Revision3. But it was actually a hoax that hundreds participated in.

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Recent PR debacles surrounding Google Buzz and Facebook’s privacy settings have put the spotlight on basic misunderstandings by tech companies about how people use social media.

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After last year’s network meltdown at the hands of thousands of iPhone-toting geeks at the interactive confab in Austin, Texas, AT&T promised it would do better. People were skeptical, but they’ve been won over.

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We might never know if a Twitter feed purporting to be by a woman left behind on her anniversary weekend by her SXSW-bound husband is real. But it’s very funny stuff.

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Maybe it’s a sign of SXSW excess or perhaps it’s a prank, but RSVP While You Sleep is advertising a $37 service that tasks overseas virtual assistants with responding to your party invites.

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At GDC 2010, InstantAction follows rival OnLive in announcing a service that lets gamers quickly rent or buy console games over the Internet.

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The PlayStation maker gives those gathered at a press conference during the Game Developers Conference a sneak peek at its motion-sensitive controller.

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The company said it will launch with partners like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and THQ, and will begin unveiling its games lineup before E3. But will it work?

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When simple games like Farmville snag 83 million users, designers who are used to working for years on a project have little choice but to embrace the era of Facebook titles.

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It’s nearly impossible to keep from finding out what happens at live events like the Academy Awards, the Olympics or the Super Bowl if you’re a Twitter or Facebook user.

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For the first time, the leading game development conference will feature a summit devoted entirely to topics about iPhone games. But GDC is also changing in other important ways.

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For industrial designer Scott Summit, the ability to make perfectly fitted, custom prosthetics is a major goal. But 3D printing is also changing the industry for one-off lamps, shoes and more.

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Previously, members of the popular gaming service were prohibited for making references to sexual orientation, race, or religion. Now, a new policy will allow them to express their identities.

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According this story at Gizmodo, as well as writeups at ARS Technica, it looks like Microsoft is going to hit the market with Verizon on a new mobile phone called the Pink. I have to say that Microsoft isn’t exactly great on names, adding Pink to Zune in their list of 4 letter forgettable.

While some suggest that it is a windows 7 mobile phone, the interface apparently does not look like Win7. The phone in the example is a turtle style slider phone, with a nice looking keyboard, and the phone seems to be aiming at the social networking / texting market, which is pretty hot at this point.

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The Silicon Valley institution’s executive program students got a vision of an Internet that can predict what we want and act on it on our behalf from a noted futurist Wednesday.

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One of the interesting subtexts of the “FREE!” revolution is in order for musicians, artists, whoever to make a living, income still has to be generated. Since musicians are no longer suppose to sell their music on shiny plastic discs, and because of infinite distribution, the question comes up: How does a musician make money?

The answer, according to the Cynical Musician, is to find the Big Dope.

Who is the Big Dope? Well, the Big Dope is the one person out of a hundred (or thousand, or million) that is willing to pay you significantly more for something than it is really worth, because they are a “fan”. You know, they pay $90 for a band hoodie at a concert, even though it’s a $20 hoodie you could get at Wal-Mart with $1 worth of silk screening on it. They are the dope, because by paying for this hoodie, they have helped to pay for probably 200 people to enjoy free music.

The prices of concert tickets are on the rise as well. “FREE!” supporters like Mike Masnick at Techdirt will tell you it’s a good thing that artists are making more direct money, and that the increase in spending on live shows is a good thing that makes money for all artists. However, people rarely look at the increasing concert ticket prices, which see top acts often selling tickets in the hundreds of dollars for a 2 hour (or less!) show. In the UK, even acts like Bon Jovi are trying to push tickets at nearly $500us a seat. There is no indication that more people are attending live events, and every indication that people are just having to pay more for the same events. Key in this is that lower end artists (without the big followings) aren’t going to see any more of the money, because it is going to the top few percentage artists who are able to dramatically overcharge for their tickets, merchandise, etc.

Just as importantly, in the UK and Swedish studies, it has been shown that consumer spending on music has been flat for a number of years. The dollars gained in live music ticket sales is money lost on recorded music sales. What that means is that while music consumption is at an all time high, the income from selling music is dropping rather than rising. Everyone paying for the live music is in effect giving a subvention to those who choose to download music for free.

As the Cynical Musician points out, it’s the “anyone but me” syndrome. People don’t care who is paying, as long as it isn’t them. Everyone else is paying, but the actual music consumer isn’t.

Don’t be the big dope. Don’t buy the over priced merchandise, don’t pay for over priced tickets. Support your favorite bands by buying their music on CD, through Itunes, whatever, and show your dislike for a system that searches only for dopes.

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In what some see as a stunning admission of being crowded out of many of the smart phone markets, and perhaps as a preemptive strike against the upcoming Google Nexus 1, Apple and NeXT have filed suit against Asian smart phone maker HTC, alleging all sorts of patent infringement and the like. Public opinion on this is mixed, but many of the industry pundits are pointing to this as frustration on Apple’s part as they risk losing their dominant position in the smart phone market.

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

However, it should be pointed out that the patents in question are entirely software related, and those sorts of patents aren’t always the strongest. Further, Apple appears to have unleashed the nuclear option as well, adding 10 more items to a list submitted to the ITC (International Trade Commission), attempting to shortcut the process and perhaps gain some sort of blockage against HTC phones coming into the US.

At the end of the day, Apple may or may not win this lawsuit and ITC action, but there is no doubt that many potential customers will now see them as bullies rather than innovators.

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Hard hit by the recession, the pioneering virtual world, which launched to the public in 2003, will shut down for good on March 9.

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Data gathered from a NASA radar on board an Indian spacecraft indicate that more than 40 craters permanently in shadows contain as much as 600 million cubic meters of ice.

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For one student at the elite institution, learning from thought leaders in a series of exponentially growing technologies will likely lead to a rich future helping to change the world.

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The organization that set private space travel a flight will soon roll out its five-year plan. But its chairman says there are a few likely competitions in the works that could change the world.

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Over the years, the innovation and investment that went into 3D immersive environments like Second Life has gone increasingly to social games and kids worlds.

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At its first-quarter media event, Nintendo unveils newest DS handheld game machine, touts record 2009 sales numbers, and announces Super Mario Galaxy 2’s launch date.

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Duck, the cat belonging to music professionals Becca Laurie and Andy Silva, has attracted more than 70,000 visitors to a site filled with screens shots of her hanging out on Chatroulette.

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A new prototype application from the Swedish firm The Astonishing Tribe can auto-discover social-networking information about someone based on nothing more than a mobile phone photo.

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A proposed standard from Wordnik and supported by a roster of A-list media companies could bring valuable new context to any kind of digital text.

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Well, two races into the 2010 season, and NASCAR, aka NAPCAR, is already showing some serious signs of crumbling at it’s foundations. The sheer volume of empty seats in California this past weekend, even noted on the NASCAR.COM site, shows that things are not all good and going to plan.

Over the winter, all sorts of changes have come to NASCAR, seemingly somewhere between rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and wild desperation. Viewership in 2009 was way off, attendance was way off, and even the official collectables / t-shirt company has been in financial trouble. A number of tracks “revamped” their seating, which is to say that they got rid of many seats and changed around others. Daytona got rid of a back stretch grandstand and replaced it with a fan fun area, and they announced that none of the back stretch seating will be open for the July 4th weekend races. Richmond lost almost 20,000 seats, and overall NASCAR tracks apparently lost more than 100,000 seats for events from 2009 to 2010.

NASCAR made some major rule changes, put the driving “back in the drivers hands”, and have announced that the rear wing on the CoT (Crap on Track, I think) will be ditched in favor of the more familiar blade spoiler, which has been a part of stock car racing for as long as I can remember. It was little surprise to most fans that when the CoT took over, the best racing was actually in the Nationwide series, as the cars were the older style blade cars and just ran better. NASCAR also added more green white checker attempts to try to get a green flag finish to races, and so on.

Yet, two races into the season, attendance is down, and just as importantly, viewership is down. If a product is in demand but people can’t afford it, they will watch it on TV. NASCAR faces the hard reality that fewer people are turning up to the events and fewer people are watching on TV. Only the presence of one Danica Patrick has given them a ratings boost for their undercard series, which have done better than last year.

In the end, the big problem for NASCAR is their ill conceived attempt to become a national sport. Not every market wants or will support a race by buying tickets, and the California situation is a perfect example. All the population in the world, a rabid car culture, and half filled stands. NASCAR also has too many look-a-like tracks, D shaped 1.5 mile ovals that often produce dull follow the leader racing. These are tracks designed to make the track owners happy, not to produce good racing. All this is against a background of classic shorter tracks without NASCAR dates, yet that would likely pull better crowds and produce a better racing event. Rockingham has new owners and is apparently doing well with series like Pro-cup and others, and even North Wilkesboro is back in action with racing back at this classic facility.

NASCAR would do well to forget their overdone plans and slide back to the things that made them popular to begin with. Without that, the deck chairs will look nice but the ship will continue to sink.

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While Twitter is clear about how celebrities can reclaim accounts in their name, average users have little they can do to grab inactive IDs. But there are steps you can take.

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Fast growing cell phone manufacture HTC is hedging their bets and making sure they don’t miss either side of the phone markets. To that end, they announced that they will be a supporter of the new Microsoft Windows 7 Mobile, while continuing to build and sell many Google Android phones.

I would appear to be a wise move, as it means that they will be able to handle any market shift between the phone types. It also means that they don’t have to always directly compete with the Google phones with their own products, and expands their potential market.

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Microsoft is running as fast as they can to keep up in the wireless phone and mobile market, which is quickly getting dominated by Apple and Google Android phones. Even though Microsoft was one of the first movers in the market originally, they have not been able to keep up. With the announcement of Windows 7 Phone, they are attempting to get back in the game, and get more into the consumer / entertainment market, it seems.

The OS is based on a widget sort of layout, looks very much like Windows 7 in font and display, and appears pretty easy to follow along with.

Check out the story here, and also a nice review on ARS Technica

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The restaurant chain invites its dinner customers to visit its Twitter account, but thanks to a misprint on the four-month-old menu, diners are pointed to a Taiwanese man’s account.

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The World of Warcraft publisher announced Wednesday that it has begun beta testing of the sequel to its 1998 hit, StarCraft.

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Following Kodak’s infringement complaints against the iPhone and BlackBerry makers, U.S. International Trade Commission is doing its own investigation into matter.

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Famed game designer Richard Garriott is a co-founder of Portalarium, a startup that will make games for social networks like Facebook and MySpace. Its first offering in a poker title.

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Public-private partnership finds devices added to the nation’s trucks could increase fuel efficiency by up to 12 percent, saving the industry more than $10 billion a year.

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After a record-setting month in December, the video game industry returned to its major 2009 pattern: sharp year-over-year monthly sales declines.

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At a game showcase event in San Francisco, Microsoft lets the game press see what it has in store for the year. Its Halo announcement is probably what has the most people excited.

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A new film suggests that there are legions of “Star Wars” fans who cannot stomach what the films’ creator did to their beloved franchise. But are those people in the majority?

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The game was designed so that any of the development team could push changes live almost immediately. It is Web-based but could soon have smartphone elements.

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Well, Apple has upset the apple cart as it were, and pretty much pushed the new Google phone right out of the headlines with the announcement of it’s upcoming Ipad tablet portable reader thingie. First off, I have to say that this is a terrible name, the jokes about Itampon, feminine hygene products in general, and bad jokes about the thing not working 1 week out of the month have come out all over. In many non-english countries, the name is too close to Ipod to be seperated in speech. Overall, no matter how good the product, the naming is terrible and terribly lame. There are also complaints that the data partner for the device will again be AT&T, which is having a hard time keeping up with just Iphone data bandwidth demands.

That being said, there is a pretty good Ipad review with video at Engadget. Plenty of interesting comments at PC World, and the Guardian in the UK has a pretty darn good review as well.

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As a long time fan of the Deadliest Catch, since the time before the show existed as was just part of the a Dangerous Jobs series, it saddens me to report that Captain Phil Harris, the gruff but loving master of the F/V Cornelia Marie passed away on February 9th, as a result of complications from a stroke suffered less that two weeks ago. Captain Harris had some past serious medical problems including blood clots (one that passed through his heart at one point), but had recovered well and returned to work. While offloading in St Paul during the crab season, he suffered a stroke and went into a coma. While he came out of the coma, he finally did succumb a few days after. His two sons work with him on the boat and appear on the show, and they posted this:

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our dad – Captain Phil Harris. Dad has always been a fighter and continued to be until the end. For us and the crew, he was someone who never backed down. We will remember and celebrate that strength. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers. – Jake and Josh Harris

RIP, Captain Phil Harris, we will miss you.

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