By Luke Anderson

When I was a kid, I was surprised when my parents let me buy a slingshot. I wasn’t a particularly mischievous child, but it’s hard for any kid to resist using one for evil purposes. Honestly, what is one really going to use a slingshot for, other than shooting at things that move or break?

If I were a kid again, I’d definitely go for one of these Ringshots. Rather than holding a Y-shaped device, this slingshot slips on your index finger and thumb, slicing down on the size. Heck, I might think about buying one anyway, were I able to find out anything about pricing or availibility.

VIA [ UberGizmo ]

Via [Ohgizmo]

Popularity: unranked [?]

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Google’s Bob Lee creates a much better image to go with our post yesterday about One Laptop Per Child and Windows teaming up. More at CrunchGear.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Via [TechCrunch]

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Next month GigaOM will hold Structure 08, a conference centered on the changing face of computing infrastructure. The event will discuss the wave of cloud computing technology that has been driving a revolution in web applications and has started to overthrow the notion of conventional servers.

Structure 08 will feature a workshop on Google App Engine, along with keynote presentations from Werner Vogels (Amazon), Greg Papadopoulos (Sun), and James Crowe (Level 3). You can see a full schedule here.

We’re giving away five tickets to the event, so leave a comment telling us why you’re too financially impaired to pay for a ticket and we’ll pick the best responses.

Structure 08 will be held on June 25th at San Francisco’s Mission Bay Conference Center. TechCrunch readers who register by May 20 can get a 10% discount on registration here.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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By Luke Anderson

When you’re young, your parents always try to drill the importance of eating fruits and vegetables into your head. Of course when you grow up and move out you realize just how great your life is without needed to worry about those strange foods. Sure, sometimes you’ll purchase a few apples and bananas with the intention of eating them, but lets face it, they just end up rotting away in the fridge. Well if you really do want to eat them, why not make them last a tiny longer?

The BLUE aims to be the device that actually gets you to eat your fruit. No, it’s not going to make you desire fruit more, but will make your fruit stay fresh longer. Maybe then you’ll actually get around to eating some.

The BLUE manages to keep your fruit from rotting by emitting a special light which kills off the harmful bacteria that adores to live on your food. You’ll simply see a soft blue light over your fruit, which will help preserve it. Unfortunately they don’t specify just how much extra life you’ll get out of your fruit.

VIA [ GearFuse ]

Via [Ohgizmo]

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By Andrew Liszewski

I’m not entirely sure how Wile E. Coyote could afford everything he bought from the ACME company over the years, but I do know there were plenty of gadgets and contraptions I would have loved picking up myself. I mean who can’t find a use for a Do-It Yourself Tornado Kit, Rocket Powered Roller Skates or even the pinnacle of ACME engineering, the Giant Rubber Band.

The Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products website has pretty much every single ACME product I’ve ever seen in a Looney Tunes cartoon, and plenty I haven’t. It also lists what episode or episodes the product appeared in (I remember the Giant Rubber Band being used again and again) as well as a handful of screenshots for each one. Looking back you think ACME would have opened up a division to sell insurance. Though I guess the claims would have probably bankrupted them in a week.

[ The Original Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products ] VIA [ OpticalPoptitude ]

Via [Ohgizmo]

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Dash Navigation is opening up its in-car GPS device to outside developers through an API program. The Dash already lets consumers create Yahoo map mashups on teh Web which theycan then send to their car. (Read my earlier review). Now, companies that want to create specific applications for the device, which includes a two-way data channel through GPRS as well as WiFi, can join the API program.

The company’s API launch partners include:

—Coldwell Banker (real-estate listings application)
—Funambol (personal calendar access)
—Mediaguide (identifies names of songs playing on the radio through the Dash’s microphone)
—Trapster (shows drivers speed traps and lets them warn other Dash drivers)
—WeatherBug (live weather condition)

I have a feeling the Trapster app is going to be a big hit. Companies or developers who want more information about the APIs can send an e-mail to developer [at] dash [dot] net. (I guess putting the APIs on a Website is too advanced for them). But opening the device up as a platform should get a lot of cool apps on there.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Via [TechCrunch]

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A week ago Wired Magazine voiced its displeasure over our syndication partnership with the Washington Post. Wired’s Betsy Schiffman wrote “We’ve got nothing against TechCrunch, but it seems crazy-crazy to us that the Washington Post, a paper known for the sort of reporting that can take down U.S. presidents, is publishing content written by a dude who invests in the companies he writes about. But what do we know.”

When I read this I thought “WTF?” (with an emphasis on the “F”). Wired is a competitor to TechCrunch, but we’ve been on friendly terms with them for years now. Editor-In-Chief (on the print side) Chris Anderson and I were on Charlie Rose the same night a month ago, and Chris wrote some nice words about me in his post about the show. Wired’s Fred Vogelstein also wrote an awesome profile of TechCrunch in 2007.

So back to Wired’s slap at us. They seem to be concerned that I have personally invested in a handful of startups (all disclosed here) and we occasionally cover those startups and their competitors. And even though I disclose those relationships, Wired’s position is that the Washington Post should terminate the syndication relationship with us.

I responded to the article as succinctly as possible here (written after a night of heavy drinking at the Time 100 party) and then followed up with additional Twitter messages suggesting we hold a Wired burning party. I chose Twitter specifically for this response to make sure Wired knew I wasn’t happy with the post, but I specifically didn’t write about it on TechCrunch or even CrunchNotes to keep things relatively calm (I have 16,000 or so followers there, v. TechCrunch’s audience of 3 million or so plus feed subscribers). I also then let the matter drop, as I had made my point.

Emails to people I know at Wired went unanswered. Schiffman emailed me on May 9 with further attacks and a request for comments and details but I didn’t respond. Frankly, she’s proven herself to be a troll, and so anything I write might as well be public here on TechCrunch. And, as I said, I let the matter drop.

But then today Schiffman wrote a follow up article on the same issue. No new facts, she just wanted to reiterate how much she dislikes the partnership, I guess.

And if anyone thinks this is just something between Schiffman and TechCrunch, it isn’t. I have never met her and don’t know her at all. And her editor Dylan Tweney defended her when questioned by Valleywag about it. He was asked why Wired is now tagging every post about TechCrunch with “Buttmunch,” and if it is the way TechCrunch is referred to generally around the office and he responded “I don’t think it has come into general usage around the Wired.com office. We can always hope, though.”

My Response:

TechCrunch has financial conflicts of interest via advertisers and via companies that I have invested in. I’ve disclosed my personal investments - and as I’ve said many times in interviews, the grand total of the four active investments is less than I make per month in income from TechCrunch.

WRT advertisers, we do not specifically point out when we write about a company that has advertised with us, because no one does and frankly it would be nearly impossible given how many advertisers go on the site over time. We’ve created an ethical wall between editorial at TechCrunch and all revenue activities, which is run by our CEO, Heather.

The Washington Post obviously got comfortable with our policies, since they are syndicating our content.

Glass Houses

I question Wired’s intentions in posting about this, specifically now that they have posted twice. As a competitor they are clearly conflicted when writing about us, and attacks like these, including the childish tagging issue, appear to be little more than attempts to disrupt our deal with the Washington Post. And yes, that means that by the very act of attacking us and this deal, Wired is engaging in the exact behavior it says is unethical. Worse, they don’t even point out the conflict.

We’ve caught Wired in ethical lapses before (they subsequently added a disclosure to the article). And even the big guys are caught with the occasional hand in the cookie jar. I don’t believe we have ever engaged in unethical behavior of any kind on TechCrunch, not even the kinds of lapses seen at Wired and the NYTimes.

I have a lot of respect for many of the writers and editors at Wired. But as far as I’m concerned Wired.com, from Editor-In-Chief Evan Hansen on down to Betsy Schiffman, has clearly crossed an ethical line here. Perhaps they are giving up the fight to write relevant content and are resorting to sensationalist trash like this to generate page views. If that’s the case, it is a shame. I used to love that magazine.

Update: I’ve asked Hugh Macleod to do a cartoon for this fight, and have put a placeholder in until he responds. This is meant to point out how ridiculous this whole dispute is.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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By Luke Anderson

I like to think that I’m pretty good when it comes to securing my data, though I certainly don’t go to the extremes that some others go. For instance, my laptop is locked down tight, however, I don’t bother to encrypt my SD cards or password protect them. These sorts of things rarely ever have any sensitive data, so I don’t really care. For those that do store top-secret files on your SD card, here’s something that might interest you.

The USB Memory Card Unlocker is a device that you hope that you’ll never need to use. What it does has a good side and a bad side. The good side is that if you forget the password to your SD card, you’ll be able to use it again after popping it into this little device. The bad news is that you’ll lose all of the data contained on the card. It’ll only set you back $16, which is about the same as a new SD card.

[ USBFever ] VIA [ RedFerret ]

Via [Ohgizmo]

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MySpace has informed us that on Monday it was awarded $234 million in statutory damages, the largest anti-spam sum ever made under CAN-SPAM and apparently ever under any law. This is also the first time damages have been awarded under the California Anti Phishing Act.

The case was won against two notorious spammers, Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines. Wallace earned the nicknames “Spamford” and “spam king” for having sent as many as 30 million spam messages per day during a period of time in the 1990s.

Wallace and Rines spammed MySpace by creating their own accounts and stealing the passwords of others. They then went on to mass message users an estimated 735,925 times. Each of these messages warrant up to $300 in damages under the 2003 federal anti-spam law CAN-SPAN because they were conducted “willingly and knowingly”.

The case was brought against Wallace on March 23, 2007 and subsequently against Rines on September 25, 2007 when it was learned the two were working together.

MySpace has yet to collect the actual award and may very well not ever do so; it appears as though they don’t even know where two spammers are (the judgment was made in their absence after they failed to show up to court). Even so, they are charging ahead with another pending case against Scott Richter who also used stolen passwords to spam MySpace users.

The News Corporation-owned social network issued has issued the following public statement:

MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site. The Federal District Court in Los Angeles awarded MySpace $233,777,500 under the federal CAN-SPAM Act and $1,500,000 under the California anti-phishing statute. User engagement is up 32 percent year over year while spam is significantly decreasing, proving efforts like this are working. We thank the court for serving justice upon defendants Wallace and Rines and we remain committed to punishing those who violate the law and try to harm our members.

We’re told that the second largest award under CAN-SPAM was much a lower figure: $2.9 million, paid by ValueClick to the FTC in just March of this year.

Additional details for this MySpace case can be found through the Associated Press.

Below is the court order:

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Via [TechCrunch]

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Six Apart, creator of the blogging platform Movable Type, has partnered with LightPole, a mobile application provider. The two companies have co-developed a plugin for Movable Type that will grant bloggers to geo-tag their posts, create geo-located Points of Interest, and publish content through LightPole channels to mobile phones.

The plugin brings Movable Type to two distinct (and important) markets: Geo-enabled websites and location-based phone services. These features could be a boon to bloggers, especially those that write about real-world locales, such as restaurants or landmarks. They may also help writers reach a much more massive audience through mobile phones.

The news comes soon after LightPole’s implementation of Yahoo’s geo-information platform FireEagle last month.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Via [TechCrunch]

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