Silk

Rumor Has It, Ep. 2: Amazon grosses us out (podcast)

We're back this week with another round of juicy rumors, and for once, not one of them is about the iPhone 5. That's because it doesn't exist...yet, but that doesn't stop us from talking about it for a solid 2 minutes (we timed it!).

We changed the rules a little and decided to vote on all the rumors, rather than picking just one. That way we can get more points on the board; remember that the winner at the end of the month gets to make the other person do something embarrassing (as if the "Muffin Top" song wasn't embarrassing enough).

Also this week, Yahoo puts on some lipstick and waits for suitors, and Karyne wonders why; Samsung stirs the rumor pot by sending out an invite for an event where it will announce something big and swoopy; cable providers might fulfill Emily's dreams; and Amazon Silk may just be the grossest name for anything ever. In the entire world.

Check out the show and see which one of us got a point this week (hint: it might not have been fair, but at least one of us is a gentleman about it). And tune in next Tuesday at 10 a.m. PT, when Sharon Vaknin will step in for Emily and bet on her behalf.

The 404 914: Where we hope no one gets died (podcast)

With Justin out for the rest of the week, today we bring in CNET duo Bridget Carey and Mark Licea to run through the ashes of Amazon's Kindle Fire announcement with price cuts for both the BlackBerry PlayBook and the Barnes and Noble Nook Color.

A listener's girlfriend, Laurie, completes her mission to take a photo of The 404 logo at an Apple Store, though Apple employees refuse to take part. We also get a look at the next version of the Android operating system codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. Finally, Jeff's fear of flying also isn't helped when we learn that pilots can now flip a plane with the push of the wrong button, but Bridget is traumatized even more by the Dead Island trailer and nwo movie.

The 404 Digest for Episode 914

16 GB BlackBerry PlayBook now just $299 at Best Buy Amazon is losing $50 per Kindle Fire Amazon's Silk browser may come to Mac and Windows PCs Airline pilot almost flips a plane by pushing a wrong button Netflix cancellations slowing down Android Ice Cream Sandwich gets leaked Lionsgate to make movie based on Dead Island trailer Fitocracy gets 700+ new 404 group members Bathroom Break #1: Floppy disk drives perform Star Wars' Imperial March Bathroom Break #2: Best NASCAR prayer ever (in song) Episode 914 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1560: iPhone 5 invite: we've cracked the code! (Podcast)

Welcome to our first Buzz Out Loud Weekly, which is, ironically, our third show this week! It's a stair-step approach, really. We're recapping and analyzing Amazon's Kindle conflagration, wondering what the new iPhone 5 will look like and whether hidden retail skus do indeed point to a cheaper model, and pondering where to get free coffee on this, National Coffee Day. Plus, your calls and letters -- keep them coming!

Amazon Silk: One step forward, two steps back

Amazon Silk has the potential to dramatically improve the mobile Web--but its "split browser" design also poses two worrisome problems.

Silk is a browser designed with one device in mind, so far: Amazon's forthcoming Fire tablet. Its purpose in life is to make browsing faster on the 7-inch Android-based tablet.

To do so, it relies on the fleet of servers that make up its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. When a Silk user clicks a link, the browser passes the request to EC2, which fetches all the page elements, boils them down so they won't be … Read more

Amazon Silk: Not just for Fire tablets?

Among hundreds of Internet domain names Amazon registered yesterday are a few that indicate at least the possibility that the company will bring Silk, its new browser beyond just Fire tablets.

Fusible spotted a long list of domains related to Fire and Silk yesterday. Among them are silkfordroid.com, silkformac.com, silkforpc.com, silkfortablets.com, and silkforwindows.com. Clearly some are defensive moves to fend off would-be typo squatters or other opportunists, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some of those addresses presage broader Silk usage later.

Another bit of evidence supports the idea of Silk beyond Fire. … Read more

The 404 913: Where Jill and the Amazon Kindle are on Fire (podcast)

The Rev. Justin Yu is out for the rest of the week, but in his place we have the always informative financial guru Jill Schlesinger. Today we talk about the new Amazon Kindle Fire, and how it changes everything in the tablet market (especially for Google). But we also quiz Aunt Jill about the ongoing crisis in Europe, and she tells us about the sugary grab bag at the News & Documentary Emmys.

The 404 Digest for Episode 913

Amazon's new Kindle Fire Amazon Kindle Touch Amazon Kindle Amazon Silk browser iPhone announcement Bathroom Break: 'Jedi Kittens Strike Back' Episode 913 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Amazon Silk: Weaving a new browser

Among Amazon's announcements today is that the retail and cloud services giant is stepping into the browser market with a new Web browser that ships in its upcoming Android-based tablet.

That new browser is called Silk, and it's the latest effort to make Web browsing faster, especially on portable devices where the hardware is typically slower than what a user might have on a desktop or notebook computer. It can also learn how you browse the Web, and extend battery life by putting some of the heavy lifting in the cloud, Amazon says.

The company is putting the weight of its massive cloud services infrastructure behind the browser to make up for potential hardware shortcomings. While the Kindle Fire tablet ships with a dual-core processor that's capable of running games and other applications, the company says that users have come to expect a certain amount of speed on the desktop that isn't always there on mobile devices.

Amazon's solution is what it calls a "split browser," a method that makes use of local processing for some things, while tapping into its Elastic Compute Cloud to process and serve up content faster than users might get it directly from the device. … Read more

Senators target Bitcoin currency, citing drug sales

Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer currency floating around the Web, is now being targeted by two prominent senators.

Democratic Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia have written a letter to both Attorney General Eric Holder and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chief Michele Leonhart expressing their desire for the organizations to take down an online marketplace known as "Silk Road," which allows customers to buy illegal drugs, including cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and marijuana.

The senators said this about Bitcoin in their letter to the government agencies:

The only method of payment for these illegal purchases … Read more

Ultrathin silk-based electrodes as brain implants

Silk is not only flexible, it is also transparent and strong, and the rate at which it dissolves can be manipulated. So researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana; Tufts in Boston; and the University of Pennsylvania decided to build silk-based brain implants, using electrode arrays with silk proteins and thin metal electrodes.

Since silk is biocompatible and water-soluble, it dissolved in the brains of the cats they studied, leaving the mesh-like electrodes, which are about 1/40 the thickness of a standard sheet of paper, literally hugging the brains' contours.

The cats were anesthetized, but their eyes still functioned, … Read more

Spider silk secrets could spin cheaper fibers

Scientists (and people prone to bumping into spider webs) have long noticed the stunning strength of the arachnid bug catchers. Now, a group of MIT researchers think they've unraveled the mystery of what makes the structures so sturdy, and they hope to emulate--and even exceed--them in a synthetic form.

The team has concluded, ironically, that the silk's strength results from an unusual arrangement of inherently weak hydrogen bonds--in other words, location, location, location.

This particular layout of tiny silk nanocrystals lets the hydrogen bonds work cooperatively to reinforce adjacent chains against external forces. The bonds break gradually, and … Read more