KINECT HACK ALLOWS WEB BROWSER AND WINDOWS 7 CONTROL BY GESTURES

The hacks for Microsoft's Xbox 360 Kinect just keep getting better. MIT's Media Lab Fluid Interfaces Group has hacked the Kinect to allow users to control web browsers and Windows 7 using only gestures.

The MIT group used DepthJS, a system that makes Javascript talk to Microsoft's Kinect in order to navigate web pages, among other things. It's not that making wild, arm-waving gestures is the best way to navigate a web site, it's just a demonstration that you can and advances the technology. Hopefully the group, or other hackers, can take this advance and evolving it into a multitouch remote control plugin for our home theater PCs. [Engadget]

AUSTRAILIAN APPLE STORE DISCOUNTS OF 10%; BLACK FRIDAY FORSHADOWING

Apple has been teasing a Black Friday sale this week and now Australia's Apple website is showing what Apple may have up its sleeve. Most items have been discounted around 10%, iMacs, Macbook Pros and Macbook Airs going for A$121 less than normal, iPads and iPods are A$51 less while the iPod Nano is A$25 cheaper. If any of this interests you, get ready for tomorrow because the sale will only be around for one day! [Engadget]

WINDOWS PHONE 7 MARKETPLACE HITS 3,000 APPS AND GAMES

Microsoft has announced they have hit the 3,000 mark for apps and games in the fairly new Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. In addition, they also stated they have 15,000 developers working on apps and games. In comparison, Nokia just announced they have over 400,000 new developers over the past year working on apps and games for their OS.

In fairness though, WP7 was just launched and a lot of developers take a wait and see stance before deciding to take the plunge on a new OS. [Engadget]

NISSAN LEAF GETS 'EQUIVALENT' STICKER OF 99 MPG

Nissan's incoming Leaf has just nabbed an official EPA sticker, with a mind-melting 99MPG "equivalent" rating set to grace every single window. That'll undoubtedly catch eyes, but it's also likely to spur a huge debate on what "miles per gallon" truly means when you're throwing a battery into the mix. We actually had the pleasure of driving one ourselves late last month, but we weren't able to take off on any extended joyrides to really put MPG claims to the test. At any rate, the 99 rating breaks down to 106MPG in the city and 92MPG on the highway, but there's quite a bit of fuzzy math here that gas guzzlers aren't accustomed to considering. Nissan claims that the EPA uses a formula where 33.7 kWhs are equivalent to one gallon of gasoline energy, and that the entity also found the Leaf's efficiency to be 3.4 miles per kWh. Given that the car has a 24 kWh battery pack and can go 73 miles officially, then the EPA says it could theoretically go 99 miles if it had a 33.7 kWh pack. Still, the Leaf has to await its other label from the FTC, but it's apt to show a range of 96 to 110 miles of range. [Engadget]

GATEGURU ARRIVES IN TIME FOR HOLIDAY TRAVEL

GateGuru is like Yelp for airports, helping you find decent food and things to do when you're stuck in the terminal.

The app combines listings and reviews of food, shops, and services organized by airport and terminal, including maps of each terminal to help you get around.

In the next release, GateGuru's promising to add security wait times and itinerary management (achieving the latter through integration with TripIt). GateGuru is a free download for iOS only. [Gizmodo]

BEATLES SELL 2 MILLION SONGS, 450,000 ALBUMS IN ONE WEEK

Last Tuesday, years of negotiations between Apple, Inc., Apple Corp and EMI finally culminated in the widely publicized arrival of The Beatles’ catalog in Apple’s iTunes music store. For those involved, the wait was worth it. Apple announced Tuesday that The Beatles sold over 2 million individual songs and over 450,000 albums during the band’s first week on iTunes. “Abbey Road” was the band’s top-selling album, finishing the week at No. 6 overall. “Here Comes the Sun” was the band’s best-selling single. [BGR]

AT&T AND MICROSOFT OFFER BLACK FRIDAY BOGO - NOT TOO GOOD OF AN OFFER THOUGH

AT&T and Microsoft want to brighten your holidays while simultaneously lightening your pockets, but wise shoppers will likely look elsewhere. AT&T is offering up a free Samsung Focus, HTC Surround or LG Quantum on Black Friday when one of the aforementioned Windows Phones is purchased at full retail, or $199.99. Of course they’re all great phones, but online retailers like Amazon already have that deal beat. AmazonWireless is offering the Focus, Surround and Quantum for $49.99 each and you don’t even have to wait until Friday to order. The retailer also throws free shipping and waived activation fees into the mix. So really, the only reason to go for AT&T’s deal at twice the price of Amazon’s is if the Focus strikes your fancy — Samsung’s WP7 handset is backordered at Amazon and likely won’t start shipping again for a couple of weeks. [Engadget]

NEW SANDGLASS TRAFFIC SIGNAL LETS DRIVERS KNOW HOW LONG THEY HAVE TO WAIT

A new concept traffic light is called “Sand Glass” and was developed by designer Thanva Tivawong as a more informative traffic signal than your standard traffic light. A constantly displayed hour glass image lets drivers know how long it will take between light changes. The animated digital sand left in the hour glass serves as a change indicator along with a 3-2-1 countdown in yellow when the light changes from red to green and green to red. [Geek]

RUMOR: iOS 4.3 TO LAUNCH IN DECEMBER

The dust has not even settled on iOS 4.2 and rumors are already floating around the web as to what the next installment will bring to the table.

By the looks of things Apple is looking at a fairly quick turn around with the iOS 4.3 update due as early as mid-December (could even be December 13).

We are not sure if there will be any new features as such, but with AirPrint only working on select printers and other issues such as the reported iPod bug, plus 3G and 3GS users not getting the text tones found on the iPhone 4, iOS 4.3 could just be a simple bug fix exercise to address all these issues. [Geek]

iOS 4.2.1 JAILBREAK HITS

The Dev-Team Blog was just updated with a new redsn0w version 0.9.6b4 jailbreak (based on Geohot's Limera1n bootrom exploit) for iOS 4.2.1. Unfortunately, iOS device owners won't find jailbreaking as easy as navigating to a website. And the 4.2.1 jailbreak is currently "tethered" so owners of the iPhone 4, iPad, and newer iPhone 3GS and iPod touch models will have to reattach to a PC or Mac to boot into a jailbroken state each time your device loses power or needs a reboot. Those of you who rely on the ultrasn0w unlock should hold off for now -- good advice for anyone not comfortable with terms like "SHSH blobs" or "Cydia." [Engadget]

SONY EREADER APP COMING TO iPHONE AND ANDROID

Sony must be feeling a little left behind in the ereader app department. They are the only leading ereader manufacturer without an app for the iPhone and Android. They have now rectified this. Sony will release their version of the ereader app for those devices in December. The functionality in this upcoming slice of software will be familiar: you get to access books already purchased at the Reader Store or pony up cash for new ones, while making bookmarks, notes and highlights on your mobile device. Throw in adjustable fonts and you've got your boilerplate beginning to a decent mobile e-reader. [Engadget]

APPLE TV CAUSING COLOR ISSUES WITH SONY AND PHILIPS TVS

It doesn't appear to be especially widespread, but a sizable number of reports are cropping up on the official Apple support forums of some pretty wild issues affecting the new Apple TV when paired with certain Sony and Philips TVs. As you can see below, those issues can include a rather unfortunate pastel color scheme (apparently common on Philips TVs), while others are also reporting inverted colors, and green or black screens. As for Apple, at least some users who've contact the company about the problem say it is aware of the issue, but early reports from those who've applied the Apple TV 4.1 update suggest they haven't fixed the problem just yet. [Engadget]

RUMOR: PLAYSTATION PHONE SET FOR 2011 MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS DEBUT

According to Sony Ericsson CEO Bert Bordberg, Sony Ericsson will be showing off a new gamer’s phone at MWC 2011.

If that wasn’t enough to make you suspect the phone he’s talking about was the PlayStation Phone, though, Nordberg then went on to say the following:

“I’m very glad that we work with a company like Sony, who actually knows how to [negotiate games rights]… Sony has an extremely strong offering in the gaming market, and that’s very interesting… Sony is of course a very strong brand, and why shouldn’t we use that? Gaming, including content, is a very interesting proposition."

Nordberg’s comments sure seem like he’s just itching to reveal the PlayStation Phone right then and there, but it’s still unknown what the actual capabilities of the PlayStation Phone will be. [Geek]

RUMOR: APPLE AND NEWS CORP ANNOUNCING iPAD ONLY NEWSPAPER

It seems like Apple and News Corp are indeed in cahoots on The Daily, a new iPad-only newspaper that would be the first support the iTunes subscription billing, and rumor has it, it will be announced December 9. The 9th, the rumors state is a Thursday, so it's possible it will get pushed to the week after, perhaps arriving along with the Mac App Store. [Gizmodo]

FACEBOOK PASSES GOOGLE IN WEB TRAFFIC

For the first time Facebook has passed Google in web traffic according to Hitwise, an internet analysis and intelligence company. Hitwise says that last week, Facebook saw 3% more web visits and nearly five times as many pageviews as Google.com.

Facebook has been on track to outgrow Google for awhile now. The young social network has seen a 55% year-over-year increase in its traffic numbers. The only metric in which Google is now beating Facebook is in monthly uniques: Google counted 173.3 monthly uniques in October, compared to Facebook’s 151.13 million.

What these numbers make clear is that, for most people, Facebook now is the Internet… and that’s got Google, as well as privacy advocates, scared. Google understandably doesn’t want most of the Internet traffic locked behind Facebook’s login, unavailable for them to index and spit out ads upon, which is why they’ve started going to war with Facebook, denying users of the social network the ability to import their GMail contact data into the social network. [Geek]

CALL RECORDING AVAILABLE IN GOOGLE'S GMAIL

TechCrunch is reporting that some users have begun to see a new “record” button show up in Gmail’s call window. The feature has been available to Google Voice users for quite some time by hitting the number “4″ on your phone’s dial-pad after receiving an inbound call. After activating call recording, both parties are notified that the conversation is being recorded with a verbal queue. Google has yet to publish a press release announcing the feature or detailing when it will be rolled out to all users. [BGR]

APPLE HOLDING A BLACK FRIDAY SALE

While the words “Apple” and “sale” don’t align as often as most would like, the crew from Cupertino apparently decided to take advantage of the sale craze this year. A teaser is now up on Apple’s site inviting customers to visit the Apple Online Store this Friday for “dozens of great iPad, iPod, and Mac gifts.” We doubt Apple’s deals will be spectacular, but it will be nice to save a few bucks if you were already planning on ordering up some new Apple kit. It all goes down on Friday, November 26th, so get those credit cards ready. [BGR]

GOOGLE'S CHROME OS DELAYED UNTIL 2011

While there have been rumors of a Chrome OS netbook arriving this month, Google’s Eric Schmidt has confirmed we won’t be seeing any this month, or next month, we may not even see one for several months in 2011.

Schmidt has stated that Google’s cloud operating system has suffered a delay. He made the remarks during a Q&A session at the Web 2.0 summit. What he wouldn’t say is what has caused that delay, and no one at Google is talking about it either.

The official line seems to be that Chrome OS won’t arrive for a few months yet, meaning we probably shouldn’t expect to hear anything until at least March. However, Mary-Jo Foley over at ZDNet has been told by Google that a new preview build will be released before the end of 2010. It won’t be final, but it has to be near complete by now. [Geek]

GOOGLE RELEASES CHILDREN'S BOOK ON BROWSERS AND THE WEB FOR FREE

Wondering how to explain the brave new world of Web 2.0 and HTML5 to your children… or simply want to correct your own childlike understanding of how the internet works? Search giant Google has just the picture book for you… and best of all, it’s both free and charming.

The book is called 20 Things I Learned About Browsers And The Web

Sure, we all use the internet every day, and most of us are pretty astute with it… but it’s surprising how little many know about the inner workings of the web behinds its various sites and interfaces.

As such, 20 Things I Learned About Browsers And The Web is a breath of fresh air, offering eminently understandable primers about HTML, Javascript and Ajax. It’s also a future-looking book, spelling out many of the developments we can expect next from both browsers and web apps. Even security, privacy, open source and design are touched upon.

The book reads like a picture book written as a Christmas present from the Google Chrome team to its children, and in fact it is: the collective Chrome team is the book’s author, and we — the users — are their children. [Geek]

DELL SHUTTING DOWN MOBILE DIVISION

Dell is shutting down its mobile division and Ron Garriques, Chief Executive of Dell Mobile, is quitting. Not a single one of Dell’s mobile ventures have been particularly successful. The Streak, Dell’s “not quite a tablet, not quite a phone, but uncomfortable enough to be both” device was a poorly implemented concept. Too big to be a phone for most, and too small to be a table for most, plus a lack of a wi-fi option due to Google’s Market procedures. Throw in the software issues during upgrade times, and even those that did buy the device were not likely to want a second. [Geek]