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Retro CD-ROM Retrospective, What Facebook Could Have Been

There's a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can't cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web.
  • Growing up in the '80s and '90s, Microsoft Encarta was a standby in the classroom CD rack. PC Mag examines 10 other forgotten compact discs of the era, ranging from the riveting 'J.F.K. Assassination: A Visual Investigation' to Microsoft Home's 'Cinemania '94.' Maybe you had to be there... [From: PC Mag]
  • The designers at iA, also known for the wonderful Web Trend Map, mocked up an interesting look for Facebook back in late 2006 and early 2007. Take a glance at the three-columned Facebook that could've been. [From: iA]
  • The design team at Panic is showing off its incredible custom status LCD display, which displays the current e-mail queue, status for projects, team calendar, live Twitter updates and more. Now, if only we could get one for our office. [From: Panic Blog]
  • Steph Thirion, creator of 'Eliss,' one of our favorite iPhone games, just announced/teased his upcoming game, 'Faraway.' [From: TUAW]
  • Human Computer Interaction PhD student Chloe Fan developed this oddly engaging, minimalist 'Super Mario Bros.' running on an 8x8 LED and Arduino. [From: Vimeo]
Got a tip? Want to talk to us? In need of more choice links like these? Drop us a line on Twitter and check out our Tumblr blog.

Facebook Ups the Stalker Quotient, Adding Location-Based Updates

Facebook Ups the Stalker Quotient, Adding Location-Based Updates
Facebook is taking a break from the constant, user-infuriating redesigns to add an honest-to-goodness new feature -- location updates (which will probably be user-infuriating, anyway). Location awareness is all the rage for social networks as GPS has become a standard feature on most smartphones. Twitter, Google Buzz, Google Latitude, and Foursquare have all tightly interwoven these features into their respective services, and Facebook doesn't want to get left in the dust.

According to the New York Times, Facebook is set to unveil location-based updates at next month's F8, the Facebook developer conference. Those with keen eyes have known this was coming for quite some time. In November, Facebook updated its privacy policy to include the following statement: "When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post."

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iTunes LP Seems Bound for Failure After Just Six Months

Six Months Later iTunes LP Seems Bound For Failure
In September, Steve Jobs unveiled the latest attempt to add value to the digital music download, and to distract people from the Web's vast stores of free and illegal content. The iTunes LP adds photos, lyrics, liner notes, and other bonus content, and offer material not found on file-sharing networks -- all to lure customers into buying full albums instead of individual songs. It's been six months, though, and there are only 29 iTunes LPs available. And almost half of those were available at launch.

So why did Apple's supposedly revolutionary format fail? Well, GigaOM points to a number of different factors, one of which is price. And we don't mean the price for consumers. The initial batch of LPs were subsidized by Apple, according to one person who worked on the project, at a cost of up to $60,000 apiece. Then, there's the fact that the format seemed better suited for tablet devices, like the recently announced but still unavailable iPad. Artists have also begun opting to package bonus materials as apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, which offer a level of interactivity not afforded by the iTunes LP format.

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Cell Phone Accelerometer System Alerts the Boss to Your Laziness


Once a bastion of laziness, the office cubicle may no longer be safe from workers' oldest enemy: work. According to Asiajin, a team of researchers from KDDI Corporation, one of Japan's largest cell phone companies, recently developed a technology that would let your boss remotely monitor your every move.

The cornerstone of the monitoring system is deceptively simple: a cell phone equipped with an accelerometer. If your workplace decides to implement the device, one would input actions into the phone as you're doing them. That way, the device could accurately determine whether or not a movement corresponds to a purported action. For example, if your job is mopping the bathroom floor, but the accelerometer isn't detecting any movement (because you're taking a nap in the storage closet), your boss would know. As time goes on, and as you enter more actions, the system becomes more accurate. Therefore, after a few weeks, the office should run like a well-oiled machine.

As experienced office grunts, we're not too thrilled about this. After all, being lazy while making money is the American dream. [From: Asiajin, via: Fast Company]

Net Sales Tax Prompts Amazon to Cut Off Colorado, More States Could Follow

Right now, there are a bunch of angry former Amazon Affiliate program members in Colorado. A new law signed by the state's governor Bill Ritter would require Amazon to pay sales taxes if its affiliates, meaning Web sites and bloggers who refer purchasers to them, are based in the state. In response, Amazon discontinued its program, leaving thousands of affiliates -- many of whom rely on the referral fees for income -- with little recourse but to complain to their elected officials.

This is not the first time that Amazon has been compelled by states to collect sales taxes. In 2008, New York began requiring the online retailer to pay taxes, but, likely due to the market's size, Amazon kept the affiliate program in place. North Carolina and Rhode Island passed similar laws which caused Amazon to pull the plug on affiliates there.

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Christina Aguilera? Reznor? 'iamamiwhoami' Baffles the Blogosphere

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/03/09/christina-aguilera-reznor-iamamiwhoami-baffles-the-blogosphe/'; Share For over two months, music bloggers and journalists have been plagued by an intricate, creepy and riveting mystery: the identity of the mysterious and macabre iamamiwhoami. In December, a 55-second clip of a hyper-saturated, eerie (Scandinavian?) forest appeared on YouTube, ...

eReminders Less Effective for Doctors Than Hoped, Study Finds

According to CNET News, a study appearing today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal claims that computer reminders, which doctors use while electronically charting and writing prescriptions for patients, don't improve the quality of health care as much as they were once expected to do. In 2008, Medicare even offered incentives for doctors to adopt and use e-prescriptions, but according to ...

Get Your E-Spring Cleaning Done With OnyX and CCleaner

We've got a double dose of Switched Downloads for you. Normally we try to cover cross platform apps so everyone can get in on the fun, but with the category of app we're covering today, that just isn't an option. CCleaner and OnyX are system cleaning and optimization tools for Windows and Mac respectively. We searched for a comparable product for Linux, but the closest we could find is the ...

AT&T's Stand Against Texting and Driving, HD Preview of Bridges' Return to 'Tron'

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... The cell phone industry hasn't exactly developed a reputation for publicizing the inherent dangers of distracted driving. Proving that "business ethics" isn't an oxymoron, though, AT&T has actually initiated an admirable public campaign called 'Txtng and Drivng... It Can Wait' -- in order to help prevent texting disasters. ...

Just How Fast Is Your Broadband? Most People Don't Know, Study Says

Share Comcast proudly promotes its broadband services, which, it says, provide the "fastest Internet speeds." TimeWarner's "RoadRunner Turbo with PowerBoost" gives you an "extra burst of speed" while evading coyotes on the information superhighway. But do you know what it really means? Just how fast is "fast?" According to industry analysis from Forrester Research, only 41-percent of ...
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