20-year old college student David Kernell is in one big heap of poop.  He has bragged on several message boards as being the person who hacked into V.P. candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email account.  Now he has the FBI, Secret Service and likely the Attorney General knocking on his door.

David is the son of Mike Kernell, who is a Democrat State Representative from the great state of Tennessee.

Here is what young David had to say after hacking into Palin’s email to find dirt on the Alaska governor:

“I read though the emails… ALL OF THEM… before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor…. And pictures of her family.”

College kids make mistakes all the time.  If he was directed by his father or any Democrat to do what he did, then they all should be punished to the fullest letter of the law.  If not and he acted on his own, then he should be punished, but nothing like life in prison or razor blade cuts filled with lemon juice.

If anything he should be punished most harshly for being an idiot about bragging of his hacking feat on internet message boards and doing a horrible job of covering his tracks.  But what do you really expect from a student at the University of Tennessee?  At least he is already use to wear orange.

Maybe he should have to babysit Palin’s kids for a weekend.  Because his dad is an “important” person he won’t get punished all that hard.   If he had been a Chinese student studying computer science at Cornell then it would be a different story.

Pundits should refer to Kernell as the Unibrower since the Unabomber tag is taken.

Game maker Hasbro has shut down Scrabulous on Facebook in the U.S. and Canada after filing suit against the popular Facebook game in New York court.  Mattel is leading the way with numerous other suits in counties outside the U.S./Canada.

Hasbro scored big in its legal match against the popular but unauthorized version of Scrabble that’s played online by millions of Facebook members. The creators of Scrabulous today shut down the game to players in the United States and Canada, where Hasbro owns the rights to Scrabble.

Mattel, which owns the rights to Scrabble elsewhere, has filed suit in India, where the two brothers behind Scrabulous, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, reside.

Good luck to Rajat and Jayant in pursing this case.  Hasbro and Mattel would still be clueless about Facebook and expanding Scrabble to Facebook if it weren’t for the Agarwalla brothers.

The Bumpwife was just telling me days ago about how her L.A. doctor friends are addicted to this game on Facebook.  Well, I didn’t get a chance to try it out. Thanks Hasbro!  And NO I won’t be playing your version for sure!

Former Google nerds Anna Patterson and her husband Tom Costello have created, what is being dubbed the newest and best search engin, Cuil (www.cuil.com).

Patterson and Costello were very influential in developing Google’s top rated search engine.

A holder of a computer science doctorate and mother of four, Patterson said search engines can’t keep up with the explosive growth of the Internet or with the needs of users, who often get frustrated sifting through random results. Cuil says it has come up with a search engine that indexes 120 billion Web pages, ranks results by relevance instead of popularity, organizes the results by ideas and protects the privacy of its users.

Cuil has what Patterson called a magazine layout, with tabs and images for subjects. It offers suggestions to assist in searches. And it does not collect personal data, so your search history is always private, she said. Advertising, to be added later, will be based on the content, not on people’s surfing habits.

My earlier test of Cuil leaves a lot to be desired. Just typing in the word ‘Bumpshack’ led to 12 other sites besides Bumpshack.com. But Patterson and Costello have mastered the search engine game before, so I won’t bet against them this early on in the infant steps of Cuil.

Cuil is pronounced ‘Cool’.

There currently isn’t any CUIL stock but if the SE explodes you can for sure expect an IPO down the road.

Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens has proposed ‘The Pickens Plan’ to help come up with a way to reduce the United States dependence on foreign oil.

The United States currently imports 1/4th of the world’s oil production for just 4% of the world’s population.

The plan calls for the implementation of wind power to power 20% of the country’s electricity needs.  Then the natural gas that is used to operate the power plants could be used to replace a large portion of the gasoline and diesel used to power automobiles in the United States.

Here are the three biggest components of ‘The Pickens Plan’ proposed by T. Boone:

• Step #1: Using the United States’ wind corridor, private industry will fund the installation of thousands of wind turbines in the wind belt, generating enough power to provide 20 percent or more of the country’s electricity supply
• Step #2: Again funded by the private sector, electric power transmission lines will be built, connecting these wind power generating sites with power plants providing energy to the population centers in the Midwest, South and Western regions of the country.
• Step #3: With the energy from wind now available to operate power plants serving the large population centers in key areas of the country, the natural gas that was historically utilized to fuel these power plants can be redirected and used to replace imported gasoline and diesel as a fuel for thousands of vehicles in the transportation system.

T. Boone has made billions of dollars in his lifetime.  The reason for his wealth being he is an extremely smart man and is usually ahead of the curve.  Hopefully Congress and the next Presidential administration will put Boone’s proposal into action.

Read more about ‘The Pickens Plan’ at PickensPlan.com

Read more about T. Boone Pickens at BoonePickens.com

Google changed their homepage logo on Monday (July 7th) to honor and remember the art of Marc Chagall on what would have been Chagall’s 120th birthday.  Chagall was born in 1887 and died in 1985.

His art was associated with the modern movements era.

He was known for using symbolism in his art to help tell a story through his masterpieces. For example horses meant freedom and a tree meant life in his work.

Sam’s Club is one of the grocery (like) chains leading the way with a new redesigned milk jug.  The jugs are designed to fit closer together during shipping.  This will allow more jugs on a truck and reduce the amount of gas used to ship milk.  It will also save on the water that was used to wash the old jugs.

“Because of the shape, traditional milk jugs can’t be stacked, so they’re shipped in milk crates. But they waste space on delivery trucks and millions of gallons of water are used to keep them clean.”

The new flat-top jugs can simply be stacked and shrink-wrapped. No need for washing.

The new containers also store 50 percent more milk per cubic foot than the old jugs. That means more milk on each truck - reducing delivery trips and fuel costs.

“We’re estimating it could be up to 11,000 trucks we’re reducing on the road this year,” said Daniel Book, marketing manager for Sam’s Club.

Many who have tried the jugs say they don’t like them.  Several consumers said that the new jugs made pouring more difficult.  After spending 30 years with the old milk jugs, I am sure I will have an adjustment period myself.  But, if the new jugs are better for the environment and help keep milk prices down then that is enough for me to get over it.

I posted earlier today about the September release date for ‘Rock Band 2.’  I thought some of you might want to see the song list of all of the songs included in the original ‘Rock Band’ along with the songs that can be downloaded for play on RB.

Aerosmith’s ‘Train Kept a Rollin’ and Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ are the two most challenging games I have come across so far on the game.

Read Full Post for Tracklist

go on reading »

Fans of the popular ‘Rock Band’ series can start to get excited as the second version of the music video game will be released later this year in September. ‘Rock Band 2′ will be compatible with the previous release and is destined to be a mega-seller.

This “Rock Band” sequel is a departure from recent music game sequels and spin-offs, including entries in the competing “Guitar Hero” franchise, which do not always sync up to the originals. For example, the new “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith” coming out this week does not work with downloadable content marked for “Guitar Hero III,” according to a report on gaming blog Joystiq.

“Rock Band 2,” goes the other way, as it appears to be set to work smoothly with its predecessor. In fact, it has been announced to be so compatible with the first game’s music and instruments that an IGN reporter who was interviewing the sequel’s lead designer Dan Teasdale was compelled to ask why owners of the first game would feel the need to buy the second game.

” ‘Rock Band 2′ takes all the lessons we’ve learned from making a multi-instrument music game, addresses them, then adds some amazing new ways for you to experience your music library that have never been seen in a music game before,” Teasdale told IGN.

This game is an addiction that keeps me up way too deep into the night. I received the game for Father’s Day and my sleep has suffered since I started playing RB. The game makes even the most untalented person (see me) feel like they are jamming and thrashing to some of the best metal/rock songs of all-time.

I am already awaiting for RB2.  I still have plenty of songs to unlock and levels to reach before September.  The game comes with a microphone, guitar, drum set and the actual video game.  I bought an additional guitar that can double as a bass so four people can play at the same time.

Have you played?  If so drop a comment with your thoughts about ‘Rock Band’.

Apple is unveiling its new iphone 2.0 later today at the Apple Conference. It is expected to do a vast array of new functions, but the biggest new factor will be the price. Apple is dropping the price from $399 down to $199. It is also expected to be much faster and include a better camera.

So get ready for iPhone 2.0: On Monday Apple (AAPL) is widely expected to introduce a zippier version that will operate on both a faster AT&T network, and speedier networks internationally. The price also will rock: $199, according to people with knowledge of the matter, down from the current $399 and $499.

The BumpWife has had an iPhone since last Christmas. She loves it and uses it for about everything imaginable. I often have to threaten to take it away from her on long road trips so I won’t fall asleep at the wheel. The new version should make it even faster and more affordable for millions of more potential buyers.

“Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.”

Check out this 4-D ultrasound photo of baby triplets bonding in the womb. Beautiful photo of this phenomenon.

Check out more 4-D photos here

Internet giant and innovator Google is in talks to buy popular video clip sharing service YouTube.com.  The price tag is roughly $1.6 billion dollars.

Founded in Feb. 2005, closely-held YouTube is the poster child for the boom in online video. The company says consumers view videos — which range from short home videos to clips recorded from TV shows — over 100 million times daily through its service and upload more than 65,000 videos each day. YouTube, San Mateo, Calif., has efforts underway to generate more advertising revenue from such traffic. At the same time, it’s trying to address some media companies’ concerns about the presence of video on YouTube’s site that was uploaded without the content owners’ permission.

A purchase of YouTube could give a big boost to the online video efforts of Google. YouTube commanded 46% of visits to U.S. online video sites in August, according to market research firm Hitwise. That compared to a 23% share for the video activities of News Corp.’s MySpace social-networking site, and 10% for Google Video.

The discussions are the latest evidence of a land grab underway by Internet and media companies looking to extend their reach on the Web. Yahoo Inc. and other technology and media companies have held discussions about acquiring social networking site Facebook Inc. for amounts in the range of $1 billion or higher, say people familiar with the matter. News Corp. spent $650 million to buy MySpace last year.

MySpace Music Artist Luke Laird

MySpace in a bid to compete with digitial music giant Apple and iTunes has announced that it will sell songs from the millions of unsigned artists on the social networking site.

MySpace is the latest company to try to take on Apple Computer Inc.’s (AAPL.O) iTunes Music Store, but unlike many other start-up rivals, it already boasts 106 million users, as well as the backing of parent company News Corp (NWS.N).

Before the end of 2006, De Wolfe said MySpace will offer independent bands that have not signed with a record label a chance to sell their music on the site. MySpace says it has nearly 3 million bands showcasing their music.

Songs can be sold on the bands’ MySpace pages and on fan pages, in non-copyright-protected MP3 digital file format, which works on most digital players including Apple’s market-dominating iPod.

The bands will decide how much to charge per song after including MySpace’s distribution fee, said Rusty Rueff, the chief executive of Snocap, which will manage the e-commerce service. Snocap provides digital licensing and copyright management services and was started by Napster founder Shawn Fanning.

AOL yesterday that they will be providing movie downloads from four of the major movie studios.  They will offer downloadable movies from the studios and on-demand television from a single internet portal.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group will offer downloadable movies through AOL Video, including such titles as “Hitch,” “Spider-Man 2,” “Batman Forever,” “The Matrix,” “American Pie” and “Doctor Dolittle.”

Prices will range from $9.99-$19.99 for movies that can be viewed on as many as five computers and compatible devices but not played on traditional DVD players. Conroy said the content owners determined the rules and that AOL could support anything the studios wished to offer.

AOL Video also is extending its television programming. Fox Entertainment Group and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment content will be available in branded VOD channels and added to the AOL Video portal’s online interactive programming guide, which aggregates ad-supported, free and download-to-own video content.

Conroy said additional branded channels will launch before year’s end. There already are about 50 channels as part of the service, and consumers also can create their own personal playlists.

Coincidentally, I was part of a group that was given a tour and demonstration of ClickStar on Wednesday in Santa Monica. Revelations Entertainment created ClickStar. ClickStar is advertised to be iTunes for movies with different content channels and the ability to turn your home TV into a computer stored with a video library of all of your favorite movies.

Basically it sounds very simliar to what AOL announced yesterday.  I know ClickStar is focusing on giving different directors their own channels.  ClickStar will also be a great place for independent film directors to have their films shown and sold. 

I am sure the good people over at Revelations did not enjoy this news today.  It will be interesting to see how it all plays out and how well it catches on with Mr. and Mrs. Joe Mid-America.