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Does a “Star Wars” missile defense work? We may soon find out, if the rocket launch planned by North Korea starts to veer anywhere near Japan, instead of disappearing harmlessly into the stratosphere, as is hoped.

North Korea has said the purpose of the rocket launch is put a satellite into orbit; others believe it is to demonstrate an intercontinental nuclear ability to reach out and touch Alaska.

Japan and the United States have cooperated closely on the SM-3 program, and Japan was the first nation to procure the missile.

Shooting down an intercontinental ballistic missile outside the Earth’s atmosphere, under live conditions, would be another major test for both the Raytheon SM-3, aka “Son of Star Wars,” and Japanese resolve (PDF).

If let loose, this would be the first time anything of “Star Wars” lineage–the Reagan-era missile defense notion–has been fired in anger, not under test conditions. But there’s a lot more at stake than the future of a gold-plated $8.9 billion missile defense system. There’s face–and the potential loss thereof.

(Credit:
Raytheon)

“If it is capable of reaching Japan, then it goes without saying that we will react,” Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada announced. “We have been making preparations, including ballistic-missile defense, for any incident which could affect Japan. If it will affect Japan, then it will be our target.”

The SM-3 has already had success hitting a target outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Just over a year ago, the U.S. Navy fired an SM-3 at a failed spy satellite (photos) and blew it out of the heavens (video).

Japan says it will station the destroyers Kongo and Chokai in the Sea of Japan off North Korea. Both vessels will be armed with SM-3 ballistic-missile defense systems, in case the rocket malfunctions or wanders close to any of its islands, according to the Japanese Kyodo news agency.

If Japan takes a shot and misses, it suffers “international humiliation” and ridicule for going all-in with the SM-3. On the other hand, if it scores a bull’s-eye, not only North Korea, but also China, will be afraid–very afraid, according to analysts and pundits awaiting the show of high-seas brinkmanship.

DENVER–If you thought that the Republican Party would try to overshadow the Democratic convention this week and the attention paid to Barack Obama’s choice of a running mate, you’d be right. Just do a search on Google.

By around 1 p.m. PDT, the ad at the top of the page had disappeared and a McCain ad had been moved to a less-visible position on the right side of the page, below the one from the actual Obama-Biden campaign.

This is an offline effort as well. Just a couple of miles away from Invesco Field, where Obama is scheduled to accept the nomination to be the Democratic presidential candidate on Thursday night, a plane circled overhead this week pulling a banner that reads, “Biden was right–Obama not ready.”

The ad that appeared reads, “What Does Joe Biden Say About Barack Obama? Find Out Today!” and takes searchers to a page on McCain’s site with a 30-second ad showing Biden in a debate saying that Obama is not ready to be president, followed by a clip of the Delaware senator saying he would be honored to run with McCain because “the country would be better off.”

The McCain camp was the highest bidder for ad space tied to the Biden terms and has also bought search ads for terms like “U.S. economy” and “housing crisis.”

An ad from John McCain's campaign appears above the ad from the Obama campaign on searches for "Joe Biden," as well as "Biden."

As The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, the McCain campaign has nabbed the top ad spot on Google for the search terms “Joe Biden” and “Biden.” Presumably it outbid the Democrats for the top spot.

Comedy clips have proven a good fit for the Internet. Sites like CollegeHumor and Funny or Die have attracted plenty of attention from fans and investors.

Financial details were not disclosed.

The Landlord on FunnyOrDie.com

Funny or Die, co-founded by Ferrell and backed by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, made a splash last year after the comedian released a clip called “The Landlord.” The video became an Internet super hit and was viewed more than 55 million times.

The group, which helped launch the careers of Will Ferrell, Phil Hartman, and Lisa Kudrow, announced Wednesday that it has agreed to produce 50 Webisodes over a year. The clips, which will be distributed by Sony Pictures Television, will appear on the Internet as well as mobile phones.

To the list of comedians trying to cash in on the Web, add The Groundlings, the revered Los Angeles improvisational comedy troupe.

The music service, which has opted to get out of music retail and subscription services, is offering to reimburse customers who bought music from Yahoo Music Unlimited. The decision follows the company’s controversial announcement last week that it will no longer authorize keys that allow users to transfer music to new PCs or devices starting October 1.

And surprisingly, EFF doesn’t necessarily want Microsoft to also offer refunds. After Microsoft shuttered MSN Music, the company announced last spring that it would stop issuing DRM keys. After being criticized, Microsoft decided to continue supporting its music for three more years. McSherry said that Microsoft’s decision ensures that customers get what they paid for. That’s all EFF wanted.

Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation called on Yahoo to offer customers refunds. Now that the company has, EFF is happy. “EFF applauds Yahoo’s decision,” said Corynne McSherry, an attorney for the group.

McSherry pointed out the differences in Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s approaches. Yahoo has decided to “tear off the band-aid.” Yahoo’s approach allows the company “to break free of DRM much faster,” McSherry said.

“In both cases, each of the companies has been forced to acknowledge they must do right by their customers,” McSherry said. “I do hope that any other vendor (selling DRM-protected media), learns a lesson. They all must live up to the conditions that they set when they sold their music.”

Yahoo Music earned kudos from one of the Web’s most outspoken advocacy groups on Monday.

Samsung, among other things, pointed to SanDisk’s $250 million operating loss in the third quarter and the “considerable increase” in SanDisk’s “risk profile.”

But that wasn’t all. In its letter, Samsung also mentioned “major job losses across your organization.” (Full Samsung letter here.)

In the wake of a big loss posted this week by SanDisk, layoffs appear to be in the offing.

On Tuesday, Samsung published a letter withdrawing its $5.8 billion offer to buy SanDisk at $26 per share, citing the Milpitas, Calif.-based flash memory company’s financial straits. (Although this doesn’t necessarily mean that Samsung is abandoning its effort to buy SanDisk.)

SanDisk shares were down 32 percent in trading at 12:20 p.m. PDT, to one of the lowest levels in years.

On Monday, SanDisk said in prepared remarks that as part of its efforts to reduce operating expenses, “actions will be implemented in the current quarter” and will include “canceling or exiting a number of products and marketing activities, and will result in employee reduction in R&D, Sales & Marketing, G&A, and Operations.”

And on Monday during SanDisk’s third-quarter earnings conference call, CFO Judy Bruner spoke about more restructuring to come. In response to a question about operating expenditures, she said: “We’re taking actions that we believe are quite aggressive and will cause us to make some pretty tough choices in the business.” She later added: “We have not finalized yet our restructuring actions.”

•  Control-alt-delete…gulp
At the same 2001 event, IBM engineer Dave Bradley talks about how the keystroke came to be, quipping that, though he invented it, Gates made it famous. The best part of this video is the look on Gates’ face after Bradley’s comment.

• Origin of PC clones
At a 2001 event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the personal computer, Gates and Compaq founder Rod Canion reflect on the creation of the modern PC business.

To mark this historic moment–33 years in the making–we’ve been combing through our video archives to find some memorable stuff.

• Microsoft versus Apple
At CES 2007, Gates talks about how Microsoft would trump Apple in the digital living room.

Well, it’s finally here: Bill Gates’ final, official day at Microsoft as a full-time employee.

• End of an era, ha ha ha
At CES 2008, Gates and friends debuted a comical look at what life would be like as his last day approaches. U2’s Bono, actor George Clooney, and director Steven Spielberg get some laughs at Gates’ expense.

• On outflanking rivals
Gates talks at CES 2008 about how Microsoft can beat rivals as software moves to the phone, TV, other devices.

• Ballmer’s tearful good-bye
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave Gates a teary thank-you as the founder said farewell to company employees at a town hall meeting Friday in Redmond, Wash.

• The future of tech
In the coming years, the conference table, the whiteboard…everything will be a computer, Gates says in October 2007.

• Gates going, but slowly
In June 2006, Microsoft’s co-founder was already planning for a different future for himself.

• Shifting roles
Here’s a look back at Gates’ career, with highlights from recent speeches.

See also:
Special Report: For Bill Gates, the next phase begins

• Hits and misses
Nobody’s perfect, not even Gates.

(Credit:
Jerry Jalava)

This is a story about Jerry Jalava, a Finnish software developer who lost part of his finger in a motorcycle accident last July. According to his friend, Henri Bergius, when the surgeon assigned to work on Jalava’s prosthetic finger discovered his hacking history, he made a clever suggestion: incorporate a USB key into the new digit.

Jerry Jalava’s USB key prosthetic finger

Check out more pictures of Jalava’s cybernetic finger in the slideshow below, and be sure to listen to Thursday’s episode of The 404 Podcast to hear 30 jokes in a row about what would happen if this were to go on another part of the body.

When Jalava needs the drive, he simply pulls it off his left hand, plugs it in, and comes back to pick it up after the transfers are finished. That dispels any parallels to that scene in “Robocop” when he uses the giant spike that comes out of his hand to transfer data from the OCP criminal database to the computer in his head.

The prosthetic finger contains a 2GB USB key, and Jalava also loaded it with Billix distribution, CouchDBX, and Ajatus to run off the drive, throwing even more geek cred into the mix.

Intel will introduce the Q9650 Core 2 Quad processor in the third quarter, according to Chinese-language Web site HKEPC, almost halving the price of the current high-end Intel part with similar specifications.

HKEPC also lists price cuts. The quad-core Q9550 (2.83GHz), for example, is slated to drop from $530 to $316 (the upcoming Q9650 will push the Q9550 down to a lower price point). The widely-used Q6600 (2.4GHz) is expected to fall from $224 to $203.

When contacted, Intel had this to say: “We publicly acknowledge that we will have future 45nm Intel Core 2 processor offerings which fit into LGA775 sockets and take advantage of currently available and future desktop platforms with similar physical, power, and thermal characteristics.”

The other notable desktop processor slated to debut in the third quarter is the Core 2 Duo E8600. This will have a clock speed of 3.33GHz, a 1333MHz FSB, and 6MB of cache memory, according to HKEPC. It is expected to be priced at $266.

(Credit:
Intel)

The Q9650 will be priced at $530, according to HKEPC, close to half the price of the similarly spec’d high-end “Extreme” QX9650, which is listed at $999 on Intel’s pricing Web page.

The E8600 will top the currently available E8500, which runs at 3.16GHz and is priced at $266.

The Core 2 Duo E8500 should see its price fall from $266 to $183.

Like the QX9650, the Q9650 will have a clock speed of 3GHz, a 1333MHz front-side bus (FSB), and 12MB of cache memory.

Zemanta, a tool that allows users to add relevant content to blog posts and e-mails, announced Tuesday that it has added Last.fm content to its platform. According to the company, bloggers who use the Zemanta tool will be able to add contextual links relevant to Last.fm’s tracks, videos, and artist pages. Bloggers using the Zemanta application will start writing about a song, album, or artist, and the tool will instantly pull in the relevant information from Last.fm. (Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET News.) The new feature is available now.

Beyond that, TravelPost features Google Maps integration to allow users to search for geographic details about possible vacation spots and its filtering and sorting tools let users narrow their preferences by star rating, property type, brand, and location.

Perhaps most compelling, users will also be able to filter their results based on the reviewer, so they can find similar people to get the most relevant review. Reviewers can be searched for by age, gender, budget, purpose of stay, and which sites they reviewed a hotel on. The site is live now.

Travel search site Kayak.com announced Tuesday that it has launched what it calls the “most comprehensive hotel information site on the Web”: TravelPost.com. The site provides reviews, content, and rates on more than 140,000 hotels from 200 travel sites. Its content includes descriptions, photos, maps, and reviews from travelers and professionals, as well as integration with Kayak.com’s rate search.

Online casual game provider Three Melons has raised $600,000 in funding from Santander Bank, the company announced Tuesday. According to the firm, it will use the capital to pay for its expenses and invest in growth. No further details of the funding round were disclosed.

Online advertising firm Linkstorm announced recently that it has raised $2.8 million from a variety of angel investors. According to the company, it plans to use the funding to expand its sales and improve its platform.

“Update Engine can update all the usual suspects, like Cocoa apps, preference panes, and screensavers. But it can also update oddballs like arbitrary files, and even things that require root–like kernel extensions. On top of that, it can update multiple products as easily as it can update one,” Greg Miller, a programmer on the update engine team, said in a blog posting Monday.

The Update Engine project is hosted at Google’s open-source site.

Google has released an open-source software project called Update Engine that programmers can use to keep their
Mac OS X software up to date.