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Nokia’s share prices from May 2007 to today. Image: Google Finance

Curious about how to burn through $2.5 billion in less than a year? Nokia might have some suggestions. According to a Reuters poll of analysts, Nokia is on track to lose 2 billion euros, or $2.5 billion, of its cash pile in the next three quarters — after already losing $2.7 billion of its cash reserves in the past five quarters.

And that’s not even the most pessimistic of outlooks.

More bullish analysts predict that the Finnish mobile company will wipe out the entirety of its 4.9 billion euro, or $6.2 billion, cash pile by the end of 2012. It’s a worsening outlook for Nokia, which suffered a $1.7 billion loss in Q1. And less than a month ago, the once-largest mobile handset company lost its position to Samsung and had its bonds downgraded to “junk” status.

“I would not rule out the possibility of Nokia being downgraded further,” Nancy Utterback, credit strategist at Aviva Investors, told Reuters. “The company is in a negative spiral that will be hard to reverse.”

Nokia declined to comment on the poll’s findings.

There is, however, still hope for Nokia, according to the 30 banks and brokerages polled by Reuters. The poll found that, on average, analysts believe Nokia will end the year with an actual cash buffer, albeit a small one, of 2.9 billion euros, or $3.6 billion.

It’s a significant loss compared to the company’s 2007 cash pile of more than 10 billion euros, or $12.7 billion. But at least there’s a sliver of hope that Nokia can survive longer than a couple of years.

And Nokia still has the potential to bounce back with its Lumia line of smartphones and the growth of Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. The polled analysts predict that Nokia will sell a total of 46 million smartphones next year, more than double the expected 20 million units for this year.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/afQrFjlLP2o/

An ad-supported Kindle Fire could spur impulse buys. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

Whether we like it or not, advertising pays for a bunch of stuff we enjoy. Network TV, magazines and web sites that don’t have multi-billion-dollar IPOs all depend on advertising dollars to make their profit margins — or even survive. And now Amazon is pondering an advertising subsidy for its Kindle Fire tablet.

Ad Age reports that Amazon has been pitching Kindle Fire welcome-screen ads to ad agency executives. For a paltry $600,000, companies can purchase an Amazon “Special Offers” ad to run for two months on the best-selling Android tablet around.

The agencies were unable to determine if the ads would be served to current Kindle Fires, or on an upcoming, subsidized Kindle Fire model. In the Ad Age report, one agency executive expressed concern that adding ads to the current Kindle Fire would upset owners: “You’re already paying a premium for the product and then having that unexpected ad experience makes for a worse consumer experience.”

It’s also unclear what exactly the welcome screen is on the Kindle Fire. Is it the lock screen? Or is it screen that appears when the Fire is started up?

Understandably, the ad agencies that spoke with Ad Age declined to sign up for the Amazon ad buy.

If Amazon is planning on an ad-supported Kindle Fire, the savings could be significant for consumers. Amazon has been selling ad-supported Kindle e-readers for a while now, offering hardware price reductions to consumers willing to suffer a few static ads. Ad-supported Kindles are on average approximately 30 percent cheaper than their ad-free counterparts. If Amazon were to knock 25 percent off of the price of the Kindle Fire, the tablet would sell for $150.

That is if Amazon can sell the ads.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/yuhRuGLX4Ac/

What will fill television’s sci-fi black hole after Fringe ends next season? The rash of new shows announced by networks over the past week include a few prime-time contenders that will offer an alternative to the usual doctor/lawyer/cop and sniggling singles/smug family fodder.

Which ones will nail their fantastical high-concept premises when they air this fall? Hard to say at this point, but here’s our short list of the most intriguing shows set to debut during the 2012-2013 TV season, with teaser videos to give you a taste.

Above:

Revolution (NBC)

J.J. Abrams’ Revolution boasts a spectacular-looking teaser and a post-apocalyptic premise that could spell success in the fantastical realm where Terra Nova (cancelled by Fox ), Alcatraz (canceled by Fox) and tepid Falling Skies (back for a second season on TNT) have faltered. The hook: 15 years after a total power blackout, humans make their way through the world without any of the conveniences modern civilians take for granted.

Creator Eric Kripke worked on the CW’s low-impact Supernatural drama, but it gets better: Iron Man’s Jon Favreau directs the pilot. Executive producer Abrams’ recent shows Undercovers and Alcatraz flopped, but the man who co-created Lost, working with Fringe producer Bryan Burk, might just turn a marathon power outage into compelling fare. Cast includes Andrea Roth (Rescue Me), Billy Burke (Twilight) and Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad).

Blowback: Which New TV Shows Are You Most Excited About?

Which in-development television shows do you find most tantalizing, and why? Whether they made our list or not, let us know in the comments below.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/4-zLwjy3Tq4/

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle, and the previous day’s answer (in invisitext) posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

The world’s youngest ocean has tides that were first recorded in 600 AD by men of what profession?

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER (mouseover to see):

Search [frown lines muscles] to learn that a frown contracts muscles between your eyebrows called the corrugator and the procerus. Search [corrugator procerus] to find that the corrugator muscles run obliquely, while the procerus muscle runs vertically and is shaped like a small pyramid just above your nose, fanning up into your forehead.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/eiGA4lVZoB8/

*Gosh, I love wire art. I bet there’s some way to mash-up an app for Calder-style mobiles to a gizmo like this, and go completely nuts.

*That’s really a beautiful example of “cheap complexity” in 3d manufacturing.

The DIWire Bender
by PENSA! 2 weeks 3 days ago

“The DIWire Bender is a rapid prototype machine that bends metal wire to produce 2D or 3D shapes.

“Wire unwinds from a spool, passes through a series of wheels that straighten it, and then feeds through the bending head, which moves around in 3 dimensions to create the desired bends and curves. Vector files (e.g., Adobe Illustrator files), text files of commands (e.g., feed 50 mm, bend 90° to right…) provide DIWire’s instructions.

“It’s essentially a 3D printer that describes lines, instead of volumes, in space, and it could be used for anything from prototypes to customized products.”

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/Qp2zzu1L3vY/

Late last night the 178-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket was moved out of its hangar at Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral and positioned on the launch pad. Today the rocket and Dragon capsule sit in the Florida sun waiting for tomorrow’s 4:55 a.m. ET launch. The launch pad is leased by SpaceX from the Air Force and is the location of the previous two Falcon 9 launches.

Like everything at SpaceX, keeping costs low is the theme on the launch pad just as it is at the factory. The company has reclaimed items from the scrap heap and opted for water instead of concrete to keep the noise down.

The pad itself has been in use for decades and was used to launch Titan rockets between 1965 and 2005. Now it is one of two launch sites used by SpaceX, the other being at Vandenberg Air Force base in California. The company plans to develop a third launch pad of its own in the near future.

Tomorrow’s launch window is a “near instantaneous” opportunity to lift off and make it to the International Space Station. The narrow window is dictated by the orbital path of the ISS and the need to preserve as much propellant as possible for the demonstration mission, rather than chasing the station on orbit. If the launch window is missed, the next satisfactory opportunity would not happen until Tuesday. There are other chances to launch, but they would require too much propellant to rendezvous with the ISS.

SpaceX has yet to perform a flawless countdown to launch during any of its previous missions. At a Friday press conference, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell acknowledged the delays during previous countdowns, but put the odds of a launch tomorrow at “better than 50/50.” The weather forecast is relatively good, with only a 30 percent chance of weather interfering with the launch.

Photo: Jason Paur/Wired

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/jRLTbS4SyIk/

So pretty. But so locked down. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

The HTC One X is a wonder of a phone — sleek and thin with a brilliant screen.

And yet it comes pre-loaded with so much unremovable bloatware, you’d swear that Microsoft was involved.

But no, the ATT Code Scanner, the ATT Family Map, the ATT Navigator and ATT Ready2Go and more are pre-installed and unremovable, thanks to, well, ATT — with a tacit assist from Google. ATT also shipped the phone with a locked bootloader, meaning that the modder community has to expend days and weeks to find a way to load new custom Android versions on the device, despite the handset manufacturer HTC’s recent pledge to stop using locked bootloaders.

It’s time for this to stop and it’s Google’s job to do it.

Since Android is open source software, ATT and HTC are free to install it on any handset they choose. But like any high-end Android phone, the HTC One X is Google-certified so it can ship with pre-installed Google software, including the Play App Store, Navigator, Gmail and others. It’s not that hard for handset makers and carriers to get that approval — in fact it’s too easy.

The whole promise of Android was that it was an open ecosystem — a contrast Google loves to draw with Apple’s closed system.

At the Google I/O conference in 2010, Google vice president Vic Gundotra intimated that Apple had become the Big Brother it promised to smash.

“If you believe in openness, if you believe in choice, if you believe in innovation from everyone, then welcome to Android,” Gundotra said. “If Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice.”

But carriers, who strangled handset and mobile application innovation for years until Apple wrested control from them, can’t stop themselves from bloating and crippling phones — including the ones Google touts as exemplars of openness.

That means Android is now primed to get a reputation as a throwback to the old days of mobile phones — when devices shipped with all sorts of crapware designed to make money for the carriers, no matter how annoying or useless the app was.

Google has been trying to fight this by creating a so-called flagship phone — the Nexus line, a lean, clean, pure Android phone that comes with few, if any, carrier-chosen apps. According to a Wall Street Journal report this week, Google’s now set to expand the program so that all the five major manufacturers will have one. These phones run pure Android, with no skins, and with bootloaders easily unlocked. If you want to install a Wi-Fi sharing app on a Samsung Nexus, no problem, no matter what your carrier’s policy is on their use.

That lets Android hackers like the Cyanogenmod and XDA-Developer communities tinker away — whipping up new features, creating battery-saving radios and removing the crud from devices. That’s what open source looks like.

Google launched Android, in part, hoping to undermine the power of the carriers. Selling the Nexus One online to outmaneuver the carriers failed, but since then Android has been on a tear. Now Androids are everywhere, and at least for the time being, no real Android phone could ship with commercial and critical success without Google services.

And it’s now time for Google to use that market power to constrain the carriers and keep Android open and free. As the Free Software Foundation says, “When users don’t control the program, the program controls the users.”

Google could easily update the requirements for including Google’s proprietary apps to require carriers to sell Android phones that allow users to have root, remove skins and provide accessible, unlocked bootloaders. Throw in a requirement that carriers include only a very limited number of carrier-branded and sponsored apps, and then you have a pretty good way to keep Android from being tarnished by the biz guys at the carriers.

If Google wielded their power and changed their requirements, there would be another positive side effect — a world full of devices that can be tinkered with — even if most users never get any farther than removing ATT Family Map the day they buy their phone. Which, sadly, can’t be done today on what’s arguably the best Android phone ever.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/LdwF1SSJUZE/

Photo: SpaceX

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — This morning’s scheduled launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was scrubbed with less than a second remaining on the countdown clock due to unusually high pressure in one of the engines.

In the pre-dawn darkness at Cape Canaveral in Florida, everything was looking good for a 4:55 a.m. EDT liftoff with all eyes focused on SpaceX’s Launch Complex 40. About 15 minutes before launch, SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced via Twitter the software used for liftoff had “initiated master countdown script ‘Auto Sequence: Yoda.’”

Excitement was building as the countdown made its classic downward progression from 10 seconds and veteran NASA announcer George Diller made it all the way to “T-0 seconds.” With a flash of light emanating from the bottom of the rocket Diller continued with “liftoahhh….” before his voice trailed off as it was clear the rocket was going nowhere.

The ignition sequence for the nine Merlin rocket engines had started, but the pressure in engine five was trending high. Once the limit was hit, launch software took over and aborted the liftoff. In a post abort press conference, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said the problem looked like an actual issue with the engine and was not one of the sensor or software issues that had led to delays in the schedule earlier this year during simulations.

“We can not blame the software guys for this one” Shotwell noted.

The abort actually happened at T-0.5 seconds after all engines had “started nominally” and only engine five was trending high. The problematic engine is located in the center of the engine layout pictured above in the hangar before the launch attempt.

One of launch procedures SpaceX uses is to hold the rocket on the launch pad for a few seconds after ignition to make sure everything is working properly. Shotwell said today’s abort is a perfect example of why the procedure is used. She said it is analogous to an airline pilot lining up on the runway and holding the brakes as the power levers are pushed forward, “we were revving the engines, we were looking at the gauges, we decided not to fly.”

Aborts are nothing new to the rocket launching world. The decision not to launch is considered critical to the safety and capabilities of any launch vehicle. Shotwell emphasized the upstart space company did not suffer a setback other than a few days on the schedule. She says the cause of the problem is not known other than it was likely due to a lack of sufficient fuel in the combustion chamber.

“This is not a failure, we aborted, with purpose”  Shotwell told reporters. “It would be a failure if we had lifted off with an engine trending in this direction.”

Because of orbital mechanics and the path of the International Space Station, the next opportunity for a liftoff will be on Tuesday at 3:44 a.m. EDT. The SpaceX team must wait until ISS is in a proper orbital path to minimize the amount of propellant needed to chase down and get in phase with the station. The team wants to preserve as much fuel as possible for the complex maneuvering that will be needed for the demonstrations required by NASA.

This isn’t the first time engine five on a Falcon 9 has caused a problem. On the first launch of the Falcon 9 in June 2010, engine five experienced a higher pressure as well leading to an initial abort.

Shotwell said initial inspection of the engine this morning showed the necessary valves appeared to be working properly and technicians must now make a more detailed inspection of the engine before determining the root cause of the high pressure.

SpaceX makes its own rocket engines at its Hawthorne, California factory. The company is investigating the possibility of fixing the engine on the rocket, or if needed, swapping out engine five from the Falcon 9 rocket in the adjacent hangar that is slated for the next flight later this year.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/-pgOQmhttic/

A boat jump from the upcoming 3-D movie about extreme stunt crew Nitro Circus.

The trio of films from the Jackass crew has grossed more than $334 million globally (emphasis on grossed). But they haven’t cornered the global market on smart-stupid stunts. There are plenty of insane clown posses eager for fame. Who’s got the goods? We asked Jackass star Steve-O for his take. (See stunts from these daredevils in the video gallery above.)

• The Dudesons

  Four childhood BFFs from Seinäjoki, Finland
  Signature stunt: The Human Dartboard
  Stateside success: The 2010 MTV series Dudesons in America, produced by Jackass’ Dickhouse Productions
  Steve-O says: “There’s one prank where they set a sleeping guy’s blanket on fire. It was downright immoral, but the receiver loved it.”

• The Misfits Stunt Crew

  A pair of mohawked crazies from Melbourne
  Signature stunt: Hanging a framed photo from a Misfit’s scrotum—using a hammer and nail
  Stateside success: None yet, though they were in the semis of Australia’s Got Talent
  Steve-O says: “What they do seems like just wanton self-mutilation. I don’t see much personality or substance.”

• The Tokyo Shock Boys

  A foursome who met in 1990 as roadies on a Paul McCartney tour
  Signature stunt: Wearing a diaper packed with lit firecrackers
  Stateside success: A 1997 off-Broadway show
  Steve-O says: “I like that they do gnarly stuff, but it’s not overly dark. Thumbs up.”

• Dirty Sanchez

  A quartet of hedonistic Brits named after a gross-out sexual maneuver
  Signature stunt: Rolling around near-naked in stinging nettles
  Stateside success: Their movie screened at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival
  Steve-O says: “The Dirty Sanchez guys bring too much testosterone. They’re like Slayer; I’m looking for Spinal Tap.”

• Nitro Circus

  A seven-person American crew led by X Games motorsports champ Travis Pastrana
  Signature stunt: Jumping motorbikes into the Grand Canyon and parachuting to safety
  Stateside success: A 2009 MTV reality series produced by Dickhouse; a 3-D theatrical release due out this summer
  Steve-O says: “Travis was the first guy ever to do a double backflip on a motorcycle. That’s a legit stunt—not like the trivial shit that we do.”

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/HQ4qG3j4Jsc/

The mounted Tarbosaurus skeleton slated to be auctioned tomorrow. Image via Heritage Auctions.

Tomorrow, a tyrannosaur will go up for auction in New York City. It shouldn’t. The Tarbosaurus – lot 49315 – was illegally collected and smuggled out of Mongolia.

Fossil theft is a major problem. It can happen anywhere, but dinosaur poaching is especially persistent and pernicious in China and Mongolia. Prime specimens are regularly ripped from the rock to be sold to private individuals elsewhere around the world, all against the heritage laws meant to regulate the responsible collection and curation of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. (In 2009, the United States government returned to China a cache of fossils that had been stolen from that country.) As explained to me by paleontologist and Mongolian Academy of Sciences representative Bolortsetseg Minjin, Mongolia only grants permission for fossil collection to reputable scientific establishments. “Anything against that is illegal,” she said. And excavated fossils either remain in Mongolia, or, with the permission of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, may be studied and displayed elsewhere under temporary loans.

There is no doubt the Tarbosaurus in question came from Mongolia. All the major Tarbosaurus specimens we know of have been found there. And, according to the specimen’s official description, “The dino was discovered within the past decade and has been in storage in England, still in its field jackets, for the last 2-1/2 years.”  Mongolia had fossil collection regulations a decade ago, just as they do today, and the fact that this undocumented specimen went from the field to a private collection outside Mongolia is a sure sign that the specimen was illegally collected and smuggled elsewhere.

The tyrannosaur – as well as a set of several other Mongolian dinosaur specimens – was scheduled for auction several weeks ago. During the past forty eight hours, Mongolian officials and paleontologists have been rallying to stop the auction. Elbegdorj Tsakhia, president of Mongolia, issued a statement yesterday questioning the details of how the Tarbosaurus was collected. If the dinosaur really was discovered in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, the statement noted, “President Elbegdorj Tsakhia said that it was illegal to auction the T-Rex and the fossil must be returned to Mongolia.” And American Museum of Natural History paleontologist Mark Norell, who is an expert on Mongolia’s dinosaurs and has frequently excavated fossils there, wrote a letter to Heritage Auctions affirming that the Mongolian dinosaurs slated for auction were almost certainly excavated illegally:

In the current catalogue Lot 49317 (a skull of Saichania) and Lot 49315 (a mounted Tarbosaurus skeleton) clearly were excavated in Mongolia as this is the only locality in the world where these dinosaurs are known. The copy listed in the catalogue, while not mentioning Mongolia specifically (the locality is listed as Central Asia) repeatedly makes reference to the Gobi Desert and to the fact that other specimens of dinosaurs were collected in Mongolia. As someone who is intimately familiar with these faunas, these specimens were undoubtedly looted from Mongolia. There is no legal mechanism (nor has there been for over 50 years) to remove vertebrate fossil material from Mongolia. These specimens are the patrimony of the Mongolian people and should be in a museum in Mongolia. As a professional paleontologist, am appalled that these illegally collected specimens (with no associated documents regarding provenance) are being sold at auction. [You can see the entire letter at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs.]

Other paleontologists, volunteers, and concerned parties have been adding their signatures to an online petition to stop the auction, created by paleontologist Neil Kelley. These dinosaurs do not belong in someone’s mansion or at a corporate headquarters. They should be returned to their country of origin. “If we can succeed, the best thing for those specimens is to go back to the country. That’s who they belong to,” Minjin said.

But Heritage Auctions may not budge. When I asked Minjin if the auction house showed any sign of cooperating with the Mongolian government, she said that their response “wasn’t really encouraging.” Now that several statements from Heritage Auctions have been published, I can see what she means.

The president of Heritage Auctions, Greg Rohan, wrote a snippy letter in response to the online petition trying to save the dinosaur for science. “You should all be aware that this auction has been publicicized [sic] broadly for 4 weeks,” Rohan wrote “and the Mongolian Governments request issued today less than 48 hours before the auction is unreasonable and inappropriate.” As if the timing of the protest has anything to do with whether the dinosaurs were obtained illegally or not. And, strangely, Rohan claims that the Tarbosaurus was discovered at a different time than what the auction’s official listing states. While the dinosaur’s description is clear that the tyrannosaur was excavated “within the past decade”, Rohan claimed that “Mongolia won its independence in 1921 and this specimen is obviously quite a bit older than that.” That’s quite a discrepancy, and I have no reason to take Rohan’s word for it. Based on what the official documents state – and the fact that no one even knew that tyrannosaurs existed in the Gobi until Tarbosaurus was described in 1955 – the dinosaur in question was undoubtedly collected during a time when Mongolia’s heritage laws were already in place.

Frustratingly, despite the fact that the Mongolian dinosaurs were illegally acquired and transported, other countries do not necessarily have laws forbidding the import or sale of fossils that have been improperly obtained. The excavation of transport of the Tarbosaurus was illegal, but, now that the dinosaur is here, the dinosaur’s sale might be legal. And Heritage Auctions has not been swayed by the appeals of the Mongolian government and the scientific community. In a statement to Dan Vergano’s Science Fair blog at USA Today, lawyer Carl Soller – who represents Heritage Auctions – said that there appeared to be no legal boundaries to the dinosaur’s auction tomorrow. “Our client has no reason to believe that any laws enforced by the United States have been violated,” Soller said, “and we are unaware that Mongolian law would have prevented export from Mongolia.” The auction is still on.

Whether or not the dinosaur was looted seems irrelevant to Heritage Auctions. They want to keep their centerpiece for tomorrow’s auction – a tyrannosaur they expect to go for about a million dollars. And the company seems unmoved by the implication that such sales only fuel the impression that dinosaurs can rake in massive amounts of cash – a perception that gives more impetus to poachers and thieves who trash field sites for specimens which wind up as status symbols for celebrities.

The Tarbosaurus, Saichania, and other Mongolian dinosaur specimens should be pulled from auction. Rohan’s statement that it is “unreasonable and inappropriate” to protest the auction is a loathsome and limp response. The timing of the objection is irrelevant. These fossils were illegally collected, and auctioning them off only fuels additional criminal activity. To put the dinosaurs on the block tomorrow would be a completely reprehensible action by Heritage Auctions, and I don’t believe that it would be all that difficult to pull the controversial specimens from the schedule.

Fossil poaching is a major threat to paleontology, and robs scientifically-significant specimens from everyone. Speak out against the auction. Sign the petition calling for a stop to the dinosaur auctions, and email Heritage Auctions via Bid@HA.com. These dinosaurs are part of Mongolia’s natural history, and that of our planet. They should be treated as such, and not as home decor for the affluent.

Article source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/BWtNICrQVeA/