paul

With apologies to Jon Bon Jovi, Google's latest doodle has seen a billion faces and rocked them all.

With the launch yesterday of its doodle honoring musician and electric-guitar innovator Les Paul, Google created the world's largest jam session by giving everyone on the Web a playable and recordable guitar. And by the looks of things, everyone was getting their Jimmy Page on.

As of this writing, Web guitarists have posted nearly 4,000 recordings of their musical efforts to YouTube. That apparently struck a chord with Google, which announced this evening that due to popular demand, it … Read more

On today's show, scientists discover that shocking tiny artificial brains with electricity produces the equivalent of short-term memory. Apocalypse nigh. Also, the Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in the i4i patent case, Apple goes Calvinball with a NEW RULE that says they won't take a cut of in-app subscriptions. Plus, Citibank got hacked ... a month ago. Thanks for the heads up, guys.

Over the next 24 hours, I wonder how many offices will be filled with the sound of bad guitar playing.

You see, in order to celebrate the 96th birthday (he died in 2009) of the original guitar hero, Les Paul, Google has created a doodle that you can actually strum.

A thing of beauty, it is. And already America's talented have begun to post their Google Doodle Dandies onto YouTube in search of international acclaim. (I have embedded just one specimen.)

All you have to do to create your own little theme and annoy all of those around you … Read more

Sometimes, one's congeniality can get one into trouble. So much so, that those with wicked intentions attach a Twitter hashtag to your persona--one that turns you into, well, a target of sorts.

In case you have been recently incarcerated for actions against the state (or otherwise out of touch with current events), you might not know that Sarah Palin visited Boston yesterday and shone something of a fading bulb on American history.

She seemed to be believe Paul Revere's midnight ride involved bell-ringing and gun-shooting, rather than lantern-displaying, and that the Revolutionary War hero's intent was to … Read more

SAN DIEGO--Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said a potpourri of devices will tap into the goodness of its Snapdragon chips, as the company also said Wednesday that it is working with Microsoft on the next version of Windows.

Qualcomm's dual-core Snapdragon processor will make its first high-profile appearance in Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad tablet, due soon. Like chips from Texas Instruments and Apple, Qualcomm's APQ8660 is based on the ARM architecture.

The company also began sample shipments this month of its next-generation "Krait" MSM8960 processor, which is designed to run at speeds up to 2.5GHz and integrates … Read more

While some brick-and-mortar libraries are converting to robot-style storage systems, Hewlett-Packard has put Paul McCartney's archive of music, video clips, and photos into a digital cloud library.

HP launched the private collection with MPL Communications, which the former Beatle founded in 1971, to digitize five decades of McCartney material.

It's called the Paul McCartney Digital Library, and it doesn't include Beatles material.

"The digital library is designed for Paul McCartney and his media company, MPL Communications Ltd," says Scott Anderson of HP Enterprise Business. "The library will help to power his media business, making it simpler and more efficient to identify, locate, and use assets across his vast personal collection."

So for the time being, the archive is a personal library for McCartney, but it could be opened up for licensing or fan use. A sample of some of the photos in the collection can be seen here.

The project is an example of HP's Instant-On Enterprise service, which embeds technology into everything a business or government does to make it more responsive to customers and partners. The private cloud also protects MPL's library in London from natural disaster since it will have backup files in a separate location. … Read more

How do you say "I want to rock and roll all night and party every day" in Dutch, Taiwanese, or Swahili?

You might be able to find out today when Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, two members of the iconic glam rock band Kiss, take part in a real-time "multi-language global chat" with fans.

The chat is, of course, designed to bring attention to Ortsbo.com, a language translation service. From the press release: "Ortsbo.com eliminates the need to cut, copy and paste text into a translator by automatically translating typed text into the … Read more

Intel CEO Paul Otellini sees "chaos" in the Android universe versus control in Apple's world, but he believes Google will gravitate to a more controlled model.

"Apple's objective is to control everything end to end so they can control the experience and the pricing," Otellini said Tuesday at Intel's investor meeting in Santa Clara, Calif.

Google's Android, however, couldn't be more different, according to Otellini. "Google's model is to get as broad a base as possible because, how do they get paid? They don't get paid by selling Android. They get paid by clicks. At the end of the day, the more pervasive Android is, the more money Google ultimately makes because advertising revenue can accrue from it," he said, responding to an analyst who asserted that Android's growth is being driven by the dynamics of fragmentation.

Otellini continued. "I think there is some growing pains that Android is going through...How do you create order out of chaos?"

He compared Android today with Microsoft's past trials and tribulations… Read more

The Seattle Seahawks stadium, Qwest Field Event Center, is adding solar panels to its roof.

The solar arrays from Fremont, Calif.-based Solyndra are racks of thin-film CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar cells shaped like tubes. The racks will cover approximately 2.5 acres, about 80 percent, of Qwest Field, Solyndra announced yesterday.

Solyndra is known for its tube-shape solar cells that capture direct, diffuse, and reflected sunlight throughout the day without the need for a rotating mechanism, the method often used to maximize the efficiency of flat solar panels.

The arrays for Qwest Field will come from Solyndra's state-of-the-art solar manufacturing plant in California, which was built in part with a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The plant is a showcase for U.S. green-tech manufacturing: It employs over 1,000 people operating robotics manufacturing tools as a way to curb production costs and compete against inexpensive solar panels from China while keeping jobs in the U.S.… Read more