Crave

(Credit: English Russia)

Updated at 2:43 p.m. PDT: A couple of keen readers with better engineering backgrounds than us pointed out that the "blue thing" is a generator, not a capacitor. We're sorry our Russian isn't as good as it could be.

Earlier Thursday, we brought you the DIY arcade cabinet, a feat of great ingenuity. But now I find this: a homemade, DIY, dynamo-powered cell phone charger. According to English Russia (one of the greatest sites on the Web,) Chechen soldiers made it to keep their phones charged while stationed in the woods without electricity.

This is awesome in every way. Apparently, you turn the crank to pull the strings to activate the pulleys. This, in turn, generates electricity in the generator (the blue thing), which is passed to the phone.

No word on how long you have to work the spools to get enough charge for a five-minute phone call, but while waiting in the cold woods it would be a good way to stay busy and keep warm. My question is: when will we see more dynamo phone chargers made commercially in the States? We have radios and flashlights, this just makes sense.

(Credit: Spb Software)

Starting with mobile online games, Spb Software, a popular vendor for Windows mobile apps, is rolling out a set of premium online services for 3G networks. And Russian mobile users will be getting the first crack.

The package, called SkyTouch, is basically a customized Spb Mobile user interface that gives consumers access to local online services over cellular data connections, such as streaming music or TV. This is the first time that Spb Online is implemented by a mobile service provider, which in this case is SkyLink, Russia's largest CDMA mobile operator.

SkyTouch will be available preinstalled on SkyLink's newest 3G smartphone, the AnyData ASP-505, that starts shipping at the beginning of November. On the phone, the SkyTouch software works as the entry point to the phone's features and allows users to access a variety of SkyLink's advanced online local services, including Mobile TV, online games, local GPS-based navigation, and access to social networks.

According to SkyLink, currently only 20 percent of its subscribers access the Internet from their phones. With the implementation of SkyTouch, the company hopes these number will increase.

According to Spb, Spb Online, in less than a month of open market presence, has so far worldwide supported more than 1 million Mobile TV viewing sessions and more than 160,000 online gaming sessions.

Russians may soon get their chance to queue up to buy the Apple iPhone. Legally, that is.

The iPhone 3G.

(Credit: Apple)

Official sales of the iPhone are likely to start in October, with a deal having been reached between Apple and Mobile TeleSystems, Russia's largest carrier, according to the Reuters news agency, citing market sources. A second, carrier has also signed a framework agreement, and a third deal is in the offing, Reuters reported.

A mobile telecommunications analyst told Reuters that MTS aims to sell 1 million iPhones within two years, and that total sales by the top three carriers over that two-year period are expected to hit 3.5 million units.

The price to Russian consumers is expected to be 24,000 rubles, or about $990. That's far higher than the price in the U.S., but much less, Reuters said, than the price of unauthorized iPhones already being scooped up in Russia.

There are reportedly 600,000 unauthorized iPhones already in Russian hands.

When Apple announced the latest iPhone, the 3G, in June, CEO Steve Jobs set a goal of getting the device into 70 countries "over the next several months." But in the big map of the world on display during his keynote address at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, Russia was a large and conspicuous void--as was its sizable neighbor, China.

Also at WWDC in June, Jobs said he expected Apple to sell 10 million phones this year.

WASHINGTON--Allofmp3.com, the controversial Russian online music store, may be effectively dead for now, especially if its sprawling mother country has any hopes of joining the World Trade Organization any time soon.

In late August, controversial Russian music store Allofmp3.com vowed on its blog (screenshot shown here) to live again. U.S. authorities want to prevent that.

But Russia's allegedly lackluster copyright enforcement and the rise of successor services like Alltunes.com continue to rattle U.S. politicians and bureaucrats.

The nation does not yet meet "international standards" in its intellectual property laws, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) said at a hearing about international piracy convened here Thursday by a U.S. House of Representatives intellectual property subcommittee, which he leads.

In addition to government intervention, payment and credit card processors and Internet service providers need to do more to rid the Internet of international piracy operations, too, he said: "Their refusal to use the tech­nical tools at their disposal to staunch piracy exacerbates the problem."

Russia has already taken modest steps to improve its standing as an intellectual property law enforcer, such as refusing to renew the leases on 15 of 16 unlicensed optical disc plants that reside on its military land, said Victoria Espinel, assistant U.S. trade representative for intellectual property and innovation.

But, as negotiations progress over Russia's joining the WTO, the country still needs to shut down and prosecute owners of "illegal Web sites" operating in Russia, including Allofmp3's successors, Espinel said.

"Russia remains a continuing frustration," said Eric Smith, president of the International Intellectual Property Alliance, a coalition of seven trade associations representing the music, movie, video game, publishing and computer software realms.

Cross-border copyright law clashes
Enforcement authorities and international record industry groups have tried enlisting the help of outside companies, including payment processors, to cut off documented cases of pirated file transfers. But that technique hasn't always been successful, particularly in Russia.

Visa vice president Mark MacCarthy told politicians that a pair of local court decisions issued this summer limited his company's attempts to halt Russian banks from processing its transactions through Allofmp3.com and Alltunes.com.

Last year, Visa concluded that Allofmp3 site was illegal because it hadn't secured proper permission from music copyright holders and stopped allowing Visa transactions to be processed. It made the same move a few months later with Alltunes.com. But in two separate cases, the judges determined that there wasn't significant evidence to show Allofmp3 and Alltunes were engaging in illicit activity because they were ostensibly paying royalties to a royalty collection body.

In the United States' view, those supposed royalty collection authorities were "rogue" operations that weren't authorized by the record industry, Espinel said. It pressured Russia to enact a new law, set to take effect in January, that says only those online services that pay royalties to "authorized" collection bodies are legit, she added. Assuming they're enforced, it seems those legal changes could confirm what record companies have believed all along--that the Russian music stores are illegal.

Still, the situation demonstrates "the limits of private sector enforcement efforts in cases of international infringement," MacCarthy said, adding: "When local laws are not clear or are not consistent, governments and aggrieved businesses cannot put private sector intermediaries like Visa in the position of resolving the conflicts and lack of clarity."

Berman, a well-known friend of the entertainment industry, voiced sympathy for Visa's plight. "I think this is a case where the company you represent has shown real leadership and has done the right thing," he told MacCarthy. "I hope other service providers who do online transactions follow your example."

A poster for Russian car company Autovaz

(Credit: Autovaz )

A new report by Research and Markets says Russians are snapping up cars at a proportionately faster rate than much of the rest of the world.

The report predicts that sales of new passenger cars will increase more than 20 percent a year in the coming years. The sale of spare parts is expected to grow nearly 15 percent annually.

According to a separate 2006 report by political commentator Alexander Yurov, more than 1.5 million cars are sold in Russia every year. Yurov estimates the figure will be closer to 2 million cars by 2008.

The Research and Markets report says "most of the growth is expected in the segment of foreign brands." So although Russian-made cars still dominate that country's market, it looks like those days might be numbered. There is already evidence to that effect: In 2005, the number of foreign cars brought into Russia increased almost by 50 percent over the previous year.

So who can rattle off the names of any major Russian car manufacturers anyway? Not I. Yurov says the biggest is AvtoVAZ, which sells more than 700,000 cars in Russia every year.

When it comes to hardware with a flair for the dramatic, there's little to compare with military aircraft. After all, just imagine Tom Cruise's career without Top Gun.

(Credit: MAKS 2007)

The place to be this week for aerospace shoppers is an airfield just outside Moscow, for the MAKS 2007 International Aviation & Space Salon. There awaits a cornucopia of flying weaponry, much of it Russian-made, from MiGs to helicopters to a mock-up of a work-in-progress unmanned stealth craft, the Skat. If you can get there by this weekend, you might still have a chance to admire the craftsmanship, mingle with the flyboys and the military-industrial suits, and watch some spectacular aerial maneuvers. (From what we've read, though, you might want to pack your own snacks and other amenities.)

You don't have to go for the combat gear if you don't want to. The Russian government, and companies like Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, would be plenty pleased to have you buy some passenger planes, like Sukhoi's forthcoming midrange SuperJet 100.

And just think: it wasn't so awfully long ago that one of the very few ways to get this close to a Russian (nee Soviet) fighter jet was to be in the James Bond business.

For a look at some of the planes at MAKS 2007, check out this CNET News.com gallery: Photos: Russian air show aims high.

(Credit: Porsche)

Now this could be a great reality show. It's like a combination of American Idol and Top Gear.

Porsche announced that it's holding open calls for 100 jobs Friday at its training center in Zuffenhausen, Germany.

Women, especially, are being encouraged to apply. The company would like to increase the number of women working in its industrial departments, which currently stands at only 10 percent, according to Dieter Esser, Porsche's head of vocational training.

"Every day we witness that the women are in every way the equals of their male colleagues and are just as enthused by Porsche technology as the guys are," Esser said in a statement.

The company is also looking for industrial mechanics who it can train to build Porsches and electro-mechanical automotive engineers who "specialize in passenger-car technology or vehicle-communication technology."

But it's not all about the Nurburgring and a mechanical background. The call is open to even high school students, if they are willing to work at and China after completing their Porsche training.

The apprenticeships begin in September. AutoBlog notes that Porsche has said grades are less important than passion, so open really means open to everyone.

Hope you like borscht or dumplings.

(Credit: Sybarites)

It's not often that a headset gets released before the phone it was made for, but that could end up being the case for Russia's Mago. Its Bluetooth headset has just been announced, according to Sybarites, though its luxury smart phone is several months past its initial release schedule.

The handset, by Russian designer Evgueni Maslov, is part of a wave of high-end telephony hardware to come from the former Soviet Union along with the likes of the Gresso phone. The Mago headset is reportedly made of specially treated titanium to match its phone and features noice-canceling technology similar to that used by Bang & Olufsen and Vertu luxury products.

The pricing of Mago's products remains a mystery, but don't expect a bargain if they're competing anywhere near the stratosphere of Vertu. That company's very-limited-edition "Signature Cobra" goes for $310,000.

(Credit: English Russia)

Stretch limos are for wimps. If you really want to make a statement, check out the "world's longest motorcycle," which Red Ferret says measures a full 31 feet and 4 inches.

The bike was created by a Russian inventor named Oleg Rogov who reportedly died this summer in an accident. According to the blog English Russia, he was inspired to build it "probably after he got too much beer inside."