Doug Aamoth…

Microsoft has reportedly inked a deal with Hollywood producer Peter Safran to produce entertainment content for Xbox Live.

Safran’s been tapped to produce genre-specific short episodes (less than 10 minutes) that appeal to 14- to 34-year old males. His client list includes Sean Combs, Nia Vardalos, and filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. I know — I’m excited too!

Look for the new content later this year, around fall. Microsoft’s expected to ink similar deals with other content producers as well.

Look how big I made this photo of the BlackBerry Curve!

It’s one of five sorta new handsets that’ll be available on the Verizon network in the not too distant future. Let’s run through them all one by one, shall we?

BlackBerry Curve 8330

Perhaps the most exciting addition will be that of the BlackBerry Curve. It’s RIM’s smallest and lightest full-QWERTY smartphone at 4.2” x 2.4” x 0.6”and weighing only 4 ounces.

You’ll get a 320×240 resolution, 2-megapixel camera, MicroSD expansion up to 8GB, EVDO data speeds, and it’s compatible with Verizon’s VZ Navigator location-based mapping and directions service.

It’ll be available in May (no firm date yet) for $270 after a $50 mail-in rebate and 2-year service agreement.

Full press release here.

HTC Touch (VX6900)

Commonly known as the HTC Touch and already available on the Sprint network, the VX6900 will be nearly identical between Verizon and Sprint-Nextel.

The big selling points include Windows Mobile 6 Professional, which allows you to view and/or edit Microsoft Office files, 2.8-inch touchscreen featuring HTC’s quasi multi-touch interface, 256MB ROM and 128MB RAM, and microSD expansion up to 8GB.

I have the Sprint version and if you’re a stickler for being able to type stuff, you’ll want to look for a phone with an actual keyboard. This guy’s nice for media-centric stuff, though.

It’ll be available in April sometime for $350 after $100 mail-in rebate and 2-year service agreement.

Samsung Alias

Then there’s the Alias from Samsung that Peter told us about earlier today. It’ll be here in the middle of April for $130 after a $50 mail-in rebate and with 2-year service.

It’s got a 1.3-megapixel camera (with flash), vertical and horizontal flip-out screen, QWERTY keyboard plus regular phone keypad, Bluetooth, and microSD card slot.

MOTO Q9c

The business-like version of the Q9m, the Q9c takes most of what’s available with the Q9m and adds VZ Navigator capabilities.

It comes with Windows Mobile 6 Standard, 1.3-megapixel camera, 128MB of on-board memory, stereo Bluetooth, and full QWERTY keyboard.

It’ll be available in April for $250 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year contract.

LG enV2

And last but not least, the successor to the enV is the aptly-named enV2. It de-chunkifies itself versus its predecessor while at the same time enlarging its external keys.

It comes in two colors (black or maroon) and features a 2-megapixel camera, multimedia playback and recording, Bluetooth, microSD up to 8GB, VZ Navigator capabilities, and instant messaging programs.

It’ll be available in April sometime for $130 after a $50 rebate and two-year service agreement.

via Gizmodo

A big thank you to everybody for filling our tips at crunchgear dot com inbox with wonderful, unique, and newsworthy items. Here are five that we just couldn’t get to this week.

“crunchgear”Domain Name & Internet keyword Registration

Dear Sir or Madam:

We are Beijing Erimut Network Information Technology Co., Ltd in China, which is the domain name registration centre here. A formal application from the company called Edward&Jane Trading (China) Co., Ltd is to register “crunchgear” as their domain name and internet keyword on Mar 22th 2008. Since this involves your company name or trade mark, in no time do we inform you. Please contact us timely if a first registration is needed to protect the domain names and internet keyword.

Kind Regards
Jim.fu

CG RESPONDS:

Ah, JIM FU! We meet again, my arch nemesis! This time we finish what we started — fighting to the death! Tell Edward&Jane Trading that they can have the CrunchGear domain name…OVER MY DEAD BODY! Fight now!

Seriously though, if you guys steal CrunchGear in China we’re just going to write another article about how China steals everything from everyone else. Up to you.

free website review

Dear Tips

Your website looks like it would get a lot more visibility and traffic on the search engines if it is easier to locate. For no cost to you we will analyze your site and your
web placement and show you how.  Email us today at bessie.q@gmail.com   

Our free review comes with no strings

Sincerely,
Bessie Quinton
Scout Marketing

CG RESPONDS:

Haay Bessie. Your company sounds really neat. Unfortunately, we’re going to need the strings. You gotta offer people the strings in this day and age.

You should consider offering the free review and then say something like, “If you’re not 100% satisfied with our free review, you can keep the strings as our gift — but wait! If you call within the next ten minutes, we’ll DOUBLE YOUR ORDER of strings. That’s a $199 value! You’ll get the free review plus TWO sets of strings with no obligation to buy!

ORDER

Hi, Happy Easter to you, i would like to order for some fashion/clothes,items from your store but i would first like to know if you can ship Fedex/Ups 5-7days delivery to Swaziland and Pretoria, South Africa. And also i would like to know if you do accept major credit cards as mode of payment. I will be waiting to hear from you ASAP, before i can proceed with my order. Warm Regard, Pets Centre.

CG RESPONDS:

Hi Pets Centre. Happy Easter to you as well. Get anything good? We accept Diner’s Club and Barnes & Noble’s Frequent Reader card but none of the majors like Visa, AMEX, etc. Also, I believe you may have misread our shipping locations. We actually ship to Switzerland, Peoria, and South Dakota.

I know it seems weird to ship all the way to Switzerland, but who are you to judge what’s weird? Your name is “Pets Centre,” for cracked ice.

I visited your website and had a question

I was looking at websites under the keyword las vegas loans and came across your website http://www.crunchgear.com. I see that you’re not ranked on the first page of Google for a las vegas loans search.

I’m not sure if you’re aware of why you’re ranked this low but more importantly how easily correctable this is.

There’s no reason you can’t have a top three ranking for the keyword las vegas loans based on your site structure and content. You have a very nice site.

You need significantly more one way anchor text backlinks. If you’re interested I can help you with this…

I’m talking about getting you ranked for ALL your keywords. Adding new backlinks on a steady and consistent basis from high PR quality websites is what produces the rankings you are looking for http://www.crunchgear.com.

The right kind of links are very critical in getting top ranking….and I can hand deliver these quality links to you.

My partners and I own 1000’s websites and offer private linking to hundreds of website owners just like yourself.

I didn’t send this email out to very many people but I am currently reaching out to a list of your “keyword competitors” as well. But I do favor your website because I can see your website monetizing the targeted website traffic the keyword las vegas loans can deliver.

I have your contact information and phone number. Is it ok if I give you a call?
I have a very simple way to prove that what I do works and it’s risk free for you to try. Nothing beats seeing the results with your own eyes

Is it ok if I give you a call? I would love to pursue this further over the phone with you or should I go somewhere else?

Sincerely,
Nate Figueroa
[phone number redacted]
www.linkshog.com

P.S – If the tables were turned and somebody I didn’t know came to me with a proposition, even one that was appealing, I would be hesitant because I would be wondering – what’s the catch? What does this guy know that I don’t.

But then I would think he does know something that I don’t know. He does have thousands of high PR websites, he does have hundreds of thousands of pages indexed and ranking in Google Yahoo and MSN. Sites that can deliver the quality anchor text backlinks. I would also think that I need to get my website in the top rankings. And he is offering to turn key top rankings for me…on all my keywords including las vegas loans. Even keywords I’m not currently competing for. Keywords that produce traffic that’s potentially worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars.

I emailed you because It’s a win -win for both of us. Think of it this way – Who wouldn’t be interested in buying money at a discount? Because that’s what I’ll be able to do offer you…Money at a discount.

Is it Ok to give you a call?  Or you can can call me anytime at the number above?
To not receive future emails from Links Hog please reply to this email or send a message to Links Hog, 14350 87th Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85054.

CG RESPONDS:

Wow you just kept going and going there, huh Nate? I can’t help but think that you could have saved a ton of time by actually reading something on our site rather than writing this huge e-mail. We’re all set on the “las vegas loans” keyword for now, but we’ll let you know as soon as we launch CrunchLoans.com.

check this company !!!

CG RESPONDS:

NO WAY!!! How did you get one of these?!! Do you have any video? Like a hands-on? NO WAY!!! I thought the Hypercom 7TP wasn’t coming out until later in the year! NO WAY!!! This is unbelievable!!! I’m going to cross-post it to MerchantAccountGear.com too!!

Click here to read previous Back Burner posts…

One of the great features of many Linux distributions is the ability to test them out before committing to installing them on your hard drive. Live distributions can be burned to bootable CDs, DVDs, flash drives, and more (even floppies, remember floppies?!).

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of ten popular live Linux distros as voted on over at FrozenTech. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments section.

Slax (41MB to 202MB)

Slax is a modern, portable, small and fast Linux operating system with a modular approach and outstanding design. Despite its small size, Slax provides a wide collection of pre-installed software for daily use, including a well organized graphical user interface and useful recovery tools for system administrators.

Website: Slax.org

Kanotix (503MB to 719MB)

Kanotix is a rock-solid Linux based on Debian, which contains the newest packages and recognizes more modern hardware than any other operating system in use today…

..Kanotix will run as a LIVE-CD on practically any computer — automatically detecting and configuring virtually any piece of hardware. It is ideal for analysis, data rescue, forensic work, removal of viruses on Win-PCs – or simply for safe surfing and mailing in an internet cafe. It installs to your hard drive in just a few minutes and is ideal for use on your desktop workstation or notebook, or as a server.

Website: Kanotix.com

NimbleX (200MB)

NimbleX is a small but versatile operating system which is able to boot from a small 8 cm CD, from flash memory like USB pens or Mp3 players and even from the network. Because it runs entirely from a CD, USB or network it doesn’t require installation or even much hardware. NimbleX is based on Slackware with the use of linux-live scripts and it has a lot of this distribution advantages.

Website: NimbleX.net

PCLinuxOS (299MB to 685MB)

PCLinuxOS (abbreviated also as “PCLOS”) is distributed as a LiveCD, which can also be installed to a local hard disk drive. When used as a LiveCD, it can work with a USB flash drive, where the user’s configuration and personal data are saved. The entire CD can be copied to and run from memory (if the system has sufficient RAM) increasing speed.

PCLinuxOS uses the Advanced Packaging Tool (or APT), a package management system (originally from the Debian distribution), together with Synaptic Package Manager, a GUI frontend to APT, in order to add, remove or update packages. If there is enough memory on the machine and a network connection, the LiveCD can update packages.

PCLinuxOS is also designed to be easy to remaster after installation, creating one’s own personalized CD, using the mklivecd tool.

Website: PCLinuxOS.com

KNOPPIX (700MB)

KNOPPIX is a bootable Live system on CD or DVD, consisting of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a productive Linux system for the desktop, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos.

It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it (over 8GB on the DVD “Maxi” edition).

Website: Knoppix.org

GoblinX (302MB)

GoblinX is a Live-CD that is based on the excellent Slackware, developed and maintained by Flavio de Oliveira a.k.a Grobsch and created by using Linuxlive scripts.

It is directed towards those users whose appreciate quality applications and a workspace that is both practical and beautiful. It contains some of the most often used and praised applications for Linux, a completely operational Linux system inside a single CD-ROM, runs from any CD-ROM drive without requiring the installation and can be easily customized by everyone. It also can be used inside a Pendrive or other bootable device.

Website: GoblinX.com.br

Damn Small Linux (48MB)

Damn Small Linux is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:

• Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
• Boot from a USB pen drive
• Boot from within a host operating system (that’s right, it can run *inside* Windows)
• Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call “frugal install”
• Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
• Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
• Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
• Modularly grow — DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize

Website: DamnSmallLinux.org

MEPIS (693MB)

SimplyMEPIS as a Live CD or DVD allows you to run the Linux operating system and all the programs from your CD or DVD drive before you install. There is no need to backup all your data, delete the whole hard disk and install the system, just to find it doesn’t meet your needs and expectations.

Insert the SimplyMepis disc in your drive and reboot your computer. Simple menu choices will quickly load SimplyMEPIS Linux allowing you to login. You’ll have a SimplyMEPIS desktop just as it would be when you install it to your hard drive. Test the included software, see if it supports all your hardware, and assure that your internet connection works. You can also use SimplyMEPIS as a recovery CD for troubleshooting computers and providing the tools to save your valuable data.

Website: MEPIS.org

Puppy Linux (60MB)

Puppy Linux is a LiveCD Linux distribution that is very small and focuses on ease of use. The entire operating system and all the applications run from RAM, allowing the boot medium to be removed after the operating system starts. Included are applications such as SeaMonkey, AbiWord, Sodipodi, Gnumeric, and Gxine/xine.

The distribution was developed from scratch by Barry Kauler; it is not based on any other distribution.

Website: PuppyLinux.org

Ubuntu (699MB to 3.5GB)

Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you’ll ever need, from word processing and email applications, to web server software and programming tools...

…We issue a new desktop and server release every six months. That means you’ll always have the the latest and greatest applications that the open source world has to offer.

Website: UbuntuLinux.org

Got a nice little package yesterday containing the HTC Shift running on the Sprint network. I’ll be putting this thing through its paces next week at CTIA and will have a full review for you in short order. It’s a pretty cool gadget so far. If you have any questions about it, let me know and I’ll try to answer them for you.

One weird quirk; it comes attached to a nice fold-over leather case but you can’t remove it. It’s stuck inside the case at all times. According to jkOnTheRun,

“It seems that the FCC required HTC to only allow the US version of the Shift to be operated while in the case.  The Shift is different from other UMPCs due to the CDMA radio in combination with the SnapVUE which means that the device is always on even when it’s off and the FCC wanted the user protected from the radio and hence the attached case.”

So keep that in mind, I guess.

Funerals are expensive. To my family and friends; I’d rather my funeral have an open bar, a band, and a gigantic velvet painting of me than an open casket and a bunch of people crying. I’d also consider the possibility of you sending my ashes to the moon in a bullet-like canister (see above photo).

Granted it wouldn’t be all my ashes, just a small quantity of my ashes. Maybe like my hand or something. Then freeze my head and send the rest of my body to the organ donor place and conveniently disappear when they try to give you my corpse back after they harvest my organs. Then they can worry about disposing of everything.

Should you choose to go with the moon-ash thing, please use this service by Celestis, Inc. unless another, cheaper alternative has arisen by the time I die.

Here’s what will happen…

“The process is simple and completed with the utmost respect and care. A portion of cremated remains is carefully placed inside a permanently sealed, individual flight container, loaded into the Space Services spacecraft and attached to the launch vehicle.

On launch day families gather at the liftoff site to share the experience of seeing their loved ones’ dreams of spaceflight realized. With a roar and a fiery streak across the sky, the rocket lifts its precious load higher and higher into the peaceful solitude of space.

Memories of the flight participants’ lives are shared among friends and family at the pre-launch memorial service and preserved on the keepsake video or DVD (included in the service), and biographical section of our Web site.

Post Launch. After a successful launch, Space Services provides a professionally produced videotape or DVD of the entire event to the participant’s family or designee.”

Please rip and encode the DVD into FLV format and send it to tips at crunchgear.com, labeled “Doug Aamoth’s Final Review” but don’t send it to TechCrunch because most of the comments would be something like, “And this is on TechCrunch WHY?!!” or “I’m important! Give me my five minutes back!” or “Worst thing I’ve ever seen! You should die!” and this is supposed to be a happy time, plus I’d already be dead.

The pricing starts at just under $10,000 but I plan on living for at least 100 more years, so I’d think that it’d be cheaper by then.

via Reuters

Here’s the latest CrunchGear-themed crossword puzzle. You can find the answers to the clues spread throughout this week’s posts. Enjoy!

CrunchWord Puzzle for Friday, March 28th

The year was 1860. Abraham Lincoln was taking the political world by storm, South Carolina had decided it needed a break from the rest of the Union, and the first ever audio recording was made in France by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville on his latest invention; the phonautograph (left).

The device worked by “scratching sound waves onto a sheet of paper blackened by the smoke of an oil lamp.” It lacked a multi-touch interface and came with only 32MB of memory and no expansion slot. The first-ever recording is a ten-second snippet of a woman singing “Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit,” which I guarantee P. Diddy’s going to sample and re-release before the end of the week.

Roughly 17 years later, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and was kind enough to issue a $200 refund to early adopters of the phonautograph.

You can listen to the recording here at the FirstSounds.org web site.

It was just a matter of time before someone overclocked the hell out of one of these things. Thanks to a user named bdleonard over at the OLPC News Forum, you can really kick that 433MHz AMD Geode up a couple notches. One user was able to get his humming along at 566MHz, although he did report that the back of the screen got “noticeably warmer.”

Anyway, it’s not for the faint of heart and if you’re a small child reading this post from an OLPC, don’t try this without your parents’ permission. Although you’re reading CrunchGear, your parents probably mailed it in quite some time ago — maybe go get them a carton of smokes instead of relying on their overclocking judgment.

How to overclock your OLPC [OLPC News Forums]

Sony has issued a warning to gamers in the UK concerning “a possibility of unauthorized access to personal information on the PLAYSTATION Store through PCs.” It didn’t say how the accounts had been accessed but the last line of the message reads, “Remember; do not disclose your log-in or password details on any email communications,” although that could be unrelated.

It’s unlikely, according to Sony, that credit card information has been stolen since only partial card numbers are shown are displayed but any credit stored inside the PlayStation Wallet could be used to purchase items from the store.

Here’s the message in its entirety…

Notice to PLAYSTATION®Network Users

We have found out that there has been a possibility of unauthorized access to personal information on the PLAYSTATION®Store through PCs, a content download service of the PLAYSTATION®Network. Although unlikely, it is possible that the passwords of a small percentage of PLAYSTATION®Network users may have been changed through unauthorized access, making it possible to view users’ personal information and/or use the Wallet for the PLAYSTATION®Store. PLAYSTATION Network accounts do not display entire credit card numbers, so any unauthorized access to your PLAYSTATION Network account is very unlikely to compromise your credit card number.

We have taken immediate measures to rectify this issue and system security is restored.

We have investigated the extent of unauthorized access and possible alteration of passwords that could have occurred before corrective measures were taken, and are directly contacting customers who may have been affected by this incident. In order to verify that your account is intact, we strongly suggest that PLAYSTATION®Network users sign in to the service. If you can successfully sign in with your pre-set password, your account is not affected by this incident.

For more information, please contact Customer Service.

Remember; do not disclose your log-in or password details on any email communications.