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Did Han Solo shoot first? Who cares? You can buy his blaster

An original Han Solo blaster from "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" is up for auction. If you have $200,000 or more, you could soon be taking on any Stormtroopers in your area.

Han Solo's original blaster from 'Star Wars' is up for auction, at a starting bid of $200,000.

(Credit: Profiles in History)

With Christmas just around the corner, this is the perfect gift for that huge "Star Wars" fan in your life: an original Han Solo blaster.
Truth be told, this nifty little piece is going to run you at least $200,000, and likely a bit more. But how can you put a price on such an important piece of geek (and film) history?

Original Han Solo blaster from 'Empire,' 'Jedi' up for auction (pictures)

Officially, this is a "Harrison Ford 'Han Solo' non-firing DL-44 Blaster," from "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," according to the auction site. And sure, it's not the one Han Solo brandished in the famous cantina scene in the original "Star Wars." But hey, the "space-scoundrel-turned hero's persona is irrevocably tied to his blaster pistol," so does it really matter? That may be especially true because, according to the auction information, the original "Star Wars" blaster may no longer exist.
This blaster, however, was used in the scene in "Empire" when "Darth Vader uses the Force to lasso the blaster out of Han's hand," and the scene in "Return of the Jedi" when "Han wrestles with a Stormtrooper to regain possession of his blaster during the Rebels' encounter with Imperial forces on Endor."

The blaster is based on a German issue Mauser C96 pistol, the auction site says, and was custom-made from resin for the "Star Wars" films "by casting the original hero prop from the first 'Star Wars: A New Hope.'"
That means it has the same serial number as Han's blaster in the first film. And, as an added bonus, it's thought that Mark Hamill probably used the same blaster when playing Luke Skywalker in "Empire" and "Return of the Jedi."

Huawei reportedly decides to abandon the US market

Huawei's US headquarters.

(Credit: Huawei) 

 

It's no secret that Chinese telecom gear maker Huawei and the US government aren't exactly best friends -- for the past couple of years, the US has accused Huawei of cyberespionage on behalf of the Chinese military.
It appears this spat may now have escalated into a full-fledged falling-out.
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei told French news site Les Echos last week that he no longer wanted to stay in the US market.
"If Huawei gets in the middle of US-China relations," and causes problems, "it's not worth it," Ren reportedly said, according to a Chinese transcript of the interview translated by Foreign Policy. "Therefore, we have decided to exit the US market, and not stay in the middle."
It's unclear how serious Ren's threats are or if there's any timeline to Huawei possibly pulling out of the US market. When contacted by CNET, a Huawei spokesperson was vague regarding Ren's statement.
"We remain committed to our customers, employees, investments, and operations and more than $1 billion in sales in the US," the spokesperson said, "and we stand ready to deliver additional competition and innovative solutions as desired by customers and allowed by authorities."

Last year, the US House Intelligence Committee issued a letter to Huawei stating US government concerns over its connections and ties to the Chinese military and government. In the letter, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) said that the committee was "concerned" the Chinese authorities could be hacking in or attempting to breach US networks through its telecom intermediaries. However, Huawei has adamantly maintained that it is not involved in any sort of cyberspying. Additionally, the US White House reportedly carried out a review of security risks posed by Huawei and was said to have found no evidence that the company spied on the US.
But the relationship between Huawei and the US government has obviously been strained. In April, a Huawei executive said there would be no growth margin for the company in the US market in 2013. Part of this was apparently due to the US advising caution to consumers when using or purchasing Huawei equipment. By July, with new allegations of cyberspying, the company announced it was reducing its focus on the US market.
It appears that this reduction could now become even more pronounced.

Volvo to unload 100 self-driving cars onto city streets

Looking to become a leader in the autonomous vehicle game, the Swedish-based company unveils a new pilot project dubbed "Drive Me.

Volvo plans to bring 100 self-driving cars to Sweden's roads.

(Credit: Volvo Car Group) 

 

While Google's self-driving car has garnered most of the headlines, a handful of car companies are also working on their own renditions of autonomous vehicles. Volvo is one of the latest car manufacturers to join this list.
The Swedish-based company announced Monday that it has launched a pilot project dubbed "Drive Me -- Self-driving cars for sustainable mobility," which will bring 100 self-driving Volvo cars onto city streets. The project will take place on about 50 kilometers of busy roads in the Swedish city of Gothenburg.
"Our aim is for the car to be able to handle all possible traffic scenarios by itself, including leaving the traffic flow and finding a safe 'harbor' if the driver for any reason is unable to regain control," Volvo technical specialist Erik Coelingh said in a statement. "Our approach is based on the principle that autonomously driven cars must be able to move safely in environments with non-autonomous vehicles and unprotected road users."
Volvo's goal for "Drive Me" is to target the "societal benefits" of autonomous driving and to position itself as a leader in this arena. One of its central objectives is to increase road safety -- something the car manufacturer has been working on for a while in a program it calls 2020 Vision.

The self-driving vehicles to be used in Drive Me are defined as "highly autonomous cars." This means the automobile can handle all driving functions the driver requires except for time-to-time scenarios that are a bit more tricky. The cars will also be able to self-park without the driver in the car. The first model to launch will be the all-new Volvo XC90, which will be unveiled in 2014. Google has been leading the charge in developing self-driving technology over the past couple of years and now is said to be looking for car company partners. In the meantime, several automobile manufacturers have also gotten into various aspects of the autonomous driving game, including Audi, Mercedes Benz, Cadillac, Ford, Nissan, Delphi, Toyota, and Tesla.
Volvo's Drive Me project will start in 2014, but the first cars aren't expected on the road until 2017.

23andMe halts advertising amid FDA demands

People can still buy the genetic-testing startup's popular at-home testing kits, but they won't see any marketing for these products.

 
While 23andMe has forged on despite the Food and Drug Administration's order to halt sales, the company is now saying it has stopped marketing its products as a result of the kerfuffle.
According to Reuters, the Google-backed genetic-testing startup has halted its TV, radio, and online ads for its popular at-home testing kits.
23andMe was issued an FDA warning letter two weeks ago. The government agency demanded the company stop selling its at-home testing kits "immediately" because they required regulatory clearance and were supposedly being sold in violation of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
In response, 23andMe issued a brief statement saying the company's relationship with the FDA is "extremely important to us and we are committed to fully engaging with them to address their concerns"
In the meantime, however, 23andMe has continued to sell its at-home testing kits as it works to come in compliance with the FDA's requests.

In a blog post last week, the company's founder Anne Wojcicki wrote that the company was working to convince the FDA of the "quality of our data" and that it was in dialog with the agency -- albeit somewhat behind in responding to its requests. "This is new territory for both 23andMe and the FDA. This makes the regulatory process with the FDA important because the work we are doing with the agency will help lay the groundwork for what other companies in this new industry do in the future," Wojcicki wrote. "It will also provide important reassurance to the public that the process and science behind the service meet the rigorous standards required by those entrusted with the public's safety."

Bokeh, a new tool more for quietly logging your memories

There are plenty of journaling services available, but Zhang generally thinks they're too private. "Bokeh is a middle ground," he said, aiming to make it easy to remember what happened on a given day and to make it possible to share with those whom you grant password-protected access.

 

The service aims to strike a balance that's not as locked down as a diary and not as public as Facebook. It's from the people behind the Peta Pixel photo blog.

Facebook is great for extroverted folks who want to broadcast their thoughts and photos to a lot of people. A new service called Bokeh, though, is geared for those who want something closer to a private journal -- though not too close.
Michael Zhang and Mike Zupan just launched Bokeh on Tuesday, offering the inevitable iOS app with an online site where people can store photos and thoughts. It's a spinoff from PetaPixel, the photography blog Zhang founded and of which he's now editor in chief.
"Social media is very geared toward broadcasting rather than remembering. Services like Twitter or Facebook make it extremely easy to store bits and pieces of your life, but you're putting everything in front of other people's faces through their feeds, and looking up days in the past isn't very easy," he said.
However, those services have shown how easy it should be to create posts, and Zhang hopes to bring some of that simplicity to the job of logging what's going on and looking to see what happened on a specific date in the past without scrolling chronologically back through dozens or hundreds of posts.
To get traction, though, Bokeh will have to compete with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and many other sites -- sites that do often offer some settings for a more private style of sharing even if it's not as easy as some would like. And for anyone who wants a more public site, adding a more private service like Bokeh means an entirely separate account rather than just tweaking a few sharing settings when composing a post.

The Bokeh app is designed to let people easily find out what was happening on a specific day in the past and to make it easier to whip up a quick post out of photos and text.

(Credit: Bokeh)

The free service's costs are paid by PetaPixel revenue. Later, advertising can be added as way to make money, Zhang said.
"We're self-funded for now, and can be for quite some time," Zhang said. "We'll be able to grow significantly on PetaPixel's back until we do need to start looking for some serious funding from outside sources."
Plans for new features include an Android app and a Web interface for writing posts.
"We're definitely aiming to release for Android as well, but we want to see how iPhone users react first and see what feedback we get," he said. "Android is a huge market now, but we actually did find doing iOS easier for this first launch. Everything is so standardized, and there's less variables we need to worry about. For example, the screens are all the same width, and the onscreen keyboards are all the same height. For Android, there are just so many things you need to account for, and it starts to get really messy really fast."

More features are planned for the service itself, too: searching, commenting on posts, categorizing them into various types, and reading others' posts with the mobile app.
The service's name also owes a debt to PetaPixel.
"In photography, bokeh is the quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photograph. Our goal is to help you remember the small things in life that would otherwise disappear from your memory and be lost forever," Zhang said. "For uneventful days, it's very easy to completely forget them for the rest of your life as if you never lived them. Even if you snap a simple photo here and there, it really helps you remember those days."

Top Comet ISON watcher calls space rock officially DOA

The potential comet of the century grazed the sun last week, and it now appears it didn't survive to put on a once-in-a-lifetime Christmas show for us.

comet ISON, as we once knew her...

(Credit: TRAPPIST/E. Jehin/ESO)

It appears there will be no once-in-a-lifetime celestial light show this month as Comet ISON streaks past Earth trailed by a glorious tail of ice, water, rock, and dust.
On Monday, one of the leading ISON watchers, Karl Battams of the U.S. Navy's Sungrazer Comets citizen science project and the NASA-sponsored comet ISON observing campaign, posted a eulogy for ISON, which is now believed to have disintegrated into millions of fragments as it swung around the sun, coming within a million miles of the star's surface.
"Tragically, on November 28, 2013, ISON's tenacious ambition outweighed its ability, and our shining green candle in the solar wind began to burn out," Battams writes (NASA itself has since issued a statement saying that it continues to investigate ISON's fate, but calls it "likely" that ISON is now "only dust").

Last Thursday, as many Americans feasted with their families for Thanksgiving, Comet ISON reached perihelion -- its closest point to the sun before swinging around the star to pass us again on its way out of the solar system.
What followed was a confusing roller-coaster of uncertainty as to the fate of the comet. For hours there was no sign of ISON on images returned by solar observatories, leading some to jump to the conclusion that the space rock had been essentially vaporized by the heat of the sun.
Then NASA observations began to show something emerging from the other side of the sun that appeared to be a comet with at least a small surviving nucleus. It now appears that what we were seeing was the fragmented remains of ISON that will likely begin to rapidly fade away from view.
ISON was a big comet on its virgin trip through our solar system that first became visible to amateur observers earlier this fall, and was believed to hold the potential to become one of the most spectacular such visitors in decades, if not centuries, but only if it could survive its close encounter with the sun.
But don't despair, fellow super space nerds, such a historic event could still be in our future. As Battams points out, ISON was undiscovered until a little over a year ago and is "survived by approximately several trillion siblings."

Apple buys Topsy, could integrate it into iTunes Radio -- report

Apple has paid more $200 million to buy Topsy, a company that develops tools for analyzing tweets and Twitter traffic, according to the Wall Street Journal.

(Credit: Screenshot/Topsy)

Apple could automatically give users of its iTunes Radio service real-time information about songs or artists trending on Twitter, or could offer a wide variety of other real-time analysis, thanks to its reported purchase today of social-media analytics firm Topsy Labs.

According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Apple paid more than $200 million for San Francisco-based Topsy, which develops tools that help companies mine Twitter for sentiment analysis.
Topsy frequently issues data about how information has spread across Twitter during big events such as Hurricane Sandy or the Super Bowl. Many companies use that information to better understand how to reach current or prospective customers. Topsy's tools can reveal how often a specific term is tweeted and who is doing the tweeting.
Neither Apple nor Topsy immediately responded to a request for comment. However, Apple confirmed the acquisition to the Journal, though it didn't offer any rationale for the deal. "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time," the company told the Journal, "and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
Although Topsy is a Twitter partner with access to the social network's "firehose," the full stream of tweets from all of the more than 220 million Twitter users, it's not clear exactly what Apple might do with the analytics firm. The Journal speculated that the tech giant might well be interested in bringing more real-time data about songs or artists trending on Twitter.
But the deal may be more about helping Apple understand what its millions of customers are saying about it, said Brian Blau, an analyst at Gartner. Though Blau had no direct information about the acquisition, he said that Apple may view a service like Topsy as a way to "figure out how to inject themselves into the social conversation."
For some time, said Blau, Apple has been a "somewhat anti-social" company in that they haven't put too much emphasis on interacting with customers directly. But, Blau said, "I think a company like Apple certainly can't ignore what's being said in social these days....You need to know who your customers are, and what they're doing."
Indeed, Blau added that it makes sense for Apple to buy Topsy. "There's been a couple times where they've been caught off guard," he said. "Maybe having a tool like this would help them better prepare" next time.

Salesforce crowns second hackathon king after criticism

The Salesforce1 hackathon's top award was $1 million.

(Credit: Salesforce)

Salesforce deemed the $1 million prize for its recent hackathon as the "biggest single hackathon prize in history." It appears that pot has grown even sweeter.
After allegations of favoritism, secret judging, and a rigged contest for the company's first-pick winner, Salesforce announced Monday that there will also be a second winner. This means Salesforce will pay out a total of $2 million to the top two winning developer teams.
Here's how Salesforce's vice president of developer relations Adam Seligman explains it in a blog post he wrote Monday:

We heard feedback loud and clear from the developer community on the Salesforce1 Hackathon we ran at Dreamforce. We take feedback seriously and, as a result, our internal audit team conducted a comprehensive review of the eligibility requirements and judging process. We want to discuss all of the issues transparently, explain how we made some key decisions, and share the results of the review. The internal review found that the winning team, Upshot, met the hackathon's eligibility requirements, and that the app they submitted adhered to the rules of the hackathon. It also found that we weren't clear enough with the final round judges about the use of pre-existing code.
So here's what we're going to do: we are declaring a tie and we are awarding each of the top two developer teams with the grand prize of $1 million. Both Upshot and Healthcare.love built incredible apps on the Salesforce1 Platform and both deserve to be recognized.

The Salesforce1 hackathon was a competition held last month in which more than 4,500 developers worked to create apps built on the Salesforce1 platform. In all, more than 150 apps were submitted. Salesforce deemed Upshot the winner. However, shortly after, it was discovered that one of Upshot's developers was a former Salesforce employee who allegedly got a jumpstart on the contest.

Salesforce maintains that the contest was not rigged. Immediately after Upshot's team players became clear, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff promised an internal investigation. This review concluded that Upshot met eligibility requirements because the employee had left Salesforce before the deadline specified in the hackathon's rules. However, the review also determined that the judges could have been given more information to evaluate the final round entrants' use of pre-existing code. Hence, Healthcare.love has now also been declared a winner.
"The developer community has been very active in sharing its expectation to make this competitive process better," Salesforce's Applications and Platform president Alex Dayon said in a statement. "We look forward to even more innovation from our next Salesforce1 Hackathon, which we are planning now."

Facebook to deliver more news, fewer memes in News Feed

The social network says it will push more "high quality" articles in News Feed and occasionally resurface stories with new comments to keep conversations going


Facebook said Monday that it will start showing members more links to news articles when they visit the social-networking site, especially when they do so from their smartphones. The news-focused alternation marks yet another change to the formula that Facebook uses to pick the content that shows up in the News Feed.
With the adjustment, the social network will attempt to surface more of what it calls "high quality content," or links to newsy articles about current events, sports, or interests. Should a person click on a link to an article, he or she may also find three related articles tacked on to the origin News Feed post, as pictured below.

Click on a link and Facebook may suggest a few more articles for you to check out.

(Credit: Facebook)

The change inserts more news into the finite space of News Feed, which means the links will take the space of other content such as meme photos, which will appear less often, the company said. Facebook ultimately believes the algorithmic adjustment will give people more of what they want to see in their News Feed.

"We've noticed that people enjoy seeing articles on Facebook, and so we're now paying closer attention to what makes for high quality content, and how often articles are clicked on from News Feed on mobile," Facebook Engineering Manager Varun Kacholia and Software Engineer Minwen Ji wrote on the company's blog.
In addition to delivering more news, Facebook said it will start to occasionally resurface stories in News Feed that have new comments to keep conversations going.

LivingSocial suffers two-day long site and mobile app outage

 

 

Tuesday afternoon daily deals site LivingSocial acknowledged a site-wide outage and wrote a short blog post titled "We're on it." But more than 24-hours later, the site is still down.
"Suffice to say, we are ashamed and embarrassed," a company blog post from Wednesday afternoon reads. "We know you are frustrated. So are we."
It appears the outage was caused by an internal error on LivingSocial's Web site and mobile app. The company is adamant that the downtime has nothing to do with "external factors," aka hackers or cybercriminals.
"Also, there is nothing that leads us to think that any consumer or merchant data, or financial information has been compromised," the company wrote in another blog post on Wednesday morning.

LivingSocial has reason to reassure its users that the outage is not the result of a security breach. Just last April, the site's database was the target of a major cyberattack, which resulted in more than 50 million people having their personal information compromised, including names, e-mails, and encrypted passwords. As far as the outage, the company says it has teams working on the issue around the clock and it anticipates having its systems back up and running sometime overnight.
"We will do better and we will be back," reads Wednesday afternoon's blog post. "We are committed to making this right with you, our customers and our merchants."