We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Joseph (he's from Atlanta) who needs a camera bag for his semi-professional photography enterprise. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

"I've recently gotten into semi-pro photography and I've come to the problem of how to transport all my gear. I'm looking for a camera / laptop bag that has enough space for a DSLR body (Nikon D90), a 15-inch laptop, 3 or 4 lenses and a speedlight or two. My budget can't stretch beyond $100 and I need it to be durable and weather-proof. I don't have any preferences with style (backpack, messenger bag etc), I just need a large, affordable bag to carry all of my gear. Thanks for the help and keep the gadget passion guys!"

We don't think you should scrimp too much on a bag, given it'll be carrying $3,000 worth of kit. Your host uses a Lowepro Fastpack 250, costing $99.95, its only drawback that it has no space for a tripod or cables, so you have to sacrifice a couple of lens slots just to tote your power lead. Other staffers suggested using a standard bag with individual Crumpler pouches (a suitable Crumpler like the "7 Million Dollar Home" is $150) or the KataKTD, which sadly doesn't pack a laptop sleeve. How about you, commenters? What's the budget bag you wouldn't let your DSLR venture away from? Together, we can work it out.

Ask Engadget: Best sub-$100 camera/laptop bag? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So it’s Saturday night and you’re out with friend. Are they the inconsiderate jerk who can’t stop checking their smartphone? Or is that you?

Either way, here’s one way to make dinner a little more interesting.

I’ve seen/heard this described as both “The Phone Stacking Game” and “Don’t Be a Dick During Meals”. It’s been mentioned on a couple of blogs, but a quick  straw poll of my friends suggests that it hasn’t become widespread yet, at least on the West Coast. Which is a shame, because it’s perfect for folks in tech.

Here’s how it works: At the beginning of the meal, everyone puts their phone face down at the center of the table. As time goes on, you’ll hear various calls, texts, and emails, but you can’t pick up your phone. If you’re the first one to give in to temptation, you’re buying dinner for everyone else. If no one picks up, then everyone pays for themselves.

You can explain the game in a few different ways. Most obviously, it could be a protest against the incessant, unthinking use of cell phones during social gatherings. Or maybe it’s a game that acknowledges the new reality and tests your willpower accordingly. Personally, I like to think of it as a free market exercise. After all, people love to say, “Sorry, but I have to take this.” Do you have to answer it? Really? Is it that important to you? Great, then you can pay.

No matter what the explanation, it could make for a tense meal. And I look forward to defeating MG Siegler.

[image via Kempt]

Plugh writes "In a victory for transparency and openness in government, and saving tax dollars, New Hampshire has passed HB418. State agencies are now required by law to consider open source software when acquiring software, and to promote the use of open data formats."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Radioactivity Counter Turns Your Android Phone into a Geiger Counter (Android) Getting one step closer to turning your phone into a tricorder, Android app Radioactivity Counter uses the CMOS camera sensor on your phone to record radiation levels.
• Use Colorblind Assistant to Identify Whatever Color Your Cursor is Pointing At (Windows) If you're colorblind or just need to constantly know what colors are on your screen the free program Colorblind Assistant might be for you. The program tells you whatever color is displayed at the current location of your mouse/trackpad pointer.
• CCleaner for Mac Comes Out of Beta, Adds New Browser and Disk Cleaning Features (Mac OS X) CCleaner for Mac has been in beta for awhile, but now Mac users can enjoy the final version of our favorite Windows utilities. If you're a little starved for disk space or just want to engage in some early Spring cleaning on your Mac, CCleaner is now finished, stable, and ready to help you out.
• Waze for Android Updates, Adds New Maps, Driver-Friendly UI, and More Social Features (Android) Waze, our pick for the best turn-by-turn navigation app for Android, updated today to include an entirely new UI that minimizes buttons and tools so they're all accessible under one spring-out on-screen menu, easier-to-navigate maps that you can now easily spin around and navigate with one hand, and new location-based information from services like Yelp and FourSquare.
• Belvedere Updates, Can Now Automate Your Folders and Automatically Send Files to iTunes (Windows) Belvedere, our automatic file management tool for Windows, has updated with a few new features, like the ability to move folders around and add tracks to iTunes.
• Simplify is an All-In-One Desktop Controller for iTunes, Spotify, and Rdio (Mac OS X) Mini-player apps like previously mentioned Bowtie or GeekTool are great, though they usually only support one or two media players-which isn't great for music junkies that might use multiple programs. Simplify is a simple desktop controller and shortcut customizer that controls iTunes, Spotify, and Rdio.
• PacApt Brings Arch Linux's Amazing Manager to Other Linux Distributions (Linux) It's no secret that we love Arch Linux, and one of Arch's best features is the simple, easy-to-use package manager, Pacman. Here's how to get Pacman's simple command structure in other Linux distributions.
• Cobook Powers Up Your Mac's Address Book with Social Networks, Mouseless Navigation (Mac OS X) Cobook is an Address Book app for Mac that sits in your menu bar, offers quick mouseless navigation, and lets you add a lot more to your contact cards, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.
• Syncly Automatically Uploads Every Photo You Take to Dropbox (Android) Syncly keeps watch over your Android's SD card, automatically uploading new photos to Dropbox as soon as you take them-so you don't need to do anything to keep everything synced to the cloud.
• Dashlane Securely Manages Passwords, Form info, and Even Purchases For You (and We'ev Got Invites) (Windows/Mac) There are plenty of services that promise to keep your passwords safe, secure, and synchronized across devices behind a single master password that you can remember, but Dashlane is a new service that does that, audits those passwords for strength, saves your form information for quick entry on new web sites, and even keeps track of the purchases you make with that information so you can see it all in one view-one that's only available to you, not even DashLane employees.

More »

3D printing. Sure, that's pretty neat, but there are other ways to make three dimensional objects at home. Roland's new iModela, for example, is an "affordable" ($899) digital hobby mill that can carve 3D shapes, jewelry, textures and prototypes out of balsa wood, foam, modelling wax and plastics. Projects definitely need to be more on the petite side, but the 3.39inch x 2.17inch x 1.02inch milling area should be good for a wide range of small craft creations. The iModela comes with all the cutting tools, software and materials you need to get started, but if you've already been tinkering with ideas, there's also compatibility with other "popular" CAD software. Want to get making right away? Tap the source, or hit the PR after the break for more info.

Continue reading Roland's iModela 3D milling machine: it's a crafty tool

Roland's iModela 3D milling machine: it's a crafty tool originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The New York Giants official website accidentally announced the winner of Super Bowl XLVI more than 24 hours before Sunday’s big game even started, by the look of images floating around the web.

The error was immortalized Saturday in this TwitPic screenshot (above), which Jeff Frias posted to Twitter. No signs of the mistake are left on the team’s site other than a reported link that leads to the image below:

The Giants have yet to publicly confirm whether this whammy is real or the handy-work of a prankster.

While online blunders have cost people their jobs in the past, this misstep — if real — shows that the Giants organization is unsurprisingly ready to financially capitalize on a possible win.

The tweeted image displays championship garb traditionally sold after national sporting contests. Giants quarterback Eli Manning and three other players are cropped into the image along with the Super Bowl’s most-coveted prize, the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The image is emblazoned with these words in all caps: “The Giants are Super Bowl champions!”

SEE ALSO: Super Bowl 2012 By the Numbers | How to Watch the Super Bowl Online

The Feb. 5 broadcast of the Giants vs. New England Patriots game kicks off at Indianapolis Lucas Oil Stadium at 6:30 p.m. ET and will be followed by many post-game breakdowns of the games and commercials. One Super Bowl post-game analysis will occur within an NBC-backed Google+ Hangout. Participants will dissect the commercials, which this year cost $3.5 million each.

Did you notice the premature winner’s announcement before it was taken down? Sound off below.

BONUS: 10 Athlete Gaffes Aided by Social Media

Online whammies in the sports world are not uncommon. Here are a few recent memorable digital mistakes.

Cappie Pondexter

After a tsunami devastated Japan this March, Cappie Pondexter of the WNBA's New York Liberty tweeted, "What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes." Later she continued hypothesizing with this tweet: "u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so you can't expect anything less." Predictably, Pondexter's tweets sparked a strong backlash, and she eventually took to Twitter again, this time to apologize (left).

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Entertainment, football, sports, Super Bowl, trending

The New York Times released its latest earnings report earlier this week, spurring another round of discussion about the newspaper’s paywall, which was launched near the beginning of last year. The consensus: Early signs are positive, but it’s not doing well enough to offset plummeting print ad revenue.

What’s the solution? Well, if you listen to a number of online media pundits, it’s all about bringing more value to the most devoted members of The Times’ readership. Over at GigaOm, Matthew Ingram suggests, “Regular readers should get more than just a sales rep hitting them up for a monthly payment — the fact that they are a devoted fan should entitle them to earn rewards, whether it’s money off their subscription for interacting with the paper, or offers that others don’t get.” It’s a point he’s made before, as has Clay Shirky, who wrote that “this may be the year where we see how papers figure out how to reward the people most committed to their long-term survival.”

I’m a happy New York Times subscriber, but I have to say: I don’t think The Times is doing a good job on this front, or much of a job at all. It’s odd, because NYTimes.com general manager Denise Warren appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation with Shirky, and she seemed largely on-board with his ideas:

I think Clay has outlined it exactly right. I mean, this model was not designed to get everybody who comes to our website to pay. Clay is absolutely right in terms of the distribution of the audience, and I think this is true for most publishers. The vast majority of people come and turn one article or two articles.

But there is a very loyal minority of folks who told us through rounds and rounds of research that they value the New York Times content, they’d be willing to pay to support the New York Times content. And so the key for us in this model was threading that needle – remaining open to the Web, enabling those who are coming to us for that one article or two article, et cetera, to still enjoy the content but at the same time enable those who are very loyal to have some kind of a different experience with us.

Warren goes on to outline some of the advantages of a Times digital subscription — not just access to unlimited articles (20 per month is the limit for non-paying readers, though there are lots of ways around it), but also to the Times smartphone and tablet apps, as well as bonus apps like Politics and Collections, and email newsletters giving behind-the-scenes portraits of the newsroom. Now, as someone who’s constantly reading The Times on both his laptop and his iPhone, I’m happy to fork over $15 a month isn’t a bad price for those features, but I also feel like they’re a missed opportunity.

As Shirky puts it, newspapers “must also appeal to its readers’ non-financial and non-transactional motivations: loyalty, gratitude, dedication to the mission, a sense of identification with the paper, an urge to preserve it as an institution rather than a business.” Those seem to be some of the main reasons people subscribed, but The Times isn’t doing much to encourage that feeling.

The closest it comes is through its newsletters, but those newsletters also have the clearest shortcomings. I’ve been a Times subscriber since the program started in March, and in that time, I’ve received a total nine newsletters. And of those, five are “Innovations” emails, which function as ads for new features on The Times website — useful, maybe, but not particularly loyalty-inspiring. Emails offering “The Story Behind The Story” are better (though a still a little impersonal for my taste), but they show up about once every two months.

Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan makes an interesting comment about this during his interview with Shirky and Warren: He notes that NPR has convinced one in six listeners to donate, while The Times has only convinced one in a hundred to subscribe. He later says, “If you get into the tote bag business, we’re going to have a problem.”

Here’s the thing about those tote bags — they’re nice, but as NPR broadcasters constantly remind listeners, they’re not the real reason to donate. To pick an example from my local NPR station, is there anyone who would pay $144 just because it’s a great deal on a KQED hoodie? (I hope not.) They make the donation because they love KQED, and the hoodie is a sign of their dedication.

Compare that to The Times digital subscription page and pricing model, which are all about functionality — there are three pricing levels, and they reflect different levels of mobile access. That approach has its limitations — from a functional equivalent, it can be hard to justify the price, especially when you take into account the easiness of circumventing the paywall and the low price of other online services. (As a friend pointed out, it’s $15 a month for the cheapest plan, which is more than a basic Netflix subscription.)

To keep The Times in business, however, I’m happy to pay $15 a month, and I’d probably be fine paying significantly more. I don’t think the basic subscription price should change (if anything, it seems a little high), but I suspect the paper could also offer higher price points without providing a dramatic improvement in the product. It just needs rewards that make subscribers feel loyal to The Times, and maybe a little special — the digital equivalent of a tote bag.

An anonymous reader writes "Saad Allami likely never expected that a simple text message of encouragement would have turned his life upside down. But as seen in a similar case of absurd overreaction by authorities, a simple text message is all it takes to have yourself branded as a terrorist. From the article: 'The Quebec man says he was arrested by provincial police while picking up his seven-year-old son at school. A team of police officers stormed into his home, telling his wife she was married to a terrorist. And his work colleagues were detained for hours at the U.S. border because of their connection to him.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you try to plan advance monthly or bi-weekly menus it can be difficult to balance variety with the staples that everyone enjoys. Parenting weblog Simple Mom recommends establishing a theme for each day of the week such as pizza day or crock pot meals day. That way you know what type of meal you need for all of your open slots and your family knows what to expect at most meals. More »

If Internet memes were turned into movies, their promotional posters might resemble the designs London-based Stefan van Zoggel conjured up.

“I took the context of the usually short-lived internet memes and virals, and translated that to simple film poster designs,” says van Zoggel on his Meme Movie Posters blog.

He has designed 29 meme-inspired posters so far. Below, you’ll find posters about Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” planking, Nyan Cat, Double Rainbow, Keyboard Cat, Shake Weight and a slew of other memes.

SEE ALSO: 10 Best Memes of 2011 | Hey Girl, Here Are Foursquare Ryan Gosling Memes

Which designs are your favorite of the bunch? Which new memes should inspire his future designs?

I would like to see movie posters about the Occupy Wall Street movement’s Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop, NFL quarterback Tim Tebow‘s Tebowing and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s sweater vests.

Meme Movie Posters

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: art, memes, Movies, trending

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SpuriousLogic sends this excerpt from a BBC article detailing the suspension of a sales ban on certain Apple products in Germany: "Motorola Mobility had forced Apple to remove several iPad and iPhone models from its online store [yesterday] after enforcing a patent infringement court ruling delivered in December. An appeals court lifted the ban after Apple made a new license payment offer. However, Germany-based users may still face the loss of their push email iCloud service after a separate ruling. 'A suspension like this is available only against a bond, but Apple is almost drowning in cash and obviously won't have had a problem with obtaining and posting a bond.' ... A statement from Apple said: 'All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple's online store in Germany shortly.'" Reader DJRumpy points out that Motorola is seeking royalties of 2.25% for Apple's wireless devices in exchange for a license to use Motorola's patents.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

1. Feb Photo a Day

Blogger @fatmumslim (4500+ followers) started the #febphotoaday trend on Twitter by creating a "photo challenge" where Twitter users share a picture on every day in February, displaying the subjects mentioned on this image. She did the same thing in January, when #janphotoaday was trending throughout the month.

Click here to view this gallery.

We’ve sifted through tens of millions of pictures posted on Twitter during the week and narrowed them down to the 10 most popular, and here they are.

Using a special algorithm developed by our partners/wizards at social media search engine Skylines, we’ve taken the most popular hash tags and found the most widely shared pictures within.

There weren’t a tremendous amount of big events going on this week, so our astute curators made a special effort to take the most amusing and interesting pictures and subjects that resided in the top 100. Even so, there were slim pickings this week. C’mon Twitter users, you can do better than that — share some blockbuster pics next week!

If you’d like to know more about the selection process, see the full results from Skylines.

If you missed them, here are last week’s Top 10 Twitter Pics.

More About: Skylines, Top 10 Twitter Pics, trending, Twitter

For more Social Media coverage:

• Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
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Windows: Sure the default web client for Pandora is nice, but some of us want to have a desktop version to not take up a tab and memory in our browser of choice. The open source desktop client Elpis does a good job of keeping the essential functions of Pandora active while not using as many resources. More »

The 54th Grammy Awards ceremony is only eight days away and the Recording Academy is kicking off the next phase of its digital and social campaign. Under the heading of “We Are Music” the Academy and its partners are harnessing the power of social, mobile and digital to make the award show more modern than ever.

The Recording Academy made the decision to invest in social and digital media several years ago (you can read Mashable’s past coverage of the 2010 and 2011 campaigns) and the organization and its awards show are now seeing the dividends. Big time. The latest trends in social TV and second screen experiences are in direct alignment with the road Grammy has been traveling for years.

We spoke with Evan Greene, Chief Marketing Officer of the Recording Academy, and he told us the strategy around the 2012 Grammys was to put mobile and digital at the forefront of the project. That means the campaign and the show itself were designed with the digital and mobile attributes in mind from its inception, not tacked on at the end. As someone who has been beating the drum of making social and digital a part of the creation process from beginning to end, this is great to see.

Grammy Live and the Second Screen

As in years past, the cornerstone of the digital Grammy experience is around Grammy Live. Grammy Live is a three-day webcast of special Grammy events, red carpets and parties, designed to bring fans behind the scenes and close to all the action.

Although CBS (Grammy’s broadcasting partner) doesn’t stream the awards themselves online, Grammy Live is available as a second screen experience during the event, giving additional insight and tidbits into what’s happening, views from the crowd and access to backstage areas.

As Peter Anton, executive producer of Grammy Live pointed out in our conversation, Grammy Live was actually the first major second screen experience designed around an award show — and this was before the iPad!

Of course, now that the iPad is here, it makes sense to extend the Grammy Live experience to other devices. In addition to viewing the experience at Grammy.com, users can also interact with the experience in the Grammy Live app for iOS [iTunes link].

This year, Greene told us, the Recording Academy worked hard to make the Grammy Live app a perfect extension of the website itself. CBS was also heavily involved this year, both in helping craft the app and in giving Grammy Live official on-air callouts and integration.

Not only does the Grammy Live app give users access to the photos, videos and articles available at Grammy.com, it also features Grammy trivia, the ability to guess who will win at the 54th Grammy Awards and the ability to listen to a streaming radio station of Grammy nominees. One of my favorite features of the app is that it also includes a database of past winners, as well as nominees for the 2012 awards. During the show on Feb. 12, those listings will be updated in real time.

The app also lets users browse tweets from various Grammy accounts and hashtags, and of course, access the full Grammy Awards experience before and during the show itself. The app is optimized for iPhone and iPad, and is one of the best apps we’ve seen for an awards show.

The Campaign: We Are Music

For the fifth consecutive year, the Recording Academy teamed up with TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles for the awards show campaign. The team created a robust campaign with print, outdoor, digital, mobile and television components centered around the theme of “We Are Music.”

The genesis of the campaign was formed around the emotions and social experiences that music brings out in us all. The agency TBWA\Chiat\Day wanted to capture the way music moves us as humans and wanted a way to help visualize that emotive experience.

TBWA\Chiat\Day always likes to push the technical boundaries in the digital aspects of its campaigns, and this year was no different. The centerpiece is a microsite that lives at Wearemusic.grammy.com. This site was developed using cutting-edge web technologies (in this case, Flash 11 Stage 3D) to create robust real-time 3D visualizations that are modified based on what music is playing in the background.

Users can select their own mix of songs (powered using Rdio‘s library API) and add in their own photographs to create their own unique visualizations. Users can then share these visualizations with others using Facebook or Twitter. The effect is insanely cool and I encourage you all to visit the site and see it for yourself.

Creating a robust and cutting-edge desktop experience was important, but the agency also wanted to have a powerful mobile component. Enter the We Are Music iPhone app [iTunes link]. This app helps bring the visualized experience to mobile devices.

In the mobile app, a user’s own music library is used to power the visualizations. Users can also provide their own photos or take one within the app. The app then creates customized experiences based on the music, and also uses the camera flash on the iPhone 4 and 4S to create special pulsing experiences (you can shut this off if you don’t like it). Up to 15 users on the same WiFi or Bluetooth network can even share their experiences with one another.

It’s a super cool app and again, it’s cutting edge. The technology team relied on some of the newest features in iOS 5 to take advantage of these tools. What I like about this app — as with the Music Mapper from the 53rd Grammy Awards, is that the app and microsite can still be enticing and fun even outside the context of the awards show.

The TV spots TBWA/Chiat/Day crafted around the campaign have already made the rounds on YouTube. The Grammy artists profiled in this campaign include Adele, Foo Fighters and Bon Iver. All the spots have style, but the ad with Skrillex is notable because they outfitted the artist in a motion-capture suit to get the liquid movement effect.

Check it out:

Staying Social

Of course, no modern digital campaign strategy would be complete without a big focus on social media. For the 54th Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy is putting Grammy everywhere and engaging with the community of music fans across social platforms.

In addition to the Grammys Facebook Page @TheGrammys Twitter account, the Grammys are also active on:

• Instagram — Photo contests were held for the first month of the campaign
• Tumblr — The Grammy team held a contest asking users to blog about what artists have influenced them.
• Foursquare — This profile includes historical tips about venues that have hosted the Grammys as well as locations of studios where Grammy Winning albums were recorded.
• GetGlue — GetGlue is offering exclusive stickers not just for checking into the awards, but for checking in to the artists nominated for the Big Four awards.
• YouTube
• Google+

What made me really excited, however, was to see how The Grammys embraced digital music services. Grammy and Pepsi teamed up to create a custom Pandora station that includes Best New Artist videos and Grammy winners and nominees in 12 different genres. Next week, Grammy will also roll out its official Grammy Spotify app that will let users listen to all past Grammy winners in four major categories. The Spotify app will get more categories in the months ahead.

What this strong commitment says to us is that the Grammy Awards aren’t playing around with social, the team gets it.

Mashable will be at the Grammy Awards live on Feb. 12, 2012 and covering the digital action from the ground. Let us know what you think of the digital campaign for the 54th Grammy Awards in the comments.

More About: 54th Grammy Awards, apps, grammy awards, grammys

Sony Ericsson is looking to start a bromance with the McTwist-loving, Double-Cork-landing, A-Frame-riding masses jonesing for a new Android device. The handset maker has announced a "global strategic alliance" with Billabong to launch the Xperia Active Billabong Edition smartphone in select markets. The handset will come preloaded with exclusive content, including Billabong screen savers, and bundle several Billabong-branded games and applications. As the two companies tell it, the Xperia ABE is the "ideal smartphone for extreme sports enthusiasts." Accordingly, Sony Ericsson hardware is about to start making appearances at various "major" Billabong events. Unfortunately, this next bit is really going to harsh your mello: the hardware is identical to that of the Xperia Active announced back in June, complete with a single-core 1GHz processor, Gingerbread, a 3-inch Reality display and a five-megapixel shooter. Even with its no-so-extreme spec sheet, we give SE a gnar-lay for effort.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson hangs ten, launches Xperia Active Billabong Edition

Sony Ericsson hangs ten, launches Xperia Active Billabong Edition originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New submitter someWebGeek writes "LibreOffice, the community-driven fork of OpenOffice, appears to have a very healthy and growing group of code contributors. The Document Foundation has published new stats that portray the climbing rates of developer involvement both in terms of numbers of people and numbers of code commits. One of the most encouraging aspects, as noted by Ryan Paul in an article at Ars, is that non-corporate code contributions by independent volunteers constitute the largest slice of the latest commit-pie."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Editor’s note: Nick Cronin is a former corporate attorney and now the President and Founder of ExpertBids.com, which is based in Chicago.

For more than a decade now, the Internet has done a great job of making things in our day-to-day lives more efficient by easily connecting parties who can have a mutually beneficial personal or business relationship. This same idea is now on the verge of disrupting labor and changing the definition of employment as we know it.

The Rise of the Independent Worker.

Over the past couple of years, there has been a huge increase in the number of workers who operate as some sort of independent, free-agent contractor or consultant. Though the numbers vary greatly, the consensus seems to be around 20 percent of the U.S. workforce, and growing (with some estimates up to 50 percent by 2020). Think about that, one in every five workers are currently unattached to any one company!

Expert explanations for this rise vary as much as the number itself, but I believe the two most important factors, by far, are:

1. Technology. Never before has a physical space represented less. An office building, in and of itself, often holds no more tools necessary to perform a job than someone can carry with them. Computers, phones, the cloud, and an overall connectedness has produced an environment where location is becoming less and less relevant. Not having to rely on someone else for the tools of productivity has given substantially more people than ever before the ability to be an independent worker. (No doubt there remain exceptions).
2. The economy. The recent recession has resulted in layoffs and very high unemployment numbers. Further, there is a whole new generation coming of age believing that long-term employment at one company is a remnant of the past. Whether this is because they have read about layoffs, experienced it with their family or friends, or any other reason — many people, regardless of age, no longer feel comfortable or stable at a traditional job. So the economic conditions have forced some into an independent role by necessity, and it has motivated a countless number of others to explore work options outside of the traditional job.

Armed with the technology and connectedness, people are setting out on their own in record numbers. But where are they finding work?

Changes in How Companies ‘Hire’ Labor.

Labor efficiency is about having the right workers for the tasks which need to be accomplished. This includes tasks of all types and in all areas. More than ever, this is being accomplished by having lean, flexible workforces which come and go as projects demand. Increasingly, employers are parsing up tasks and having temporary, project-basis workers complete the tasks.

Take one gigantic U.S. company, Caterpillar Inc., who recently reported that they hired almost 30,000 flexible, contingent workers in the last quarter of 2011. By almost every study, companies of all sizes are emphasizing a lean workforce, and hiring on project-basis engagements more and more (though not all are as drastic as Caterpillar). This trend is not limited to factory workers or computer programmers or any one group — workers in every industry and profession are seeing this increase.

For a company to hire someone, there are many costs beyond a salary and benefits (which in and of themselves are substantial!). There are recruitment efforts, on-boarding costs such as supplies and training, and finally costs when the employee leaves, such as unemployment premiums, severance packages, and HR costs. Now, instead of choosing to go the route of employing someone, companies have the option of hiring some of the millions of independent workers out there for substantially less. Instead of paying all the associated costs, businesses can parse tasks up into projects and find experts to do them very efficiently – only having to pay for the work completed, not the secondary costs discussed above. Additionally, they can more easily expand and contract their workforce as supply and demand dictate.

Not only are the large businesses hiring more independents, this trend is trickling all the way down to the millions of bootstrapped startups who hire (outside of the founders) only independents for projects as they grow their company. The era of the lean, flexible workforce is here and guess where both companies and independents are increasingly locating each other. Yep: The Internet.

Time for Disruption.

There are already plenty of companies out there connecting one party who needs a service with another who can provide it. TaskRabbit and Zaarly specifically are two startups that have grown very quickly. But we are just beginning to scratch the surface of how the Internet is going to disrupt labor. The real change will come as more and more of the traditional job creators, small businesses all the way up to the Fortune 500s, realize the benefits of flexible workforces and more and more individuals take the plunge into independent, free-agent land — whether by necessity or choice.

There are many companies working to facilitate the connection between project-basis workers and companies. Marketplaces like ODesk and Elance provide a worldwide platform of freelancers in a variety of different fields. Some of these marketplaces are aimed more towards commoditized services, but increasingly they encompass services of all types. OnForce allows companies to retain the services of IT professionals for projects. WorkMarket is a labor resource platform. Crowdspring and 99Designs are creative services marketplaces. And finally (though there are countless others that could be included here), my company ExpertBids.com is a professional services marketplace for consultants, lawyers, and accountants. Every day it seems a new vertical labor marketplace launches. There are many obstacles these companies must overcome still, but change is coming.

Some have criticized this shift, saying this type of labor and employment is only increasing inequality and the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. We need to begin looking deeply into this trend and how it is affecting people, but an efficient labor system can have major advantages to both parties.

A marketplace where tasks are accomplished by the right people, at the right time, and at the right price (not lowest price, the right price) may seem to favor the employer. But think about an independent who has very little overhead, can work from anywhere, at anytime, and for anyone and whose income potential is no longer limited by a single salary. Removing wasted time and expenses is something both parties, and the economy as a whole, can gain tremendously from. That is where all of the online labor marketplaces, ExpertBids included, need to assist. We must create efficient platforms that remove the barriers for these two parties to connect in a mutually beneficial relationship.

Many grilling aficionados don't try grilling large fish such as salmon, tuna, or shark as they're afraid the fish will stick to the grill. Culinary site Chow.com recommends using the 70/30 rule when grilling fish: cook the flesh side down first for 70% of the total cooking time, then flip the fish over to the skin side for the last 30%. More »

Super Bowl 2012 is blitzing us like a crazed linebacker, coming up in a matter of hours, and the numbers are stacking up quickly. It’s a weekend of superlatives, with astonishing numbers swirling around those brave warriors on the field.

In the Super Bowl, everything is larger than life. Instead of a dozen TV cameras for normal football game broadcasts, NBC rolls out 57 cameras. Instead of betting a couple of bucks on the game, people bet hundreds. And instead of eating a couple of chicken wings, an entire nation gangs up to eat 1.25 billion of them in one day.

Want more? We have numbers — a long list of them, taking into account the technology of the big game, the behavior of a nation and the world during the contest, the security necessary to keep everyone safe, the enormous amounts of money changing hands and lots more.

So sit back and prepare yourself for a gigantic triviafest, giving you plenty of ammunition to be the Super Bowl know-it-all when the game starts at 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. Warning: Recite these numbers at your own risk.

• $10 billion: to be gambled on Super Bowl XLVI internationally, expected to be the most bet-upon game in Super Bowl history, according to ESPN
• 1.25 billion: chicken wings eaten Super Bowl weekend
• $720 million: construction cost of the Indianapolis Lucas Oil Stadium, built in hopes of hosting a Super Bowl
• 111 million: last year’s average U.S. TV audience, the largest in U.S. TV history. It could hit 113 million viewers this year, according to an unscientific poll by MediaLife
• $4 million: price of the most-expensive advertisement, according to Reuters
• $3.5 million: for a 30-second ad, on average, up from $3 million last year
• 68,000: number of seats in Lucas Oil Stadium for Super Bowl XLVI
• $3,985: Average price paid for one Super Bowl 2012 ticket
• 3,000: hours of video content to be acquired, encoded and transported by NBC
• 475: crew members NBC will employ for the pre-game and game productions
• 180: countries and territories in which Super Bowl XLVI will air
• 77%: accuracy of the stock market predictor that if the NFC team (Giants) wins the Super Bowl, the market will rise for the year, or drop if the AFC team (Patriots) wins
• 75: cameras installed in Indianapolis in and around Lucas Oil Stadium for Super Bowl security, according to Public Intelligence
• 70: national network ads NBC will air around this year’s game, sold out shortly after Thanksgiving weekend, according to Reuters
• 60: miles of cable for NBC’s cameras and microphones
• 57: cameras NBC will deploy for the broadcast, including the pre- and post-game shows
• 50%: price rise of a Super Bowl commercial in the last 10 years
• 47%: of Super Bowl viewers will check their smartphones up to 10 times or more during the game, according to a survey by Velti.
• 46: It’s the 46th Super Bowl (XLVI)
• 40: cameras NBC will devote to game coverage
• 29: Trucks and trailers NBC will use for the broadcast
• 25: languages spoken on the international broadcasts
• 12: number of Super Bowl appearances for Giants and Patriots combined
• 6: channels of DTS Neural Surround 5.1 technology integrated into the HD broadcast
• 5: Super Bowls for New England coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady
• 4: Hi-Motion II super ultra-motion cameras, shooting at 1000fps at a resolution of 1080p
• 3: $0.03 — average cost to advertisers per viewer for 30 seconds of ad time during the Super Bowl
• 2: dimensions — broadcast will be in 2D HDTV, no 3D HDTV broadcast this year.
• 1: winner. Will it be the Patriots or the Giants?

More About: Super Bowl, Super Bowl 2012, Super Bowl XLVI, trending, TV, Video

New submitter cqwww writes "A small magazine in Victoria, BC just uncovered a massive public traffic surveillance system deployed in Canada. Here's a quote from the article: 'Normally, area police manually key in plate numbers to check suspicious cars in the databases of the Canadian Police Information Center and ICBC. With [Automatic License Plate Recognition], for $27,000, a police cruiser is mounted with two cameras and software that can read license plates on both passing and stationary cars. According to the vendors, thousands of plates can be read hourly with 95-98 percent accuracy. ... In August 2011, VicPD Information and Privacy Manager Debra Taylor called me to explain that, even though VicPD had the ALPR system in one of their cruisers, the [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] ran the system, and I should contact them for any information. "We actually don’t have a program," Taylor said. "We don’t have any documents per se." ... A month later, Taylor handed over 600 pages. ... [The claim they kept no documents] was apparently only in reference to digital information. VicPD had kept 500 pages of written, hard-copy logs of every ALPR hit they’d ever seen.'"

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