The Streisand Effect is getting a bit more coverage these days. After the Associated Press mentioned it the other day, I got to sit down and talk with Robert Siegel for today's "All Things Considered" where we discussed The Streisand Effect starting with the Wikileaks case and moving on to some other cases where the Effect clearly made an appearance. If this keeps up, maybe we can look forward to a day when lawyers think twice about trying to force perfectly legitimate content offline.

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Google has financially backed a project from a Harvard University scientist to unlock the secrets of common diseases by decoding the DNA of 100,000 people.

The project will be the largest human genome sequencing project in the world, and may lead to new cures for disease.

According to Bloomberg, the project will begin in the U.S., U.K., China and Sweden this year, initially deciphering the genetic makeup of 1,000 people at a cost of $50 million.

The new investment takes Google further towards its quest to index any and everything on the planet, having invested in genetics testing company 23andme last year, and more recently preparing Google Health for launch.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Filed under: Cellphones

Quite frankly, the traditional Jawbone headset is pretty stylish as is. Nevertheless, Yves Behar has somehow managed to make it even sexier with the creation of the Love To Talk family. This trio, which will reportedly be made available "in a very limited quantity," consists of a gold Sweet Talk version, black Dirty Talk edition and white Trash Talk model. No word on a price nor where to actually find one outside of the totally shady black market, but feel free to take a closer look at each in the read link below.

 

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Just went through a bit of trouble with the 1.1.4 firmware. I had to restore to the unadulterated 1.1.4 firmware and then restore from backup to get it to work. I used iJailbreak, which worked just fine. What I don’t show is a failed update, but if that happens to you just restore completely and use the breaker of your choice to crack 1.1.4.

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We've been posting a ton of examples lately of authors giving away ebooks for free and seeing that it noticeably increases sales of their actual books. By this point, I'd think that such stories are old hat and don't need to be repeated. But if you look through the comments on some of our posts, you'll find people who insist that this doesn't work or that we haven't shown any examples. One commenter recently said that there's no proof that this works unless "50% of publishers adopt such a model." So, for the time being, here's yet another example, as pointed out by my colleague, Chris. SciFi author John Scalzi just participated in publisher Tor's recent effort to offer up free ebooks, and discovered an almost immediate boost in sales. He admits that there could be other factors involved, but tries to account for all of them, and concludes that it's almost definitely the free ebooks that are driving the noticeable increase. So, here we are. Yet another example of it working. How long until someone points out in the comments that this, too, is a special case? Just how many special cases do we need to show before people recognize that this model does work?

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Just found this video of the Franck Muller Crazy Hours watch in action. This is the first time I’ve seen this complication — it’s basically a cute parlor trick using gears — but I finally understand what all the fuss with this watch was. Even if you don’t care about watches, it’s cool to see something different in the horology scene.

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Earlier this month, we brought you word that the world of competitive eating would be coming to a console near you. We joked that the Wii would be the ideal console for such a series of games, and as it turns out Major League Eating agreed.

Mastiff Software will be launching a professional eating game on the WiiWare service when it launches on May 12th.

God help us, this means we have to get a Wii.

Major League Eating crammed into WiiWare [Joystiq]

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Filed under: Features, Laptops

While everyone and their second cousin third removed had something to say about Apple's ultra-sexy, ultra-hamstrung MacBook Air, we've a sneaking suspicion that folks previously eager about this week's MacBook Pro updates will be equally vocal. For whatever reason, Cupertino faithful had February 26th pegged on their calender, and while the addition of a Penryn or two was nearly a given, the dreamers in the crowd had much higher hopes for that fateful Tuesday.

Nevertheless, the time came and went, and the re-opening of the online Apple store brought a whole heap of disappointment to many. Sure, folks still (somehow) enamored with the aging MBP design were thrilled to have access to a more potent, less scalding iteration of their favorite machine, but honestly, we're still using the GeForce 8600M GT? Really, Apple? Needless to say, this refresh likely did little to satisfy your desire for a revamped MacBook Pro, but we're interested in finding out exactly what it is you really wanted. An option for an SSD? What about a built-in Blu-ray drive? Would integrated HDMI make things more appealing? Or is a top-down case redesign the only thing stopping you from abusing your credit card in the name of Steve Jobs? Go on, we know you folks are chock full of good ideas, so let's hear 'em, shall we?

 

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It wouldn’t be a Friday without a top ten list, so here it is, from Asylum.com, the ten worst celebrity tie-in video games of all time.

Spoiler: one involves Spielberg.

10 worst celebrity video games ever [Asylum]

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The rather infamous Jack Thompson gained his fame by picking up various lawsuits that involved kids shooting people and trying to get them off by blaming the video game. Rather than admit guilt, he was attempting to keep murderers from getting convicted by saying that it was the video game that made them do it. It appears that others are now picking up on this tactic. Adam Thierer points us to a recent case where a lawyer isn't arguing that his client, a 24-year-old, didn't commit a murder. He's arguing that the guy thought he was playing a video game. This is a really weak way to try to get someone acquitted of murder -- and says quite a bit about the lawyers who would use this sort of defense. As the article notes, the actual evidence suggests that video games had nothing to do with the murder, and that it was an old-fashioned robbery attempt.

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