Renaissance of a Soul

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The emulator, called “Classic,” will be built by MotionApps, who have created great PalmOS apps like mVoice and mRign. Details on what the “PalmOS Emulator” weren’t released, but there you go: it’s coming and it’s coming from a developer with a history of creating rich and powerful PalmOS apps. MotionApps wants “to help make the transition from Palm OS to webOS smooth and comfortable.”

We’re happy to get smooth and comfortable, MotionApps, so kudos to you. Palm, have you considered “fast and soon” for that transition? We’re kinda, you know, waiting for the Pre to get released here.

One last note: you will be able to use some PalmOS apps, but likely not all of them, as Engadget notes:

[you] “won’t be able to leverage core webOS functionality,” meaning that you probably can’t expect pure bliss across all of your applications, particularly those with roots that go deeper into phone databases and the like.

Also notable (but not surprising) – Classic goes deeper than your standard webOS widget as far as access to the OS goes.

You can find out (slightly) more about Classic at MotionApps.

Official details after the break!

Palm also announced that MotionApps (www.motionapps.com) is creating an emulator application that will allow most Palm OS applications to run on webOS devices. The application, called “Classic,” will be available for purchase when the Palm Pre™ phone becomes available from Sprint in the first half of 2009, and gives users peace of mind as they transition to Palm’s new webOS.

Since Palm OS applications running in Classic won’t be able to leverage core webOS functionality, Palm is working with partners to ensure that popular Palm OS applications are made available on the webOS platform and are optimized to take advantage of everything it has to offer. In the meantime, the MotionApps Classic application will allow customers who have invested in the Palm OS platform to use Palm OS applications they’ve grown to love and depend upon on their new webOS devices.

Click below for images and more information…

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Jeremy Toeman, founder of the site Legacy Locker, recognized that when he was on a plane and wondered what would happen to his online life if it crashed. While his will leaves everything to his wife, including all of his digital assets, Toeman realized how difficult it would be for her to access his accounts.

“My GoDaddy account would belong to her, but it doesn’t solve the practical reality of how she would get access to it,” he said. He experienced a similar scenario after his grandmother died, and he tried to get the password for her e-mail account — only to give up because of the hassle.

So Toeman built his company to change all that. Legacy Locker allows users to set up a kind of online will, with beneficiaries that would receive the customer’s account information and passwords after they die.

“We know it’s a hard thing to think about — to get people to face mortality. We know it’s kind of morbid, but for those who live their entire lives online, it’s also very real.”

A Legacy Locker account costs $29.99 a year. Users can set up their accounts to specify who gets access to their posthumous online information, along with “legacy letters,” or messages, that can be sent to loved ones.

If someone contacts Legacy Locker to report a client’s death, the service will send the customer four e-mails in 48 hours. If there’s no response, Legacy Locker will then contact the people the client listed as verifiers in the event of his or her death. Even then, the service would not release digital assets without examining a copy of the customer’s death certificate, Toeman said.

Eddie Lopez is the kind of tech-savvy guy for which a service such as Legacy Locker was made. The St. Paul, Minnesota, man has three online banking accounts, a PayPal account, domain names, Web-hosting accounts, multiple e-mail addresses and many social-networking accounts.

“I do think this is something people should be really considering these days,” Lopez told CNN when asked about services such as Legacy Locker. He wants to hire a service to handle his digital assets but is concerned about privacy.

“Although I’m glad there’s people breaking ground in this area, I don’t think I would jump at the first opportunity to sign up,” Lopez said. “My concerns are turning over such an exhaustive list of user names and passwords to a single business. That’s one-stop shopping for any hacker to get access to just about every detail of my life.”

Lopez would prefer to entrust half of his digital-security information to a service such as Legacy Locker and the other half to family members, so that each side’s information would be useless without the other’s.

“I hope Legacy Locker and similar services can address these privacy-security concerns with some real-world solutions,” he said. “I just don’t feel comfortable turning over my digital life — built over 15 years — to a kind promise.”

Legacy Locker isn’t the only new company helping techies plan for death in the digital age.

AssetLock (formerly YouDeparted.com) offers a “secure safe deposit box” for digital copies of documents, wishes, letters and e-mails. Deathswitch and Slightly Morbid also offer similar services in a variety of prices and packages, depending on how many accounts are involved.

Not all of these services deal with online assets. There’s also a growing trend towards giving all aspects of death –­ the grieving process, the funeral, the memorial and even the grave site –­ a digital makeover.

FindaGrave.com claims to have cemetery records for 32 million people in its searchable database, while EternalSpace.com offers a new spin on the traditional grave site by offering virtual memorial pages ­full of videos, pictures and tributes.

On Eternal Space, loved ones can choose from different headstones and bucolic landscape backgrounds — the mountain lake is a popular option — to create a customized online grave site. Loved ones can add “tribute gifts” such as roses, candles, stuffed animals and other items, while mourners can access photos and videos in a “Memory Book” and leave remembrances of their own.

Jay Goss, president of Eternal Space president, is trying to bring the funeral experience to anyone who can access the Web. In that way, he hopes to provide a gathering place, and a voice, for mourners who may not be able to attend the real-life memorial service.

“It’d be the equivalent of a funeral where everyone can attend and everyone can spend 30 minutes behind the podium,” Goss said. “It gives everyone a chance to put a 360-degree wrapper on the life the person lived and celebrate that life from how every person knew them.”

Eternal Space’s virtual memorial sites are currently only being offered through select funeral homes, cemeteries and crematoriums. Goss’ hope is that the site will help allow the deceased’s memory to be “eternally” passed on.

“All of these stories and videos are being left, in essence, to this Eternal Space Web site so that everyone can share, not just that day, not the days after, but the weeks after and years after,” he said.

Some funeral-industry professionals believe these online memorials and virtual grave sites provide a valuable service.

“Assuming the site is handled with respect, virtual memorials respond to a basic human need to remember our deceased family, friends and colleagues,” said Robert M. Fells, general counsel for the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association.

“Based on our members’ feedback, I’d have to say that virtual memorial sites are gaining popularity with the public as a very practical alternative to being present at the grave site,” he added. “There’s nothing ‘weird’ about them as far as we have seen.”

“There are funeral homes out there that will help families create virtual memorials, but … we’ve also seen Facebook and MySpace profiles of deceased persons being turned into memorials,” agreed Jessica Koth, spokesperson for the National Funeral Directors Association. “Consumers have become increasingly comfortable with expressing their grief online.”

“While not a replacement for a funeral, online memorialization can help people work through their grief after the funeral,” she added. “We’ve all become accustomed to communicating and expressing ourselves electronically — via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter. Expressing one’s grief online is an outgrowth of what’s happening in other areas of our lives.”

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Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) on Monday launched a new version of its Kindle bookstore that is optimized for Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone, suggesting the Internet retailer could be moving toward a multi-platform electronic book strategy.

Amazon in March unveiled an application that makes ebooks sold on its Web site readable on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices. It also recently bought a small start-up that enables iPhone users to download content from a selection of more than 100,000 books and periodicals in ePub format, an open standard for ebooks that Amazon currently does not support.

The Seattle-based company said Apple users who want to buy a book from Amazon will now automatically be directed to a new Kindle store specifically tailored for the size and shape of the iPhone and iPod touch screens.

Amazon has vaulted to the forefront of the emerging ebook market with its top-selling Kindle ebook reading devices and its 280,000-title online book store, which create synergies similar to those between Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes music store.

But rivals such as Sony Corp. (SNE), Apple and others – some of whom are pushing for open formats – are expected to soon launch new products and content stores they hope will enable them claw back some of Amazon’s giant’s early gains.

Amazon hasn’t disclosed Kindle sales figures, but Citigroup Global Markets estimates Amazon sold roughly 500,000 Kindle units last year and is on track to generate $1.2 billion in Kindle-related revenue by 2010, equivalent to 4% of its total sales.

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Last summer, three weeks before the shooting war between Georgia and Russia began, online attackers started assaulting Georgia’s websites. Since then, researchers have tried to find out who masterminded the network strikes — military electronic warriors, patriotic hackers, cyber-crooks — without finding anything definitive.

Here’s a quote from the report:

At the top of the hierarchy are the “Soldiers”: the professional planners, computer scientists, engineers, and other implementers, including the military itself. Next are what some call the “Mercenaries.” These are criminal organizations paid to carry out certain elements of the attacks. In this case, there are strong signs implicating an outfit known as the Russian Business Network (RBN). And, finally, there are the “Volunteers.” These are individuals with PC’s who are recruited to carry out attacks. They are provided with access to all the necessary software tools, as well as to detailed instructions for carrying out the attacks. In other words, they don’t have to be skilled and “educated” hackers. This is literally a mobilization of the masses.”

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I don’t have much to say except that I told people this was possible, I said that is what happened. And even still people are reluctant to believe me. Click below to read the full story.

pd

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