Social media researcher and general internet guru Danah Boyd gave the keynote address at SXSWi earlier today, focusing on matters of privacy. On paper, Google Buzz was a perfect social network. So why did it freak everyone out so much? More

Last month, I risked life and limb to tell you about Celsius X-VI-II, a shadowy French company who was building a $300,000 mechanical cellphone. The first pictures of the phone have surfaced, though they don’t exactly answer our questions. More

Beaming data with light is hardly a new thing , but lately we’ve seen a number of attempts at making it rather more usable and, more interesting, rather more speedy. We’re starting to get the feeling that those maybe/maybe not dangerous microwave-based systems have had their days numbered. The latest to beam bits with blinkenlights is a team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications in Germany, which will be showing its stuff at the always happenin’ Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition in two weeks. The team was able to use a commercial LED and get an impressive 230Mb/s transfer rate, which doesn’t compare to the gigabit Penn State managed or 500mb/s Siemens pulled off , but those were done using rather more specialized hardware (like the Siemens rig pictured above). It’s interesting stuff, and we’re looking forward to see the commercial applications for this tech, but we do have one nagging question: what if you want to surf in the dark?

How many SDK’s does it take to screw in a light bulb? You won’t find the answer in this week’s leaky edition of the Engadget Podcast Show, but you will get an exclusive chance to peer into the future of Paul Miller’s voiceover career. Hosts: Josh Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller Producer: Trent Wolbe Music: MPC2059 - The Beyonce Error Hear the podcast 00:01:40 - iPad pre-order is go — will you buy one? 00:08:37 - iPad mute switch magicked into a ’screen rotation lock’ overnight, a flurry of other tidbits emerge 00:14:18 - Leaked Dell Streak flyer shows multitude of color options, confirmed specifications 00:14:35 - Microsoft’s Courier ‘digital journal’: exclusive pictures and details (update: video!) 00:16:35 - Leak: Microsoft Pink phones coming to Verizon, on shelves April 20th? 00:24:42 - JooJoo revamps interface ahead of launch, adds local video playback — and changes color 00:32:02 - JooJoo hits the FCC, reveals NVIDIA Ion, 3G card 00:35:17 - HP Slate makes an appearance to show off Flash, stays for a rock concert 00:50:24 - Palm’s webOS PDK beta adds Pixi native development, PDK’d apps will hit the Catalog mid year 00:51:07 - Android NDK hits Release 3, brings OpenGL ES 2.0 access to devs 00:51:30 - Microsoft shows off XNA games running on Windows Phone, full 3D is a go 01:04:38 - PlayStation Move: everything you ever wanted to know 01:11:45 - Joystiq and Sony VP Scott Rohde talk PlayStation Move 01:17:20 - Caption Contest: 3D is a mind blow, everyone can agree on that Subscribe to the podcast [ iTunes ] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC). [ RSS MP3 ] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically

When you use a site like Gmail, you have to decide: Do I want to use the service’s website, or do I want to use it through an app, like Outlook? Here’s how to get the best of both worlds. More