The Most Spectacular Christmas Trees, Compared [Christmas]

Today, Rockefeller Center switches on its towering holiday gift to New York: a 74-foot spruce draped with 30,000 lights and 5 miles of wire. But New York's tree is not actually the biggest or the brightest on the block.

If you're looking for the tallest tree in America, visit Phoenix. Looking for the heaviest? Hitch a ride on over to San Francisco. Well surely, the brightest tree must be in the Big Apple, right? Nuh uh: Salt Lake City. In fact, despite its undeniably awesomeness, the only superlative that New York's Norway Spruce can rightfully own is that it uses the most electricity. Click on the image above for a supersized, super-in-depth view of the Nation's most favored pines.

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BitTorrent-Based Domains Could Make Sites Invincible Against Government Seizure [Internet]

In response to the recent flurry of aggressive takedowns against P2P and piracy-related websites, a group of programmers is working on a new, decentralized system that would make domains untouchable. The Dot-P2P project is partially powered, appropriately enough, by BitTorrent.

The problem—if you're either running or patronizing a website that runs afoul of US copyright law—is that it's extremely easy for your site to be knocked offline, should a court give the OK. It might sound like a gross generalization, but an enormous part of the internet is essentially owned by the United States. ICANN, responsible for handing out and maintaining the domain suffixes (.com, .org, and the rest) is part of the US Department of Commerce, and works closely with domain registrars. So when a US court decided that rap music sharing site OnSmash.com (among others) had leaked its last album, yanking the domain from under its feet was a cinch.

The alternative system would direct browsers to .p2p domains, through a decentralized, BitTorrent-style system. No ICANN, no court interference, and, presumably, no takedowns. The project already has the backing of major internet rebels like Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and torrent powerhouse EZTV. Dot-P2P is still in its infancy, but, as Sunde himself commented, is sending a clarion message: "If they try anything, we have weapons of making it harder for them to abuse it. If they then back down, we win." Just how righteous a battle this is depends on your views of copyright law, but it's an interesting take on web liberties nonetheless. [TorrentFreak]

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The Best Smartphone on Every Platform [Smartphones]

The most important thing about your next phone isn't what carrier it's on, how big the screen is, or even who makes it. It's the platform, stupid. So here are the best phones on every platform.

iOS: iPhone 4 (32GB)

Duh. While you can pick up an iPhone 3GS on the cheap, there's no reason to. Saving $100, you lose out on the iPhone 4's frankly a-mazing screen, killer camera, faster speed (for better gaming) and FaceTime. When it comes to iOS, there is only one choice: iPhone 4. And really you should get the 32GB model. Why? Because apps, HD video and 5-megapixel photos can take a lot of space, and you're gonna be stuck with this thing for two years.

Android: Epic 4G and HTC Incredible

Picking the perfect Android phone is a little trickier. But that's part of the beauty of the platform: There are so damn many of them. Do you want a keyboard? A smaller phone or a bigger screen? A clean Google experience, or one that's been tweaked and molded by phone makers and carriers?

So we're going to cheat and pick two: The Epic 4G on Sprint, because it's got a massive keyboard—for people who have to have a keyboard—WiMax powers, an awesome camera, sweet Super AMOLED screen, and Samsung's skin is pretty tolerable for most people.

For the second, we've still got a soft spot for the HTC Incredible on Verizon. It's a little more pocketable than most of the hulking Android phones coming out right now, it's got a solid (though not stellar) camera, and HTC's is one of the better Android skinjobs out there. Plus, it's just $150—a little cheaper than most of the other top-end Android phones at the moment.

Windows Phone 7: Samsung Focus

The early Windows Phone 7 phones are a fairly generic bunch, but the phone that stands out the most is the Samsung Focus. The Super AMOLED screen really shines with Windows Phone's technicolor interface, the camera's decent and it seems to do the best job of getting out of the way of the OS, which is the real star of the show.

BlackBerry: BlackBerry Bold 9780

BlackBerry's touchscreen experience is still haphazard at best, so if you're going to go BlackBerry you should stick with the phones they're best at: the traditional BlackBerry. The Bold 9780 is their top-of-the-line BlackBerry, a refreshed version of the existing Bold, with a better camera, more RAM and most importantly, BlackBerry OS 6, so you'll be able to run all of the new apps coming out written for it.

Palm WebOS: Palm Pre 2

Getting your hands on a Pre 2 isn't as easy as walking into the AT&T store and walking out, but you can buy it for just $450 unlocked—which is fairly cheap as far as unlocked phones go. Bonus: You're not tied to an two-year contract. (That said, it's coming to Verizon soonish for those in need of commitment.) The Pre 2's not a revolutionary lunge from the original Pre, but the tweaks add up to a better phone: a faster 1GHz processor, redesigned case materials and longer battery life. Oh, and it comes with webOS 2.0 right out of the gate, which is a none-too-shabby update to webOS, with fancier multitasking and a bunch of other new features.

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Dell Inspiron Duo review

When Dell first demoed the Inspiron Duo and its vertically rotating screen on stage at IDF in September, our mouths nearly hit the floor. It looked like a plain old netbook until its 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen did a magical backflip and folded down over its keyboard to morph into a tablet. It was like nothing we'd ever seen before. And we actually figured it would be the sort of system that would stay locked up in Dell's labs, but when its specs were revealed -- a dual-core Atom N550 processor, 2GB of RAM, and Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator -- it became evident that the netbook / tablet hybrid was the real deal. Running Windows 7 Home Premium and Dell's new Stage interface, the $550 netvertible has the potential to successfully straddle both the netbook and tablet world. It also has a real shot at being the perfect device for those wavering between buying a netbook and a tablet. Indeed, the Duo is filled to the brim with potential, but what's the thing really like to use? We've spent the last few days with the Duo (and its Duo Audio Station) to find out, so hit the break for the official Engadget review!

Editor's note: The review unit Dell sent us was a hardware production unit, but we were told the software was about 95 percent done. We will update this review with our impressions of the final unit when we receive it.

Gallery: Dell Inspiron Duo review

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Dell Inspiron Duo review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What If Your Entire Desk Were a Touchscreen? [Video]

Big touch surfaces are nothing new, but we like the approach taken here. A familiar form factor—the traditional sitting desk—mixed with the (now) ubiquitous tech of touchscreens. Is the BendDesk what your office will look like someday?

The prototype doesn't use the most sophisticated guts—relying on cameras and clunky projectors instead of an actual capacitive touch surface—but looks pretty snappy from the video demo. It may be chunky, but the results are slick. As well, the bottom part of the BendDesk can be used as—gasp!—an actual desk. Which is pretty great, really, as it would free up room for low-tech work, with plenty of screen real estate left over for pinching and pushing digital stuff. Right now the BendDesk is confined to the labs of Germany's RWTH Aachen University, but we hope this kind of clever design slinks its way out of academia. [Core77 via Engadget]

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