Confluence of Apple and local tech talent: Seattle startup UrbanSpoon (a restaurant review site with Yelp-like feedback features, but for serious foodies) has written a free app for the new iPhone. Says co-founder Ethan Lowry: "When Apple announced that they were going to allow third parties to write apps for the iPhone, we applied, and they accepted." How does it work? Part magic eight ball, part slot machine: you shake the phone, and it......

It's true. Now, if you can't live without knowing what's happening on Seattlest as it happens, or just want to know in extremely short bursts what we're posting about, you can follow the Seattlest Twitter feed. Through the magic of modern technology, followers of Seattlest's Tweets can choose to receive updates via txt, IM or on the Web. So sign up for our Tweets, just don't call us Twits.......

Hey there, lovely readers. We're taking a break from our usual Monday morning posting to make a little public service announcement. The time has come for Seattlest to add a couple of writers to our staff, and we're hoping you can spread the word for us. While "generalists" are fun and splendid, we're looking for someone who's turned on by sports and news from the tech world. If both those things float your boat,......

When we were dissing Clearwire the other day, we had no idea a deal this big was in the works. In fact, plenty of people thought the writing was on the e-tablet for Clearwire after its WiMAX deal with Sprint fell through six months ago. But you can't count Craig McCaw out. The P-I reports:Intel, Comcast, Google, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have agreed to invest $3.2 billion in the company, which will......

Apparently we're not the only ones with hope for Microsoft! Wired Magazine published an interview this morning with Mary Jo Foley, author of the cutely-titled book Microsoft 2.0, about the future of the company as Bill Gates leaves the day-to-day ops in the hands of Steve "I walked away from Yahoo" Ballmer. Her verdict? "It's dangerous for companies of any size to count them out. They're still good at figuring out how to come......

"Mac vs. PC" by Etchasketchist, with permission. Cool! Microsoft's getting busy this spring, as well they should. Reports of two separate deals struck by the corporate behemoth with NBC Universal and Hyundai came rolling in late last night, as well as a flurry of speculation and analysis on the failed Yahoo buy-out. Despite last-ditch efforts, is this the beginning of the end for Gates & Co? The NBC deal means you'll be able to......

Anyone want to start taking bets on how far Yahoo stocks will drop this morning? Double your winning by guessing the proper amount of time it takes for the descent to begin. After Microsoft withdrew their bid for Yahoo late this weekend, Seattlest is guessing the crash will begin within the first few seconds of trading. Microsoft's withdrawl was spurned by another Yahoo rejection. Despite raising their bid for Yahoo by over $5 million,......

"Microsoft Live platform" by niallkennedy. Yesterday, Microsoft announced a pretty cool new online service that will take the Google Documents concept to the next level: users of Live Mesh will be able to sync content from their computers, handhelds, cell phones, and potentially even their Zunes with that of other users in the same mesh, via the internet. As we understand it, the service is like an inter-office computer network, but users can upload/download......

Yahoo has denied Microsoft something it wants, and Microsoft is none too happy. Today Yahoo Corporation officially rejected Microsoft's 45 billion dollar unsolicited buy-out offer as insufficient. 45 Billion?!? Every time we heard the offer, we thought to ourselves, that reporter must have made a mistake - he must've meant 45 million. Guess not. Even that astronomical number, according to Yahoo "significantly undervalues [the company's] worth." Microsoft has issued a counter-statement saying (in a shady......

Since there's a "Blogger Lounge" here at MacWorld, we figured we'd use it. What the hell. So we're at MacWorld and if you have a computer and/or are capable of reading, you've probably heard that Apple is pushing even more shiny things on the world and some of those shiny new things were announced on Tuesday. We didn't attend the keynote, but friends of ours who did described it as Oprah for geeks; with all......

If you've noticed a ton of error messages in Seattlest comments today, you're not alone. Our technology team in NYC is working to fix the problem as we speak, as it's affecting the entire -Ist Network. We appreciate your patience while they re-implement the SQL coding process for optimal FTP performance or whatever the hell they do. In the meantime, please don't repost your comments. Even if you do get an error message that says......

The Program (Dec. 18-22) will be way cooler than we initially thought, folks. Not only will some of the biggest names in NW hip-hop be on stage for your entertainment five nights in a row, but the latest news is that there are all kinds of technological tie-ins that will make this event very, very 21st-century. For instance: if you bring your cell phone to the show (haha! Who doesn’t bring their cell phone to......

Redmond native and actual Guitar Hero Carrie Brownstein did some work on the advertising of the game Rock Band. You might have seen these commercials; four rocker-lookin types sit around and cut on each other in the jaded and weary fashion of musicians on the road. That's not her work, thank god. She was on a different team pushing a different concept. Anyway, she's got an article up at Slate today about her experiences with......

This has probably already circumnavigated the Internet, but it's new to us:......

If you were here right now, you'd see us looking around suspiciously like we don't quite trust we're awake because we just read Knute Berger's latest deep thought over at Crosscut and we...agree with him.While promoting green consumption might be politically more palatable than getting people to change their habits and expectations, promoting consumption still offers an answer that doesn't solve the bigger problem. Global warming's hawks have to be honest with us: Fighting the......

Amazon released an eBook reader today, it's three years in the making. They call it Kindle. Here's a big 'ol Newsweek piece about it. Barnes and Noble has seen its stock drop 5% today (as of 3:01 EST), as investors ask and answer the question--is print dead? (Note--you aren't reading this in print.) News of the Kindle launched a spirited discussion amongst various Seattlesters touching on the merits of eBooks, of iPods, book history, and......

Here are three vaguely computer-related crimes taken from recent headlines in Seattle, Chicago and New England. Seattle: "Man pleads guilty in cybertheft case." A 35-year-old Seattle man has pleaded guilty in federal court to mail fraud and aggravated identity theft in a scheme that utilized peer-to-peer file-sharing programs to gain access to private information from dozens of victims. Gregory Kopiloff admitted during a plea hearing Monday that, through LimeWire and other file-sharing programs, he used......

Mac released its new Leopard operating system on Friday, and low-tech Seattlest wonders what's up. So we asked Aron Beal, a Web applications developer and genuine Mac nerd, to tell us. 1) What's the deal with Leopard--is it a new thing, or just a normal upgrade, or what? Leopard is a full fledged operating system release, similar to the one you might have made when upgrading from Windows 2000 to Windows XP (or to Vista).......

Will every software guy in the audience who's ever thought about cashing in the badge and putting on a chef's coat raise your hand? Wow, a lot of you, great! Some of you aren't so sure... You there in the front, did you read Kitchen Confidential? Yeah? Did that help push you out the door or keep you in front of the keyboard? OK, keep them up there. Now, keep them raised if you've actually......

Oh, Apple, Inc. America hates you 'cuz you're beautiful (it's all that plastic surgery!). Seattlest mostly just hates you because you won't let us tinker with your products. You're even getting charged with monopoly, along with AT&T, and Seattlest couldn't have been more smug when we heard about that news. But what's this? You say you want third-party applications on your iPhone? From Steve's keyboard to ours, via apple.com: Let me just say it: We......

We forgot to mention one important fact about the Thingamajiggr tech party coming up this weekend: It's being held in what used to be Seattle's speakeasy, the Cafe (un)American, and it'll probably be the last event held there before the building is torn down. There are still some tickets available (discount code "thingamaparty").......

Tonight the Elliott Bay Book Co. hosts a trio of writers touring as the "Akashic All-Stars." Akashic is a small literary press based in New York (specifically, Brooklyn--is anything cool left in Manhattan?). Only ten years old, Akashic is a sign of a promising future for American letters. Like the music industry, publishing is being transformed by technology, allowing for smaller firms run by people with both business smarts and passion for what they......

Fans of the Ignite Seattle tech event series who are less enthused about the fact that everyone's a fan of Ignite Seattle should probably check out Thingamajiggr. Thingamajiggr sounds like it's Ignite + tickets, somewhat. Organizer Brady Forrest of O'Reilly Radar says that there will be some short talks at the beginning, but it's more of a social party than Ignite. There will be SMS game experiments going on, there are DJs scheduled, some art,......

Non-gamers tended to scoff when the release of Halo 3 for the Xbox was labeled as "the most important entertainment event of the year" or whatever, but perhaps this will make them reconsider. The game has already inspired music!......

Rockstar Seattlest commenter (ex; you're dead to us, Jake) 8bitjake had the scoop earlier this week for those that were paying attention. He got an email from a friend at the Eastside game studio Bungie: "So heres my big secret. You should google Bungie + Microsoft + separation this week. You know that big ol BILLION dollar franchise Bungie has created for Microsoft, to show their appreciate Microsoft is letting Bungie leave. Of course Microsoft......

A bunch of Zune videos showed up on Youtube yesterday following the announcement of the new Zune 2 interface, Zune DRM-free downloads, Zune Nanos and Zune Last.fm. It may be our imagination, but in the following video does Bill seem like he's not taking all this entirely seriously, like he just ruined the previous ten takes with little outbursts and asides? "A little card that shows what you're listening to? What the fuck does that......

In December we wrote about local restaurant review site Urbanspoon. We loved it then, we love it now, and we've been loving it in the interim. Since we last chatted with Ethan Lowry, one of the three brains behind the site, Urbanspoon has really fleshed things out and branched out to a bunch of other cities. Are you a food guy or a tech guy? What's your background? I've been eating since I was born,......

Man, if the EU court that stuck it to Microsoft this weekend and Mr. and Mrs. Slowsky were in a race it would probably go off the board for betters. It's. Taking. For. Ever. The crime is Microsoft shutting out competitors by bundling Windows Media Player with Windows, which, to us at least, seems like an ancient issue. What are they going to go after Microsoft for next? Attaching round wheels to an axle? We......

Monday started even earlier than Sunday with the Coen Brothers' heavily-touted No Country for Old Men. The elegantly slow-moving picture (care of cinematographer Roger Deakins) lives up to the hype, so much so that we can take it as their formal cinematic apology for their abysmal duo Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers. Ethan, Joel, we forgive you. Especially if it means that you won't sic scary-as-hell psycho-killer Javier Bardem on us. Next up was Juno,......

We're living in the town that Microsoft Office built, and all in all it's not too shabby. Every once in a while we're struck by something and think, "wow, someone paid upwards of $300 for a graphical representation of a talking paper clip and we used the money to build this..." But generally it's been a pretty good deal for Seattle. Time marches on, though, and what was once the raison d'etre for personal computers......