Pre-ordered Nooks have only just started arriving on people's doorsteps, but already Barnes & Noble is planning firmware update 1.2 for new units, with already-bought models having to wait a little while longer. No clues on what 1.2 will hold for the ebook reading-customers, but it's apparently being released "this week." Tick, tock. [Engadget]

You don't need that rumored Toshiba phone that "acts like a secretary," or even Maggie Gyllenhaal (though that would be nice), to have help when organizing your social life. Siri uses "speech recognition with a brain," according to its CEO.

To use the iPhone app, you just have to say aloud a command like "Book a table for six at 7pm at McDonalds" (I'm sure you're classier than that, but let's stick with it for now), and then using speech-recognition technology and the iPhone's GPS capabilities, your command is translated and processed by the app, responding with confirmation of booking—or lack of availability.

Siri, which has ties with Stanford Research Institude and DARPA, has collaborated with OpenTable, MovieTickets, StubHub, CitySearch and TaxiMagic to help with bookings and information, which pretty much wipes out the reason why you'd want to download any of those services' apps individually.

It's free to download on the iPhone now, but fear not, Android and BlackBerry users of the world—Siri plans on giving you a little phone secretary of your very own at some point. [Siri via NY Times]

Google's updated 35 European cities devastated by WWII with aerial photos taken in between 1935 and 1945, so people can compare it to current-day shots. If only Street View had been around when I was studying history at school!

Locations include Warsaw in Poland; Stuttgart, Germany; Naples, Italy; and Lyon, France. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you've got school exams coming up, kiddywinks. [Google Lat Long Blog]

Amazon's ebook pricing structure has crumbled. Hachette's the third major publisher to push for the agency model, following MacMillan and HarperCollins: They'll set the ebook prices (higher, natch) and the bookseller takes a cut. The $9.99 ebook? Poof.

It looks the pricing model reportedly first proposed by Apple to publishers—from $12.99 to $14.99 as a suggested price for harcover bestsellers, though the publisher will set whatever price they want—is the way things are indeed going to shape up, so Steve Jobs wasn't idly riffing when he said the price difference between Kindle and iBooks would go away. MacMillan CEO John Sargent has specifically mentioned those same pricepoints as their baseline, so you can expect every other publisher will hew to that.

With a majority of the major publishers now going to the agency model, it's logical that the final two, Penguin and Simon & Schuster, won't be far behind, especially since they're a part of Steve's team. (HarperCollins hasn't officially switched, but Rupert Murdoch said on their earnings call they're renegotiating to that, so I'm counting it.) Three out of five, we're calling it: Amazon's dream of a flat $9.99 for ebooks has flatlined.

Amazon's price advantage over iBooks, also evaporated. Even though Amazon won't take losses on ebooks anymore to sell them cheaply, it's a bad situation for them, because they lose that marketshare-building advantage. (That is, Amazon's happy to spend $50 subsidizing cheap books to hook you into Kindle for life. If, eventually, they're the only game in town, like iTunes was for music, then they'd have the power to push back against publishers anyway.)

Amazon has two months before the iPad launches. They better move fast. [Media Bistro via MediaMemo]

Do you know what type of organization that would deny you a fax—by sending you back another fax—to tell you the first fax you sent was upside down?

If you guessed the US Patent & Trademark Office, you probably work at the US Patent & Trade Office, or deal with them regularly. The relevant text is:

The faxed submission was received upside down. We are unable to continue processing these images.

So we have a few assumptions we can make about the setup over at the USPTO. They either still take manual faxes, as in stuff prints out in reams of paper over in the bowels of some bleak office structure, or they take faxes digitally and don't have the expertise to use an image rotation program to rotate the damn image so it's right-side-up. Either way, it's hard to think of a situation that reflects worse on the people who are supposed to be judging our society's technological advancements based on merit. [BNET]

You've made a PS3 controller out of a Nokia N900, but all you really want is to use a Sixaxis controller to play emulated games on the device. Thanks to these instructions, now you finally can. [Aberration]

Apparently Google is posting videos to showcase the story of its Nexus One smartphone. This first one discusses the concept and design of the device. [Thanks, Erick Tseng!]

Google Earth's historical imagery feature has a new batch of pictures. You can now witness how some cities looked in the middle of World War II and compare them to the places you may live in today.

The Google LatLong Blog explains the reason for the addition of this feature:

The historical imagery feature gives people a unique perspective on the events of the past using today's latest mapping technology. We hope that this World War II imagery will enable all of us to understand our shared history in a new way and to learn more about the impact of the war on the development of our cities.

Looking at the images, it's tough to imagine that those hopes won't come true:

Awe inspiring, isn't it? [Google LatLong Blog via Wired]

In response to complaints regarding black level performance in its plasma TVs, Panasonic has issued a statement admitting that "background brightness will increase," but described the change as "automatic" over the TVs' lifespan and being intended to mainta optimal performance.

It also said that newer plasma TVs will include a "more gradual change in Black Level over time," but made no mention of a fix for existing plasma TVs, whose owners first noted the issue at enthusiast Web site AVS forum.

Here's the entire statement as e-mailed to CNET, entitled "Automatic Control of Contrast over Operational Lifetime."

Panasonic Viera plasma HDTVs deliver exceptional picture performance throughout the lifetime of these products. Various elements and material characteristics of all electronic displays change with use over time. In order to achieve the optimal picture performance throughout the life of the set, Panasonic Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an automatic control which adjusts an internal driving voltage at predetermined intervals of operational hours.

As a result of this automatic voltage adjustment, background brightness will increase from its initial value. After several years of typical use, the internal material characteristics will stabilize and no additional automatic voltage adjustments are required. The Black Level at this stabilized point will yield excellent picture performance.

The newest Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an improved automatic control which applies the voltage adjustments in smaller increments. This results in a more gradual change in the Black Level over time.

More Questions Than Answers

I first contacted Panasonic seeking comment on January 11 , and the company has not responded until this statement, which was e-mailed to me Wednesday, February 3. Though arguably better than silence, the statement leaves too many major questions unanswered.

I have followed up with Panasonic seeking those answers, asking, among other questions, if/when a fix is planned for current TVs to address owner complaints; at what "predetermined intervals" do the the voltages increase; when do the materials stabilize; what the quantitative difference is between the initial black level and the "stabilized point"; which are the "newest Viera plasma HDTVs" referred to in the statement; and what should owners do who are unsatisfied with the picture quality of their TVs. I'll update this story when I receive a reply.

The Big Picture for Plasma

As I mentioned in the original report, I haven't seen a Panasonic plasma affected by the lighter black levels yet, so it's impossible for me to reply to the big question of whether the loss of black level performance is significant enough to make the TV pale in comparison to its competitors. Many eyewitnesses believe it is, judging from the original thread at AVS forum and from a few of the comments on the report, but other owners are less definitive or report no change.

I began a long-term test using two 2009 Panasonic plasmas in my lab, but it will be at least a month before I can expect to notice any change in black level. Of course, I'll report back when that happens.

I'll also report that since 2005, my main TV at home has been a Panasonic TH-50PHD8UK plasma, and I've never noticed a change in its black level performance. At CNET, we didn't hear of this issue until we read the reports on AVS forum, and to our knowledge, past Panasonic plasmas, as well as models by LG, Pioneer and Samsung, have delivered basically consistent black levels over time.

That's why, despite Panasonic's statement that "all electronic displays change with use over time" and that after said change its sets still have "excellent picture performance," I tend to believe owners who describe the black level increase in the company's latest plasmas as unusual and ultimately detrimental to picture quality.

A quote included in my original report accords perfectly with much of Panasonic's eventual statement, enforcing that belief. In it a respected calibrator who goes by the screen name D-Nice, citing sources within the company, called the too-aggressive voltage increase a "goof" on the part of Panasonic engineering. The closest Panasonic has come to admitting as much is contained in its reference to an improved, more gradual change in new models.

Now What?

My main job at CNET is to provide buying advice regarding TVs, and Panasonic plasmas were one of my go-to recommendations. The 50-inch G10 was the most popular TV on CNET during 2009, and the V10 series earned the only Editors' Choice award I handed out to any flat-panel TV last year. In fact, after I reviewed the 2009 models, my dad bought a TC-P42X1, two of my colleagues at CNET, Matthew Moskovciak and John Falcone, bought TC-P50G10s and another, David Carnoy, bought a TC-P65S1 (we're keeping tabs on the black levels of those sets, too). It's safe to say that many readers of this Web site did the same thing dad, John, Matt and David did: buy a solid-to-excellent HDTV for a good price, and be perfectly happy with the picture quality. Judging from reader reaction, that happiness may be in jeopardy.

Nothing halts a shopper's reach for his wallet better than doubt, so I believe it's in Panasonic's best interest to answer those lingering questions. Until that happens, it's going to be hard for me to recommend the company's TVs without a degree of uncertainty.

This story originally appeared on CNET

Frustrated after seeing his father try to make a replacement car key without the ID code, Steve Randall and Ted Schwarzkopf created the Electronic Key Impressioner. If it works, it could be great news for locksmiths. And maybe thieves too.

The Electronic Key Impressioner plugs into the car keyhole and, after aligning it properly, it connects with a computer via USB, sucking up the code after you select the car type you are trying to crack. For now, it only work for Fords.

The key cloner will only be sold to authorized locksmiths. Randall says that their device will have to connect to the Internet to work, so if it falls into the wrong hands, it could be deactivated remotely. Sadly, if history has told us anything, is that no matter how secure you think your system is, there will always be people capable of cracking it. [Popular Mechanics]