Registration begins on December 1, and the balloons will appear on December 5. The first to submit the latitude and longitude of all 10 balloons walks away with the cash. Pretty cool. Full rules at: [DARPA via BoingBoing]

We’re not going to pull out the old argument of “X isn’t dead, because I’m still using X!” That’s not so much an argument as a statement of entrenchment. However, this is the same kind of argument that was brought up 10 years ago when instant messaging was new and everyone was hopping on that as the new communications medium. Did IM kill email? No. It’s important as hell, don’t get us wrong, but it works alongside email. And so will social networking.

You might someday send resumes or other important documents over Facebook and Twitter, but email is never going to be “dead”. In fact, with push email on your phone, it’s basically as instant as any of the other networks.

Google Wave might also be pretty interesting when the people pimping it out call it what email would look like if it were invented today. It’s too early to tell. But for it to be truly ubiquitous—and it has to be in order to replace email—it can’t be hosted by just one company.

Think of it this way: if people are still using fax machines—f—king FAX MACHINES—on a daily basis, there’s no way that email will be excised from our collective productivity streams. Not when it’s this much more usable by the average person than faxes.

Or you can think of it this way. What information do you use to sign up for instant messaging and social networks? Your what address? [WSJ]

So here’s what we’ve got, the bulk of it from Boy Genius:

• Blu-ray integration to go with Blu-ray support in upcoming Macs—iTunes 8.2 sorta kinda pointed to Blu-ray, if you recall.
• Ability to re-arrange your iPhone/iPod touch apps in various ways (the one feature I actually want).
• Social networking integration: This seems like it’ll start out slightly more involved than say, iPhoto’s Facebook integration (though hopefully less crappy), but grow deeper as it hooks into a “Social” application Apple will release in the future that’ll consolidate all of your social networking services into a single app. At launch, iTunes 9’s social networking component—which’ll tap Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm—will do stuff like broadcast the music you’re listening to, share music with people in your networks (remote streaming?), and update all of your various statuses.
• Cocktail—Apple’s plan to revive the album, with “a new type of interactive album material, including photos, lyric sheets and liner notes that allow users to click through to items that they find most interesting”, according to the Financial Times.

Let’s look at the odds. Blu-ray seems possible, though iffy, given what we saw in 8.2 earlier. Re-arranging your growing library of apps is a useful and logical addition. The Cocktail rumour comes from the respectable Financial Times, and is backed up by word the labels are working on their own competing digital album format after Apple rejected their original proposal.

The social networking components, like Last.fm integration, also make some sense: People are streaming more music than ever, slightly shifting away from downloads. So while Pocket Lint has torn apart supposedly leaked images of the Last.fm part, it still seems more than possible. Basic integration with Facebook and Twitter makes sense—iPhoto already taps into Facebook, for instance (though not very well, admittedly).

The Apple “Social” app, that will supposedly bring together all of your social networks in a single interface, we’ll have to wait and see. It’d be new ground for Apple, for sure. Interestingly, Apple “resisted” integrating social networking with Facebook into the OS, though Apple poo-pooing something is by no means an indication they won’t ever go there. Like Cocktail, actually. [BGR, FT]

The biggest new feature would have to be the addition of Blu-ray support, supposedly to go along with the Blu-ray integration in upcoming iMacs. We’re decided skeptics on a Blu-ray/Apple union, because it doesn’t really make a lot of sense for Apple’s business model. Apple’s making boatloads of cash from digital media, and supporting a physical format that they don’t make a penny from just doesn’t feel like a smart move. Plus, we’ve been hearing this damn rumour for years.

More plausible is the ability to rearrange and move iPhone apps with iTunes 9, which is the kind of feature Apple should have had for years. Aside from that, there’s some typical rumbling about the integration of Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm—we wouldn’t rule them out, but we’re also not particularly excited about it. How about a “Play Next” or on-the-go playlist feature, like WinAmp, Mediamonkey and others have had for years? iTunes 9 is expected to debut around September, with the intro of new iPods. [Boy Genius Report]

Fast Company has an interesting interview with Facebook’s senior platform manager Dave Morin (formerly an Apple developer), who mentions that a few years ago, Apple turned down the chance to integrate some of Facebook’s social networking aspects into OS X.

Morin says he was working for Apple at the time, and he was working on trying to provide social networking SDK elements to developers, in hopes of expanding the scope of the operating system. He turned to Facebook to help out with some of those ideas. Seems Apple didn’t like that so much—they put up a bit of “resistance” to the idea, according to Morin.

I’d think working with Facebook is something any other company would jump at. Is this a case of Apple thinking really differently, or are they just being a pack of stubborn curmudgeons? [Fast Company]

I don’t agree with everything in the issue—I will not accept Facebook friends I’ve never meet in real life, I think it’s rude to text message in front of other people, and I will not, under any circumstances, pretend I don’t hate Twitter—but it’s definitely a fun and thought-provoking read. My favourite is this article on haggling over Craigslist, which has saved me hundreds of dollars over the years. [Wired]

That’s right—it can access your Twitter, Flickr and Facebook accounts via Wi-Fi in addition to features like an 800 X 600 LCD display, the ability to email photos to and from the frame, RSS support and smart photo playlists. Personally, I think the PC and my iPhone provide all of the Twittering my fragile sanity can handle, but if you can’t get enough, the Kogan frame will be available starting in July for $169 AUD. [Kogan via PC Authority]

Breadbox64 runs on the embedded Contiki OS, and lets you tweet and view your friends’ timeline from the ancient platform, provided you have the proper networking gear installed. It will even automatically update your timeline every two minutes. The UI is as 8-bit as can be, though I wouldn’t call it the most aesthetically pleasing thing in the world (you didn’t expect it to look like TweetDeck, did you now?). Anyways, you can download it if you want here. It’s good for a novelty tweet or two. [Van den Brande]