Come chat with me on Ustream on my Virgin America flight and watch people walk by! I’ll be turning on my camera every hour or so and I’ll be chatting live from 35,000 feet.

I’ll also be IMing with Virgin America’s IFE engineer James Weatherson around 6PM PT today and I’ll post a transcript. He’s in charge of the Red entertainment system on-board all VA flights and we’ll find out what we can expect to see from the in-flight entertainment system this year.

If you have any questions you’d like me to ask him, feel free to leave a comment.

Update: We’re streaming live for the rest of the flight. Come join the conversation.

Update 2: James wasn’t able to join us, so we’re going off the air. We’ll update if he manages to get online. Otherwise, we’ll have an in-person interview later this week.

The term Locavore is one that I’m not very familiar with – and to be honest, I was under the impression that throwing out a blanket term like “eating organic” was good enough. The whole organic movement hit the mainstream as I was making an exodus from the west coast, so concrete and constant car honking have muddled my green/hippie roots.

The thought of going to a farmer’s market or even grocery shopping in an actual store makes me cringe a little bit when I can order groceries online and have them delivered. But Buster McLeod’s Locavore iPhone app has me thinking twice about what I’m putting into my body. I mean, I don’t think Panda Express or any other fast food slinging joint is healthy or tasty like Greg does (Editor’s Greg’s Note: It is true. I do loves me some Panda.), but I probably don’t buy things that are local either and that’s just as bad.

So what exactly is Locavore you ask? According to the iPhone app’s description a “Locavore is someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius.” In other words, a locavore tries to purchase and consume only locally grown foods with the idea that they tastes better and are better for you.

Sony and Google’s tag-team tactics might not hurt Amazon and its Kindle reader, but this is certainly a step in the right direction. For who, exactly, we’re not so sure. Sony announced a bit ago that Google has opened up more than half-a-million of its books to Sony’s eReader. The catch? All of Google’s archived books are about as old as your granddad, if your granddad were 80-years-old.

I have no idea what is going on, but my buddy Mike just sent this to me and I’m hoping to spread the word. Sometime yesterday he received a Norton Program Alert saying, “PIFTS is attempting to access the Internet.” Being the nerd that he is, he did an nslookup on the IP and it came back to SwapDrive, which is a Symantec owned company. He then posted on the Norton/Symantec forums, but had his threads deleted and account terminated.

Alaska Airlines has announced that they’ve started testing Row 44’s satellite-based Wi-Fi service on a handful of Boeing 737-700s. The first trial flight will take place between Seattle and San Jose (leaves Seattle at 2:20 PT today and returns on Flight 329 from San Jose back to Seattle) and the service will be free for 60 days. After today that aircraft will shift routes, which includes anything going up and down the West Coast and Alaska. No exact date has been attached to the trial (but I would assume it’s today or sometime this week) and pricing hasn’t been set, but I’d imagine it’s close to what VA or AA is charging for Aircell’s Gogo service. Now watch the boring video after the jump.

The Network (that’s what I’m going to call all the “Crunch” sites from now on) covered the private beta launch of ZumoDrive last month, so there’s no need to get into details again, but we wanted to inform you that the service is now available to the public.

Update: Seems we jumped the gun on Monday, but everything is now live. Hit the jump for screenshots.

We should be getting our review units any minute. Is there anything in particular that you want to know? First, check out this and this then leave your questions in comments. Thanks!

It’s not every day we get a chance to sit down with one of the world’s richest and most industrious men. Actually, Sir Richard is only the 236th richest person in the world according to Forbes. I thought he’d be higher. *shrug* Anyway, we had the esteemed pleasure of taking Sir Richard’s IM interview virginity last week as he was jetting back to his private island, Necker.

CBS’ The Early Show’s Dave Price was also onboard to broadcast weather updates from a Virgin American flight and kept pulling Sir Richard into one segment after another. It got to be really annoying after a while.

Google’s VP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, demoed a ‘technical concept’ at MWC that would allow devices with Webkit browsers to use Gmail offline. Such devices include the iPhone, Magic aka G2 and Palm’s upcoming Pre.

The app is dependant on HTML5’s AppCache and Database standards, so developers need only code one application for multiple platforms with a GUI that’s identical for all. I’m not familiar with HTML5, but I guess the application will store not only the user data but also the software. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

No word on when or if Google will release the application. Hit the jump for the video demo.

If you’re interested in seeing the Palm Pre running an HTML5 version of Google Maps then check this out.

Well, well, well. What do we have here? Looks like Sprint just updated their site with the Palm Pre’s specs. This news alone isn’t anything special as the specs have been available for quite some time, but we now know a few details about the Pre’s internal storage and some service details. Does this mean the Pre is coming soon or did Sprint and Palm just finalize some details?

Later today in NYC, Amazon is expected to unveil the K2 (we’ve known this since 1/27, but welcome to the party WSJ) and with it an exclusive Stephen King novel, says the WSJ. There isn’t a whole lot else about this supposed King deal, so we’ll have to wait until the press conference at 10AM today. I hope King shows up so I can kick him in the shins for the countless hours of sleep I lost as a child because of “It.” Be sure to check CG for live coverage of the event.

Amazon’s Kindle screen manufacturer Prime View International, however, did shed some light on the previous Kindle and what to expect from the new hardware.

It goes without saying that this could be a complete sham and that a chunk of salt should be consumed with it, but a batch of purported images and price for the Amazon Kindle 2 have leaked onto the Web. While the MobileRead fellas claim these to be official we’re going to wait until Monday for whatever it is that Amazon plans to announce to the universe.

Ba Da Da Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding. Greetings from the Land of the Rising Sun, Hello Kitty, Ninjas and all sorts of sexual fetishes. Serkan and I are talking about having a meetup here in Tokyo on Tuesday night. Please drop a line in comments or e-mail me at peterha at crunchgear dot com and let us know if you’d like to join. I’m staying in Ebisu and plan to have the meetup around here or wherever Serkan suggests. So, come on out and have a beer or pitch us your shenanigans. We’re up for anything. Hope to see you!

RIM really dropped the ball after launching the Bold with the shouldhaveneverbeenlaunched Storm. But I’m happy to say that they’ve come back into our good graces with the launch of the T-Mobile Curve II otherwise known as the 8900.

Just a friendly reminder that CrunchGear will be at Moscone tomorrow (1/6) for Phillip W. Schiller’s very first keynote speech. Wait. MacWorld keynote? What? Isn’t Jobs dead? Who the hell is Schiller? Where am I?!

CrunchGear has been around for a couple years now and we know that a lot of you have been following us since the beginning so we wanted to reward those folks. Think of it as our version of Best Buy’s Reward Zone program. Otherwise known as the CrunchGear Loyalty Rewards Program. TeleNav has always been supportive of us and so we’ve teamed up to give away a years worth of free service for your Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Storm. So how do you win?

Western Digital’s WD TV is one of our favorite gadgets of 2008 because of its ability to playback just about every video format known to man and we want you to experience the joys its brought us this holiday season. WD felt the same way and has donated three for us to give away to our readers. It may be two days before Christmas (if you’re into that sort of thing), but this is one gadget you’ll be happy to get any day of the year. Hop on over to see how you can win one.

Target sure loves CrunchGear and we love them for throwing down two Peek e-mail devices (review) for us to give away. Now don’t go scoffing about just because it’s not some hotsy-totsy-hotdoggin-showboatin gadget. Not everyone has access to e-mail on their phone and chances are you know some of them. Here’s your chance to hook them up for the upcoming holidays or feel free to treat yourself.

How can you win?

The ‘iPhone killer’ label (which I hate using – BTW) as been thrown around since the first touch-screen device hit the market after the original iPhone was launched last year and, unfortunately, nothing has been able to live up to the hype. Both consumers (you) and techies (us) have been eagerly awaiting the launch of the Storm in the hopes that it would knock down the iPhone a peg or level the playing field. I don’t want to dash your dreams, but the Storm is not on par with the iPhone. It is, however, the closest device available on the market today to compete with the iPhone, but that’s not saying much. Imagine the iPhone being on top of a mountain with the rest of the touch-screen devices at base camp. The Storm sits atop all the rest, but it’s still at base camp.

Video after the jump.

Smaller, lesser known (to Joe Blow consumer) tech companies have been known to take on the big guys with lawsuits that may or may not hold up in court, but this one seems to hold a bit of water. At least it appears that way based on the Reuters and WSJ reports on the matter.

Spansion, an offshoot of AMD, is accusing Samsung and four of its U.S. subsidiaries of infringing on multiple patents and demands reparations from the South Korean electronics juggernaut. Two separate lawsuits were filed today with the International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court in Delaware. Spansion chose to file with the ITC because they’ve been known to hammer down a tad faster and have the “power to impose exclusion orders” on those being sued, which would put a hamper on Samsung and many companies who rely on their flash memory chips. That list of companies includes Apple, Asus, Kingston, Lenovo, PNY, RIM, Sony and Sony-Ericsson, which means many of our favorite gadgets may not be imported to our great country.

Spansion estimates that Samsung was able to pirate $30 billion from 2003 using their infringed patents.

The patents surrounding the lawsuit are as follows:

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

After having seen the above video you will undoubtedly make direct comparisons to what was seen in Minority Report, and that’s no coincidence. John Underkoffler, one of Oblong’s co-founders, was the science advisor on the film and built much of what we saw in the movie from what he was working on at MIT.

The gesture-based g-speak “spatial operating interface” (SOE) software platform has been in development at MIT’s Media Laboratory since the early 1990s and its intended use isn’t as nerdy as we’d expect. It’s meant to facilitate answers to real-world issues such as:

I visited Stockholm University’s Mobile Life Centre in Kista, Sweden (pronounced Shista, strangely enough) and got a chance to see a few cool research projects that I’ll be posting today and tomorrow. First up we see the Affective Diary, a little project involving a PC-based application and a body sensor that tests galvanic skin response.

I haven’t run into any surfers with iPhones, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. Perhaps some of TechCrunch’s fine readers like to get wet like me.

Today, Oakley (the guys that make those hideous Thump sunglasses) and Surfline announced their free app: Surf Report. There’s only one other surf-forecasting app available today, GreenRoom Surf Forecasts, and it costs $2.99. However, it’s limited to spots in California, but you can get a seven-day forecast whereas Surf Report only provides up to three days. Oakley’s app is free though and that’s not a bad price.

This is out of left field, but Federal District Judge Kenneth Karas has ordered that Mark Papermaster “immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc until further order of this court.” The issue arises from the basic non-compete clause in his IBM contract, but Papermaster argues that IBM is more big business whereas Apple is obviously consumer-y.

“Electronic devices large and small are powered by the same type of intelligence, the microprocessor,” IBM argued.

While it’s true, you know those dastardly IBM lawyers are going to pick apart every single word of his contract.

It’s just another GPS, right? Is that what you’re thinking? While it is just a GPS the Shotgun from TeleNav brings a bit more than your standard Garmin. It’s somewhat comparable to the Dash as well, but we all know what happened to them.

The Shotgun has a 4.3-inch LCD and connects wirelessly over a GSM network for real-time traffic updates and OTA upgrades that will include:

• Restaurant Reviews – Quickly identify the top places to go and read what others say.
• Address Sharing – Share addresses or your location to meet up with friends more efficiently.
• Weather – Get up-to-date, detailed weather information.
• Commute Alerts – Get emailed alerts about traffic conditions on your daily commute.

You can search the Net from wherever you are to find all sorts of POIs like cheap gas, Wi-Fi hotspots and restaurants. Check out the video and other details after the jump.