Looks the leaked info was pretty much spot on. AT&T's Mobile TV service is debuting May 4 and it'll come in three tiers: Limited, Basic and Plus for $13, $15 and $30. It'll launch in 58 major markets (all the ones you expect). Besides the nine live broadcast channels, there's a bank of 150 time-shifted shows like the 30 Rock finale, plus Sony's movie channel, dubbed PIX—it'll have stuff like Memento and Kung Fu Hustle (have you ever seen a fist this big?). First phones to get in on the action are LG's Vu and Samsung Access. Hit the jump for all the dirty details.
[AT&T]AT&T MOBILE TV PREMIERES SUNDAY, MAY 4
AT&T to Deliver MediaFLO USA's FLO TV Service in 58 Markets on New AT&T-Exclusive Handsets Designed for Mobile TV Viewing; AT&T Introduces CNN Mobile Live, PIX and CNCRT, a Special Concert Channel
SAN ANTONIO, May 1, 2008 — We interrupt your scheduled programming with an important news bulletin: AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and MediaFLO USA Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM), announced today the May 4 availability of the AT&T Mobile TV with FLO™ service. This powerful new mobile television service will provide around-the-clock access to some of today's most popular television programs — live and in color on the mobile phone.
To ensure an unmatched mobile television experience for consumers, AT&T is introducing two new exclusive handsets: the Vu from LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A. Inc. (LG) and the Access from Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung).
* LG Vu: A sleek and stunning device, the Vu gives you a clear view of TV, Web, pictures or videos on its large interactive touch screen. It also lets you get the utmost in mobile entertainment with a music player, 2.0 megapixel camera and Bluetooth® capabilities. The LG Vu is available for $299.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate.
* Samsung Access: This stylish handset features a large landscape display, ideal for delivering a rich viewing experience and an internal antenna for exceptional reception. It's a great device for customers who are looking for advanced multimedia capabilities such as a camera, external stereo speakers, stereo Bluetooth, AT&T Music, CV, of course, AT&T Mobile TV. The Samsung Access is available for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate.1"AT&T Mobile TV is more than a new entertainment service — it is an experience that will significantly change and enhance our customers' mobile lifestyles," said Mark Collins, vice president of Consumer Data for AT&T's wireless unit. "With this in mind, it was imperative that we launch this revolutionary service on devices that were optimal for the best mobile viewing experience imaginable. We worked closely with LG and Samsung to deliver these two iconic handsets, which are designed with the specific needs of what will soon become our Mobile TV viewing audience."
AT&T Mobile TV proves that big things come in small packages. The service will offer unmatched TV-quality programming from leading news and entertainment brands: CBS Mobile, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, NBC 2Go, NBC News 2Go, MTV Networks' COMEDY CENTRAL, MTV and Nickelodeon, as well as PIX and CNN Mobile Live, which are both AT&T-exclusive channels on MediaFLO USA's FLO TV™ service.
PIX, from Sony Pictures Television, offers a variety of contemporary films, including comedies, cult classics, action films and family favorites from the studio's vast library.
CNN Mobile Live provides users with access to 24 hours of breaking news with live streaming anchored coverage from CNN.com Live as well as CNN's most popular programs, including "American Morning," "Lou Dobbs Tonight," "CNN Election Center," "Larry King Live," "Anderson Cooper 360º," and "CNN International."
"Our research revealed that news and movies were the two most popular program categories consumers wanted to watch on their mobile phones. We have exceeded their expectations with AT&T Mobile TV," said Collins. "Together with MediaFLO USA, we are changing the picture of television-viewing by giving our customers an innovative way to stay connected to breaking news from CNN Mobile Live, an arsenal of movie favorites with PIX and a formidable lineup of other quality programming while on the go."
Additionally, for the next 60 days, the AT&T Mobile TV service will feature CNCRT, a special concert channel delivered by Control Room, a leading producer and distributor of world-class entertainment. Every day, for 24 hours, the CNCRT channel will air one of approximately 30 recently recorded concerts from major recording artists, such as Avril Lavigne, Chris Brown, Fall Out Boy, Jay Z, Sheryl Crow, Akon, Daughtry, Lenny Kravitz, Rage Against the Machine and more.
"With the authority of CNN, the cinematic variety of PIX and the star power of CNCRT, AT&T Mobile TV adds an exciting dimension to the FLO TV service," said Gina Lombardi, president of MediaFLO USA. "We are thrilled to be working with AT&T to provide consumers with such a powerful new mobile entertainment experience."
MediaFLO USA's award-winning FLO TV service features premium full-length, high-quality programming delivered to mobile phones over MediaFLO USA's own dedicated multicast network. Using an intuitive program guide, AT&T customers will be able to easily flip from one channel to the next on their mobile FLO-enabled phones to experience the best-quality mobile TV.
There are more than 150 simulcast and/or time-shifted programs, as well as live sports events, currently available for viewing. Below are examples of some of the entertaining TV programs and events that are scheduled to air the week of May 4:
* CBS Mobile: New episodes of "CSI," "CSI:NY" and "How I Met Your Mother"
* CNN Mobile Live: Live breaking news coverage, including real-time results from the Democratic and Republican primaries in North Carolina and Indiana on May 6.
* Comedy Central: New episodes of "The Daily Show with John Stewart" and "The Colbert Report"
* ESPN Mobile TV: Live game coverage as well as ESPN Mobile TV shows such as "ScoreCenter," "ReSET" and more
* FOX Mobile: New episodes of "Bones," "Back to You," and LIVE Big 12 College Baseball
* MTV: New episodes of "The Hills," "Real World: Hollywood" and "The Paper"
* NBC 2Go: LIVE NHL Stanley Cup Playoff and Final games and finale episode of NBC's "30 Rock" (Thurs., May 8)
* NBC News 2Go: LIVE coverage of the Indiana and North Carolina Democratic Primaries
* Nickelodeon: Episodes of "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "iCarly"
* PIX: "Memento," "In The Line of Fire," "Groundhog Day," "Kung Fu Hustle" and "Resident Evil"AT&T Mobile TV will launch in 58 markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle and Washington, D.C. The service is a perfect complement to the wireless carrier's already impressive portfolio of wireless video offerings, including CV, which gives subscribers mobile access to thousands of on-demand video clips — including news, sports, entertainment, music and movie previews. With the addition of Mobile TV, AT&T customers now have even more choices in how they experience and enjoy video content from their phone. As with CV, AT&T Mobile TV will have the Parental Controls feature, which provides content filtering and purchase blocking on your phone so that you can restrict access to content that may be inappropriate for younger viewers.
Monthly access packages for AT&T Mobile TV begin at $15 a month for the Basic package, which includes unlimited access to Mobile TV, as well as access to the exclusive CNCRT channel for a limited time. AT&T also offers a Mobile TV Plus package for $30 a month, which includes unlimited Mobile TV, unlimited mobile Web browsing on MEdiaTM Net and unlimited CV mobile video. Customers can also subscribe to a limited basic package for $13 a month, which gives them access to four channels: CBS Mobile, FOX Mobile, NBC 2Go and NBC News 2Go. Because AT&T Mobile TV operates on MediaFLO USA's own dedicated multicast network, AT&T customers do not incur data or voice charges. Additionally, programming is subject to change, and sports programming is subject to blackout restrictions.
To learn more about AT&T Mobile TV, including service, programming and handset details, visit www.att.com/mobiletv beginning May 4.
This fine piece of flip phone is Blackberry's very first clamshell, codenamed Kickstart. It's not very attractive—it's got a smugly RAZR-esque silhouette. The inside is Pearly, with a trackball and SureType keyboard. Boy Genius says that the internal LCD is "decent looking," but the shot of the external has a weird sheen over it, so it's hard to tell there. Sort of an odd choice from RIM, I think—was there an untapped demand for a flip Blackberry? No other specs, but expect it by the end of the year. Profile shot after the jump or hit BGR for the full five. [
Last week, we had a demo of the
You guys have apparently been listening to our warnings about not jumping
As a natural progression from Google Earth and Google Sky, the Mountain View monolith now plans to create 3D maps of the Earth's oceans and seas and make it available via Google Ocean. The software will allow users to navigate the aquatic bottom and see the topography that exists down there. Google also plans to include interactive data about various subjects such as weather patterns, coral reefs, shipwrecks, and currents. The goal for Google ocean is to use as much high resolution photography of the underwater terrain as possible, offering more than just a map. But researchers say such a process could take upwards of 100 years. And Google, if you're going to include an easter egg similar to Google Earth's flight sim, could we get a guided tour with a virtual Team Zissou? [
Exposed cables can be
Some Macrumors readers are reporting that AT&T's
The RC-12 Mini Camera is essentially a 1.2 GHz wireless camera with a 30 meter range, a 2.7 MP CMOS sensor and waterproof housing. It looks about as big as a lego brick and can shoot 45 minutes of video on a single charge. This camera isn't anything I have any practical use for, but it's the type of gadget I would find a non-practical use for (and no, I won't drop some lame girls' locker room reference here — wait...shit). I'd probably have this thing express shipped to my doorstep if it didn't cost $270. That hurts. [
If you ever watched an episode of Star Trek and wondered when we were going to finally get our hands on some cool medical gadgets like the tricorder, you will be happy to know that a primitive version already exists. Researchers knew that current medical scanners were too bulky and expensive to reach their full potential. So, in order to remedy the situation, they developed a simple portable scanner that can be plugged into a standard cellphone. The phones would send the raw data to remote processors, which would interpret that data and relay it as a image that is viewable on the cellphone screen.
Eco-friendly is the a word thrown around a lot these days, and an ever-increasing number of people are going
We weren't the only ones fooled by LG's
The
Other than taking obvious influences from the Tumbler from Batman Begins, this Israeli Guardium unmanned patrol shares more in common with the
Fujitsu Siemens has developed a new monitor that claims to use zero power in standby mode. This money-saving monitor miracle is made possible thanks to a built-in switch that shuts down the monitor completely when a signal from the computer is absent—and then abruptly brings it back to life when the signal reappears. This sort of technology will prove especially useful for businesses, which is why Fujitsu is aiming squarely at this market when the monitor is released this summer. Fortunately for the rest of us, this new model will sell for the same price as conventional monitors. [
Here's a trailer I haven't seen before of Tony Stark getting ready for a night on the town. No Tux, but the Mark III suit. What's impressive about the movie's suit design is that they've not only detailed the red and gold of the outer shell, but the entire underlayer of the chassis and fastening system. That chest repulsor still looks like a simple halogen bulb, though.
Not all the tech we buy needs to be brand new and manufactured specifically to fit our needs. With a little ingenuity and cheapness, you can rig up common household objects to do the job just as well. Here's an example of such a thing, using a $6 hot water bottle as a laptop stand for your lap instead of buying regular ones
According to HD Guru, Sony's not content with its less-than-number-one status in flat panels, so it's planning to claw its way back into consumers' hearts with deep price cuts on all of its 2008 models next month. The other guys, like Samsung, LG and Sharp, are already planning their own price war counter-attacks. And then, in reaction to the wave of cheap LCDs, plasma dudes like Panasonic (check our
A fourth circuit element called memristor (the first three being resistors, capacitors and inductors) has been proposed since 1971, but HP labs has finally made a working physical model of the thing. What's so special about this type of circuit? It remembers how much charge previously flowed through it, leading to applications like modeling and simulating brain behavior in hardware instead of software. For the rest of us, it can totally revolutionize PCs by remembering the state of RAM when you shut off your machine, instantly booting back up where you left off when you come back—as opposed to current RAM that just dumps its load like so much last night's fajitas when powered down. [
Following up on the news of
After rumors of an
In this week's Giz Explains—if you haven't noticed, it's a weekly series that breaks down a sticky piece of tech into something more digestible for people whose bellies aren't quite made of nerd steel—we're looking at plasma TVs. Plasma. It just sounds sci-fi.
This plastic and metal husky with baby blue sneakers is one of the many weird and wonderful robotic entries at Chiba's Techno-Frontier 2008 symposium. Doesn't work as complex and chilling as
Does the world really need another
In a move that's sure to make the EU giddy at the possibility of levying more fines, Microsoft's been circulating some internal memos brainstorming ways to better connect the next version of Windows with the next version of Windows Live. The author dreams of a system where each user can log into their Live accounts (usually your @hotmail.com address) and be automatically connected as you're setting up your computer for the first time.
Far more serious than beaming a
If you wanted a sure sign that the Orwell-ization of Great Britain is underway, then look no further than this. Lollipop ladies, those kindly old women who man the main roads next to school, similar to the US crossing guard, have been issued with video cameras to record lollipop rage—as school-side road rage is known.
"It's unbelievable that we have to take this action," says the chairman of the Local Government Association's transport board, "but the lives of children are at risk from increasing numbers of drivers who are so selfish that they are willing to put lives at risk by refusing to stop for 30 seconds at a school crossing." Miscreants will be fined the sterling equivalent of $2,000 and be given three points on their licenses.
Gakutensoku is Asia's oldest modern robot, built in 1928 for the ascension of the Emperor Showa (aka Hirohito). Twice as tall as the emperor at 10 feet, 6 inches, it could tilt its head, blink, smile and puff up its chest and cheeks with a system of inflatable rubber tubes. Long lost in Germany before returning to Osaka, it's been restored and brought back to life with a $200,000 computer-controlled pneumatic servo system. But it definitely still moves like an 80 year old—very slowly. Check out the video of it in motion below, it's like a robot from "It's a Small World," but even more uncanny and creepier.
[
Daryl J. Roy isn't your average Sprint sales drone. Service doesn't stop just because you've got the receipt and walked out the door. Have you ever checked out Sprint's picture mail? He wanted to make sure Nicole McElveen did after she purchased some new phones from him. So he sent her a few picture messages, even though she didn't pay for the service, before really showing off the resolution and clarity of their cameras with full-frontal nude pics of himself. Just to make sure she saw how good the pictures were, he re-sent them three different times.
The Blu Jacket concept from Lunar Design aims to turn our children's children into walking billboards using an electronic fabric based on e-paper technology and space-age organic fabrics. It could display your mood throughout the day, pull up maps using a built-in GPS module, display photos, video and (gasp) even advertisements.
A MacFixIt reader had a very interesting email exchange from Psystar's support, who told him that they don't want customers installing Leopard themselves. Here's the quote from the support team:
The
Linux smartphones from Moto aren't new tricks, but they've mostly graced international markets while we get barraged with RAZRs, RKRS and Qs. That might change with the A810, a Linux-based touchscreener that zoomed through the FCC. Few hardware buttons, with onscreen keyboard and handwriting recognition, along with an FM radio. Usually FCC field trips indicate a request to board the starship USA, but it's missing the GSM 850MHz band used in the US market, so it's a little iffy. [
According to MacNN, support for the UI Application delegate class on the newly released
"Toshiba Corp. said its profit plummeted 95 percent in the January-March quarter due to
When it comes to forecasting the weather, I often think that sticking a moistened finger into the air is about as accurate as all of that fancy doppler radar. However, there is no shortage of weather addicts out there that religiously check the news and treat weathermen like they were friggin' prophets. It appears that
Will Smith over at Maximum PC just reviewed the Phantom Lapboard—that keyboard from the Phantom console guys which we first held for ourselves back at E3 2004. Surprise! They think the keyboard "rocks". Their official position is that the pivoting scheme is comfortable and works great for righties and lefties. The only problem is their mouse. It sucks. Not only does it have signal dropouts, the left click button is "wimpy". Probably not worth your $130 until they can work out the mousing problems. [
Are you one of those lousy parents that won't buy a dog for your kids but try to pass off a goldfish as a pet that's just as good? Well, if you want to help your case that fish are just as fun as an adorable golden retriever, there's the R2 Fish School. It'll let you train a goldfish to do such tricks as play basketball and swim around objects in its tank. The excitement never ends, as the ridiculous instructional clip after the jump demonstrates.
According to Zune Insider, the Red Zune 80 is starting to show up in retail stores after a stint at
Ryan at Engadget says they've been chatting up one of the divinely chosen to lay eyes on the second-gen iPhone, and they're claiming a couple details we haven't heard before, as well as the by-now familiar: 3G and real GPS—expected, and hoped for. Metal backing out,
There is no doubt that many of us spend entirely too much time sitting in front of a computer each day. Naturally, this problem is even more acute for people who rely heavily on computers as part of their jobs. That having been said, the question is simple: how much time do you spend on a computer each day (on average)? Think of it as an Ironman competition for nerds.
After purchasing
The Super Mario invincibility doesn't really make a huge appearance in Super Mario Galaxy as far as we've seen, but this desk version should more than fill in. For $17.99 you get an unlimited amount of star power activated in tiny little segments every time you hit the button on its back. Will it get old fast? Definitely. Is it worth $17.99? That depends on how much you like shouting "It's a me!" to everyone who stops by at work. [
Remember
Mobile Skype was previously only available on Smartphones like Windows Mobile, but they've just ported a Java version for all kinds of non-smart phones. Be aware that this isn't like the previous iterations and even Skype to Skype calls cost money (or use up your minutes), so there's no huge reason in using this to call someone you can easily call already. What it is useful for is calling overseas, since you use up regular minutes but only get charged SkypeOut rates instead of your exhorbitant cellphone international call rates. [
Psystar, the
This $2.28 deal for a 40GB PhotoBank seems too good to be true. Picture it as a 40GB portable hard drive with Compact Flash/SD/etc slots that you can dump your digital camera photos onto when the card gets full. $2.28! [
Sometimes a bike is just a bike... there's no photoshopping going on here, guys. This is Uno, of course, a segway/motorcycle mashup shown publicly for the first time at the recent Toronto National Motorbike show. Technically it has two wheels, but they're right next to each other and it does balance on them under its own power.
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Purple Tentacle, Iron Man, the Spaghetti Monster, a super cool MacBook Air, Master Chief, Ren & Stimpy, and even a Blue Screen of Death made entirely of folders? Oh yes. We got 14 entries for the desktop clutter art contest that started with 

AT&T officially began rolling out their
OK, say it: What the hell? What's with all the
Let's recap exactly what talents the camera has that have not, in any meaningful combination, been seen before in a consumer-level camera:
Also, to recap: when shooting at 300fps, you get "standard" video resolution of 512x384. At 600fps, it drops to a tolerable widescreen, 432x192. But when you shoot in 1200fps, you end up with a bizarre 336x96, really long and thin. There's also a major loss of light when switching from standard to slow-mo, and then each subsequent jump. 1200fps is only good outdoors on a very sunny day, but even 300fps is no good in any kind of dim light. It makes sense, of course, but you need to consider it, especially if you're into experimental amateur porn cinematography.
As with slow-mo video, you do lose the higher f-stop settings when you set it for 60, as everything would just be pitch black. What you do get, though, to compensate, is a strobe flash. Though Pogue thought it was too explosive, I thought it works well when you need it. As you can see from the screenshot above, you can use a real flash up to 7fps, and then you have to switch to a mellower LED light, which can't illuminate everything, but is better than nothing. We intend to subject this camera to some further in-the-trenches club shooting courtesy of Gawker video guy Nick McGlynn (shown here helping me demonstrate flash-strobe mode):
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The coolest easy-to-miss still settings are the fly-in and fly-out modes: You train your shot on an object like a birds nest or hummingbird feeder, press the shutter and wait until the critter arrives. The camera shoots continuously at 60fps, but only starts saving when it detects the motion, presenting you with a solid set of 60 stills for you to choose the best ones.
The other mode does the opposite. You aim it at a critter that is not moving, and when it starts to move, and exit the frame, the camera saves the shots, so you get a dramatic action shot of its departure.
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As I hinted, low-light shooting isn't great, and the tiny, experimental CCD CMOS in the camera is especially noisy. ISO 1600 is a rainbow of nastiness, and should only be used as a last resort:
Shadows are even pretty noisy at lower ISO settings—here's 800:
Annoyances aside, I found the EX-F1 to live up to our Bestmodo status because of its versatility and originality. It's nice and rugged, too, capable of withstanding being flung into the air (what good is slow-mo if you can't move fast?). It had a nice long battery life, too: I shot for six days straight—gathering plenty of video and tons of rapid fire full-resolution stills—before the battery died.
Audiowrapz, those cool, silicon Nano cases with a passive speaker incorporated into the skin, are to go on sale at WalMart. Although you can already buy them in several colors for $25 online, the press release says they're going to be available in the stores in just black and pink for under $20. They'll be available on walmart.com early next month. [
It looks like there's no end to
Laugh all you want at the sea-urchiny ship Jor-El used to send Kal-El to earth, but it looks a lot like the new kind of solar-sail array developed by the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki. Instead of the standard solar panels, the Finnish scientists propose long thin strands, just microns in diameter, that stretch out from the spaceship, and use a positive charge to repel heavy positive ions in the solar wind that move at hundreds of kilometers per second.
Boats are pretty sweet, as are planes. But when you combine the two? You get a flying boat, my friends, and that just takes shit to the next level. Doi Malingri realized this basic fact, which is why he decided to stick a hang glider and a big engine on the back of a dinghy, creating one of the sweetest and most dangerous-looking ways to travel around. Sure, it costs a ridiculous $32,300 for something that looks like you could cobble it together in your garage in a weekend for a few hundred, but who has time for garage projects when you could be flying over the waves?
The Underwater Disco Light Show is a small waterproof contraption that you chuck in the tub for a full-on psychedelic bath-time experience—although, if you want really full-on, it might help to get the hallucinogens in before you strip off your clothes and your dignity and jump in. Turn it on, and LED lights in four colors whoosh around, and there's a little button to change the pattern, as well as a weight underneath so that it doesn't upend itself. Thomas and Guy-Man of Daft Punk should put these $15 gizmos on their Christmas wish-lists now. [
Designed to use a minimum of materials and components, the "Pole" lamp just looks very, very cool indeed. Designer Paul Cocksedge was trying to create the illusion of bending light, so made the acrylic and concrete design "to send rays of light on a journey of internal reflection." Simple: the bulb is in the base and light emerges from the giant fiber-optic at its top, providing a bright directional beam and an ambient glow. It's available from Established and Sons as either a desk lamp or floor lamp, for an unknown, but presumably high price. And you know, it would go perfectly with (what else?) the
Over the next decade, we're bound to see RFID chips in more and more involuntary applications...which is a scary proposition for a technology that has been successfully read from 69 feet away. But just because, say, your credit card company wants you to use RFID, it doesn't mean you have to comply. Instructables ran through the best ways to deactivate RFIDs in passports and credit cards without the appearance of tampering. Their verdict? A hammer.
Wacom, maker of the best graphic tablets available—as
Admit it, we're all fans of LEDs—especially when they come packaged like
Now, where was I? Ah yes, in a pod somewhere in Tunbridge Wells, England. f the claims of the Alpha-Oxy peeps are to believed, this is what an hour or so in a disco pod will bestow upon you.
You know, one of the most common typos I make when I try to go to Google is googlemotherfucker.com. Happens all the time. Luckily, Google
On paper, the Samsung YP-S2 is just another shuffle-beater, a 1GB player for $39. But in person, it's the most stylish of its class, in five colors, including a white with faux marble grain which sadly Samsung didn't have on hand. It charges via a removable USB dongle that plugs right into the 35mm headphone jack, saving space—just don't lose the extra piece. It's not fully see-through, like Sony's similar OLED-screen MP3 players, but it does have a green glowing status light to tell you what's happening. [
Leaky signals from badly-installed AT&T U-Verse systems are squeezing up into the cable network and degrading broadband performance for others on some nodes, according to Comcast. About 40 cases of the problem have been reported since AT&T began supplying U-Verse in the Chicago area, with about 17,000 Comcast customers being affected. And though at first it sounds a bit like a schoolyard tussle, AT&T's lack of response has led Comcast to seek a restraining order from a court in Illinois.
In our Gizmodomobile (a sort of cross between the Batmobile, those cars from M.A.S.K. and every other awesometastic vehicle you've ever read about, dreamed about or just imagined), sometimes we need to disable all 238 installed GPS tracking devices to go off the grid (namely while we park for hours on end outside of Bill Gates' mansion). You know what would free up our hands for our thermal binoculars? This GPS Tracker Defense.
The founder and chairman of OLPC has admitted that only using open-source software has not been good for the project. Just a day after the resignation of group president Walter Bender, Nicholas Negroponte admitted that the choice of the Sugar operating system has hit the XO laptop project in two places: usability; and popularity.
In
The bank manager noticed that the door was forced and all the ATMs were disabled except for one, so he checked the security video and discovered what happened the night before. He immediately alerted the police, who started to search among the usual suspects. It didn't last long: Idiotic Crook Number One went to a police station to denounce a car accident and the three of them—who had a previous criminal history for bank assault in other parts of the country—were aprehended shortly thereafter. [
While both
ThinkGeek is shipping Art Lebedev's
Microsoft's Live Mesh is designed to share data between all your computing devices using the net as a hub, and it's just gone private beta. So about 10,000 of you have the opportunity to join up to this "cloud computing" beta, and see how easy it is to port data between your cellphone, PDA, work computer, home PC — basically any device that supports Windows.
Apple's bought itself a chip company, P.A. Semi that could make chips for future iPods and iPhones. The company was founded by Dan Dobberpuhl, lead designer of Alpha chips, who last year announced a 64-bit dual core processor that is said to be about 300% more efficient than the nearest competition, using only 5 to 13 watts at 2GHz.
Maximum PC has reviewed AMD's
Rugged and waterproof cameras are great, but they've got a lot of improving to do in general design before they'll be good in the outdoor. I mean, someone just keep me from losing these things.
Even though this is UK and Ireland only, NDrive's G800 GPS is notable because it's the first GPS system we've heard of that uses real photography for navigation. How did the company get aerial views of everywhere in the UK? We have no idea. It also comes with videos, photos, e-books, music, games, FM transmitter, a 4.3-inch screen and Bluetooth. If you live in the rest of Europe, excluding the Southeast portion, you can purchase maps for your country. Something tells us the aerial photo views aren't for the entire country, because that would be ridiculous and take up so much space on the drive, but we can't find any specs on their website that indicate otherwise. [
Nyko's
HandHeldItems has black iSolate noise-isolating earphones on sale for $6.99, a savings of $44 according to the site. As an added bonus, they come with a plastic fish to wrap the earphones around when not in use. Sure you can go for 
Finding a way to make portable speakers truly portable has proven difficult for manufacturers over the years. This new Speaker Book represents
The
Like most of the premium toilets made in Japan, the Regio has hidden cleaning sprays and a tankless design that utilizes a combination of water and air power for silent, earth-saving flushing. However, the aspects that make the Regio unique can be found in the luxurious extras. For example, it plays soft, relaxing jazz music when the lid is lifted. In fact, Jazz pianist Yoshiko Kishino contributed original pieces specifically for the Regio toilet soundtrack. Now that is a resume booster!
Other features on the Regio include a Sharp designed "mechanism that kills germ-emitting ions," an illuminated toilet bowl, and a seat that is extra wide for those with more ample buttocks. Naturally, all of this luxury will set you back a few—to the tune of 462,000 yen in white ($4500) or 556,500 yen in black ($5400) to be more specific. [
To celebrate their 2nd anniversary of My Circle, the plan that lets you call an X amount of numbers for free, Alltel is adding one extra number onto each plan. The 10 and 20 number plan now gets bumped up to 11 and 21. The My Circle 5 plan people get nothing. Sorry cheapos. It is a pretty good freebie (you don't have to pay anything), and should be great in case you make a new friend some time in the near future. [
We've seen photo frame speakers
Denmark has a disgusting problem. The waste produced by the country's 20 million pigs is slowly choking the environment—which has prompted a local company named Agroplast to devise a unique solution. Specifically, they have developed a means of processing animal waste (pig urine most notably) and transforming it into plastics that could be used in just about everything—including plastic dinnerware.
PETA doesn't mind if you eat meat; they just want that meat to not be from a dead animal. The organization cares so much about this that they've offered up a $1 million prize to the first scientist that can create meat that's "sufficient to market in at least 10 U.S. states at a price that is competitive with then-prevailing chicken prices." In essence, fake meat.
The most consistent rationale for
The
They may not be 
Michael Dell, the king of Dell, just previewed his company's smallest and greenest desktop PC yet at FORTUNE Brainstorm: GREEN. There's no name for this mini green PC, shown rendered above, but it's 81% smaller than a mini tower and 70% less energy-consuming. It's also shipped in recycled and recyclable packaging, and look a whole lot like those cheapo Sun workstations that colleges love(d) to use. As long as this machine is at least as powerful as a laptop (we don't mean an Eee PC), we're all for Dell's enviro-conscious direction.
Having mastered the art of turning your
With Sprint and AT&T already down, the
The military is serious about regrowing body parts. So serious that the Department of Defense just announced the creation of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, or AFIRM. The goal of AFIRM? To "use a patient's natural cellular structure to reconstruct new skin, muscles and tendons, and even ears, noses and fingers." Sounds pretty great to us.
Goofy gadget masters Hammacher Schlemmer are back at it again with a Photograph-to-Digital-Picture Converter that takes your old paper snapshots, and well, digitizes them. Now we know what you're thinking—isn't this just a scanner with a more complicated name?—and at first, I was inclined to agree. But digging deeper I found that this may not be a bad specialty box for $150.
With the news from Seagate today that it had shipped its
The Gadget: A wooden stand that keeps your Rock Band and Guitar Hero guitars, mic, and various controllers in check so they don't otherwise
In 2005, a control room for the A and C subway lines in NYC
Guitar Hero lost some of its luster when Rock Band came along and improved on the concept by adding drums and a microphone, making the game more versatile and party-friendly. Now Guitar Hero hopes to steal the show once again by reinventing itself as...Rock Band? Activision CEO Bobby Kotick told Portfolio that the upcoming GHIV is "not just about guitars. We'll include a lot of other instruments, vocals."
We already know that Netflix has
The Mickey MP3 player that we've shown you when it was
While we are adorned with the latest and greatest in trendy, designer messenger bags, J.Crew has recreated and rereleased the original. Modeled after the U.S. Postal Service's standard bag from 1868 until the 1970s (before they ditched timeless style and durability for blue nylon), "the original" leather postal messenger features fine leather reminiscent of the favorite baseball glove we never had, along with a secure buckle strap to keep your valuables safe. At 15" wide, we think it will fit many 'a laptop. But for $795, a less-historical-more-practical inner lining would be nice. [
Next Computing's Vigor Evo HD isn't the most elegant all-in-on PC we've ever seen, featuring a 17" LCD monitor sort of glued on to the side of its tower, but it's not afraid to get its nails dirty, either. Because this handled beast protects its 2 processors, 4 PCI-X slots and 3 TB of storage in a floating chassis, which can take bumps and bruises in stride. There's no doubt that the Vigor Evo HD is intended for the rigors of construction environments—a necessity for when you bring down the house with your uber pwnage. [
Some of the same kind of health telemetry that the
Remember the
When you die, instead of having your grave marked by granite, you can now peg it to something even more immutable: latitude and longitude. A new eco-friendly forest graveyard promises a new kind of service, according to the Sydney Morning Herald:
A recent patent filing by Apple Inc. entitled Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere indicates that Steve Jobs' next
This limited edition set of knife hooks is the perfect way to show guests that you are on the cutting edge when it comes to hanging coats, hats, cadavers or whatever. Designed by Tiyani Chang's TC Studio, these matte black hooks are made of polyurethane and steel. Sadly, they are not stabbed into the wall; they are screwed in more or less like normal hooks. Only 50 will be made available when they go on sale in May, at $50 a piece. The concept is so simple, it makes us wonder: How many of you have already created this design a hundred times over after burning dinner or mangling a Hot Pocket? [
A California congresswoman has proposed yet another spectrum auction—the 2,155MHz to 2,180MHz range—with some hefty public-service requirements:
Sure, Wilson, there is plenty of information out there today on
Christiaan Postma's morphing, malleable matchstick clock is pretty amazing, though a tad flawed. A portion of the 150 white lines plastered about the clock's 160 cm by 160 cm face form a word corresponding to the hour of the day. If it's three o' clock, the area where the number three appears on a typical clock would read "three." As four o' clock approaches, "three" disassembles and "four" slowly takes shape. There is one omission that could be painful if you're trying to use it to, well, to tell time. See a time lapse photo of shifty clock in action and the reason for its failings after the jump.
Do you see the glaring issue with this shape-shifting timepiece yet? That's right, this "clock" doesn't have a minute hand. Another minor quibble: The immature among us can't rearrange the matchsticks into funny words, like "poop," "grundle," or "redrum," for example. [
The phone blogs are abuzz with this sighting of HTC's lineup, showing both existing models and a mystery or two on the bottom row. Boy Genius thinks the first, third and fourth are the same, but I'm wondering if the first is a slide-out key version of the second (a P3470), while the third and fourth are something else entirely. In any case, it's a peculiarity that will hopefully be clarified soon, as it's also a damn nice looking phone. WinMo, Android or whatever, we'll be ready to have a look. In the meantime, your guess is as good as ours. (Hint, hint.) [
At Giz, we're in the habit of introducing new products every day, and in the world of gadgetry, specialty kitchen products are a dime a dozen. Today, though, I was taken by surprise by the simplest of inventions: a flat, barbecue-style toaster. When I spotted the Fagor TP-2006 X (with "acoustic warning device") on Appliancist today, not only did the form of it surprise me, but—after a little Googling—so did the fact that the flat toaster is not a new concept:
Hope and doubt are at war today as we pore over this picture of a literal crotch rocket. On the one hand, it looks pretty legit, right down to the stabilizing fins, exhaust port for the motorcycle housed within, and blast marks that are no doubt from one of the many instances where this beast dumped out while breaking the sound barrier. On the other hand, the kids and their Photoshoppin' these days means everything online is suspect (isn't that right,
Why drink Joe from a normal mug when you can tease coworkers with this hilarious gravity-defying fused three-cup stack day after day, and get more coffee per serving while you're at it? Who knows, maybe this will serve as the icebreaker you need to chat up that latte-swilling hottie in Finance. If this were ours, we'd always go for the top-cup grip for maximum gravity defiance—and for $12 this dishwasher-safe little baby might be ours soon. [
Yetro is something so unfashionable it has yet to be retro—and probably will never be. Example: my RAZR. I've had it for almost three years now. I hate it. Actually, hate is too strong a word. I pity it. My mobile phone with its nauseous blue-painted interface, its ability to change its ring tone to the Motorola theme whenever it feels like it, and its battery, which now gives me about five minutes' talk time before it bleeps like a demented synthetic chicken. In the video above, Jesus and I "reenact" a more joyful time, its original unboxing three long years ago. Today, I'm thinking I should bite the bullet and retire the old boiler. Is the utter demise of the RAZR finally nigh at hand?
Solar power doesn't just have to be for them holier-than-thou green types, it can also be for the
For the photographer with a sharp eye (for recycling) come these innovative bracelets from Australian designer Craig Arnold. Called the re:vision line, these premium-priced baubles are assembled using the discarded lens casings of some of the world's most well-known camera brands. (I swear I spotted a Minolta in there somewhere.) The bad news is that these hacked-up lens hand-me-downs are priced from around $175 to $250, and come complete with wear and tear from their previous owner. Certainly not cheap, especially when you consider that hacksaws, hammers and your friend's brand new Nikon D60—conveniently "borrowed for the weekend"—are so readily at hand on the cheap. [
Craving a bit deeper, more meaningful interaction action with your touchscreen gadget, like maybe stretching or squeezing it? Microsoft thought so. Researchers have come up with a prototype of their force-sensing tech that'll let you apply different kinds of force to a device, like twisting or bending, to do stuff like flip through document pages or swing through applications.
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Action figure customizer Sillof has made everything from
When we
Tracking numbers are supposed to go out when your order ships, so if anyone ordered two weeks ago, you should have gotten yours already. And anyone ballsy enough to jump in after the slime started to hit the fan should theoretically get 'em on Monday. If you've ordered one, let us know how it goes. A huge thanks to all of you pushing this thing forward, please keep the tips coming. [
For you poor, poor souls who own an Xbox 360 but still rely on dial-up for your internet, an intrepid Instructables member has written up a great "How To" on using your phone line to log onto Xbox Live. All you need is a PC running Windows with a working dial-up connection, an ethernet cable and an Xbox360 (duh). Yes! Now even those of us still riding along the 56.6K information dirt trail will be able to download new Rock Band tracks! [
Eco start-up company Sungevity is launching a new web application on Earth Day (three days away, people!) that will take the guess work out of solar panel installations. Enter your address on Sungevity's website and satellite-imaging software will zoom in on your home, calculate your roof's dimensions, select the right sized solar arrays and calculate how much money you'll save on energy costs.
A screencap supposedly snagged from Canon's German site spilled some details on Canon's
Air France's
Want to become the coolest parent ever? Turn off the computers, put down the television remote, and do a little DIY with your kids this weekend by building your own arcade machine. While you assemble the pieces, regale little Tommy or Gina with the tales of your Space Invaders past. And when they look up at you, little eyes shining, and ask why you couldn't just get an emulator, tell them they were both adopted. [
South Park already showed us
Before the advent of the drive-through, families on road trips were stumped by the dilemma of how to have a hot meal ready at any time during their travels. But never fear, 1930s road warrior — hook up this automatic food cooking contraption to your exhaust pipe and your car will prepare your dinners for you!
One (sorta) promising tidbit about Motorola's handset division being
MSI has dropped some new info on its contender to the Eee-PC throne, the Wind Notebook, which we first
We'd heard that Asus's bigger, badder Eee PC would be getting an
Onkyo's best new entry level HTiB setup has a 7.1 surround is notable for having room correction tech. I'm pretty sure its rare to find a low end system that can adjust gain and delay on all channels to calibrate itself to a room's acoustics. The receiver included is the DTS/Dolby capable HT-R560, with 3 HDMI inputs, 130 watts per channel, and is Sirius satellite ready. The set up also comes with an iPod dock and a 290-watt sub. Not bad for $579 from a solid company like Onkyo. There are two lesser models:
I'm confused, but happy to see this
The rat race continues: Shanghai will be 45nm, have up to 12 cores, include the long awaited Hypertransport 3.0 for socket-to-socket and southbridge communication, and can emulate quad channel memory. For more: [
Six cloned male golden Labradors named Toppy look set to be sniffing suitcases for the Korean Customs Service. The cloning method was developed by a team at Seoul National University led by Lee Byeong-chun, former lieutenant of disgraced scientist Woo-Suk Hwang, who was found to have fabricated research. Their father was chosen due to his exceptional drug sniffing abilities and good temperament. While still a ways off from sniffing out contraband, the six Toppies have already passed the first of round of genetic and behavioral testing and look set to continue the family tradition. As long as they can keep their noses out of passengers' crotches, they should be fine. [
Following up on the