The device also receives AM/FM signals and lets you record any audio (shortwave or AM/FM) as an MP3 or WAV file. It's compatible with Vista or XP, requires a software download, and is on sale now for about $45 at Thanko's website. [Thanko via Dvice]

YouTube's Going 1080p So That You Can Watch Silly Videos In High-Def

Unsatisfied with simple 720p, YouTube is going to a full HD experience with 1080p. They're about halfway through the process of re-encoding the current content, so it shouldn't be long before you can watch Rupe Murdoch rant in high-def. [CNET]

Yet Another "Virus" Attacks Unsecured Jailbroken Phones

The number of ridiculous iPhone viruses, worms and hacks is gradually growing as the number of idiots who refuse to change the default root passwords when running SSH on their jailbroken iPhones remains the same. Secure your iPhones already. Please.[BGR]

USB AM/FM Tuner Made By Company Who Hasn't Heard Of Internet Radio

This USB AM/FM tuner is useless without a computer, but if you've got a computer in front of you odds are good that you also have an Internet connection through which you can access most radio stations. And while it's lovely that it allows you to record broadcast content, it would be a bit more handy if the gadget also had some flash memory on board. [OhGizmo!]

Pirates Decorate Their MacBooks With Crossbones

MacBook decals appear to be turning into a trend as even pirates are getting into the game. Arrr, yo-ho-ho matey, or something like that. [Crunchgear]

"My first observations positively terrified me as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night."
- Nikola Tesla 1901

"The sounds I am listening to every night at first appear to be human voices conversing back and forth in a language I cannot understand. I find it difficult to imagine that I am actually hearing real voices from people not of this planet. There must be a more simple explanation that has so far eluded me."
- Nikola Tesla 1918

Is it science or the supernatural? Check out the video to see what the radio is capable of and, if your are so inclined, build one and decide for yourself. Needless to say, this would be a hit at a Halloween party. Hit the link for a complete set of instructions. [Instructables]

In a survey of brand names dropped in the tweets and facials (is that the right term?) of today's social-networking mavens, Google came out primero, with Apple at #2, and Microsoft at #3. (Blackballed fans would know that Apple is #2 because it's the shit, but anyway...) The funny part is what didn't make the top 10: HP is there, but Dell is not; BMW yes, but Mercedes, nope; I see a Samsung, but I do not see Sony. As unscientific as this study by Sysomos is, it must tell us something. [AppleInsider]

Wired wrote up MIT roboticist Sangbae Kim, father of the gecko-inspired Stickybot. His new plan? To make a robot that looks like a cheetah—and runs as fast as one. Yep, he's saying his carbon-fiber quadruped will hit 70 mph. Trouble is, this is all chalkboard chatter: It'll take 18 months for Kim and his colleagues to whip up prototypes of this evil-looking dude, so we have to wait to find out if he was right or nuts. [Wired]

NPR today showed off a product that will hopefully soon come free with a donation to listener-supported radio. I say that not just as a fan of listener-supported radio, but as someone who would never specifically buy an NPR-branded radio. It aggregates all of NPR's affiliates under one button, and offers on-demand streams of Terry Gross and other awesome NPR folks, but none of this is exclusive to this device. Charitable notions aside, this makes no more sense than an NBC-branded TV (that also lets me watch Fox). [CNet]

Having spent my whole life in the northern parts of these United States, I have always assumed that it's up to the sunnier parts to get with the solar-power program. At least San Diego sees the logic of this, and is going all in with alternative power. UC San Diego and CleanTECH San Diego are building a smart grid, which puts power back into the system when claimed from solar panels and other alternative sources. The school will produce 3.4 megawatts of renewable energy by next year, while San Diego Gas & Electric pledged to get 33% of its power from renewable sources by 2020. Maybe when they get over 100%, they can share the excess sunlight with those of us stuck in Cloudyville. [Treehugger; Image credit slack12/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

Basically, you can program certain controls or sounds into the paper radio. Say you're an artist who wants to bring attention to a local college radio station—you program that into the RFID chip, and then when the paper radio is draped on any speaker equipped with an RFID reader, it'll change the station to the one you picked. Or you can have it broadcast short messages; Matt suggests a particular environmentalist star of 30 Rock might program in warnings to turn off your lights when not in use. It's a very particular usage, but the radios themselves look so cool that we don't really care if they're 100% practical. [MocoLoco]

The hardware capability for FM radio does exists in some models—the current iPod touch and iPhone 3GS have FM transmitters, and the 2nd-gen iPod touch also has a chip that's capable of receiving FM signals, though it uses it for Nike+ stuff (so if there is a radio app, maybe it'll just be for current-gen models).

It'd make sense to add more software parity across the line, but who knows—no date given for when we might actually see this FM radio app. [9to5Mac}

You know, I see a comfy carpet like that and I can only think about two people on it. Clearly, not the ideal scenario to tune to any station. [Florian Kräutli via Hometone]

Other features include: two full-range 3" drive units, an optional rechargeable battery, RF remote and a 3.5mm input for hooking up additional audio sources. Widgets like Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, weather and news are available now, but the lineup should grow over time. Plus it kind of looks like something the Jetsons would have. The Sensia will be available in Europe for the equivalent of $406, but there is no word on when or if it will ever be available in the States. [Sensia via Slashgear]

Turns out this is a design for a radio. Yes, a normal FM radio, except you control the volume and tuner by rolling the radio itself either forward and backward or side to side, like a mouse. It's only a design for now, and we're not sure how the sound would be, but I'm a sucker for blank white plastic gadgets. [Yanko]

The Sterling Multi PowerStation 5600 is a hand-cranked, solar powered device that can play AM/FM, top off 3 bundled AA batteries, power an LED flashlight and recharge most cellphones through bundled adapters. So whether you want to make a call, illuminate the darkness or just have some fun with that AA-driven R/C boat while waiting for help, you're pretty much covered.

Too cool to be sold in this country, fire up the Google Translate and order yours from Japan for $65. I dunno about you, but sometimes I forget I'm a dork until I catch myself lusting after a new type of crank radio. [Trendy via DVICE]

According to its creator, Guus Oosterbaan:

My ROCK Radio is number two in my cement-audio-series. It started of being a very nice rectangular brick shape. Then I found out that a thick layer of cement shields the radio from actually receiving radio waves. With my "Now it doesn't work anyway" philosophy, I took a big hammer and created this Flintstones look, and the radio works!

You Mr. Guus Oosterbaan you, you are pure win. [Guusoosterbaan via Likecool]

And the promised real rock:

Having a bloody great weekend, peeps.

The shower radio provides an AM/FM tuner (the volume control is cleverly built into the "bottle's" "cap") and also has a little suction cup to stick onto the shower wall, which sounds convenient but would also totally blow its cover as a shampoo bottle. It costs $37, though seems available only in Japan. [Muji via Wired]

Since the start, Public Radio Player has listed a sizable number of NPR stations across the country, all of which are listenable via live streaming. Given the countless other radio app available for the iPhone, the only real advantage to using version 1.0 was that, if you spent the time to look, you could find just about any NPR or PRI show you wanted playing somewhere.

Version 2.0 provides comprehensive station schedules to make program-hunting easier, but more importantly, provides access to the often generous back catalogs from various stations, meaning that you can get any public radio programming you want on demand, for free. It's a fairly incredible deal for NPR addicts, who'll now be able to fine-tune their daily feed of dulcet, strangely androgynous news and lifestyle coverage to perfection. [Ars]

If you're an Xbox Live Gold subscriber, you'll automatically have access to the service when it drops on the console later this year. It'll allow you to use the service much like you can online right now. This means you can listen to stations based on the sound of certain artists, compile custom playlists, and create a custom station based on music you like.

There's no word on when exactly this will arrive, nor is there word on whether or not you'll be able to listen to stations in-game, but these screenshots should keep you sated for a little while at least. [Kotaku]

Combining the TuneCast Auto Live transmitter and the ClearScan app for the iPhone users with OS 3.0 can tap into the GPS functionality to locate the best radio frequency to play music in the car (along with the recommendations of other users). In addition, both iPhone and iPod Touch users can use their devices to manually change frequencies and set favorite channels as presets. The device will be available in the early fall for $80, but I'm waiting for streaming Bluetooth. [Belkin]

While Bill Gates was becoming a one-man megapower, Steve Jobs was getting lost in a sea of ego and suck, and Nelson Mandela was inspiring people across the globe, I was sitting by my cheap RCA CD/Tape boombox trying to get the hang of long division.

Most my school nights in the fourth grade were spent doing homework by my boombox listening to San Francisco hip-hop radio station KMEL when it was still great. Bay Area hip hop, top 40 hip hop, classic joints, R&B, whatever—they played good music back then. And I recorded it.

Like I mentioned in the tribute to boomboxes, it was all about timing when you made a real mixtape; tape had to be queued to the right place, you had to know just when to hit play (before the lyrics started, after the DJ stopped talking), and you had to pay attention so you could stop recording right as it ended.

My tapes of choice were the Memorex joints with the bright colors and geometric shapes. Classics. What I chose to put on those tapes wasn't always as classic, but the fact that I pulled it together to craft this one mix makes me proud of my younger self.

The best part was when we got to go on school field trips, because I not only got to pop my tape in my walkman to keep me entertained, but my friends had mixes and walkmans of their own. So we'd swap and share during the bus rides to wherever. Those were better days.

Back to my main point— the mix is filled with West Coast hip-hop from the era, but imbued with a splash of east coast and a touch of R&B. This is my handcrafted, childhood masterpiece. I'm sure, due to the faults of time, a couple songs are missing or mentally amalgamated in from other tapes. But the essence is more or less the same. Enjoy. (Photo courtesy of TapeDeck.org)

Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dog - "Ain't Nuthin But a G-Thang":

The "1, 2, 3 and to tha 4" still gets me happy to this day.

Domino - "Ghetto Jam":

I had completely forgotten about this song until I started thinking about the mixtape again. When that happens, you realized it's a song that only could have come out of a given era.

Tevin Campbell - "Can We Talk":

Ok, maybe not as imposing as some other selections on this mix, BUT I WAS 9! And it's still a good song.

Snoop Doggy Dog - "Gin and Juice":

I have memories of sitting in my dad's car listening to this track: me rappin about endo, and gin, and money, my dad looking at me like I was a damn moron.

Dru Down - "Pimp of the Year":

A wise friend once said, "Dru Down sellin' bitches quick dreams here mane!" I concur.

E-40 featuring The Click, D-Shot, B-Legit and Suga T - "Captain Save A Hoe":

Worth it just for the line "Look up in the sky, it's a bird! It's a plane! What's dat fool name? CAPTAIN SAVE A HOE MAAAANE!"

Masta Ace - "Born To Roll":

I still don't know how Masta Ace was pulling west coast airplay back then, but I'm happy he was. I still find my self singing the chorus without even knowing it's from this song.

Aaliyah - "Back and Forth":

This song really deserved a spot on any 94-era mixtape.

Warren G and Nate Dogg - "Regulate":

Don't care what anyone says. This was THE song of 1994.

Rappin 4 Tay - "Players Club":

A mid-90s Bay Area gem.

Soul 4 Real - "Candy Rain":

This was the last track I added to that tape before it was time to move on. Not sure how I remember this being the very last, but I would like to know where I stashed that tape.

The radio itself has a Griffin PowerMate-like knob and a three-line lCD screen. Besides the one speaker, headphone jack, remote (which also has thumbs up/thumbs down), and Ethernet connection, there's not a whole lot to be had.

The downside is that this is Ethernet-only, so you're going to have to drag an Ethernet cable (or use powerline) into your bedroom. We'd rather pay $200 for a wireless version.Sorry, it's wireless as well! [Livio Radio]

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

Aside from the beautiful numbering, the ABS-monolith design and the ability to flip it upright or lay it on its side, RR227 also has an SD card slot so you can play MP3 or WMA files.

Brionvega are the folks behind the delightful Cube radio as well, and the RR227 fits right in to their retro schema. They're around $200, depending on where you get one.

[Product Page (French) via Technabob]

If you're one of the 20 people still listening to AM/FM broadcasts and not streaming from the Mac Mini that's an integral part of this setup, then this will suit your fancy just fine. [Yanko Design]

Vudu notes that this is the first music application to be folded into the RIA platform. It joins YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, and 120 web-based video channels that are currently available for Vudu owners.

And since many households have several individuals with individual tastes, the new Vudu-Pandora UI supports multiple accounts. A nice touch. Full presser follows.

VUDU Introduces Pandora, First Music Application for VUDU

Latest Major Application Built on the VUDU RIA Platform Enables VUDU Owners to Bring Truly Personalized Radio to their Televisions and Home Theaters For Free

Santa Clara, CA, March 16, 2009 – VUDU, a leading provider of digital on-demand entertainment products and services, announced today that VUDU owners can get immediate access to Pandora's free, personalized Internet radio service on VUDU. Pandora represents VUDU's first music application for its growing RIA (Rich Internet Application) platform.

Pandora joins YouTube, Flickr, Picasa and a selection of more than 120 channels of web based video content available to VUDU owners in their living rooms for free.

"As we continue to expand our RIA platform, we look forward to bringing many more popular services like Pandora to the VUDU Service," said Edward Lichty, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Content. "Our open development environment allows us to easily release new applications in partnership with some of today's most popular services and content delivery platforms, increasing the value of the VUDU service platform for our users and partners."

"Pandora is committed to enabling our listeners to enjoy their Pandora stations in all the places they listen to music; at home, at work or on the go," said Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora. "We were impressed with VUDU's speed and the quality of development and think that VUDU is a great way for our listeners to access their favorite Pandora stations in the comfort of their living room."

VUDU customers can now experience Pandora on their televisions with all of the functionality that has made Pandora the leader in Internet radio. Using VUDU's award winning remote control, VUDU customers can create new stations and personalize them by adding new variety to the station and "thumbing" songs up and down as they play. Additionally, Pandora on VUDU supports multiple accounts enabling every member of the family to play his or her own personalized Pandora stations.

Pandora (www.pandora.com) is a free, personalized Internet radio service based on the Music Genome Project, which began in 2000 and is the most thorough analysis of popular music ever undertaken. Each song in the massive collection, which includes Pop, Rock, Jazz, Electronica, Hip Hop, Country, Blues, R&B, Latin and Classical, is analyzed and assessed against up to 400 distinct musical attributes (encompassing melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) to capture its unique musical identity. Pandora uses this information to build playlists based on musical similarity. By entering a favorite song or artist, a listener is instantly launched into a personalized listening experience. Listeners can create up to 100 of these personal radio stations and refine them by providing thumbs up or thumbs down feedback.

Introduced in late 2008, VUDU's RIA is a standards-based platform that makes Web-hosted rich applications and services easily accessible through the VUDU Labs area of the VUDU service. Consumers can now use the VUDU remote control to access their favorite Internet content in their living rooms, optimized for display on their HDTVs. Combining the openness and ease of development of Web applications and a lean-back user experience optimized for television, VUDU RIA will be opening to developers later in 2009.

Luckily, Wi-Fi internet radios have gotten a lot cheaper lately: That Aluratek I reviewed has fallen to $120, from $200. Internet radio in hand, you need a vintage shell to stuff the guts into. Then you need a thick coat of elbow grease: Gut the Wi-Fi radio, paint its buttons, get the vintage shell ready, mount the display and speakers, and if necessary, you might have to reshape the Wi-Fi radio's motherboard.

It's definitely more of a weekend project than an evening endeavor, but every nerd could afford to do a little more handicrafting. [Instructables via Lifehacker]

After one hopeful transmission, the team only heard static. A second attempt was met with a response from space lady Sandra Magnus, who, sitting 220 miles from the surface of the earth, granted the students a short interview. Spoiler alert: they talked about space, and how awesome it is ("very very" as it turns out).

The conversation with the ISS was the culmination of a radio communications course, and constitutes "a first" for students, according to their teachers. Unlike the legions of dedicated ham radio operators that hurl their call signs at the ISS on a regular basis, the Humber team designed and built the radios themselves. They haven't prank called space yet, so I'm declaring the project a complete failure. Check out a video of the transmission here. [Globe and Mail via Reddit]

Fitting around the inner part of a steering wheel with some options for size adjustment, the $63 adapter features a microphone and speakers (for speakerphone), along with an LCD display (incoming callers), SD port (MP3s), USB (anything) and FM-out (to play everything back through your car's stereo).

The catch, of course, is that the adapter does need a power source, which happens to be your car's cigarette lighter. When you consider the logistics of connecting your steering wheel to a tether, no matter how cleanly, it can't sound like anything but a safety hazard...or am I missing some obvious precaution that makes this installation safe?

UPDATE: Ahh, it's rechargeable. But if you recharge it while the car is running...uhh...doesn't that defeat the wireless part? [Chinavision via Newlaunches]

The Wonderful Hand Radio is an homage to a bygone era, when you distinguished a clock by putting a radio in it, and you distinguished a radio by building a nicer clock. And as you clutch your cold, aluminum iPod, remember that people used to do great things with plastic. Great Things. And it only cost $5. [Giz Fever via Geek Alerts]

I've played with it briefly, and the experience has been fantastic so far. Because Apple does not allow caching like RIM does with the BlackBerry, the content is streaming—but the music plays back well even when you are on EDGE (and the coverflow-style switching was smooth). The app is free, but if you don't have a Plus subscription you will have to deal with the occasional advertisement and a skipping/request limit.

Features:

Slacker Mobile for iPhone:
• Free music library featuring millions of songs
• High-quality stereo playback from any wireless connection
• Over 100 professionally programmed genre stations
• Create custom artist stations
• Fine tune stations to play more of the music you like
• View artist biographies and photos
• View album art and reviews
• "Peek Ahead" artist and album preview
• Pause and skip songs
• Rate songs as favorites
• Ban the songs and artists you don't like

[Slacker on iTunes]

The Alpine headunit I tested was plugged into a iPod nano instead of an iPhone but an Alpine representative assured me it has the same functionality when connected to an iPhone.

Alpine's has had iPod compatibility for a few years and the iXA-W404's menu navigation for the iPod and iPhone is nothing new. There has always been touchscreen navigation based off your iPods media folders and this works the same with the iXA-W404's 4.3-inch touchscreen.

The only notable feature is Alpine's attempt at mimicking Apple's Coverflow. The album cover browser is like a very basic Coverflow and only allow you to select full albums rather than specific tracks within an album like the real Coverflow.

Yea, this imitation Coverflow is a cool idea but using it on a small 4.3-inch screen is stupid because there is not enough screen real-estate to browse through a ton of albums, especially when trying to drive a car. This issue made me question why Alpine chose a 4.3-inch touchscreen form factor over their popular 7-inch touchscreen media loving IVA-W505 unit which would have made finger navigation of music by album cover a valuable feature.

This particular radio actually has a PC inside. So while the exterior is a tribute to the Ingraham Cabinet Co, an influential design company behind many wooden radio cabinets of the 30s and 40s, the interior houses a 1.6GHz VIA, 4GB of DDR2 RAM and a 64GB SSD.

The silver gleam of my aluminum Mac was alluring at first, but I can't help but to admire the timeless beauty of American black walnut construction. Lots more photos of the build process at the link. [Slippery Skip via bbGadgets]

Did your favorite channel get the axe? [Orbitcast - Thanks Travis and Tim!]

[Agata Norkroos via Mocoloco]

The Price: $200 for 25-station 4GB, and $250 for the 40-station 8GB unit. The free service is ad-supported and allows six skips per hour, while the premium service costs about $10/month and is ad-free, offers unlimited skips and the ability to save songs to the device.

The Verdict: The Slacker G2 looks a million times better than its first-gen sibling. The older player was bigger and thicker than a deck of cards, with poorly placed buttons and a capacitive touch strip that felt somewhat cheap. The G2 trims the fat from the device, leaving a screen just big enough to show album art, and controls that are far more intuitive than its predecessor. The 2.4" display is clear, text is very readable, menus are simple and it's about as tall and thick as an iPod dock (but much lighter), a good size for the hand.

For this portable Pandora-style player to succeed, it needs two things. The first thing is, it needs a great selection of songs, tailored to the user's tastes. In this respect, it's awesome—even pre-programmed stations (think satellite radio rather than Pandora) have a wide ranging and thoughtful collection of artists, and stick mostly to singles or fan favorites so you don't get many strange deep cuts. Custom built stations (which you have to create in the web player) are even better. In both cases, you can favorite or ban song suggestions that you don't like, but if you design a station with more than 200 songs, you won't get any outside suggestions (though you probably no longer count as a true "slacker").

The other thing the G2 absolutely needs is a solid connection for refreshing stations. Sadly, this is where it falls short. A full refresh took almost two hours; stations took at least 10 or 15 minutes apiece to download. Adding a custom station for the first time took forever, and so did refreshing stations that I listened to often, favoriting and banning many songs. You can't refresh one station at a time—only all stations at once—and you can't create stations directly on the device either. I'd love to see these two things in a firmware update. Slacker may have shown us its more viable future in smartphone software with its recent BlackBerry announcement. Still, with some software tweaks and better networking, the company could make the G2 a decent alternative for those who fear convergence. [Slacker]