Brian Lam

Erica at TUAW does some quick and dirty math on how many iPhone hackers are out there. Based on 60k SSH downloads, and that being a fraction of those who hack, she guesses 10-20% of all Apple phone users are doing some sort of unofficial cha cha with unofficial apps. [TUAW]

39 Megapixel Hasselblad H3D Goes to Mark II

Let’s go Digital has the scoop. While a $37K DSLR is out of the range of even most of our dreams, there is some tech here to be admired beyond the 39MP, 48x36mm sensor it shares with last year’s v1.0 of the H3D. (So similar otherwise, it shares the same press photo, apparently.) Firstly, it…

Death Star Home Theater

Electronic House has this rad story of a home theater designed to resemble the control deck of the Death Star. The entire thing was designed by Doug Chiang, the lead designer on Episodes I and II. DVDs are tucked behind a hidden door replica of Han Solo in Carbonite, and the entire starfield is lit…

Halo Lingerie? Really?

Do you, Halo or Xbox fan, care about all these marketing attempts to grab Halo mainstream attention? I thought of this as I skimmed some article headlines declaring the obvious: Halo is No Longer a Microsoft Game, but a Monumental Brand. Dun Dun Dun! Sure, whatever. But did you know that Microsoft had pitched lingerie…

Bose MusicMonitor Desktop Speakers

These $399 computer speakers from Bose were announced today, and their hallmark includes a no-sub design. How is that a feature? Beats me. I see a bass port on the side, and its shape would imply it moves a decent amount of air. Out on October 4th, hands on to come. [SciFiTech]

7.4.2 iTunes Update Patches Some Ringtone Hacks

iTunes 7.4.2 just came out, and its reported that it breaks some custom ringtone hacks. Apple’s been open-minded about hardware changes, but anything infringing upon iTunes sales has been patched pretty aggressively in the past. Ringtones, too, it seems. The file renaming hack to cease working. Sendsong and manual copying of ringtones to the iPhone…

Lenovo’s L220x Monitor the First 22-Inch with a 1920 by 1200 Pixel Count

Lenovo’s 22-inch monitor is the first to have a 1920 by 1200 res screen, good for HD content. And it supports auto-rotation of the screen from portrait to landscape mode and 92% color gamut. Too bad the HDCP compliant monitor doesn’t have an HDMI port or component inputs, alongside its VGA/DVI jacks. Most consumers are…

What’s the Best Handset Under $100?

Paying special attention to high-end US phones, its easy to miss the little handsets meant to appease the stingy buyers of America. What is the best handset for less than $100 these days? Off the top of my head, I’d say the Sony Ericsson W580, which is $80 after rebate, or one of the Samsung…

Japanese Underwear With a Banana Up Front (Not That I Need Something Like This)

So these are some Halloween costumes from Japan that have front-mounted, alternative-universe, male packages in the form of a banana, worm, bouquet of flowers or matchstick. What makes this funny is that I’m pretty sure Japan doesn’t even celebrate Halloween. I wonder if they can custom-make these things. I can think of about a dozen…

AnySIM iPhone Unlock App

The iPhone Dev Team just released AnySim, a GUI version of iUnlock. An Installer.app version is coming, so you can pretty much download the file over EDGE or Wi-Fi and run it without having to manually transfer the file to your phone. Here’s our mirror, but as always, most recent version’s at the iPhone Dev…

Video of a Blonde Being Smashed by a Shovel (While, Thankfully, Wearing D3O Body Armor)

Click to viewHere’s a video of an attractive blonde woman being hit by a shovel wielded by another blonde. I swear, this is not merely lesbionic, but gadgety, too. She’s wearing a knee brace reinforced with that D3O body armor gel/foam/flubber that gives her a +10 bonus against blunt weapons. No damage! [D3O via NextFest]…

SCO, those bastards who filed many lawsuits under the recently debunked claim that they owned the UNIX trademark, have filed for bankruptcy. Good riddance. [Yahoo!]

Me Being Run Over by a Mars Rover Prototype

Motorcycle crashes aside, here’s another case of Man/Machine collision: The JPL designed NASA Mars Rover climbing over a viscous, blubbery, greasy surface known as My Back. The JPL lady said this thing only weighs 10-pounds, but it kind of felt heavier. The final Mars rover has six wheels, but the first prototype had eight as…

The Last Samurai Bot Would Eat Tom Cruise’s Children

Click to view Here’s a Japanese robot named Kiyomori designed to show off fully articulating knees that can bend and expand like human knees. Combined with the articulating pelvis that has 2 degrees of movement, it walks, they claim naturally. I’m not so impressed with its gait, which has been documented before, but note Kiyomori’s…

Killacycle Inventor Crashes at NextFest

I forgot to tell this story. Apparently one exhibitor on an electric motorcycle took his ride out for a spin, and his throttle jammed. That’s bad on any motorcycle cough*joebrown*cough but really bad on an electric drag racer with a zero to sixty time of one second. Creator Bill Dube hit a bus, possibly a…

Best of Wired NextFest 2007 Walkthrough

Before I catch my flight back to SF, here are a few choice shots of my favorite fun at Wired’s 2007 NextFest down in LA. Notable things include nano ferrite “magnetic fluid” solutions, prototypes of JPL’s Mars rover running over Justin from Justin.tv (above), a giant disco wall that comes to life when your cellphone…

Canon 40D DSLR Sample Shots On Flickr

Canon’s 40D DSLR has been shipping for a few weeks now, and Crave’s Stephen Shankland notes that samples shots abound on Flickr, if you’re curious to see just how good modern DSLRs are. He also points to Wyofoto’s comparison of the 40D image quality, and found it to be within spitting distance of Canon’s higher…

DPReview Does a 12-Page “Preview” of Nikon’s D300

Phil over at DP Review is previewing the D300, and although they call it a preview, without verdict, it is a 12- page affair with almost every detail of the new camera. That photo above is a representation of the camera’s 51 AF segments. Nuts, huh? He also runs down the liveviewfinder LCD and the…

First Gullwing Stretch Limo Ferrari

This here is the world’s first Ferrari 360 Modena converted to a gullwing stretch limo. It’s 23 feet long, but with 400HP, goes zero to 60mph in about 6 seconds. These mods, and the extra 6 Recaro seats, cost £200k. Sounds like a deal to me. We’ve got one more photo of the gullwing in…

Hitachi’s CMP1030FWJ 103-Inch Plasma

Hitachi has announced a 103-inch plasma. As we’ve heard, there’s only one place to get screens this big: Panasonic, mother of the original giant. Is Panny in full swing selling them to companies like Samsung and now Hitach’? And if Panny is selling, maybe, maybe, it means that they’re ready to update their own 1080p.…