Brian Lam

Google Phone Prototypes, Software, Project Costing Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Valleywag realizes that Google will not likely do phone hardware themselves. Whatever. As long as it supports the software, hopefully some shiny Mobile Google OS, we’re interested. Either way, this is what the WSJ and Reuters said today: •”Now it is drafting specifications for phones that can display all of Google’s mobile applications at their…

Arn’s Theory of Apple Rumors

Arnold Kim of Macrumors.com generally sticks to the speculative evidence, usually refraining from venturing into wilder guesses. Recently he brought to light an obvious but somehow ignored pattern: 1) Apple Legal never gets involved for Images/Video of Fake Products and 2) Apple Legal always gets involved for Images/Video Real Products. Apple Legal could be the…

Zonbu, the low power PC backed up by Amazon’s S3 data cloud, starts selling today. $249 for the hardware or $99 with a two-year, $13/month subscription to Amazon S3. [Zonbu]

Motorola Zante In the Wild

It’s one thing to peep studio shots of Motorola’s Zante, the next evolutionary and yet unannounced step of the TMO Sidekick family. It’s another to see it in the wild. This model is a bit beat up, so it’s likely a prototype that’s been around the block. As before, the specs are strikingly similar to…

Ambient Devices Market Maven Stock Checking Clock

The Ambient Devices Market Maven can pull DJIA, NASDAQ and S&P 500 data every 15 minutes, over FM sub bands, without service charges. Cool, if you’re not obsessively needing stock updates every minute. But then again, if you’re not, its kind of hard to justify the $125. [Engadget]

$1150, Quad-Driver, Ultimate Ears UE-11 Pro Headphones

Ultimate Ears makes some of the best earphones I’ve ever heard, with the high end UE line made of custom molded pieces with multiple drivers inside. The UE-11 Pro raises the bar to having 4 in each ear, broken down into dual subs, a mid and tweeter. Audio sensitivity is 110dB at 1mW, which is…

We try not to post boring shit here, but here’s the Moto W206, W213, W156, W160, W175 and W18. The bigger question: Why release 6 low-end candybar phones at once? Just my two cents, but they might as well do one phone that we care about. [Crave]

Virgin America’s In-Flight Ethernet, USB, 110v Power and Doom

Artur Bergman of Six Apart and O’Reilly got a tour of the new Virgin America planes and found some some amazing geek amenities. Every seat includes 110 volt AC current, ethernet, USB ports for charging iPods and phones, but will also accept a QWERTY for the linux-based, thin client, in flight entertainment system. And, it…

TomTom 920 the New Flagship GPS Navigator?

Hints of a new flagship GPS from TomTom, dubbed the 920, are showing up in TomTom’s 720 software. That’s good, because right now, its hard for consumers to tell the major differences between the 720 and the 910 (pictured above), which are similarly priced, with ~4 inch screens. The 920, would, in theory and speculation,…

These Euros tested the iPhone’s cold weather durability by tossing it in a freezer. It passes. [YouTube]

Aluminum Foil Stops iPhone Car Tape Adapter Buzz

When I tested Monster’s “iPhone compatible” tape adapter, I expected the $25 setup to have extra shielding to stop GSM buzz from the cellular radios. It didn’t. As a joke, I tried some anti-alien brainwashing technology, or aluminum foil. Turns out wrapping a bit around the first few inches kills off a lot of the…

Apple Hints at Ad-Subsidized iTunes

Music Ally went through Apple’s testimonial at the UK Copyright Tribunal’s decision on online royalty rates, and discovered a quote from iTunes VP Eddie Cue: The placement of third-party advertising at the start, end or during actual delivery of a Repertoire Work to a customer by way of a permanent download. Sounds like ad-subsidized iTunes,…

Microsoft’s HD Photo standard, which compresses more easily than JPEG2000, could be the next generation JPEG. [Ars]

Sirius Radio Posts $134.1 Million Loss

And that’s a GOOD thing. Last year, this quarter, they lost $237.8 million. The improved performance was attributed to a half-million new subscribers, which helped revenue grow 50%. Oh, just let them do their little get-together with XM already. Clearly, they are eating shit while people go out and buy MP3 players. [NYTimes]

“On” is a Huge, Wall-Mounted Spectrum Analyzer

This piece of art is a huge, wall-mounted electronic spectrum analyzer that displays sound from ambient noise. It looks to be made up of an array of red LEDs set up in a pattern of 8 to 32 bands. The entire device runs on batteries for 4 hours, or AC power, and is turned on…

DirecTiVos to Get Updates (For Some Crazy Reason)

Hallelujah! For some reason, TiVo and DirecTV are updating the older Series 2 generation DirecTiVos as part of an ongoing agreement to explore bringing “future enhancements” to DirecTV TiVo owners. The improvments now include the addition of the Recently Deleted shows folder, Remote Booking, and Overlap Protection (recording conflict resolution). They don’t even sell these…

Mac Event at Apple HQ Next Tuesday

Next Tuesday, August 7th, at 10am PDT, Apple’s holding an event which will be focused on the Mac. It’ll take place at Apple’s Cupertino HQ in the Town Hall. Guess those iPod nano rumors were wrong. My best guess is that it’s for new iMacs that Kasper at Appleinsider has been speculating on for awhile.…

Philippe Kahn, of Borland and Camera Phone fame, won the Transpac sailing race in the double-handed class, with and without handicap factored in. Congrats to team Pegasus. [Pegasus via Giz] https://gizmodo.com/emailing-the-father-of-the-camera-phone-as-he-sails-acr-280464

Nokia’s Music Store to Launch August 29th Worldwide…Sideloading Only?

Nokia is planning to launch a worldwide music store on August 29th. Fortune compares it to iTunes, and somehow works iPhone into the headline. Two things I notice: a) This isn’t an application, it’s a website. b) This is like iTunes in that you can’t buy songs over the wire; you have to download them…

Recycling Washer/Dryer Concept

This concept washing machine by Reed Crawford saves water from one of the cleaner, later rinse cycles for use in a future wash. Smart, but only if there is an override that I can activate when washing soiled underwear. I mean, hypothetically. [Yanko]