Matt Buchanan

New Wi-Fi Chips from Atheros Use Little to No Power

Atheros’s new AR6002 line of Wi-Fi chippies sip juice ever so slightly in both standby or active states—almost nothing in the former, and over 200GB worth of downloadage could be powered by a 3.7-volt battery—allowing even the most power-ticky devices to get in on the Wi-Fi goodness. They’ll start shipping in Q1 2008, meaning useless…

Surprise, Leopard’s Got Security Flaws

We’ve already covered a couple of Leopard’s uh-ohs and their fixes, but researchers have kicked up the dirt to reveal a few security-related flaws. First, according to Jürgen Schmidt, editor in chief at Heise Security, if you enable Leopard’s firewall (it’s disabled by default) and set it to “block all incoming connections,” some internal system…

Torpedo Projector: You Probably Get What You Pay Only $179 For

Crafted by the makers of TV Poker, the Sweet Thang Plush and the “Original Scoozie Pet,” the Torpedo Entertainment Projector probably isn’t a good choice to form the cornerstone of your home theater. But, for a measly $179 at Target or Wal-Mart, the 920 x 240-resolution projector’s not a bad way to mildly frighten your…

MacBook Pro Is the Fastest Windows Vista Notebook

Looking for a shiny new notebook to slap your shiny new Windows Vista on that’ll run it all super snappy and buttery smooth? According to PC World‘s tests, the fastest Windows Vista notebook this year is (or ever): the MacBook Pro. Yeah, it makes throw up in my mouth a little bit before forcing me…

100 California Households Get to Test Drive Plug-In Priuses

While they’re not getting behind the wheel of the 2009 plug-in Toyota Prius Popular Mechanics took for a spin, 100 households in Northern California are going to put rubber to asphalt next year in the first large-scale consumer test of plug-in hybrids in the country. The 100 green guinea pigs will be picked from the…

Rock Band USB Hub Makes Guitar Hero III Dongle Look Like Wireless Wonderland

If you weren’t a fan of the PS3’s Guitar Hero III donglage, you’re probably going to shoot yourself in the face over the USB hub for the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band. It requires external power, so it comes with a power block that you have to plug in (obviously). Not totally unexpected, given…

Buffalo Banned from Selling 802.11a and 802.11g Gear in the US

Australia-based Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has won a patent infringement suit against Buffalo in a US district court, enjoining sales on all 802.11a, g and n products made by Buffalo as of Oct. 1 (full list here). CSIRO is apparently suing the entire wireless LAN industry, so Buffalo has the quite the list…

The Pirate Bay Developing New P2P Protocol to Replace BitTorrent

The Pirate Bay’s pretty busy these days, reviving dead sites and whatnot, but their latest scheme is even bigger: They’re working on an entirely new P2P protocol designed to replace BitTorrent, since BitTorrent Inc. is no longer making additions to the source code entirely open, which TPB believes grants them too much influence. The new…

Barack Obama Loves Net Neutrality, Promises to Appoint Cuddly FCC Commissioner

Not only does he say he supports net neutrality, Obama actually seems to have something of a grasp on what it means and why it’s important (politically tinged examples aside), which is kind of impressive, given how technologically ignorant politicians can oh-so-famously be. And look at all those Web 2.0 companies he namedrops: Facebook! MySpace!…

Nintendo DS Picking Up Information, TV Programming Functions

Looking to expand the DS’s base even further beyond casual gamers in its plan for world domination, according to the WSJ, Nintendo’s going to roll in some not-so-game-y info-oriented functions, like a TV programming feature for the Japanese market that will let users “check television listings, run searches by keyword and genre, and highlight each…

The House has agreed 402-0 to the Senate’s version of the net access tax ban, so the bill heading President Bush’s way runs to 2014. Hooray. [CNET] https://gizmodo.com/senate-passes-seven-year-extension-of-net-access-tax-ba-315500

NBC Wanted to “Experiment” with $2.99 TV Show Pricepoint on iTunes, Cut of Apple Hardware Sales

Nearly two months after the fizzle out between NBC Universal and Apple during contract negotiations, NBC U CEO Jeff Zucker spills what some of the contested terms were. Most surprising is that NBC asked for a cut of hardware sales. Not the fact that they wanted a cut, but that they actually asked for it—they’d…

FCC Ends Exclusive Cable Contracts for Apartments

Exclusive deals between landlords and cable companies that force tenants to use a specific cable provider are being terminated by the FCC, which hopes the move will spur competition and drive down cable prices. According to the NYT, the move will be a boon for low-income and minority families, who have “seen cable prices rise…

Verizon Earnings Report: iPhone Effect Seemingly Non-Existent

It looks like AT&T’s impressive growth of 2 million additional wireless subscribers didn’t take too much away from Verizon, who posted 1.8 million net additional subscribers for a total of 63.7 million, trailing AT&T’s total by 2 million. Quarterly net income was down over half a billion, to $1.27 billion from $1.92 billion last year,…

Looks like the only rhythm game Red Octane cares about anymore is Guitar Hero, as they’ve categorically denied making new dance pads for the 360—or any other system: “There are no immediate plans to create new dance pads outside of the current products available.” [Kotaku] http://kotaku.com/gaming/ddumps/red-octane-has-no-plans-for-xbox-360-ddr-pads-316220.php

Hulu Private Beta Goes Live Tonight; Will YouTube Blink?

The bastard child of News Corp. and NBC’s love-hate relationship with GooTube, Hulu, is making its public debut this week, with the private beta going live tonight. The log-in form’s already up, but those of us at Giz who’ve signed up for the beta haven’t gotten our invites in the mail yet, so we haven’t…

Comcast “Assessing” Wireless Field, Sprint Looking Good for Acquisition?

During their luster-lacking quarterly earnings call, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts responded vaguely enough to a question about wireless strategy (i.e., investment or acquisition)—”It is something we are constantly assessing,” although “there is no new news today”—to stoke the speculation fires about a possible Comcast entrance into the mobile space. On the less-than-denial, WSJ’s Deal Journal…

Warner Music Considering Dropping Yearly iTunes Contract for Month-to-Month Deal

In yesterday’s Washington Post, buried on page two of Frank Ahren’s three-pager headlined “Apple in a Fight for Rights to TV Shows,” is the nugget: Warner Music Group, whose contract with Apple expires at year-end, is considering switching to a month-to-month deal with Apple, said a source with knowledge of the discussions who spoke on…

AT&T’s broadcast mobile TV service with Qualcomm’s MediaFlo has had its launch date nudged back from year’s end to early 2008. The reason given is fine tuning, though what kind of “tuning” was left unspecified. Verizon’s, on the other hand, has had its MediaFlo-based offerings up and running since March. [Reuters via Phone Scoop]

Senate Passes Seven-Year Extension of Net Access Tax Ban

Showing the House who’s in the lower chamber of the bicameral setup, the Senate passed a seven-year extension on the net tax ban, three years longer than the four-year ban that passed the House. Better deal for us, right? Well, since they didn’t match up exactly, they’ll have to work together to hammer out the…