Matt Buchanan

Pity the Poor Silicon Valley “Working Class” Millionaires

It’s tough to be a millionaire in Silicon Valley nowadays, slavishly breaking your back in the “Silicon Valley salt mines.” As one such “salt miner,” Hal Steger, puts it in a NYT story detailing their worked-to-the-bone lives, “a few million doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe in the ’70s, a few million…

AMD: Intel Made $60 Billion in “Monopoly Profits”

AMD has a new presser out declaring that between 1996 and 2006, Intel socked away over $60 billion of “monopoly profits” into its “monopoly coffers.” It also claims that if there were “full competition” in the processor market, we would save over $81 billion, which sounds awesome. Now, I’m not an economist, so I can’t…

The sly bastards over at The Pirate Bay are resurrecting the original big fish torrent site, Suprnova.org, complete with the classic look, in a couple of days. [TorrentFreak]

Super V-Chip Aims to Block Content on Everything, Will Probably Fail

The Senate Commerce Committee has approved legislation that would enjoin the FCC to oversee the development of a “super V-chip” that would block content on cellphones, TVs, the internet—anywhere tender young eyes could land upon “inappropriate” content. Unfortunately for its proponents, the Child Safe Viewing Act’s initiative will probably bomb even harder than the 1996…

No wonder postmortem Amp’d recommends that you migrate to Prexar Mobile: they’re getting a combo payout of cash and stock for their remaining customers, plus a 25 percent stake in Prexar. [Moconews] https://gizmodo.com/ampd-handsets-die-tonight-prexar-mobile-offers-questio-284538

Howdy iPod and Mobile Cases Are Pretty—Pretty Ugly

I’ve never kept my iPod in a case because I think most cases just make them bulky and ugly. So would these $30 vinyl Howdy cases by Missy Broome, but in a good, Uglydolls kind of way. My only qualm is that there’s no ninja version—granted, if there was, he’d probably kill the two pirates.…

Dead Dog Art Table: Functional, Sort of Abstract and Kind of Depressing

I thought this was a pig at first, which amused me because I like bacon. Then I saw it was a dead dog, so I thought of my dead dog, and became very depressed. But if this $3000 table by artist Bruce Gray didn’t drag up horrible, painful memories, I have to say it’d be…

Led Zeppelin to Finally Show iTunes How the West Was Won

At long last, Led Zeppelin debuts on iTunes—but not until November 12 (boo). And it looks like we won’t be getting the group’s full catalog either, at least not at first. Instead we’re getting a collection hand-picked by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones dubbed “Mothership.” If it’s the same as the physical…

iTunes Store sales hit 3 billion songs. Can we get a counter with spinning numbers in the top right-hand corner? [Apple]

AT&T & eMusic Open Over-the-Air Music Store: No DRM, No iPhone Support

Rumors of an impending AT&T/eMusic tag team for an over-the-air music store were true: The eMusic Mobile store will be stocked with 2.7 million songs in delicious DRM-free MP3. Better yet, not only do tracks download directly to your phone, a second copy is sent straight to your computer. Not so delicious: https://gizmodo.com/rumor-has-it-that-at-t-has-teamed-up-with-drm-hatin-onl-282374 The price,…

Daily Dubious iPod Rumor: 6G Launching Next Month, Won’t Have Touchscreen or OS X

Sources—the best kind, unnamed ones—are telling Think Secret that the next version of the video iPod could hit as early as next month, but won’t sport rampantly presumed features like a 16:9 touchscreen or OS X. Rather, it’ll keep the same resolution screen (320×240) and run the updated OS we pegged as a pre-iPhone prototype.…

Apple Earnings Call Behind the Highlights: iPhone Cannibalizing iPod Sales? (Update: Probably Not)

While we already tossed the rather rosy raw numbers at you, one tidbit lost in the general hubbub over Apple’s obscenely profitable quarter is the fact that iPod sales are in fact down 7 percent from last quarter both in the number sold (10.55 million to 9.815 million) and revenue ($1.7 billion to $1.57 billion).…

Looks like mobile TV provider Modeo’s service won’t be getting any better: it’s dead. [BusinessWeek] https://gizmodo.com/modeo-mobile-tv-service-hands-on-one-day-in-240944

Senate Bill Could Compel “Top 25 Piracy Schools” to Use Anti-P2P Technology

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (pictured) has a fun summer vacation souvenir for institutes of higher education: His latest amendment to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act would require a college named to the list of “top 25” worst file-sharing schools to implement anti-p2p technology into its network, or risk losing some of its governmental funding.…

Amp’d kick-the-bucket Q&A updated: new expiration date is July 31. To quote it out of context: “Potentially.” [Amp’d] https://gizmodo.com/ampd-mobile-shutting-down-july-24-prepayers-beware-281128

Ninja Thong: Cover Your Crotch With the Ultimate Protection

In case you were wondering what Chen wears to guard his own gear when he shoves gadgets down his pants. [Product Page via Nerd Approved]

Lego Evangelion Unit 01 Probably Unintentionally Commemorates a Soon-to-Be-Released Special Edition Box Set

Giz Japan shares our love of Lego and Neon Genesis Evangelion, so they sent us some shots of this grey Unit 01 built by mumu-san. Like Giz Japan’s editors, we’d like to see some purple blocks in the interest of being faithful (and probably more attractive), but overall it looks pretty good. Really though, what…

Sega Dreamcast Guitar (Verdict: Pretty Much the Most Awesome Instrument Ever Crafted)

While it only has three strings and could use something stronger than a spit shine to clean it up, our unabated Dreamcast love completely blinds us to the Dreamcast guitar’s flaws. If someone could magically transform it into a wireless controller for Guitar Hero 3, it would probably be the greatest peripheral ever. At least…

LED-backlit MacBook Pro supply slimmer than an iPod nano? [Apple Insider]

Bubble Wrap Curtains (Verdict: Ghetto Classy)

If you’re looking for a cheap but aesthetically pleasing and environmentally conscious way to both tantalize your neighbors and keep them from peeping all the goods, we can’t think of a better way than bubble wrap curtains. Hell, we even have real curtains and we might put some of these up instead. If we can…