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It is Going to Take a Whole Lot of Thongs to Fight the RIAA

If you recall, a jury full of dumbasses recently stuck it to Jammie Thomas to the tune of $222,000 for downloading 24 pirated songs from Kazaa. Now, I don’t know about you, but most people can’t make this go away by whipping out their checkbook. So what does an average 30 year old single mother…

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…

Xenith X1 Helmet Helps American Football Players Think Good and Stuff

With all of the news about football players and concussions these days, it is about time that the helmet was redesigned to offer more protection. The folks at Xenith are hoping to offer a solution with the X1, a helmet that features 18 shock absorbing discs that release air slowly to reduce the force of…

Mac-O-Lanterns Put the ‘E’ Back In Halloween

Sure, there have been Apple/Halloween mashups lately, but these Mac-o-Lanterns steal the show as far as I’m concerned. With the creative use of spray paint, some epoxy paste, and a little photoshop work, the guys over at Bad Banana Blog took an old Mac Classic and gave it new life as holiday decor. I’ll be…

Microwaveable Teddy Bear Keeps Babies Toasty

Why hand your kid a room temperature bear when you can hand them a microwaved bear and show them you love them as much as a kid that’s not adopted? This bear, which costs $20, is specially made with microwavable components that keep it from going up in flames when nuked—something that’s definitely not child-friendly.…

Costco Gives You Money For Your Junk

No longer content with selling 50-gallon drums of Tide, caskets, and delicious yogurt parfaits, Costco has teamed up with Greensight Technologies to offer you gift cards for recycling your old electronics. I have a few useless gadgets laying around, plus some prized electronic treasures. I decided to see what Costco would offer me for the…

Living Dead Dolls Pencil Sharpener Will Haunt Your Dreams

The “Living Dead Dolls” Sadie Pencil Sharpener is a favorite of artist and sharpener aficionado Matthew James Taylor —and it doesn’t take much to see why. Insert a pencil into her eye socket and watch her regurgitate the shavings at the push of a button. It is tons of wholesome fun for the well adjusted…

Thanks to the folks at Blackfriday.info, you can take an advance look at the Sears post-Thanksgiving flier. Not all of the stuff available is what I would call a “deal” —but there are definitely a few gems in there. [Blackfriday via Wired]

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…

Samsung’s SH-203N DVD Burner Burns Dual Layer at 16x

Samsung’s Super-WriteMaster may not be the fastest burner for regular DVD+Rs (Line-Ons can burn 20x too), but its dual-layer burning seems to be tops. Jumping up from an 10-12x found in other burners, the SH-203 has 16x dual-layer burning, along with 20x for DVD+ and -R, 12x DVD-RAM, 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW. It runs…

OLPC Laptop Hits Embarrassing $200 Milestone

During the OLPC price hike from $175 to $188, a spokesman said they were committed to keeping the price below $190, and probably below $200 if possible. This was in September—a month and a half ago. Guess they weren’t trying very hard, since the laptops have just made the jump to $200. Besides being symbolic…

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,…

Samsung OLED Product Roadmap Shows 40-inch TVs in 2010

OLED fans will have to be patient, as Samsung’s roadmap for the technology shows them only in small handheld devices for this year and next, ramping up to laptop and desktop displays in ’09 and finally 40-inch TVs in 2010. After these TVs invade your home and take all your money in the process, Samsung…

Seagate 2.5-inch Hard Drive Flaw Affecting MacBooks?

Retrodata, a data-recovery company, has just issued a warning for Apple MacBook owners with Seagate hard drives that were manufactured in China and have a firmware version of 7.01. Apparently these have a fatal flow that cause their read/write heads to fail mechanically, scratching up the hard drive surface as pictured and making data unrecoverable…

How to Comment: Leopard

We’re definitely enjoying the upgrades that a new OS brings, from increased productivity to new features we didn’t even know we needed. We’ve got a Question of the Day today on Leopard and how you’re faring with the install. Like it? Dislike it? Can’t even get it installed? Let us know. Here’s how to comment:…

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

AT&T’s New Pantech Duo Hands On (Gallery)

I got the chance to give the Pantech Duo a spin, or rather a slide, and haven’t been able to put it down. AT&T’s newest Windows Mobile phone has an attractive, glossy gray finish, but it’s the double keyboards that really steal the show. https://gizmodo.com/pantech-duo-c810-dual-slider-now-rocks-the-at-t-casbah-316108 As fans of the Helio Ocean (the Duo’s genetic sibling)…

Gamepark GP2X F-200 DivX/Xvid-Playing Handheld With Emulator Now Available

The crazy GP2X F-200 Gamepark handheld is available today for $169 on Play-Asia. What’s so special about this handheld? For one, it’s running Linux and can play back DivX, XVid and MPEG4 at 30FPS, or TV-Out your movies that are encoded at 720×480. For two, it supports emulation, which means you can load your old…

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…

Lenovo Y410 Notebook Has Facial Recognition, Special Media Playback

Lenovo’s previously Asia-only Y-series notebooks just crossed the Bering Strait and landed in the US, bringing both facial recognition, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, and a special Shuttle Center control that lets you play back music and movies without booting the main system. Underneath these special features are pretty standard-issue equipment for a laptop around $735: 1.46GHz…