Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
I’m a little bit nervous when anyone named ‘Deckard’ sends me a picture of a sci-fi gadget, especially with no backing link, but the word is that this is a prototype MP3 player fitted into a pair of Oakley sunglasses. They look a little, you know, fucking awful, like he got whapped up side the…
So this is a little old, but too geeky to pass up. Some beautiful dork named Michiel has rigged all his AC adapters and wall-warts into a single backpack, allowing him to recharge all his gadgets — and there are a lot; couple PDAs, phone, GPS, iPod, laptop — by plugging in the single protruding…
No one! Gizmodo pal Josh Rubin’s gadget (and fabulous sneakers) site Cool Hunting has just changed its URL, so be sure to update your links to the new address. Plus he’s done a little visual tweaking, too, making sure the site is 100% compliant with the W3C’s new Isometric Menu Bar standards. Oh, and update…
Alpine has finally given a mostly-firm date for its new in-car iPod interface, the KCA-420i, updating their website to show a “late September” availability. The connector is one of the most promising iPod car adapters out there, connecting to any of Alpine’s head units that support its Ai-Net standard (which unfortunately explains the relatively cheap…
I should warn you: I’m sort of lukewarm on portable video players altogether. I don’t commute to work, and when I did, there was enough jostling and train swapping to make anything that required focused attention, like reading books or watching video, a fractured and annoying experience. But still, there is an opportunity for a…
As much as some of you may hate the iPod’s lack of WMA support, this article by CNet’s John Borland makes it clear that the iPod may be the only thing holding back the record companies from adopting Microsoft’s DRM’d standard across the board. Borland quotes SunnComm’s head honcho as saying the majority of their…
I know that Sanrio’s Hello Kitty is sort of hackneyed, but it’s hard not to appreciate the sheer force of an entity that has for thirty years been the centerpiece of a full-on marketing onslaught — especially one so free from use or meaning. Hello Kitty is marketing Zen, or maybe the lightless black hole…
Dubai-based start-up IltoneTel has announced their first handset designed for the Islamic community, the Ilkone i800. While the phone itself isn’t that interesting in and of itself (it’s even promoted as being “moderate looking”), the software provides some interesting and useful tools, including Hijri and Gregorian calendars (including date conversion), 5-method Qibla direction (for determining…
Many people in the TivoCommunity.com forums who have hacked their TiVos to add additional hard disk space are finding that the latest firmware upgrade, 3.1.0c (which started hitting boxes about two weeks ago), is causing intermittent picture freezing and lock ups. These aren’t people who have done anything crazy to their boxes necessarily, either; Many…
This probably pleases me more than it should, but what can I say? I have a soft spot for gadgets that think like I do. The Muller and van Dongen Word Clock is a simple bar that eschews traditional digital or analog conventions by telling time entirely through text. Instead of “12:00” you’d get “Noon,”…
If any of you code nerds will be attending the Austin Game Conference on September 9th – 10th, specifically the “Programming for the PSP” technical discussion, let us know. If Sony happens to unclench a little and let some real information flow — and rumor has it they will — we’d like to hear about…
I’d like to see some actually testing (NYCWireless, I call thee!) of these little folding cardboard antennas, the Tritium Flatenna, but the idea itself is interesting. The simple metal and foil antenna is designed to clip onto your existing external antenna — no worrying about what type of connector — and focus the standard omni-directional…
Oh hey, new Roomba! The Roomba Discovery is being pre-sold “exclusively [to] current Roomba owners” at the moment, but includes some much-needed improvements, like a self-charging Home Base which the Roomba will head to, automatically, when done cleaning (finally!), an “intense cleaning” feature (presumably detecting areas that need multiple passes, and a dust bin that’s…
A few months back, when giving free publicity drawing your attention to the AirWater corporation’s fancy-ass de-humidifiers that extract water from the air, I jokingly (ha ha!) implied that the company provided me stock to shill their product. This was, for those of you that happen to be, for instance, Michael Zwebner, President of the…
It’s not likely we’ll see it over our way, but Japanese carrier has a new Sony Ericsson handset, the A1402S (perhaps that name has a little more zing in Japanese). It looks like fairly standard fare, though, so no need to shed those big crocodile tears like we normally do when Japan gets a new…
I don’t quite get the overall design aesthetic behind this US Basic Lip Talkers speaker phone. The blue plastic says, “I’m fun, but crappy!” while the motile chrome lips just scream, literally if you like, “I’m a classy, futuristic muppet!” Either way, it’s a little too much fun and too much class for the likes…
MoMA (not the Museum of Modern Art) has been “cordially” informed that their EVE handheld gaming platform, recently shown (and almost universally panned) at E3, infringes on Icelandic massively-multiplayer game developer CPP’s trademark for their (excellent) space war/asteroid mining simulator, EVE Online. Guess MoMA was too busy designing gaudy, awkward handheld gaming machines that no…
Kevin Britten of Hays, Kansas downloaded the 100 millionth song from iTunes Music Store, winning the 17-inch Powerbook, a 40GB iPod, and a 10,000 song gift certificate. I just want you to know, Kevin, that the Powerbook will probably give you herpes, and should be immediately quarantined in our labs. Read – iTunes 100 Million…
There’s not much to go on at the moment, but one of the Mobile9 forum users posted some purported images of the upcoming Sony Ericsson refresh, the P910. After all the hub bub surrounding the original leaked ‘Layla’ information, I don’t think it’s going out on a limb too much to say that these are…
Good morning, my champions. Let us die in glory together. Why, we could even listen to our rousing music on these slim-line Elecom ASP-700i speakers, designed specifically (obviously) for the iPod. I did mention that our ultimate battle would be waged at our desks, nibbling on cupcakes, did I not? All hail the right-click of…