Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
HTC swept the show with the sexy Legend, well-specced Desire and rugged WinMo HD Mini, and while US availability hasn’t been confirmed yet we can let our UK readers in on the good news. All phones will hit eXpansys on the 12th of April, with the HD Mini at £349.99, the Legend at £399.99 and…
What do you do if you really want a Windows Phone 7 handset but prefer PlayStation to Xbox 360? Microsoft may end up catering for you too, with a senior product manager on the mobile division musing on the possibility. https://gizmodo.com/how-will-xbox-live-work-on-windows-phone-7-5471950 Michael Chang told TechRadar that Microsoft’s doesn’t intend to be a closed door to…
More details coming out about Apple’s deals with book publishers, and it looks like Apple might have more leverage over prices than expected. The NYT says that “Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers.” https://gizmodo.com/the-9-99-ebook-is-dead-third-major-publisher-hachette-5464742 Three people “with knowledge of the discussions” told the Times that Apple’s provisions allow it…
Welcome to the rugged camera game, Sony. Your TX5 impresses me with its deck-of-cards size Zeiss lens, and 14-degree rating, but at 10 feet of waterproofness and 5 feet of shock resistance, you’re a little fragile. Other cameras, like the just released Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2, are rated to around 30 feet of depth with respectable…
Sony’s other new camera is the H55, which goes for the “stuffing a fat zoom lens into a tiny body” party trick (like Nikon’s S8000). It’s a 10x zoom, starting at a 25mm wide-angle. (I’m curious to see what kind of lens distortion we might get here, if any.) https://gizmodo.com/nikon-s8000-and-friends-smuggle-big-lenses-in-tight-uh-5462846 It shoots 14MP photos and…
Even if you hate Apple, you can’t deny they set the tone. The WSJ reports that while HP announced their Slate first, they waited for the iPad unveil to make changes, like the price—which they plan to undercut. https://gizmodo.com/hps-windows-7-slate-device-revealed-by-steve-ballmer-5442200 HP wants to come in under $630 for their full Windows 7 Slate. A tall order,…
Tonight’s the Men’s Olympics Snowboarding Halfpipe event. Have you heard of Shaun White’s personal superpipe in which he compressed the training equivalent of years into a day, mastering insane new tricks that I can’t even wrap my brain around? The 550-foot long half pipe is located 7 miles from Silverton, which is built around Silverton…
With every important technological innovation a vocal group of people become alarmed that their industry will be adversely effected by it. People are understandably terrified when it seems like a new technology will put them out of a job. However, throughout the twentieth century, we’ve seen that the people who succeed in times of transition…
I asked Bob Wallace—author and former CIA tech office director—about the preponderance of ever-awesomer kids’ spygear. We shared a laugh about cheap cameras, false notions of privacy, and unstoppable technological progress. His point? We ain’t seen nothin’ yet. https://gizmodo.com/spynet-video-watch-lets-your-kid-record-you-picking-you-5473382
The iPhone app reMail is email search the way it should be: https://gizmodo.com/the-week-in-iphone-apps-sorting-emails-crushing-empir-5337833 iPhone mail search is fine. reMail iPhone mail search is actually good, if it works for you. Two things: there’s no Exchange support (sorry suits!), and there’s only support for one account at a time. But within that one IMAP or POP…
Photographer Adam Vorhees has a new hobby he’d like to share with everybody! It involves dismantling everyday objects and spreading them apart into lovely dioramas. Everyday objects like miniature Etch a Sketches, semiautomatic handguns, rotary telephones, and plasticized dead frogs. Disregarding the bizarre item choice, which looks like the inventory of backpack of the Last…
I’m sorry, roaches that I’ve squashed. I didn’t know that one day your kin would be our nuke-detecting salvation. Nuclear engineers from Texas A&M, who clearly are less squeamish than I am, have attached radioactivity sensors to the backs of cockroaches. Oh, sorry, to the backs of remote-controlled cockroaches, which sounds like the start of…
In beta for a while, HBO Go has launched: It’s a streaming site with access to over 600 hours of HBO programming, from original series like Big Love to Watchmen. The catch? You already have to be an HBO subscriber. Dumb. You also have to have the right cable provider to have access (right now,…
Cars. Coca Cola. Bo Derek. Mickey Mouse. Transformers on a Saturday Morning. These things are classic. But the renaming of Windows Mobile 6.5 to “Classic” is kinda weird. How about calling it Windows Mobile “Immensely Disliked”? From Wikipedia, “classic” means the following: The word Classic means something that is a perfect example of a particular…
Oh, dear. Looks like if you’re going to rely on Android’s swipe gesture passwords for security, you’d better doing constant wipe-downs. Or maybe washing your hands once in a while forgoodnessake. [IntoMobile]
Researchers at the University of Michigan have created a prosthesis that makes walking much easier on amputees than current options. The trick: an artificial foot that recycles the kinetic energy generated by walking. The device works by mimicking the natural push-off of a human ankle, using a microprocessor to control the device and capture the…
In today’s bursting-at-the-seams Remainders: laziness. We’ve got a new Adesso keyboard for the couch-potato web surfer; a Taiwanese truck driver sleeping behind the wheel; a lazily conceived concept car; a demo that takes Farmville procrastination anywhere; and more! WiMaxed Out Every month or so we hear about a new fistful of medium-sized American cities that…
There’s a saying that a watched pot never boils. You could also say that a watched plant never grows—unless it’s being watched by a laser-wielding, 3D plastic sculpture-printing, growth-tracking megarobot. David Bowen’s “Growth Modeling Device” uses a circular rig to scan an onion once a day with a laser, then employing a “fuse deposition modeler”…
It’s hard to believe they noticed this one in England, but apparently wind turbine farms have the ability to create their own fog. The phenomenon has been observed by Mike Page, a retiree flying on board his Cessna 150: The creation of the mist depends on the wind speed and the temperature of the sea…
If you have downloaded the iPad SDK, you can use it to access the Safari browser. Or you just can watch this video. It’s similar to the iPhone’s, adding the new user interface elements of the iPad. [9-to-5mac]
