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Wireless N in cellphones, it’s happening next year: Atheros’s AR6003 802.11n/Bluetooth chip for cellphones is tiny, has serious range and uses less power than their current wireless G chip, which is in the Zune HD. It’ll hit phones around the second half of next year. Such a long wait. [PC Mag]
The iPup begs one question: Is this puppy wearing an iPhone, or is this iPhone wearing a puppy? [Cute Overload]
It wasn’t a huge leap to take RIM’s purchase of Torch Mobile, a software company known exclusively for making a WebKit mobile browser, as a sign that the company was considering taking the dive. Today, though, we can be sure. https://gizmodo.com/rim-gobbles-up-torch-mobile-translation-blackberrys-g-5344237 BlackBerry just put out a call for WebKit developers, for a very specific reason:…
The reason your friends aren’t begging you for a Google Voice invite is probably ’cause they’ve got one by now. BusinessWeek got a hold of the redacted user numbers Google gave to the FCC, and they’re higher than I’d expect: 1.419 million users, only 570,000 of whom actually use it everyday. https://gizmodo.com/can-google-voice-really-block-calls-to-some-numbers-th-5378394 Maybe the more…
Virtual Wi-Fi was going to be a cool Windows 7 feature to turn PCs into a Wi-Fi access-point, so devices could share a connection without special software. It missed the cut, but this free app finishes the work Microsoft abandoned. https://gizmodo.com/windows-7s-virtual-wi-fi-turns-one-wireless-adapter-int-5259173 Some of the code that Microsoft Research used to virtualize one Wi-Fi card as…
In Utah, the National Security Agency is building a $2 billion storage facility that will house and analyze all forms of electronic communication…a potential yottabyte of everyone’s (formerly) personal data. So how big is a yottabyte? CrunchGear puts it well: There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte, a thousand terabytes in a petabyte, a…
There’s a pretty good chance you did, especially if you live in the Carolinas: Sprint just flipped the switch on Wimax in a bunch of cities, from Chicago to Raleigh. They may yet hit that 80 market target. [Sprint via Phone Scoop] https://gizmodo.com/clearwire-swears-theyll-have-wimax-in-80-markets-in-18-5308387
Maingear, the custom PC maker and purveyor of tramp stamp laptops, has let loose a duo of simplistic-looking desktop towers this morning designed to “shed the bling” and focus instead on what’s going down inside the case. https://gizmodo.com/maingear-ex-l-18-the-worlds-fastest-laptop-with-a-tram-5321918 Both the the Shift: Intel P55 and the Shift: Intel X58 are powered by Intel Core i7…
I didn’t think 97 percent of Americans were in agreement about anything, but apparently they are about texting while driving: They think it should be illegal. A mere 3 percent don’t care, or didn’t answer cause they were busy texting. And half think it should have the same penalty as drunk driving. Steeeep. What’s fascinating…
I’d suspected so for years, but this baby doll Wiimote add-on proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that something is just not right with this Earth. Bundled with the upcoming Wii game Baby and Me (in Australia), this doll-mote uses the Wiimote’s speaker to make the baby cry or laugh. Turn on the Wii…
Current rumors suggest the HD2 won’t hit the States until early next-year, probably on T-Mobile. But now that T-Mo UK has locked-in November 9, will the uber WinMo 6.5 handset arrive sooner? Update: HD2 launch event in Taipei this week… https://gizmodo.com/rumor-htc-hd2-arriving-on-t-mobile-in-the-u-s-5381327 As you can see on the invite, the HD2 will be getting all official…
Coders have confirmed that the developer build of Snow Leopard 10.6.2 nixes support for netbook Atom processors. Nothing’s final yet, of course, but given Apple’s lame fight with Palm over iTunes compatibility, are hackintosh netbooks next in the firing line? https://gizmodo.com/apple-and-palm-the-itunes-syncing-fight-is-officially-5393038 The current recommendation is to stick with 10.6.1 if you’re running Snow Leopard, or…
We all know the Japanese like crazy burgers—and even crazier vending machines—and here’s a fun mix of the two. This machine in Tokyo actually backs onto a kitchen where a cook pops them into the machine by hand. https://gizmodo.com/i-ate-the-windows-7-burger-5394184 Drop 100 Yen and you’ll get a Tateishi Hamburger in no time, but if you want…
Talk about unfair: this video appears to show that the GSM version of the Motorola Droid will support multi-touch gestures like pinch-zoom. The U.S version doesn’t do multi-touch, even though Android 2.0 supports it, so what gives? https://gizmodo.com/droid-in-deutschland-you-shall-be-called-milestone-5394549 Maybe it goes back to the whole multi-touch patent issue with Apple, I don’t know. If it…
Sure, nobody gets excited about business computers, and these Lenovos (including the company’s first business all-in-one) are pretty snooooore. But one of them could be your next office computer, and it’s our duty to inform and educate you fine cubicle-folk. Let’s look at the best-case scenario: The A70z all-in-one. It’s thoroughly unremarkable in specs, offering…
As mind control toys, games and electronics position themselves to become the big ticket items of the holiday season, we children of the 80s can just sit back and smile, content with the knowledge that we’ve seen it all before. But for you younger types, Boing Boing has a run down of this season’s big…
Having actually held a Stradivarius once in my life, I can appreciate a musician’s desire to possess and play these 300-year-old works of playable art. That said, the future looks pretty damn cool too. Question is, how will it sound? I ask because with a Stradivarius, the age is the sound. Those 300-odd years aren’t…
For about $20, this tiny HoverDrone will hover and flash its little lights. And then the dog will eat it. Sorry, it’s inevitable, as proven in the ThinkGeek demo video below. ThinkGeek is billing this as the smallest hovering device they’ve ever sold, so there’s that too. Requires a handful of AA’s and the controller…
This little homemade robot takes all of those impressive no-look Dragonforce-on-expert Rock Band/Guitar Hero YouTube videos and destroys them with a cold, clockwork efficiency. Updated. Here’s how it works in a nutshell: – light sensors read the falling notes (brightness set to max) – light data is sent to an Arduino Mega, which is monitoring…
Details are sparse at the moment, but what we do know today is that Creative is hard at work developing a “MediaBook” device that will combine video, pictures and text with what could be described as an eBook form factor. Creative is also talking with publishers, a la Apple, although in their case the talks…
