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My, how things have changed since Bill Gates left Microsoft. Case in point: The company filed a patent for a “Hot or Not” interface that allows viewers to rate “fashion and other personal appearance decisions.” From the “Online Personal Appearance Adviser” patent abstract: The contributor uploads self images for viewing and rating (or voting) by…
Click to viewI knew the Navy’s Blue Angels were good, but seeing their stuff from inside the cockpit actually got a few butterflies stirring in my gullet. [Danger Room]
BGR is reporting today that the well-known AMOLED-equipped Samsung Omnia Pro might be linked to the recently unearthed “Louvre B7610.” By the way, “linked” in this case means “the exact same thing.” https://gizmodo.com/rumor-samsung-omnia-pro-could-feature-full-qwerty-amo-5228884 Why the subterfuge? No idea, but what today’s news does bring us are a slew of updated specs for the Omnia Pro/Louvre,…
Microsoft, on the heels of its big layoffs and other cost-cutting measures enacted earlier this year, has reportedly stopped reimbursing its employees for iPhone, Blackberry and Palm Pre data plans even if they’re being used significantly for work-related purposes. Only—you guesed it—Windows Mobile device users will have their data plans reimbursed. It may sound fishy…
Our comprehensive smartphone guide lacked one key feature: NES emulation. An important trait, to be sure, and one that the Palm Pre, after a bit of fiddling, now possesses. https://gizmodo.com/smartphone-buyers-guide-the-best-of-the-best-5288488 As mentioned above, the “fiddling” actually requires you to gain root access to the Pre. This important step is followed by compiling FCEUltra and an…
As part of an effort to alleviate its current European Union-sized headache across the Atlantic, Microsoft has volunteered to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 7. The move is an about face for the company, which had previously testified such a removal was impossible. Indeed, Microsoft has stated before that it would be impossible to remove…
Hey look, it’s our first BlackBerry app roundup. We’ve got free podcasts, free music and free hacks to make your BlackBerry more usable—or let you grind its battery into the ground. https://gizmodo.com/about-those-other-app-stores-5272973 Stitcher: Formerly an iPhone/iPod touch app, Stitcher lets you cut together podcasts to stream them to your phone as virtual radio stations. Mostly…
This is a rumored "extremely recent" look at a CrunchPad prototype. What do we learn? First, the demo man says the tablet will be out by this year, "for sure." The other is that the video guy is a klepto. The sharp, colorful packaging isn’t quite what people will see on launch day, but it’s…
We’re loving Samsung’s new line of PMPs, and as lifelong haters of forced video conversion, we’re especially glad that Samsung’s been throwing us torrent-using pirates a bone with great codec support and a 2.7-inch touchscreen in its new YP-R1 PMP. https://gizmodo.com/samsung-p3-media-player-review-here-comes-a-nano-beate-5200754 We don’t know too much about the 2.7-inch touchscreened YP-R1, as it’s merely leaked…
A legitimate artistic movement known as Open Source Embroidery has sprung up to explore the relationship between, no joke, software engineering and needlework. It’s pretty awesome. The crux of the largely British movement is that both needlework and software creation are an amalgamation of tons of tiny little pieces of work that all come together…
Well, they may not have gone quite that far, but an independent study conducted by Forrester Research found that iPhone owners are better educated, younger, more affluent, and even more productive than their non-iPhone-using counterparts. The straight demographics are hard to argue with—on average, iPhone users do tend to be slightly younger, wealthier, and better…
It looks like Lisa Simpson’s worst nightmare has come true. Now all of America can say, “I wash myself with a rag on a stick.” We especially feel awful for the actors in this infomercial. That poor fat guy has to implicitly say that wiping himself is a struggle without a candy-colored plastic stick, and…
Holy frak. If you thought the 59-foot-tall Gundam in Tokyo was impressive when it was finished, you haven’t seen it fully armed and operative at night. Beautiful and actually scary. Check the impressive close up: https://gizmodo.com/59-feet-tall-gundam-to-guard-tokyo-against-aliens-enem-5168543 Come on people, let’s start building these robots now. I’m sure the bad aliens are going to come any…
There’ve been some reports about an upcoming “Twitpocalypse” in which Twitter would finally crash and burn due to the limitations of a 32-bit signed integer. Allegedly, Twitter will collapse once the number of tweets passes 2,147,483,647. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the Twitter revolution is going to die out as soon as I’d like—there are…
AT&T is telling customers that any iPhone 3GS pre-orders placed after today, June 13th, will not be available at the June 19th launch, instead shipping out between one and two weeks later. In addition, those lining up for a 3GS should note that it’ll be available at 8:00AM, not 7:00, as had been previously thought.…
As far as AM/FM/CD/iPod/AUX combinations go, this artfully-misspelled Sonora Eklipse is pretty good-looking, with its 7.5-watt output, shiny black finish and glowy lights. But is it really worth its whopping $550 pricetag? It’s got an auxiliary jack for other audio inputs, a nice little OLED screen to display the time and track information, and of…
We’re not really sure about the market for a svelte-yet-comparatively-large-screened laptop like MSI’s 15.6-inch X-Slim X600, but now we’ve got the full spec list so you can decide for yourself. https://gizmodo.com/msis-x-slim-x340-x600-are-two-more-sub-1000-macbook-a-5158557 The sub-inch-thick laptop will be packing one of two variations: One’s got a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Solo proc, 4GB RAM, and a 500GB…
Well, looks like it is possible to run OS X on Sony’s teeny Vaio P netbook, but it’s no perfect Dell Mini 9 hackintosh. It looks like a difficult and imperfect crack, yet it still somehow runs better than Vista. https://gizmodo.com/os-x-running-on-a-sony-vaio-p-5159248 Posters on the Insanely Mac forums managed to get OS X onto the Vaio…
1Up ran a story yesterday that Microsoft is planning to release an updated Xbox console this fall that will focus on Project Natal’s motion-sensing technology. We’re not sure we believe it. The rumor states that Microsoft will be debuting a totally new console that will include native Project Natal support, full backwards compatibility with Xbox…
I’m sorry, but I just gotta know—are Dell Dude #1 Michael Dell and Iron Man director Jon Favreau secretly related? Does their freakish resemblance not trouble anyone else?