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Some Roman Catholic bishops in Italy have called for Catholics to give up technology, notably text messaging and Twitter, for Lent. Possible sacrifices they also considered include “all fun” and “things people like.” These bishops apparently issued a blanket suggestion against all technology, including iPods, Facebook, television, text messaging, and Twitter. While I understand the…
The problem with distant glimpses of the future is that getting there takes some time. Such is the case with the TCR-2009 Trash Collecting Robot, which is a neat, but primitive robot garbage man. Created by three Malaysian university students, there’s currently only photos available of the TCR, so how well this thing actually functions…
It looks like the lastest image from a NASA spacecraft, approaching the surface of a satellite on the outskirts of the Solar System. Or maybe one from the deepest underwater exploration voyage ever. It’s actually an UV view of the tattoo on Otzi’s right ankle, the Stone Age warrior who was found by tourists on…
Metallica’s Lars Ulrich tries P2P: “I was like, ‘You know what? I’ve gotta try this.’ So we sat there, and thirty minutes later, I had ‘Death Magnetic’ in my computer. It was kind of bizarre.” But that doesn’t mean you should. You’re not Lars Ulrich: “I was like, ‘Wow, this is how it works.’ I…
Remember the spooky ghost internet episode of South Park? It’s coming to Blu-ray. It, along with the rest of the episodes in Season 12, can be yours in Blu-ray if you act now. Or act later. It probably won’t sell out. Whatever you do, you really need to watch that above episode to see what…
Roger McNamee, the long-haired, gadget belt-wearing founder of Elevation Partners investment group implied that the Palm Pre—in which he’s investing in—will make iPhone owners switch over when their contracts expire in June. Bloomberg writes: “You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone,” McNamee…
With the “biggest ever” piracy raid in Sweden’s history—taking down a server with “data equivalent to 16,000 movies”—the Swedish Anti-Piracy Agency says they’ve killed the source of all The Pirate Bay’s pirated material. The raid, launched on a server owned by the Nordic file sharing ring Sunnyvale, actually took place during The Pirate Bay trial…
It’s not quite the App Store, but Ustream’s broadcasting app is here on jailbroken iPhones. It joins Qik, which already does the same thing. Ustream’s plan is still to get the app on the official App Store, which would make it much, much more accessible to the general public. The good news is that their…
This chair only appears to have mobile, interlocking plates capable of structural minimization and stylistic transformation. But your ass doesn’t need to know. Sure, the Relief Chair only looks gadgety, but it’s causing somewhat of a splash in the crazy world of textiles. By designer Ben Mickus, the chair is an artistic exploration of what…
The latest 7.4.1 update for Time Capsule and Airport Extreme adds Back to My Mac drive sharing, which lets you grab files off of attached USB drives over the internet. The Back to My Mac is only for MobileMe users, and Airport Express remains unchanged, but if you’re looking forward to being able to access…
What do we like this week in Kotaku? Street Fighter IV. Also Rock Band. And Guitar Hero. Mostly Street Fighter though. Oh, and Ashcraft’s son would love the image above. • What could make the Beatles Rock Band worth $250? Our guess is it comes with an old Japanese lady in every box. • An…
Apparently being a Google employee doesn’t insulate you from the economy, which is why some of them set up a “Tip Jar” site in order to swap ways of being cheap. There are some good (if old) tips like calling up your cable company to threaten to cancel your service, then reaping the retention bonuses…
The App Store loves novelty camera apps, but some (below) are more useful than others. This week, we also found a video streamer, a price-shopping helper and eight extra mouths for your mouthy self. iPet Photo: Whether your cat or dog is turned on by monkey sounds, bird sounds or the sounds of other dogs,…
Fashioned after Akai’s legendary MPC samplers, these are the next best thing to owning one. Somewhere in another dimension, Dr. Dre and Just Blaze are fighting for the last one. [Geek Alerts via BBG]
It’s not the solar panels we were looking at before, but these solar lights from Ikea look pretty darn nice. Plus, they’re good for impressing men and women who don’t shave regularly. https://gizmodo.com/ikea-to-sell-flatpack-solar-panels-soon-5034203 Both the stick and dome lights work on the same principle—they’re LEDs and store solar power in replaceable/rechargeable batteries. No external wiring…
The illustrious Marissa Mayer, Vice President at Google, was on Charlie Rose last night to talk about (disclaimer: I didn’t watch nearly this entire hour of footage) interesting things, including the future of search. It was interesting for our engineers to see that early index and see how far we’ve come in ten years. But…
Koenigsegg, the high-end Swedish car maker, just demoed this electric solar NLV Quant in Geneva. It has 512hp and goes 0-62 in 5.2 seconds. It charges to full (not all through solar) in 20 minutes. Koenigsegg isn’t the first manufacturer to make an electric sports car, but it is one of the first who shoved…
Nothing like starting off the weekend with some free Godiva brownies, a chance to play Unreal Tournament 3 for free on Steam and an Asus Eee PC for under $200. TGIF. Computing & Accessories • Inland Notebook Cooler Pad for 49¢ plus free shipping (normally $5.49 – valid until 3/31. Use rebate form). • Asus…
Any time a plane goes down, the black box recorder, once again, becomes a mythical machine whispered about in the back alleys of news broadcasts. So Wired assembled a technological rundown on the device. https://gizmodo.com/black-box-case-mod-scoffs-at-server-crashes-5015772 As many of you know, the steel or titanium black box is actually painted orange or red so it’s easy…
Home automation is expensive and complicated, but universal remotes are easy. The IR-Remote Control Power Strip lets you use universal remotes on any electronics, blinking lamps and speakers on and off with lazy precision. No price on this since it’s straight from an OEM in China, but it’s supposedly controlled by any IR remote, provided…