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Spinning off their entire manufacturing arm wasn’t the end of AMD’s new “asset light” business plan — the manufacturer has cut 500 jobs from its remaining workforce around the world. The worst news is that these cuts were planned before everyone became poor last month, so it’s hard to shake the feeling that things still…
After receiving endless flak for their silly tiered Vista Compatibility scheme, Microsoft has decided to issue a single “Windows 7 Capable” sticker for hardware that works with the new OS. That means no more “Windows Home Basic”, “Windows Ready”, “Certified for Windows” and “Windows Ready When You Are, Asshole” labels slapped on every piece of…
Just last month we were reporting “Seagate to begin to switch to SSD” and now company CEO Bill Watkins has said that that’s not quite the truth. Seagate will indeed be launching an enterprise-level SSD in 2009, but will not enter the “mobile SSD” market. Whyever not? Because there’s no money to be made there:…
Anime fans can now store information on two of the genre’s most famous characters—Lupin the Third and Gundam. Both USB figurines come with little extra accessories (like a pistol for Lupin and a shield for Gundam) and store 4GB of stuff. When you want to use them, twist their legs into sitting position and a…
The Guardian has a great interview with the head of Tudou.com, China’s answer to Youtube. Tudou means potato in Chinese, meant to denote “couch potato.” CEO Gary Wang started the video-sharing site up four years ago after discovering the immense amount of government regulation involved if he wanted to go into television entertainment. “There are…
Hey Brian, I’m writing this not from the Herman Miller Embody chair we reviewed, but from the detached “saucer section” of the Treychair, which I reviewed last year. Why? Because I can’t see the TV that well from my couch, so I need to sit closer. I’m getting old.So what else went on today? Well,…
Remember the Phantom Lapboard? Yeah, it’s been so long that we’ve heard any news of it (despite them telling us that it was finally released), that most people have plumb purged it from their memory. According to Phantom Entertainment’s recently updated blog though, the lapboard still exists and it’s coming by the end of the…
The AT&T Quickfire will be heating up the competition with the T-Mobile Sidekick when it is released on November 10 this year. This tri-band cell phone will only cost $99 with a 2-year contract—$299 without—and doesn’t seem like a Windows Mobile phone, or any other OS we’ve ever seen. The Quickfire includes a touch screen,…
Philips has introduced goLITE BLU, a new clock that offers light therapy to people suffering from seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or what is commonly known as the winter blues. It sits by your bedsides and emits a blue light designed to lift your mood and soothe you. For $279, it doesn’t come cheap and only…
Magic Tap, a 99-cent iPhone application, lets you send fake calls to yourself on command, just in case you ever need an excuse to get out of an awkward situation such as a horrible blind date, or having “that talk” with your girlfriend. To make this application more realistic, it lets you customize the caller’s…
Intel halted development of Ultra Wideband technologies, leaving the future of the standard highly in question. According to Electronista, Intel decided to pull the plug on the 5-year-old project last month but only just announced it now. This comes after one of the biggest UWB chip manufacturers, Wiquest, stopped production last week. Intel said the…
This bunny USB webcam looks just like a normal stuffed bunny at first glance (if you ignore the USB cable coming out of his ass), which is perfect for whatever clandestine recording opportunities you’re setting up in front of your computer. Of course, there are much easier ways of secretly documeting things than putting a…
What is this? A video of a self-propelled iPhone robot that uses a small electrical engine and a Arduino board that is not tuned to Flight of the Conchords “The Humans are Dead”? For shame. [Air-Nifty via Cult of Mac]
The original Datamancer Steampunk keyboard was quite steampunky in its presentation, and VERY steampunky in its price ($1000 to $1500). In the second round, Datamancer decided to do away with the straight edges and make the keyboard both brassy and rounded, two changes that would make any piece of hardware more…you know. It’s made from…
You know, I thought electric light here in the 19th century was the devil’s work. In fact, I must say that when I walked into this room filled with the strange candle-less fire I almost soiled my pantaloons. Thankfully, Mr. Edison’s disclaimer on the wall put my mind at ease. [NextNature via Boing Boing Gadgets]
It seems like every tech company is feeling the pinch these days, and Dell is no different. In order to cut costs, they are encouraging employees to take up to five unpaid vacation days or a severance package during Q4. CEO Michael Dell has also initiated a hiring freeze and announced that the company will…
Sadly, Canadian police believe that they have found the body of Brandon Crisp, a 15 year old that ran away from home in early October after his parents took away his Xbox 360 privileges. Apparently, he had become obsessed with Call of Duty 4 and action was taken after it began to affect his grades.…
Good news, everyone! According to some real-world testing by Lifehacker, Windows 7 is booting 20% faster than Vista. On an identical system, Vista Ultimate took 37 seconds to boot from operating system selection screen to the login screen. Meanwhile, Windows 7 took just 27 seconds…the exact same time as Windows XP.But actually, since Windows 7…
If you tuned into CNN’s election coverage last night, you probably saw their new fangled hologram technology being used to pull up data and conduct interviews. Sure, it was a gimmick-and-a-half—but it was interesting at least. Plus, as far as I could tell, the complicated system was pretty much glitch-free (Fox News, on the other…
Who knew that lightbulb design could suddenly become so interesting? Since we’re all well aware that regular old light bulbs are bad for the environment, we’re seeing new designs for LED bulbs come in. And man, they’re strange looking. The weird designs, such as the one above, are the result of the LED being lit…
