Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Samsung is still supporting another, non-Google open operating system for mobiles, showing off a couple of Symbian-based smartphones at a recent event in London. The Samsung I7110 doubles as a phone and a navigation device, while the Samsung L870 is being marketed as a fashion slider. The I7110 comes with a GPS navigation program with…
Philips’ concept Green Cuisine kitchen, unveiled in Moscow, is one of the more interesting ecologically friendly home prototypes I’ve seen recently. The company’s future kitchen is based around a single table that can cook things anywhere on its surface by using sensors to apply heat directly underneath a pot or pan. Other nifty features include…
First, Intel decided to go with Linux for its MIDs, and now it’s giving the bird to Microsoft again by revealing a contender to the Zune’s social music aspect. TuneWiki, a “social media player” software based on Intel’s Atom processor integrates music and video with synchronized lyrics and a social network. Besides using a wiki-based…
Behold, every custom PC fanboy’s wet dream: The Reactor. It’s a sleek, black aluminum case with tons of hard drives (both swappable and integrated), an ultra-powerful processing chip, and three top-of-the-line video cards all begging to be overclocked thanks to the company’s special oil submersed cooling system. That’s right, the GPUs, CPU, power supplies, custom…
A priest has resigned from his parish after being caught viewing web porn in his computer at work. While I’m sure God doesn’t give a damn about porn-no matter how close it is to heaven-or the weaknesses of this priest, the church’s IT staff and the archbishop weren’t so amused when they discovered that his…
Now that netbooks have lowered how much we’re willing to pay for laptops with a smaller footprint, it looks like ultra-portables are looking for ways to justify their higher price point. In that vein, Fujitsu’s upcoming P8020 is packing a multitouch trackpad that’ll allow those pinching zoom in, zoom out motions and circular unlimited scrolling…
When we last checked in with Lala, the music service promised us access to our local collections from anywhere over the web. Using a unique combination of uploading and matching their collection to yours, you can sync your various libraries and listen to them any place where internet is available. Now they are back with…
Real-time videos that detect the most minute movements in enemy battle areas and advanced analytical systems that will efficiently sift through them are all in the works, according to DARPA documents. A $6.7 million contract with software company Kitware revealed a DARPA project focused on rapidly indexing archived aerial surveillance. It also gave a taste…
In what is an increasingly popular trend, Asus has announced they’ll be releasing new 24-inch, 16:9 monitors for the holiday season. Equipped with a 1920×1080 resolution, 20000:1 contrast ratio, 1.3 MP webcam and HDMI-in, the VK246H will appeal to those who want to use the monitor with both computers and home theater components. Asus also…
PopSci is showing off a cute little robot that will use grasshopper principles to get a leg (or two) up during search-and-rescue operations. Dario Floreano and Mirko Kovac of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in Lausanne, Switzerland built this 2-inch, 7-gram wonder capable of leaping eight feet in the air while carrying tiny cameras and…
Now that Sirius and XM are merged, it makes sense that we’ll get a dual tuner that picks up both flavors of satellite radio, right? WRONG. CEO Mel Karmazin, aka the dude who paid Howard Stern a retarded amount of money, said today that the merger didn’t magically fuse together satellite capabilities. Says Automotive News:…
If you read Giz regularly, you’re as much a fan of smart design as you are of raw innovation. The legendary Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in NYC is letting the masses decide on their favorite designs over the past year, whether it’s the obvious (iPhone 3G or Beijing’s Eddie-Van-Halen-guitar-inspired National Stadium) or the more obscure…
How much do I like this home metal bar, this beautiful sculpture/unidentified drinking object created by architect Zaha Hadid for London’s Home House? Let me count the ways: 1. Manhattan: 2 oz blended whiskey 1/2 oz sweet vermouth 1/2 oz dry vermouth 1 dash bitters Stir with ice, strain, add cherry. 2. Margarita: 3 oz…
We all know that plants tend to grow towards the sunlight—but plants fixed with a set of these robotic legs would actually be able to walk around and find the light as it moves around the room. So, despite your best efforts to kill them, robo-plants will be stayin’ alive (too bad there is no…
It’s obvious to assume that your henpecking on a wireless keyboard could be intercepted by a RF-snooping ne’er-do-well, but what about your wired or laptop keyboard—that should be safe, right? Nope. Researchers at Lausanne, Switzerland’s Security and Cryptography Laboratory (part of the EPFL school) have demonstrated here that 12 different keyboards, bought from 2001 until…
Blackberry Curve owners on the T-Mobile network will be happy to know that the new Blackberry OS 4.5 firmware update is available for download. The new software adds video recording, a better browser, office doc editing, and an improved email experience. The upgrade can be yours by clicking the T-Mobile link here. [Boy Genius]
If you thought the good old days of living under the threat of global thermonuclear war were over, think again, because the US military keeps shining those Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles just in case the new and coming Chinese aircraft carrier battle groups get funny over the Pacific Ocean. But fear not, because that doesn’t mean…
Chimpanzees doing anything is funny. But a chimp named Pan-kun tear-assing into the woods on a Segway? Now that is comedy. And don’t worry, he managed to survive the ordeal unscathed. My guess was that he was willing to take a risk or two in a daring attempt to escape his captors and the endless…
There are certainly some crazy alarm clocks out there, but Kim here definitely has to be one of the weirdest. She is designed to hang on the wall and deliver the time in a classic robot voice when you press down on her nose. As she does this, her eyes flash a spooky red color.…
Did you know? Besides sitting on Apple’s board of directors, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been an informal adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. In fact, he lurves Obama so much that’s he not just going to endorse him (shock, right?) he’s going to actually campaign for him next week. And not just ’cause Obama…