Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
In a small blow to Microsoft’s smartphone market dreams, Sony Ericsson has refused to confirm that their spanking new Xperia line will continue shacking up with the Windows Mobile platform. The heartless cad of a company insisted that it not commit to any specific operating system, presumably because it’d be doing the world a disservice…
Having seen—and tested—the earlier evolutions of satellite radio receiver, from dashboard model to in-home unit to hip-connected recorder/player, I’ve felt like I’m judging contestants in the Special Olympics: The radio service is fine, but the gadgets aren’t really expected to measure up to other contenders in the same field. XM’s latest, the XMp3, is impressive…
Update: New embedded video that actually works! As teased, Verizon made its official internal announcement of the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm today, and CrackBerry has gotten ahold of the clip. If you look past the video’s asstastic quality, you can see the Storm is way more polished than the various leaks lead us to believe. It…
The key to the crazy looking Ikonoskop A-cam dII camera may be the 80GB card that comes with it. How else would you expect to shoot 60 RAW frames of 1080p video—totaling out at 240MB—each and every second? As our good friend and video wizard Charlie White points out, it doesn’t have the specs to…
Fresh off the billions of eyes that have been on the beautiful Beijing National Stadium, Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron have set their sights on NYC with this incredible 57-story residential tower, unveiled today. It consists of 145 unique apartments that are stacked into the sky like a Jenga tower that’s already been well-poked…
As I’m sure you already know, the Dow dropped 500 points today on the news of a Lehman Brothers bankruptcy filing and a $50 billion stock buyout of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America Corp. This tag team of devastation sent stocks spiraling down in the worst tumble we have seen since the 9/11 attacks.…
The NTSB is currently investigating whether or not text messaging may have played a part in the tragic head-on Metrolink train collision last Friday in LA that has claimed 26 lives. So far, they have confirmed that the engineer, who was among those killed, failed to stop at the final red signal. However, two teens…
Poor Wei-han Lien is probably dead right now after posting a description of his current duties—managing the ARM CPU architecutre team for the iPhone—on LinkedIn. As you know, Apple keeps all its future plans secret so Jobs doesn’t stroll out on stage and announce something everyone’s known for about months (oops). In Lien’s case, the…
Many of the big guns in Hollywood, technology and retailing have joined forces to create the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) LLC—a consortium focused on building “a new digital media framework using industry standards” that will “enable consumers to acquire and play content across a wide range of services and devices.” In a nutshell, the…
All of the news surrounding the Large Hadron Collider and the Burj Dubai Skyscraper recently has got me thinking about large-scale technological projects. Both absolutely defy belief, but which one do you think is the most impressive achievement? I’m even going to throw in the International Space Station for good measure. How about the pyramids?…
Rob from Boing Boing Gadgets has posted a piece on the various types of crappy blog post forms found scattered about the internet like so much, uh, lazy writing. He’s right! We do use a bunch of the same forms over and over again, sometimes because said forms are what fit the content best and…
Even though design is a major focus of gadget manufacturers these days, the results are not always pretty. In fact, they can be downright hideous at times. However, when it comes to hacks and DIY projects, the goal is to create something that flat-out works—not something that is pleasing to the eye. The following 10…
Today the government of Peru, Microsoft and the OLPC announced the first official pilot of XO laptops running Microsoft Windows. This was expected of course, but it marks the beginning of a major shift away from Sugar / Linux—although both will remain as dual boot options for the foreseeable future. It also represents a major…
The Xbox 360 is a powerful gaming system and media player, but few people know all of its ins and outs. Techradar publshed a “10 Tricks” article on the console, and while most of the information will not be news to the average Giz reader (OMG THE XBOX PLAYS MY IPOD!!), we found two tricks…
Mac OS X 10.5.5 update just hit Software Update, and has a laundry list of fixes for not just the OS core (like improved Spotlight indexing), but apps like iCal and Mail, as well as the MobileMe and Time Machine services. TUAW got a heads-up from its readers, and shortly after, it popped up in…
Skullcandy and Metallica have teamed up to create these absolutely metal headphones, showing the world just how into a burned out, old-man rock band you are. Ride the lightning, bro! My recommendation: steal them, just like you steal Metallica’s music (OK, don’t really steal stuff, but still, screw Metallica). [Pocket Lint via SlipperyBrick]
Before you read any further, we’ll tell you the catch. It’s not actually a netbook. It’s just powered with the specs of a netbook. This Avaratec All In One features an 18.4 swiveling screen, 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, DVD burner and Windows XP. Sure, you can call it an underpowered iMac ripoff, but…
iPhone’s 2.1 update last Friday was supposed to fix a whole dump truck-load of issues people have been having with the iPhone 3G. If the update did succeed in getting rid of dropped calls, improving battery life, dramatically speeding up backup times, improving application install speeds, more accurately displaying 3G signal strength display and eliminating…
Announced last week, the new line of refreshed Zune players arrived at Giz HQ today for our consumption. I really like the glossy black front, and anodized black metal back, which gives it a svelte, elegant look. One thing to note about the Zune 120 is that, unlike the Zune 80, it does not come…
Hmmm…this Sushezi sushi tube looks familiar. While it is all but useless as a weapon, the tube can help the average Joe enjoy professional looking sushi at home with its easy roll feature. Now that I think about it, maybe you could use it as a weapon—a salmonellasaber with an incapacitating puke blade. Available for…
