Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
I think that, in any tough situation, there’s a kind of normal way a person can react and a completely angry, psycho, absurd way a person can react. The normal way is the best way about 99.99% of the time. Example: A waiter brings you the wrong drink, so you politely ask for another. Result:…
When the Dutch High Tech Crime unit raided the 150,000-machine strong Shadow botnet, they didn’t simply bust its 19- and 16-year-old basement-dwelling operators. Oh no. Instead of simply decapitating it from the top, the police enlisted the help of Kaspersky Labs to actually take full control, driving the cold dagger of the law even deeper…
It’s pretty rare that we run leaked shots of external hard drives, but these next gen FreeAgent drives by Seagate are almost stylish. (I mean, let’s admit it, most of this stuff will look horrible to our kids.) All we know right now is that the models will include 5400 and 7200RPM drives that will…
Here’s a common scene-but still impressive-at the Beijing Olympics: dozens of photographers firing the most expensive digital photography gear available on the planet at full speed. The sound of all those shutters re-clacky-clicketing alone must give goosebumps to any photo aficionado, but the total price of all this machinery would actually make anyone faint. How…
This is not an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile head or an old World War II V-2 bomb or an alien monolith, but a set of table and chairs that will transform any terrace into a chill-out lounge, sans the Margarita and Manhattan cocktails. Here is how it unfolds: Did I say chill-out lounge and cocktails? At…
Hackaday has a piece about an upcoming Discovery Channel show called “Prototype this!” It’s due in October, and since it’s about making and modding robots and other gizmos, it sounds like a Mythbusters-meets-Makerfaire geeky heaven. [Hackaday]
The Air Force’s Office of Scientific Research has funded a study that’s found a novel waterproofing technique that could prevent ice formation and corrosion from damaging parts of an aircraft, like optical sensors. The transparent coating has a nanoporous surface that is superhydrophobic, which makes water droplets form and roll or bounce-off the aircraft’s skin…
While a T-Mobile news blog reported the HTC G1 would debut on September 17, the NYT begs to differ: Their sources point to an “as early as October” release timeframe for this potential bringer of the iPhonecalypse. [NYT] https://gizmodo.com/htc-dream-presales-beginning-september-17th-on-t-mobile-5035952
Scientists at Northwestern University have demonstrated a new nano-printing technology by printing the Beijing Olympics emblem 15,000 times, each logo so small the whole print run fits inside one square centimeter. 2,500 of the images, made 20,000 90-nanometer dots, would fit on a grain of rice. The polymer pen lithography uses an array of millions…
Saddened by the fact that the Apple logo on the rear-shell of the iPhone is just a dead, un-illuminated entity, a bunch of Russian modders have taken a dremel and soldering iron to one—or is it a replacement back shell? Either way, they brought the sexy (glow) back. Apparently “the battery doesn’t suffer a lot,…
This tiny GPS system from Kapten shuns the current preoccupation for large, high-detail touchscreens… it has, in fact, no screen at all. There’re a bunch of led-lit icons at the top, indicating car-, pedestrian-mode and so on, but that’s it. All navigation requests and instructions are made by you talking to the Kapten and it…
Sony took the radical step of renaming their “Mylo Personal Communicator” the “Mylo Internet Device.” Though it’s unlikely to affect the five of you that actually bought a Mylo, you have to wonder if it’s a last ditch effort to generate interest in a product that didn’t exactly set the gadget world on fire. [Pocketables…
Sure we know about some of Windows 7’s more eye-catching features like multitouch and sweet maps, but Microsoft hasn’t revealed a whole about what’s under the hood, other than that it’ll use Vista’s foundation. According to the new Windows 7 dev blog, we’ll get our first peek at the Professional Developers Conference on Oct. 27…
TechCrunch found a virtual world service (think Second Life) called LivePlace, which aims to render very realistic environments in real time by rendering it first, then pushing image data to devices. The service is supposedly working off of a service from OTOY which specializes in server-side graphics. In the case of LivePlace, you’ll be using…
One of the more popular theories behind Michael Phelps zooming past records with every stroke-besides his $500 LZR super suit and daily regimen of 12,000 calories composed mostly of mermaid babies-is that the Olympic pool itself is turning swimmers into Aquamen, but you know, not totally lame. But the pool’s designer, John Bilmon says, it’s…
A beer belt is nice, but those bottles will probably clang together when you fumble around in a stupor. The Beerdolier takes the weight off of your hips, giving you greater freedom of movement in the process. Plus, when you finally pass out, you don’t have to worry about broken glass being thrust into your…
Wow, check out the Treo Pro, previously thought to be the Treo 850. It’s safe to say Palm is plunging ahead with the Centro’s industrial design, but the stark (glossy?) black and white color scheme with the phone/end orbs make it slick, rather than kiddie cool. Unfortunately, the Palm OS (new or othewise) is nowhere…
With $4 million from the US Army, scientists at UC Irvine will study synthetic telepathy, otherwise known as sending and receiving messages using your mind. The scientists believe that this amazing new form of communication could benefit stroke victims who can’t speak—but also aid soldiers in the battlefield. If it becomes popular enough, it will…
This is TuneWiki, the music playback app that shows Karaoke-like lyrics and album art on almost all the music on your phone. It’s been officially ported to Android and looks very, very impressive. They’ve added features like searching YouTube for videos of your tracks, plus searching their database for certain song lyrics if you only…
So, you have a army-sized stockpile of weapons in your basement for protection against the coming apocalypse. That’s good, being prepared is key. But what happens when you are overrun with zombies in the aftermath? They may be slow, but they can still get you in a swarm. That means you need an more efficient…
