Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
We know you’ve been DYING to get your own Dr. Dre headphones ever since you saw them back at CES, so you’ll be happy to know that Apple and Best Buy are willing and able to take your $349.95 this Friday. The headphones are supposedly imbued with “extreme clarity, deep bass and full power, which…
Yesterday we got a peek at the combined power of nanotubes-technology that makes a rope-driven space elevator feasible-but what can just one do on its own? Berkeley researchers have discovered that one nanotube can be used as a tiny platform to determine the mass of a single atom. https://gizmodo.com/invisible-near-weightless-nanotubes-could-support-huma-5027238 When placed on the nanotube, the…
If you were going to sell radioactive cellphones loaded with tritium-from Hiroshima, Japan, no less-you should probably check to make sure that they’re not twenty-six times the amount legally allowed. You know, just so you’re not arrested by the cops for not having special permission from the Ministry of Science and Technology to even handle…
This cruise ship is called the Whampoa and it is stranded in a gigantic pool in the middle of Hong Kong‘s largest private housing state: Whampoa Garden. However, this Love Boat is sailing to nowhere: it’s just a huge shopping mall full of restaurants, shops, and a hotel, built to look like a cruise ship.…
Here’s how you can use the reverse concept of using AIM on your computer to directly message someone’s phone via SMS to save money on text messaging fees for your iPhone-or any phone that has a proper data implementation of AIM. Just load up the AIM app on your phone, then send a text message…
In a world where fonts are people, Times New Roman is king. But also, Wingdings is annoying and talks in gibberish, Arial Narrow is a racist, and Futura is a sexy lady from the future. How awesome is this? Click to view [CollegeHumor]
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, the folks behind such innovations as the color bar test pattern, want to codify a standard for watching 3D content in home theaters. They’re casting the net wide to include all possible sources and displays, from over-the-air broadcast to DVDs and Blu-ray. Ars points out that Hollywood…
This week at TreeHugger: A big LED breakthroughat Purdue University could change the world and even kill CFLs. Some competition for LCD technology: Telescopic pixels work on the same principle as the telescopes that astronomers use, and are much more energy efficient than other screens. And finally, Matsusitha is investing in a new factory to…
Those of you clamoring for an Apple tablet may finally get what you’ve been waiting for. According to a MacDailyNews source who leaked wireless iTunes a week before its official announcement, we can expect a sort of “MacBook touch” in October. And the source wasn’t light on the details, either: https://gizmodo.com/apple-touchscreen-tablet-contest-winner-and-gallery-326468 Think MacBook screen, possibly…
It’s always great when companies break out of their stodgy PR molds and just go for it—remember those fantastic tokusatsu Norton Fighter ads? Here we have Hitachi, no strangers to the out-of-the-box viral video, ushering us all into the "Tera Era," a magical wonderland of smiling flowers, talking bytes, hard disk actuator suns, and catchy…
A new set of in-ear phones to be released in Japan later this year is claiming to be the first to have speaker drivers small enough to actually fit inside your ear canal. Usually the drivers are in the bulbous part of the buds, with a narrow hollow channel leading into the ear. JVC is…
Augmented reality on cellphones is not new, but given the screen size of the iPhone, this application by ARToolWorks looks promising for both gaming and location-based applications (imagine seeing information about a place, or the live 3D reconstruction of the Roman Coliseum, by just pointing your iPhone camera). Unfortunately, given Apple’s SDK limitations, we are…
Apparently, the new attraction at Sony’s Tokyo headquarters is a gigantic 200-inch display showing HD underwater footage in 3D. The footage was shot by divers in the Okanawa aquarium with a couple of high-end Sony cameras, but what we’re really interested in is that display. What is it? There’s not much info that we can…
WowWee, makers of fine programmable robotic toys, is stepping back a bit with the “Alive” series of animatronic beasts sporting realistic skeletons that move according to how much attention they’re given. You can’t load custom Java code onto this White Tiger Cub though, so if that’s your thing, stick with the RoboSapiens or, perhaps, an…
We’d previously suggested a May 8th date for the much-anticipated Nokia E71 cellphone, but it looks like the actual US launch is about to happen. Rumors are that Nokia’s Flagship Store in Chicago has already got its first shipment, and has been contacting customers on the waiting list. The dual band WCDMA phone is apparently…
There’s nothing particularly technologically innovative about the Beam Bed, but it uses a sunburst-shaped lighting and support system to emit a glorious glow that’s perfect for wooing the ladies/thwarting the monsters. As we’ve long been scared of both said species, we’re pleased to see that the furniture market is finally catering to our insecurities with…
It may be tired to bring up Minority Report, but remember the scenes in the movie where our hero gets bothered by interactive targeted advertising wherever he goes? Thanks to dear ol’ NEC, this nightmare of advert pestering may really be in our future: its new ad display panel watches its watchers with a camera,…
Either that or their agency just really loves Thomas Friedman. Anyhow, Microsoft’s $300 million campaign to return fire after Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” ads with our buddy John Hodgman-which, like it or not, were a wildly successful campaign and definitely helped shape the public’s perception of Vista-has begun with this image from microsoft.com, comparing the…
It’s tough to make out much from these shots, but according to their source, they are of the next PSP (the PSP model 3000). The specs include a built-in microphone as well as an updated button set that replaces the “Home” button with a PlayStation button (to more closely resemble the PS3). Other than those…
Bad news for TiVo subscribers-the company is about to reach for new levels of advertising debauchery. If you thought those banners in the TiVo menu system were bad, know that the company is about to take things a big step further and invade actual television programming with Amazon as their partner. From the NY Times:…
