Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
We’ve already seen two videos of Sony’s latest 2.4 firmware for the PS3 (that hits July 2nd, incidentally), but sometimes the story is easily told in good old fashioned photography. So here are some direct feed shots of the new firmware, including plenty of material on the new achievements trophies. There’s nothing jaw-dropping going on…
What are 35,310 Lego Star Wars Clone Troopers mini-figs doing together, apart from planning a planet invasion after breaking out of the giant Lego storage cathedrals? Raising awareness and funds for autism, that’s what. So if you wondered where all those helmets at the Lego stormtrooper cloning machine go to, check the gallery for some…
Guess what was spotted in the latest issue of Germany’s ProfiFoto magazine? Yes, you guessed it—the absolutely worst-kept secret in the photography world, the Nikon D700. We’re still expecting the official announcement on July 1st (as it’s been long-rumored). Until then, enjoy this small scan of the magazine from which one can pull absolutely no…
This past Saturday, a brave group of Giz readers braved 90 degree heat followed by raging thunderstorms to hang out in Coney Island, drink some beers and watch some totally inept minor league baseball. It was awesome. Sure, we all got caught in what felt like the storm of the century right when we entered…
Are any of our readers sporting Mylo 2s? If so, carrying that smartphone-sans-phone is finally starting to pay off as today’s firmware update brings video recording. There’s other stuff too-16GB Memory Stick and general UI improvements-but the video is the big upgrade. Just stick with that Mylo 2 a little longer and who knows what…
Pleo, the robot dinosaur loved by everyone—except dogs and blogs—is celebrating its first birthday a little early by going on sale for $235. Head over to Ugobe’s store from now til July 11 and use semi-creepy coupon code PLEOWORLDISONE, and the dino can be yours for a cool $115 less than usual. Whether you teach…
Just as MSI saw the opportunity to create an Eee of their own with the Wind, so too will they create an Eee Box with their Wind mini-desktop. The internals will be very similar between each version of the Wind, with the desktop featuring the same 1.6Ghz Atom processor and 35W power supply as the…
Any fans of Rock Band in the audience? I said, ARE THERE ANY FANS OF ROCK BAND IN THE AUDIENCE??? YEAAHHH!!!!!!! Rock Band 2 is on the way. Here are the full details, along with a picture of the new guitar. 1, Better Hardware According to Harmonix: “Quieter, more realistic, and more reliable instruments” 2.…
Asus is working on a couple of new Eee PCs, the 904 and 905, say sources of DigiTimes. The models take the 8.9″ screen from the 900 and 901 and mash it up with the bigger keyboard on the Eee 1000, which doesn’t seem like a very good idea to us because the mini-notebook appeal…
I like this Life Clock. What makes it for me is not the fact that you can do it yourself using Arduino components—the open-source electronics prototyping platform—or that it can tell you the temperature and play Conway’s life on its own. No, what makes it all come together is the simple wood design and the…
The Maxx Digital PDV-8500BLK is a) a portable DVD with a 8.5″ TFT screen with all kinds of format support on both disk and flash cards, b) PSP’s dumb older brother, c) a future PSP on steroids, or d) all of the above. Features DVD, DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW, CD, CD-R/RW, VCD, SVCD, JPEG and MP3 playback…
It may not be crazy high-tech architecture, but there’s something about this Chilean home hanging over the Pacific that has me glued to the screen with a mixed feeling of complete awe, peace, and envy. The materials, the clean design, the floor plan, the breathtaking views, all of it, make it the perfect place I…
At last it’s here: in-game crossbar menubar in the PlayStation 3. Sony’s Eric Lempel says it’s coming "very soon" on July 2 as part of PS3 Firmware v.2.40, and in the meantime he teases PS3 fans with its features, as well as the other new functions like the Google Search Bar or the new Trophy…
Verizon customers with certain VCAST phones have some new options for buying music, thanks to Rhapsody. First off, the $15 per month, all-the-songs-you-can-guzzle subscription service is offered on LG’s Decoy and Dare, Moto’s W755 and Samsung’s SCH-u550, Glyde, and Juke, and will be available for the Chocolate 3 when it’s out. Also, $2 over-the-air download…
Rhapsody, known for its subscription music service, just opened a DRM-free MP3 store. The MP3s are encoded in 256kpbs CBR, and run $.99 per track and $9.99 per album. Shoppers can preview 25 full-length tracks a month from the standard 5 million song catalog, which is extra sweet if you ask us. To kick things…
Mitsubishi’s 149 iSP series LCDs have a 16-speaker sound bar built-in for people who are too lazy (like me) or don’t know how (like my parents) to set up a home theater. The integrated Sound Projector, as it’s called, sends sound flying around the walls to act like surround sound-in my experience, it was way…
Congratulations, Sony Ericsson, for winning what was ultimately a barely challenging competition to become the greenest electronics company around. Our favorite Swedish-Japanese conglomerate rose to the top of Greenpeace’s Greener Electronics Guide by exceeding Energy Star requirements, making all its models PVC-free and banning the most harmful chemicals from phones launched since January 2008. Unfortunately,…
The Mommy Megaphone is a gag gift for parents that bills itself as a “sure-fire way to get everyone to listen.” It has a speak mode and a siren mode, can project over 500 feet and is allegedly weather and baby-resistant. With an adjustable volume range of 5 to 10 Watts however, it’s almost completely…
Manufacturers are powering up on their Blu-ray disc development, now the format war’s over: just two weeks ago we had the 6x speed ones, and now Delkin has these archive-quality discs. According to Delkin they’re the first BDs “guaranteed to preserve data safely for over 200 years” and they use some sort of patented phase-change…
Matrox keeps updating its multi-display thingamajigs, this time with the first Quad-Head GPU in the industry, according to the company. The M-Series M9140 LP PCIe x16 can drive up to four 1920 x 1200 screens with 512MB of RAM. Matrox says its for business time, so hedge fund managers and fans of the Conchords will…