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Ozmo, a spanking new startup backed by Intel and partnered with Belkin, will demo its new Wi-Fi-based Bluetooth competitor at Computex on Tuesday. The system, which is the central part of Intel’s Cliffside concept, uses current Wi-Fi hardware to create secondary networks that connect with peripherals built with its new transceiver. The transceiver will have…
We’re not sure what this is, where it came from or what it’s supposed to be, but Newest New News seems to be a parody "tech news" segment on comedy.com—a site that looks a whole lot like Will Ferrell’s funnyordie.com. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the clip is halfway funny in various…
Poor Toshiba’s still not quite over the HD DVD defeat earlier this year, as evidenced by its president saying that they will “not market DVD players that are compatible with Blu-ray,” instead opting for upconverting DVD players to bide their time before Blu-ray becomes so prevalent that the company has no choice. However, if you’re…
The Digitable coffee table was designed by Peter Lea as a functional piece of furniture that can play your CDs / DVDs while maintaining a cool contemporary look. It also features a sleek control panel integrated right into the frame and a disc storage carousel located in the base of the table. Let’s face it,…
It appears that no job is safe from the steady march of technology. Even beggars are being replaced by robots thanks to Alexander Gurko’s “Bettelbot” (or “BeggingBot” in English). Basically, the BeggingBot is a robo-bum that plays music using sounds generated by floppy and hard drive mechanics and then begs for money once the song…
ASUS is following in the steps of other Taiwanese companies HTC and Giga-Byte and making its own UI wrapper on top of Windows Mobile. In this case, ASUS’s Glide might be—in this humble monkey’s opinion—worse looking than Windows Mobile 6.1 itself, with clashing fonts, amateurish themes and backgrounds and a general discontinuity that isn’t found…
We’d heard about Time Warner Cable’s test run of consumption-based billing in Beaumont, Texas, back in January, though details were scant. Now they’re plentiful. The plans (for new subscribers only) start up on Thursday, but thankfully they’re not as bad as we imagined-the overage fee is only $1/GB and is waived the first two months.…
If you need proof that anti-aging drugs are going to be serious business, you only have to look at today’s purchase of Sirtris, a pharmaceutical company dedicated to researching the anti-aging benefits of restricted-calorie diets, by GlaxoSmithKline. The price of the purchase? $720 million. And they plan to make all of that money back and…
A lot of pros who use their laptops in the field have to power down or plug in between swapping batteries. Often, this happens multiple times a day. It’s time consuming, and well, I’d love it if a professional grade laptop had a small battery, maybe 100ma or so, that could keep your laptop powered…
Long before the XO Laptop climbed over $100 and OLPC’s name was sullied by infighting (and then redeemed by its dual multi-touchscreen XO2 concept) OLPC founder Nick Negroponte was preaching the gospel of ten-finger multi-touch over the "mouse on Macintosh," which sounds profoundly clunky compared to his vision of interfacing with computers. In this 1984…
We have heard rumors that the upcoming 3G iPhone will be thicker because of possible additions like GPS and a larger battery, and we have heard rumors on the other end of the spectrum that say it will be up to 22 percent thinner than the current version. So the question here is: What do…
Advanced video surveillance cameras that discreetly examine each face or vehicle that comes into frame are becoming more commonplace in big cities and large corporations. These cameras are equipped with intelligence algorithms that can distinguish the face, vehicle or license plate of a wanted criminal and alert the proper authorities when necessary. However, innocent people…
After experiencing a little trouble early on with the robotic arm on the Phoenix lander, it appears that all systems are go for NASA to begin sampling Martian dirt. A practice scoop was carried out successfully and scientists noted that “a bright material appears in the scooped-up soil and in the hole from which it…
Everyone knows that the casino with the most flash often gets the most business. So, if you are looking to take a few dollars out of your friends’ paychecks on Saturday night, lure them over with the X10 Ten Player Automated Poker Table. It features 10 12.1-inch touchscreens for the players and a 27-inch LCD…
Just a heads-up college students, in case you’re in the market for a new Mac: Apple’s annual back to school promotion is expected to kick off tomorrow, and it’s rumored to top the nano they’ve been giving out for the last few. College students who buy a qualifying Mac will get a free 8GB iPod…
This analog traffic signal was in use from the 1940s through the 1970s in Australia, eventually replaced by whatever it is they’ve got going there now (Koala bears on poles holding flash cards, we think). It’s fantastic. Instead of solid lights, the analog rotating signal shows you exactly how much time you’ve got left in…
Everyone knows how much of a bunglefart the “Certified for Windows Vista” sticker was in determining whether computers worked OK or completely lousily with Vista. Microsoft doesn’t want to repeat this, which is why they’re telling hardware manufacturers to start testing their products with Windows 7 as soon as the first beta is out, unless…
Magnetic fields are invisible, at least usually. But Scientists from NASA’s Space Sciences Laboratory have made them visible as “animated photographs,” using sound-controlled CGI and 3D compositing. It makes the fields, as explained by the scientists, dance in an absolutely gorgeous movie called Magnetic Movie. You don’t want to miss this one, which is the…
We know, we know, it’s just a week away. But this round of rumored specs for the 3G iPhone comes via Leander Kahney who has deep tentacles in Apple, and should have a solid source BS detector. The two most salient points are that it’s 22 percent thinner (mighty specific, but goes against “it’ll be…
This Griffin WindowSeat is a suction cup-based iPhone/iPod touch mount for your car, allowing you to keep your phone at eye level for easy map viewing and voicemail checking. What’s left unsaid is how sturdy this thing is in case of an accident, and whether it will come careening off your window or dashboard into…
