Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Seiko’s Slimstick is a fitness device that will detail calories burned across a day, length of daily activity, total number of steps taken, as well as offer up a relative fitness score to keep you in check. The Slimstick will store 12-weeks worth of data and the aluminum clad gizmo will set you back ¥6,984…
Sirius’ update to its Starmate line, the Starmate 5, is currently in front of the FCC for testing, and it looks like it might have a little trick up its sleeve. The gadget includes the standard abilities to pause, rewind, and replay up to 44 minutes of live radio, a memo feature to store up…
While we’ve heard Microsoft hint at keeping XP on store shelves longer than they initially stated due to the, well, boatload of people who want nothing to do with Vista, Dell is the first retailer to confirm having plans to sell the faithful ol’ OS past the end of June. But it isn’t because Microsoft’s…
Probably trying to polish its current poor image, Boeing invited Fortune Magazine to get an inside look into the Dreamliner factory, secret orgy quarters, and the showroom, in which—after spending $150 million on an empty aircraft—you have to pick the seats, including their A/V entertainment equipment (like whopping 23″ LCD monitors in first class), and…
According to a leaked specifications list, LG has a Prada II handset in the works, and it sounds like it will be packing quite a punch. The details that have been leaked suggest the cellphone will have a 3-inch (400×240) WQVGA touchscreen, 5MP camera, front mounted camera for video calling, Wi-Fi connectivity, 7.2 Mbps HSDPA,…
The first allegedly-leaked shots of the 3G iPhone arrived earlier this month. Yesterday, Engadget claimed that the iPhone was going to look all black and shiny, like in the photo. (Although they didn’t say that was a photo of the said unit.) Today, what we know for sure is that the thing in the photo…
LawnBott, the $2,750 robot which announced itself as your loyal automated lawn mower—capable of cutting 33,000 square feet of grass in a single charge—has revealed its true face: it wants to cut humans to pieces. Actually, just stupid humans, but the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Kyodo America have decided to “recall them immediately.”…
The 1957 movie Desk Set, starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, explores fears of automation and computerization. When Tracy’s character, Richard Sumner, introduces an “electronic brain” into the workplace it sets off a chaotic chain of events. Katharine Hepburn plays Bunny Watson, the head of a research department for a fictional television network and reluctant…
Gakutensoku is Asia’s oldest modern robot, built in 1928 for the ascension of the Emperor Showa (aka Hirohito). Twice as tall as the emperor at 10 feet, 6 inches, it could tilt its head, blink, smile and puff up its chest and cheeks with a system of inflatable rubber tubes. Long lost in Germany before…
Daryl J. Roy isn’t your average Sprint sales drone. Service doesn’t stop just because you’ve got the receipt and walked out the door. Have you ever checked out Sprint’s picture mail? He wanted to make sure Nicole McElveen did after she purchased some new phones from him. So he sent her a few picture messages,…
The Blu Jacket concept from Lunar Design aims to turn our children’s children into walking billboards using an electronic fabric based on e-paper technology and space-age organic fabrics. It could display your mood throughout the day, pull up maps using a built-in GPS module, display photos, video and (gasp) even advertisements. Imagine a future filled…
A MacFixIt reader had a very interesting email exchange from Psystar’s support, who told him that they don’t want customers installing Leopard themselves. Here’s the quote from the support team: We absolutely do not support customers attempting to install the Leopard operating system on our Open Computer themselves. This is due to a difficult process…
The arduino platform has been the basis for a lot of bizarre gadgetry over the years, and the audio ping pong project by Mike McCracken certainly stands up to the best of them. The game is essentially the classic Pong with one major alteration—instead of using your hands and eyes, the game is controlled with…
Here’s some iPhone software that is supposedly the first to record audio on top of video, at 128kbps sound and 320 x 416 video res. That makes it good fix for the iPhone’s official lack. In 2 months, when official third party software goes live, will anyone be able to replicate such a feat and…
We had a little peek of Archos’ new Sling-like TVportation service for their TV+ box and 605/705 media players when we messed around with their 605 GPS add-on, but didn’t get to really dive in cause they were having some network issues before we had to split. Anyways, here’s a video walk-through, completely with heavy…
Linux smartphones from Moto aren’t new tricks, but they’ve mostly graced international markets while we get barraged with RAZRs, RKRS and Qs. That might change with the A810, a Linux-based touchscreener that zoomed through the FCC. Few hardware buttons, with onscreen keyboard and handwriting recognition, along with an FM radio. Usually FCC field trips indicate…
According to MacNN, support for the UI Application delegate class on the newly released iPhone SDK build could indicate that running background processes is possible. That would be cool, but nothing has been made official yet. [macNN] https://gizmodo.com/iphone-sdk-beta-4-now-available-comes-with-opengl-es-3-383430
“Toshiba Corp. said its profit plummeted 95 percent in the January-March quarter due to costs of its exit from next-generation video HD DVD business.” $12 million profit, down from $251.57 million last year. Ouchies. [AP] https://gizmodo.com/toshiba-hd-dvd-loses-less-than-expected-369549
When it comes to forecasting the weather, I often think that sticking a moistened finger into the air is about as accurate as all of that fancy doppler radar. However, there is no shortage of weather addicts out there that religiously check the news and treat weathermen like they were friggin’ prophets. It appears that…
Will Smith over at Maximum PC just reviewed the Phantom Lapboard—that keyboard from the Phantom console guys which we first held for ourselves back at E3 2004. Surprise! They think the keyboard “rocks”. Their official position is that the pivoting scheme is comfortable and works great for righties and lefties. The only problem is their…
