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You’d think a laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project would, I don’t know, account for the fact that it’s being used by a child? A child that likes to tear crap apart? Stuff like keyboards? No? Which is why people are seeing keyboards being ripped up rubber piece by rubber piece. A few…
Organizers behind the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver are putting together a “hacker superbowl” of sorts, pitting attendees’ skills against Vista, Mac OS X and Linux. Dubbed PWN 2 OWN (ewwww), the objective is to develop a brand-new “zero day” attack to take control of one of the three operating systems loaded onto laptops. There’s…
Despite the supposedly game-changing motion controls that the Wii brings to gaming, a good portion of AAA games use the Wiimote in the more traditional controller sense. How do you make the one-handed controller more comfortable for two handed play? By shoving it inside a body that adds an “analog” stick and two DualShock-like grips.…
Oh, caulk! Is there anything you can’t do? Not only do you allow us to plug up holes by squirting your oozing, white fluid-like substance all over the place, but you come in a long and pleasing missile shape. And if you get too difficult to clean up after using, all we have to do…
According to the manufacturer, the Between the Sheet Fan will create a “cool personal microclimate between your bed sheets, allowing you to regulate your temperature as you sleep without disturbing a sleeping partner.” In other words, its two “whisper-quiet” 12-volt fans will keep your private parts fresh or toasty, pushing nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen and methane…
You’ve seen Ben Heck’s homemade gaming devices featured here a lot, and there’s a reason for it: Adam Frucci loves him. Which is why he slathered much praise on the hardware modder in this Reuters profile. What would you want to know about the guy that turns two handed controllers into one handed ones? How…
Potential iPhone developers should go and grab the latest release of the SDK, beta 2, and revel in the new Interface Builder. Make your own fancy UIs for your iPhone game, or maybe just make an improved iFartz. We’re cool with either. [Apple via Macworld]
It’s pretty easy to blame Microsoft for the buggy experiences many users of Vista have had, but they aren’t the only culprits in this mess of an OS. No, it turns out that NVIDIA’s craptastic drivers have been responsible for a whopping 28.8% of all Vista crashes. Yes, nearly 1/3rd of every single Vista crash…
For Microsoft, full speed-ahead on a cheaper consumer version of Surface, its multi-touch computer table, means 2011. Tom Gibbons, VP of Microsoft specialized apps and devices group says that “In the three-year time window, we absolutely see how to get there. If we can beat that, we’ll try to beat that.” Alas, it’s Microsoft, so…
Ignoring the retro styling of this EZ Commander remote, it’s got one remarkable feature that makes the whole five-buck-design worthwhile: a trackball. Even though trackballs went out of style for most computer users (some die hards still swear by them) they make plenty of sense to use with a remote, so you can mouse around…
Lately I’ve been getting really annoyed at Time Machine. It’s running over the network to a Time Capsule, so it’s basically got free rein to backup whenever it damn well pleases, or specifically once per hour, at a time of its own choosing. The result is a sudden system and network slowdown when I’m in…
Kodak’s Quick Touch photo frames don’t quite go all the way on being touchscreen, though they’re spinning that as a plus, since you don’t leave grimy fingerprints on your screen. Instead, the border itself is a touchpad, so you can scroll through pics with swipes of your finger. https://gizmodo.com/realease-shogo-frame-is-first-with-touchscreen-and-wi-f-342280 The $180 M820 and $230 M1020…
Just as Sling announced a few weeks ago, their Slingplayer cellphone player is getting added support for Symbian UIQ devices this summer. Among the sets being supported are the Sony Ericsson P1i, P990i, W960i, W950i and M600i, along with Moto’s MOTORIZR Z8. You’ll be able to see it in person at CTIA coming up next…
This week at Uncrate: We live the high life Vegas-style at the Palms Place Hotel, Condo & Spa, cover our walls in nostalgia with Star Wars Action Figure Prints, and hide all our travel essentials in the National Geographic Global Travel Jacket. We also get back into game shape with Nike Sparq, give our pets…
You know how in the Matrix humans were grown in farms to harvest bodies to power machines? The kids at Berkeley Lab (Giz trivia: Chen’s a Berkeley grad) are making a jacket that does the same thing, but it powers gadgets like laptops and cellphones instead of futile resistance to Keanu Reeves. Basically they’re going…
Audio historian David Giovannoni and scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered and brought back to life the first audio recording ever made, 17 years before Edison’s patent. The ten-second snippet was made on a phonoautograph, a device that only recorded sounds but didn’t play them back, so they had to do some…
The following is not the plot to an upcoming Bond film: Russian bootstrap billionaire and Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich announced that his construction company, Infrastruktura, would spend $160 million on the world’s largest drill. The drill, five meters wider than the current champ, built by the same German concern, Herrenknecht, would be used…
I admit it: I’m a frequent floor-lounger … so these interlocking cushions from Pling Collection would be ideal furniture for me. ZipZip’s 30-inch upholstered pads have zips on all four sides, you see. So you can choose to make one huge floor cover, for, you know, generalized laying about, or combine them more sensibly into…
Hey, if you haven’t heard I’m doing an informal reader meet up April 5th, at (I think) Alpine Meadows in Tahoe. The point will be to ski or snowboard, while testing out some gadgets in the real world. What’s cool is that plenty of people are coming and that there’ll be some fun gear to…
The standard rule of Apple patents applies: Just because it’s on file, doesn’t mean they’re going to put it out. But I hope they do, America’s fat ass needs this. It’s an advanced fitness suite, like Nike + iPod cranked up to 1100. There’s hardware that keeps tabs on your heart rate and other vitals,…