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Today, Mossberg takes a look at the lukewarmly anticipated Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista. It’s an odd little beast of a review, its flat, monotonal surface covering a bed of barbs. (Most of ’em are true.) Here’s the sharpest one (bold is mine): SP1 doesn’t resolve some of the most annoying flaws in Vista,…
Click to viewThe first iteration of Android wasn’t the prettiest phone OS by a longshot. However, today’s release of the refreshed Android SDK shows a UI that has more than a bit of polish. We took screens, but you should also check out the details, like this video showing smooth, animated transitions. Good on them:…
Stories like this pop up from time to time, but it never ceases to amaze how crazy ass lawsuits end up tying up our legal system. In this case, Best Buy customer Raelyn Campbell purchased a $1100 laptop from a DC area store along with the absurd $300 extended warranty. When her on/off switch broke…
The recent Apple TV 2.0 update got me thinking about the myriad of ways that consumers can get movies in their home these days. There are numerous companies out there vying for your entertainment dollar in both brick and mortar stores and online. So our question to you is: how do you get movies at…
Just after getting the boot from ‘Bucks, T-Mobile is trying pump some new life into their freshly amputated Wi-Fi services. They’ve chopped the price down to 10 bucks a month (from $20), retroactive to Feb. 6. But you have to ask for the new, cheaper price. Way to bury that selling point! https://gizmodo.com/at-t-bringing-free-wi-fi-to-starbucks-finally-354961 Also sort…
If you are into multi-monitor setups, the flipIT Duo Desk may be right up your alley. The desk can accommodate dual 19″ monitors or one cinema widescreen display up to a 36″ case width. Screen angles can be adjusted to your liking,there are cable ports on both sides, and there is an option of having…
Goldfish lead boring lives. Granted, they are probably not intelligent enough to realize what they are missing, but with the threat of a porcelain grave constantly looming—these little guys need to live for the moment. This “Speedfish” bowl allows them to do just that with a design that focuses on the exciting world of head…
Stripped down cellphone powered by everyday movement? Sounds good. Looks… ahhh…straight out of an overblown late 80s sci-fi novel mutilated by early 90s CGI. The description was even promising. “It’s all made of aluminum and glass…Power comes from kinetic energy similar to that found in watches that use oscillating weight to power a mainspring.” If…
So you have hoarded thousands of guns in a homemade bunker for that inevitable moment when WWIII comes knocking at your door. That’s all well and good, but how do you keep such an impressive arsenal clean? The answer is the F636HT Heavy Duty Long Gun & Handgun System. This bad boy clean up to…
Two Illinois congressmen are introducing legislation with the goal of upgrading that flimsy paper piece of crap we call a social security card to include a photo, fingerprint and computer ID chip. Recent data shows that nearly $45 billion is lost each year due to identity theft, which makes it increasingly necessary to safeguard our…
Here’s two visions of our future home. One has wall-sized TVs, lots of plastic wares and all-electric grooming tools. The other, touchscreens everywhere, smart kitchen counters and auto-thermostats. The first is Disney’s vision of now back in 1957, the second, its re-vision of the House of the Future with Lifeware, HP and Microsoft, which is…
Here’s another set of stunning, but rejected, Star Wars merchandise. These amazing examples of human genius go from a mini-fridge with Han Solo frozen in carbonite as its door to a Death Star BBQ, actual Leia’s hair headphones and even an AT-AT chair caddy to hold your magazines, snacks and Pepsi—the marketing masterminds proposed all…
Toshiba’s still kicking, at least enough to drop some new firmware for a bunch of its HD DVD players: A3, D3, A30, A35 get bumped to 2.0, with the A30 and A35 picking up 1080p/24 video capabilities among the smattering of fixes. [Toshiba via Electronista]
Remember in Tim Burton’s Batman when he asked Vicki Vale how much she weighed before zipping upward in that alley to escape the Joker’s goons? If Batman had a T-PLS pneumatic “tactical line-throwing system” with a 7mm Kevlar line and titanium grappling hook, he could’ve brought Vicki, some of her friends, Robin AND a bag…
AlamedaInfo.com has some very cool postcards from the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, also known as the Century 21 Exposition. Many of the postcards feature the main attractions of the Space Needle, as well as the monorail. See also: Seattle World’s Fair Official Souvenir Program (1962) Frederick & Nelson Ad (1962) Century 21: Space Needle Designs…
Click to viewJust two days after we played with the latest build, the new Android SDK is out with improvements to the overall OS. Like last time, you can download it and play with it, but in the mean time, here are the updates, which include better file support (OGG, for one), better animations, and…
Inferno is a “sonic barrier,” a long metallic speakerbar that generates a sound made of four frequencies between 2 and 5 kilohertz. The sound itself is 125dB, which is the typical sound made by an alarm, but according to Danger Room’s Sharon Weinberger, it’s “the most unbearable, gut-wrenching noise I’ve ever heard in my life.”…
Remember that BlackBerry Bluetooth music hub we saw on the FCC? It’s made a silent (but deadly) entrance into the marketplace over at Tessco, where it’s now available for $79. It still works the same—plug in your speakers to the output jack, then stream music wirelessly from your BB. If you had this on Monday,…
Hello. I’m still in Spain. Between jetlag, posting madness, and some insane hotel reservations, I ended up getting an hour of sleep each of the last two nights, which led to all sorts of vomiting and paranoia in between the blogging. Since we posted very quickly on the two biggest stories of the show, the…
Art Lebedev’s Teleport 2.0 is a great gadget: Simple, focused, functional. It’s a USB dongle that records calls to your PC, plus all of the other relevant info: Who called, when, caller ID, and phone support, among other features. The design’s perfect, too—clean and intuitive. And let’s face it, your hard drive is a much…