Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
If you really want to screw with someone, put this Wrong Number Generator on their landline. When your victim (wife) tries to make a call, it’ll screw up some digits and randomly dial someone. Better yet, it only does this 75% of the time, meaning that it’ll let them dial the right number 25% of…
The H10 is replacing Sony’s previous low end in the external lens series, the H3. It has the same 10x zoom rating on its Carl Zeiss lens worth 38-380mm. It also has the same 8.1MP rating, an 3200 ISO, steady shot and face recognition. But has a larger 3-inch LCD and Sony’s D-Range tech that…
The T300 is Sony’s newest high-end slim camera, with a 10.1MP sensor, a 16:9 3.5 inch screen and a 5x Carl Zeiss 5x zoom (33-165mm). The camera can dynamically switch between five scene modes, trigger the shutter when it detects a smile, face detect with priority for adults and children, search through photos by face,…
The DSC-780 and DSC-S750 have lofty-sounding model names, but don’t be fooled: they’re low end to the tune of $180 and $150. Do Not Want. At $180, this is not a lot of camera. For a little more, a gadget freak could hit up any other model in the line and do with a better…
Sony’s W series cameras are their midline point and shoots in feature and size. Best feature: Like the T300, it has a smile shutter mode which snaps the show when the subject grins. The W170 has a 10.1mp rating with 28-140mm 5x Carl Zeiss lens. They’ll come in lots of colors, with a few minor…
According to their own press release, Southwest is going to be testing in-flight broadband satellite Wi-Fi access so you can check your mail and do all sorts of stuff (though probably not surf porn or talk to someone on Skype). They’ll start testing on four planes this summer, with a wider rollout to come whenever…
We’d heard that AT&T’s U-verse service was getting a new top tier of 10Mbps downstream, up from 6. It’s official now, and still weak and girly (despite the “Internet Max” moniker) compared with Verizon’s competing FiOS, which has up 50Mbps packages in some spots. FTTP FTW, guys. [AT&T] https://gizmodo.com/at-t-year-end-report-card-c-336071
Good news, AT&T broadband subscribers! You will soon get free access to AT&T’s 10,000+ Wi-Fi hotspots, which is nice if you hang out mostly at Barnes & Noble, McDonald’s, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and airports. [AT&T]
You’ve been waiting almost a year for it, but Samsung’s finally putting out the Windows Mobile 6 upgrade for your BlackJack. Just hit up the link below at 5 p.m. EST (2 p.m. PST) and you’ll be able to load it on your own phone. Saves you a bit of cash from having to upgrade…
We were never huge fans of Frank Caliendo’s George Bush impersonations (they just seemed to lack the satire of, say, Phil Hartman’s Bill Clinton). But this clip from Caliendo’s FrankTV in which he does an impression of Andy Rooney reviewing the iPhone actually made us chuckle a bit. Oh, but no crying in the comments…
So the MPAA used to shout about a study they performed that showed that 44% of illegal movie downloading was done by college students, a figure they used as evidence that our government needed to enact some laws to keep our feckless youth population under control. The only problem? The study was complete BS, with…
We received half a dozen tips earlier today from our Svenska readers talking about “Gizmondo coming back.” The story went from a vague November 2007 quote by ex-convict Carl Freer into a morning internet craze, all fueled by a flash animation in a domain registered through an anonymous service. A bit of fact checking, with…
No, it’s not a steampunk chemistry set. That picture is of the United States’ only halogen-powered siphon bar. Imported from Japan after years of negotiations, the $20,000+ machine is housed at San Francisco’s Blue Bottle Café. Each “pot” consists of two globes. Water vapor evaporates from the bottom globe into the higher globe to meet…
Pen-top utensils! Seriously, are these not the greatest inventions ever? I never want to use regular flatware again, as I can’t jot down notes on my dinner with a normal fork. I mean, these things are a gimme for restaurant reviewers, but from now on whenever I’m eating I’ll always know in the back of…
Web 2.0 musicmeister Last.FM and CBS’s “unprecedented new service” is a leveled-up Last.fm: It is “the most complete, licensed music catalog” in the world with music from all four major labels and 150,000 indie labels, or what they’re calling “the world’s best jukebox.” It’s all available on demand (right now!) without logging in, is free…
Thanks to a new springy plastic insert for shoes, Japanese people will be spared the embarrassment of letting their foot smells waft through public places. Instead, they will experience the embarrassment of adding a strange breath of mint to every establishment where they are required to de-shoe. At every step, the insert pumps out a…
If one crazy grill design wasn’t enough today, then check out this Exhaust Burger grill concept. A short-listed entrant in a recent design competition titled “Dining in 2015,” the grill, invented by an Iranian team, plugs directly into your car exhaust. It soaks up spare heat in the gases to do the cooking, and the…
If I’ve learned two things in life, it’s that it’s noble to jump on some bandwagons, and some things just look sexy in red. That’s why I was pretty happy to see that Microsoft and Dell were joining the (Product) Red charity for global AIDS relief, and that for every one of the sweet new…
Click to viewHere’s a frightening but real proposition: if you are caught breaking certain traffic laws, not only do police have the right to search you—they can go through all your electronic data as well—your text messages, call histories, browsing history, downloaded emails and photos. In a recent academic paper, South Texas Assistant Professor Adam…
Brando’s new ANEO GX-10 USB webcam comes bundled with three PC video games that put your moves on screen. Play “Kung fu,” “Super Knight” or “Funny Stair” and you appear interactively in the action, which might brighten up a glum afternoon at the PC. The webcam is pretty standard, with 1280 x 1024 pixels at…