Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Slate’s running a pretty solid piece bemoaning the state of mobile gaming, in particular, the genocide of free games like Tetris and Snake as developers realized “consumers aren’t going to buy the cow when they can play Virtual Milkmaid for free. It’s obvious where this line of reasoning leads: Goodbye Tetris, hello $7 Tetris.” The…
Following closely after reports of freezing issues related to ATI hardware, some iMac users are now claiming that condensation is developing behind the glass panel of their displays. Others have claimed that their screens are plagued with a yellowish residue that has been described as “a grainy sand-like substance.” It is important to note that…
MTV’s gaming blog, Multiplayer, strikes again, this time chatting up Nintendo’s VP of Marketing, Perrin Kaplan. One of the questions tossed her way was about the creep of Apple comparisons post-Wii—white aesthetics, marketing, rapid hardware turnover and so on. She basically bats it down, aside from mutual love from their customers: I don’t know that…
When the wearer of an AlarmWear jacket, vest or backpack feels threatened, one tug on the carefully placed ring will set off a 125dB alarm. Naturally, the intent is to deter any thieves, potential rapists and the like —but let’s not forget that these products are also available in kids’ sizes. School bullying would surely…
Build a small hotel room and cram it full of Philips lighting, TVs, gadgets and remote controls, and you end up with this supposedly cheap lodging due to open in Q1 2008 in a few airports worldwide. A step up from those pod/coffins rented out in Asian locales, this room looks great with a big…
On this day, six years ago, the world fell in love with the bouncing baby iPod. Now it is a child star with worldwide acclaim. Was its meteoric rise Olsen-Twins-esque? In the years to come, will it become cheaper and cheaper, squandering its success for a turn as an anorexic coke-snorting paparazzi magnet? Or will…
The Multibook by Italianos Dante Donegani and Giovanni Lauda offers three conveniences in one handsome package that looks a whole lot like a book. From the angle of the Multibook’s spine, it appears to be a conventional alarm clock, displaying the date and time. Behind a diffuser (situated where the book’s pages would be) are…
In addition to the touchscreen UI we saw in Symbian last week, two new features—ScreenPlay and FreeWay—are coming to add even more sophistication to the platform. ScreenPlay is their new graphics engine that allows transparency and animations without taking up too much more battery life. FreeWay is less visible, but it’s a new IP networking…
AT&T’s reporting Q3 revenues of $30.1 billion for a net income of $3.1 billion, nearly doubling the same quarter of last year’s $15.6 billion in revenues for a net income of $2.2 billion (which was prior to its swallowing of BellSouth for total ownage of the Cingular venture). The real nugget of interest in the…
The Sidekick Slide is the midrange Sidekick, at $199, and it has a smaller screen than the Sidekick “Luxury” LX. I couldn’t tell so from the stuffy stock photos, but having held it and played with it, I do believe it has the best build quality of any sidekick. Motorola hardware plus Danger OS? Yes,…
Guess Microsoft doesn’t have to compete with Google on everything after all. At CTIA, Steve Ballmer flatly declared Microsoft won’t be joining the already crowded FCC spectrum auction party, since Microsoft has a “core competence … and the telecom industry has a core competence.” [Gadget Lab] https://gizmodo.com/fcc-keeps-open-access-provisions-for-700mhz-auction-de-308923
Heeding to the usage patterns of BitTorrent users Flickr junkies everywhere, or at least in NY, NJ and Connecticut for the time being, Verizon’s rolling out symmetrical FiOS service—20Mbps up and downstream. Available today in those locales and soon in the 13 other states where FiOS is available, the monthly fee will start at $65…
This week at TreeHugger: We hop on board the Vectrix, the sexy electric two-wheeler that’ll do 60 mph, for a test-drive. Here’s one for the tinfoil hat brigade: we uncover whether or not those persist headaches are the fault of your cell phones. The fact that nobody has won the 2007 Space Elevator Games —…
Here’s a video of the Rolly demo at the Sony Building in Ginza. As you can see, it appears to have confused this nice man as much as it confuses me. Oh Sony, you’re so crazy! https://gizmodo.com/the-sony-building-in-ginza-is-a-museum-of-all-things-so-313253
This family of crazy staple removers and other office implements are by New York designer Jac Zagoory, crafted of pewter and certain to elicit raised eyebrows and quizzical looks around the office. What the heck is that skull doing on your desk? The purpose of the lion, gorilla and gator you’ll see in the gallery…
According to Ubergizmo, i-Mate’s working on a Palm Foleo-like UMPC/PDA device that has a 1024×768 display, a built-in keyboard, an 80 (!) hour battery, and a price point of only $300. However, this shell is just a “shell” (like its name), and uses one of i-Mate’s Windows Mobile Ultimate smartphones as a base/processor. That makes…
Until now, if you wanted a Bluetooth watch that could show you your cellphone caller ID info, usually you had to wear a cheap plastic monstrosity on your wrist. But Citizen has somewhat alleviated that problem, releasing i:Virt, a variety of five Bluetooth-compatible watches that don’t look half bad. With a product like this, pricing…
Here’s a close-up hands-on gallery of the i-Mate smartphones we saw last night. We got a quick hands-on with them, and to us they feel just as speedy—if not speedier than the HTC phones we’re used to (thanks to the beefy processors they have inside). The D-Pad used for scrolling is more like a nub…
As far as model cars go, this Ford GT Nitro Gas RC car is gigantic. Just over 3 feet long, this 1:5 scale car is big enough to knock you down and kill you if you get in its way, so you’d better have a big parking lot where you’re going to race this thing.…
We just got hands-on with the BlackJack II, the Windows Mobile Smartphone follow-up to the popular BJ1. The things we noticed: it’s thin like the original, and small enough to feel the same in your pocket as non-smartphones. The OS is Windows Mobile 6, which improves greatly on the original’s WM5, and is definitely speedy.…