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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is dedicated to global health issues among other philanthropic causes, revealed yesterday that it just so happens to hold 740,000 shares of McDonald’s stock. Wait, the same McDonald’s that contributes to the obesity epidemic in our country? Doesn’t that seem, I don’t know, counterintuitive? You’re paying for both…
Hinted not so long ago, the Sirius Stiletto 2 is the official sequel to Sirius’ first portable player, the Stiletto. As with the new Sportster, the Stiletto’s feature set has remained basically unchanged, keeping the Wi-Fi and SD MP3 playback of the original, while now supporting up to 100 hours of program recording. The big…
The RIAA was ordered to pay $68,000 of defendant Debbie Fosters court fees, but they aren’t paying up. In order to get them to actually pay what they owe, she’s asking the court to enter judgment against them, which basically means sending a collection agency after the RIAA. [Recording Industry vs. The People]
It also works in regular browsers if you want to cut down the noise level. Or you could just, you know, poke your eyes out with a stick. [Facebook] Update: New screencap straight from Chen’s iPhone.
Boasting 175,000 square feet of integrated solar panels, this storage center on the banks of the Willamette in Portland will probably lay claim to being the most energy-efficient storage facility when construction is finished. Built on just three acres of land, (most single-story storage facilities need 10 times that amount) Portland City Storage will be…
Here’s a ridiculous rumor that has just about zero chance to be true. Some guy on a forum says a Gamestop employee told him that Microsoft is bringing an Xbox Ultimate complete with HD DVD drive built right in. Judging from the “transcript” the user posted, neither him or the Gamestop employee really knew what…
With Sirius’ new Sportster 5 their dockable line has finally gone color. Featuring both a color display and a customizable backlighting to match your dash, the new Sportster is sure to offer hours of heated discussions over the merits of various schools of color design. Other than that, upgrades seem scant. The unit will offer…
We know you have a long wish list for the iPhone, but here’s your chance to vote on it, Digg-style. There’s now a site dedicated to iPhone feature requests, and it works on the same concept as community-based popularity website Digg. Vote for your favorite feature that was left out of the iPhone on the…
Phone Arena snagged some docs laying bare the rest of Verizon’s 2007 release schedule—no major surprises here, with most of the heavy hitters Verizon versions of stuff we’ve already seen, or at least heard about: the Blackberry Pearl, for instance, isn’t exactly tingling our spines with freshness. [BGR is saying it’s a Pearl 2.] Hit…
Droids just made their next step toward completely replacing human beings, beating out human pilots in air-to-air refueling. Last year’s bot-pilots were a bit clumsy, fumbling their way through the delicate maneuver that requires a pilot to perform an operation air jockeys liken to “taking a running fuck at a rolling doughnut.” But this year’s…
Boy, I hope that Courtney Love is making a lot of money off this one. The Kurt Cobain action figure immortalizes the poster boy of grunge rock in 18 inches of dyed plastic (was the dyed part distasteful?) Sorry. Apparently the figure is electronic, but we’re not exactly sure if that alludes to potential karate…
Where does iMac designer Jonathan Ive get his ideas? Growing up in ’70s Britain, his brain must have collected a giganormous amount of wonderful and eclectic design influences. Like this Telefunken PALcolor 614, which looks like a CRT version of the new iMac. More ties after the jump. Telefunken, the inventors of PAL, were hugely…
Holy crap. The Helio Fin is the company’s first clamshell, and is built on Samsung Ultra phone DNA. As such, it’s only 11.4mm thick, and hot damn, it’s the only one made of magnesium. It’s also the only Helio handset to have Garmin turn-by-turn GPS software on it, although you’ll have to rent it to…
This monocycle replica from 1873 is an stunning engineering and mechanical feat. Created by a spaniard using 19th Century documentation and old-style handcrafting techniques, it uses a 6.16-foot wheel, with a 238-teeth inner segment. As you can see in the gallery, the quality of his work is simply amazing. This man from Burgos, Spain, created…
We (ok, I) always thought that sending broadband over powerlines was one of those empty threats used to gain leverage on cable and DSL providers. But DirecTV has just announced a partnership with Current Group to provide their Dallas/Fort Worth market with high speed Internet through their wall sockets. The resulting BPL (Broadband Over Powerline)…
Sascha Segan at PC Mag just worked his way through testing the AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and Alltel RAZR2 models. Though all RAZR2s have similar specs—”luxurious metal-and-glass design,” 240-MHz processor, roughly 100 MB of memory, a 2-megapixel camera and “the biggest, most beautiful external screen you’ve ever seen on a flip phone”—each carrier treated this…
Samsung has come up with a sexy landline phone with all sorts of net capabilities. The SMT-i8080 can give you two-way video calls via Ethernet thanks to its flip-up LCD and embedded video cam, as well as allowing users to buy stuff, reserve movie tickets, stream audio and watch internet TV, using the phone’s navigation…
Intel “Penryn” 45nm Xeon processors to ship November 11 [Reg Hardware]
Sonos announced today that their Digital Music System, which wirelessly streams music across a house, has updated to System Software 2.3 and features Sirius Satellite Radio in addition to the Pandora and Zune services. Any Sonos system connected to the internet can subscribe to Sirius, which offers music, news and talk radio. New Sirius subscriptions…
Why do I find this funny? Because I’m sophisticated, that’s why. Pull the finger on the keychain and it drops a loud one. Drop $6.98 and it’s all yours. [The Lighter Side]