Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Fingerprint scanners are so last century. The new wave of finger-based recognition uses veins, not fingerprints, to ID people. Hitachi has just announced their new biometric cardless credit payment system that reads the patterns of blood vessels in one’s fingers. Apparently, all our veins are unique, like snowflakes or, well, fingerprints, and can be used…
Unlike the last wooden car, which was only wood-skinned, this Japanese wooden car is made entirely out of wood. Well, except for the engine and other mechanical parts. The Japanese wooden car was made by a furniture manufacturer, costs $32,000, and is probably the most dangerous car ever. Video after the jump. https://gizmodo.com/handmade-wooden-skinned-car-is-a-craftsmans-masterpiece-243852 [Wood Car…
The 1960’s TV show The Jetsons taught an entire generation what to expect of the future. Using comedy to create fanciful expectations of the future is not an idea exclusive to the twentieth century. The posters above advertise The Air Ship: A Musical Farce Comedy from 1898. Below is an article which appeared in the…
The former head of the popular-yet-shady MP3 site Allofmp3.com is looking at some jail time and some hefty fines in his home country of Russia now that his site has been shut down. The authorities say he owes the RIAA a bunch of money and was violating all sorts of copyright laws. The only problem…
Kayvan Novak probably isn’t a name you’re too familiar with. If you recognized the name as the guy who played Arash in the film Syriana, stop reading this post and go try out for Jeopardy or something. For those of you still here, Kayvan has a new series kicking off in the UK called Fonejacker,…
If you’ve got one of those lousy toilets that require you to actually hold down the flusher the entire time you have to flush, you have two options. One, get a new flushing mechanism from Ace Hardware that’s not a piece of crap. Two, build your own RoboFlusher that holds down the flusher for you,…
Thieves stole $7,000 worth of Blu-ray movies but ignored the HD DVD section of retailer Silver Platters’ shop in Northgate, Seattle. The bandits snatched 200 discs regardless of movie genre or cast, completely ignoring the danger of stealing movies with protagonists like Mariah Carey or Ben Affleck. [TV Predictions]
This is all unconfirmed for now, but a retailer is saying the Xbox 360 will get a $50 price cut come August 8. We haven’t seen any pricing rumors since E3, where everyone thought the 360 was going to lower its price to match the PS3’s “price cut,” but that didn’t happen. Peter Moore told…
If you thought that AT&T was becoming a high-end boutique cellphone shop with handsets like the iPhone and the HTC 8925, Pantech’s latest addition to their roster will straighten you out. The C150 is a pretty nice looking low-end cameraphone with a VGA camera, Bluetooth, Yahoo Mail, AOL, Windows Live Mail support, MP3 ringtones, picture…
Wired magazine’s Greatest Gadget of All Time Tournament has begun, and if your opinions match up closely to the majority of participants, you have a chance to win an iPhone. It works just like the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, where you vote up your fave gadgets in each bracket, narrowing it down to the…
Rumor has it that AT&T has teamed up with DRM-hatin’ online music store eMusic to provide mobile music downloads to the Samsung A707, A717, A727 and the Nokia N75. Five songs a month for $7.50 plus data charges isn’t exactly a bargain, but hey, DRM-free downloads on the go would be pretty slick. [Boy Genius]
Not only are AT&T employees not getting free iPhones, unlike their Apple counterparts (who are starting to receive theirs, by the way), but they don’t even get a discount. [TUAW]
If you’re lucky enough to head down to Comic-Con tomorrow, you’ll get a chance to both see a special screening of 300 and enter in a giveaway to win your own 300-inspired Xbox 360. As you can see above, it’s matte black—which probably means it’s an Elite—and has Frank Miller-styled blood spatter and a profile…
If you’ve had any type of headphones plugged into the iPhone when you’re on a call—including that tape adapter you have for your car—you’ll notice that you can hear the person fine, but they can’t hear you. Obviously, that’s because there’s no microphone on those headphones you’re wearing. Shure’s Music Phone Adapter let’s you use…
Just when we were thinking the hammer had already been perfected, ATOMdesign steps in with this S2 Hammer, designed with a split head that reduces the shock to the hands and arms of the poor sucker who has to bang on stuff with it all day long. He-man hammer beta testers say this beast can…
Nintendo results are out, increasing their net benefit a whopping 416%. They are upping their year projections to 16.5 million Wii systems (from 14m.) and 26 million DS (from 24m.) [Bloomberg]
With the billions of dollars being pumped into research every year, is it possible that the auto-emissions problem could have been solved by a trio of fisherman in Wales? It’s possible. Three fishing buddies (who also happen to be organic chemists and engineers) have developed what they call the “Greenbox,” a device that basically neutralizes…
You know USB flash drives have reached commodity status when manufacturers get so desperate for differentiation that they decide to make them smell good. That’s these FlashKey Fruit-a-Roma USB drives’ claim to fame, giving you a choice of strawberry, grape, orange or apple scent in capacities from 128MB to 4GB. It’s not entirely clear whether…
Behold the CubeBrowser! OK, now start moving, rotating and shaking it because that’s the way this thing allows you to navigate through photo databases like Flickr. Using a Xsens 3D positioning system (they tried with the Wiimote but it wasn’t enough), this wireless cube allows you to move through different photos and tags by manipulating…
One of the most widely known open secrets of the CE world became official today, when Samsung formally announced the existence of the BD-UP5000 combo Blu-ray HD DVD player, specifically that it will ship in Q4 for a list price of $1049. In addition, Samsung wedged in an announcement of the $1,499 HT-BD2 1,100-watt Blu-ray…