Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
More bad news for Research In Motion today as a US District Judge denied the company’s request to stop the legal proceedings until the US Patent Office decides whether the patents it holds are valid. In addition, the judge denied the $450 million settlement RIM reached earlier in the year with battling company NTP, which…
It appears that the Creative Zen Personal Media Center wasn t really flying off the shelves with its hefty $500 price tag, so Creative is hoping to give it a little nudge by offering an enormous $200 rebate on it. This device was never really that bad, it has somewhat of a big design, but…
Oh how cute, a company decided to use a number in place of a phonetic sound. That’s just dandy. This gadget tags commonly-lost items and then displays where they are on a radar screen, Metal Gear Solid style. Unfortunately, it wouldn t let me tag my sexuality—I guess I’ll never find it. Lost your Keys?…
Namco and Bandai showed off this project at IREX 2005 this year. It is a little too farfetched to be a real toy on the market, but nevertheless it’s pretty cool. It is a scaled up PacMan map that features a robot PacMan along with Pinky, the pink ghost. The robot is controlled by you,…
The Moto PEBL By Brendan I. Koerner The Pitch A serene-yet-serious man bearing a vague resemblance to a Siamese Dream-era James Iha holds a black PEBL in his outstretched hand. How he manages to look so calm is beyond me; if I were standing on a glacier clad in nothing but a fringed blanket, I’d…
This week at Lifehacker: Drive Firefox with your keyboard. Carry around secure data backups on your iPod. Optimize your Mac’s broadband connection. Learn all the right gym moves using exercise videos on your iPod. https://lifehacker.com/hack-attack-mouse-less-firefox-139495 You call yourself a geek and you didn’t know that Control/Command-K will snap your cursor up to the Firefox search…
Microsoft always seems to get like this after they celebrate their success with a night of drinking. The promises start to roll in for the millions upon millions of gamer children out there with broken hearts. Microsoft claims they are flying in units from Hong Kong to meet the extremely high U.S. demand for their…
These are L33T tiles for the board game Scrabble. It’s an entire set of 103 tiles that can be used with any Scrabble board to create an entirely new game. The new game is based on leetspeak and the website even includes an online dictionary so you can still challenge absolutely silly words like pwnz0r1z3d.…
Sony-Ericsson’s P990 is supposed to ship in Q1 of 2006, but not everyone is going to get what they expected. Rather than risk using a whole new design, concept, and formula for a new smartphone, SE decided they’d rather just play it safe and heap on the goods. One unique feature that stands out is…
GS North America has released pictures of its latest and greatest in strange-looking contemporary bathroom faucets. Smooth, Steam and Sweep are the three different bathroom faucets designed by A+Design. I like the shininess, but there are just two things you can improve about a showerhead: more water and more pressure. So making the showerhead look…
I’ll admit it, there’s not much to say about this life-sized robot. I mean, it’s definitely female, and really life-like, but I kind of just had to put the picture up because it’s so disturbing. As of now, the ACTROID can’t actually move because it’s glued to the floor, but it seems to be a…
eNook. I like the name. I’m going to say it a few times out loud… OK, I’m done. Now, why would you want a product called eNook? Well, as its website says, “It’s a very multi-talented workspace.” And you thought marketing people weren’t smart? Please. So, the eNook is basically a wall-mounted desk that comes…
If it’s portable, why shouldn’t it have WiFi? That’s what ambulance service provider American Medical Response (AMS) believes. And to prove it, the company is showing off a vehicle that includes an InMotion cellular Internet backhaul connection with WiFi to let paramedics hook up laptops and PDAS to a home base, then use them to…
Thomas Hawk picked himself up a nice Canon EOS 5D from an online store called PriceRitePhoto, the Yahoo! web store of one Steve Phillips, Brooklyn attorney/camera buff/web maven/easily angered individual (EAI). Strangely enough, the camera wasn’t shipping and when Mr. Hawk contacted the store, he entered a Kafka-esque—actually it was more like WWE-esque—hell as the…
Seriously, this must be a Golden Age for our species. We may have touched the moon, but a wrist-based fish finder will be what aliens will talk about when they land here 100 years from now—post nuclear and environmental holocaust, naturally. You just dip the green sensor into the murky deep and watch as pixelated…
Bucking the trend, Seiko Epson has decided to throw some cash into the TV arena, showing off 2 HDTV projection TVs in Japan. Though other camera companies have been getting into the home entertainment space, many of them have recently come to realize that competition is intense and money is tough to pull, so let’s…
Well, looks like not much longer to wait to get the specifics on Blu-ray, though the Blu-ray DVD Group still expects a Spring 2006 launch of the next-gen DVD technology. Doesn’t really surprise me that the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will be an information stomping ground, since companies who plan to use Blu-ray…
Intel is planning to launch their upscale Viiv computers will be bundled with entertainment links. Working with film distributors, music publishers, game developers and others, Intel has decided to integrate easy links to all kinds of media to their upcoming line of PCs. Of course, right now only European and Asian companies have actually signed…
Oops. Samsung may have to take a rap on the hand for fixing prices on dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips that use Rambus technology. Samsung has actually put in a plea agreement that would let the company pay a $300 million fee over five years, though a US District Court judge in the San…
Better balls, more power. That’s what NanoDynamics came up with when it created its NDMX golf ball, which features a metal center to better distribute weight and keep the ball from over-rotating. This makes for a straighter drive that’s less prone to accidental slicing or deviations from grass. Just $25 for three of these power…