Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
After giving myself sysadmin sinking feelings every few minutes, we need to look at something pretty. The Imation Micro Hard Drive is amazing in that it’s a mini hard drive that looks like a padlock. This is very similar to the behavior of the great hooded skink which can, at will, appear as Marisa Tomei.…
We currently have about fifty cans of old paint in the basement, just waiting to rust, bust, and collect dust. This, therefore, is a clever little solution. The Paint Buddy can hold a small amount of paint is is useful for touching up messy spots where the dog began chewing on the wallboard to escape…
This is what I need right now. I’m having trouble with POP and mod_perl and all sorts of messiness. And I think I’m destroying my dd images but fscking them. Sorry for harping. Ummm… oh. This is a tub that takes orders from your PDA. You can send the tub special instructions and it will…
Case designs have been leaning towards the “pimp-my-mobo” side of things recently and this is no exception. THe SilverStone LC18 has an external LCD monitor on the case and looks like the bastard spawn of a MacMini and ThermalTake death-beast. Featured at this year’s C3, the LC18 is an interesting mix of elegance and over-the-topness…
I’m looking at starting up my IMAP server again, so this is very apt. According to a study in Alberta, Canada—Oh CAN-A-DA!—readers of diet spam tend to worry more about their weight and maintain a lower BMI. In all fairness, I suspect this study was based on emails more like “Hey, did you know that…
John here. Got back from the NOC last night—the NOC is in DC and I’m in New York, so it was kind of like visiting the reclusive Uncle rather than a fun road trip—and I rebuilt MOST of the system. Now I need to get my MySQL DBs back out of an image of the…
CamcorderInfo got their hands on the Sony HDR-HC1, the first ‘affordable’ High-Definition Video camcorder available. For around two grand (or less, even), you can get a true HD camera with tons of features, including a touchscreen interface, decent (but slightly limiting) manual controls, and the ability to shoot still pictures, as well. It uses a…
Ten million candlepower is a lot of photons, and for just $50, this Northern Industrial Super SearchEye Spotlight will give them to you—without cords. Using a rechargeable 12 volt battery and a Philips H4 halogen bulb, the beam is bright enough to reflect off the moon if you are on the surface of the moon.…
Sendo’s major R&D assets have been purchased by Motorola, effectively singaling the end for the tiny GSM cell phone company. Sendo’s first GSM had been highly looked forward to, but with a serious delay to market, it seems that even sales of 5 million or so handsets wasn’t enough to keep the company out of…
DefenseTech talks about the development—somewhat inevitably, I would think—of solar-powered flying drones, able to stay in the sky and monitor enemy troop movements indefinitely. A test model from AC Propulsion [pictured] has gone up for 48 hours straight and was only landed because the human operators got tuckered out. Military uses aren’t the only thing…
From purportedly leaked internal documents, here’s a first look at the Motorola iTunes phone. The most striking feature is clearly the scroll wheel, which could come into play for even non-music things like moving through stored phone numbers. There also appear to be dedicated buttons on the side—that’s not quite as ‘iPoddy’ as one would…
This concept CD sleeve connects to your PC via USB, then lets you use conductive ink to remix tracks that came on the CD in the first place. A very cool idea, albeit one that seems impossible to implement in simple fashion (perhaps when they can embedded some disposable remixing chips in the cardboard sleeve…
iAudio doesn’t get much respect, despite making products that have a serious surplus of useful features (even if they are sometimes a bit obtuse to actually use). The X5 is their latest player and like any non-iPod, it’s taking a little while to get up to speed in the reviews world, but it’s scoring pretty…
Elecom is showing off this new 800dpi mouse that has a side-mounted scroll wheel for horizontal movement. Microsoft and Logitech already have mice with the leaning wheels for sideways scooting, but I think a separate wheel might be an even better solution (not that I need to scroll horizontally all that much, but still). Elecom…
SanDisk has finally taken their BookLocker product to market, under the name ‘FlashCP.’ The system allows students to receive copies of their textbooks on USB flash drives, in the hopes that kids will be able to haul around a laptop and a FlashCP instead of a bag full of books. It’s an admirable goal, but…
The Optoma DV10 is an all-in-one home theatre solution with stereo speakers, a DVD player, and 1,000 lumens projector. You just set it up on a table, pop in a desk, and you’re ready for some full screen projector action. It includes composite in, stereo audio in/our as well as Optical audio out. Generally, it’s…
To all those who AIMed me last night during my travails, especially Chet, I love you all. I really do . I wish I could buy you all this Walking Fuel-Cell Powered Robot that drinks 1 liter of hydrogen every two minutes. Priced at $24,000, this scary looking beast weights about 8 pounds and is…
Hundreds of British, American, and even Polish spies died to get the Enigma Machine. Now it can be yours with this handy DIY home Enigma kit. Yes, kids, you can be Alan Turing for a day and break obsolete German codes coming from the fillings in your head. Batteries not included. Paper Enigma Machine [MCKoss…
Cute little cars? Check. Pencils? Check. Now you’re ready for the Basement 500. Lineriders follow dark lines you’ve drawn on any flat surface and you can even race them against each other. No special surface is needed and they’ll follow annotations to speed up and slow down. Do they exist? Probably not, but the concept…
This MP3 playing, 2-megapixeling phone features a 1.9 inch screen, Bluetooth, photo caller ID, and will never be available to you. Pantech is a Pacific Rim joint with lots of hot phones that are forever out of our grasp. Sorry. Thanks to all those who are AIMing me, especially Tim. I need to head down…