Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
The Socket is a mobile power pack that carries a charge equivilent to 7 AA batteries, which works out to about ten charges for a Pocket PC or fifteen for a cellphone. Sporting 5V input and USB ports, the pocket charger can handle just about anything else that fits in your, um, pocket. A little…
A report on the next generation of super toilets brings out far more obvious jokes than can fit in a simple post here, resulting in a nasty snark feedback that flushes out the important bits of my brain. Luckily Wired gave Daniel McGinn two pages to go nutty, which he parlayed into a new American…
The chipset inside the iPod (and many other music portables) is built by PortalPlayer, who has just released details today about their next generation chip—the one that may power the next iPods. Now bear in mind as you read the specs on MobileMag, PortalPlayer tends to put the kitchen sink in their chipsets, only to…
If someone hacked our jewel-encrusted Sidekick and stole all our elf porn, these sponsors would be the people we’d be sad you prank called. If you’d like to advertise with us, we’d love to have you inside of our ad walls. https://gizmodo.com/preview/advertising-with-gizmodo-8027 This week’s sponsors include: • Condenet’s Men.Style.com Who is not selling porn, despite…
Maybe not the most interesting story today, but damn if this isn’t sensible. Reading RFID tags/forehead implants just got a lot easier with Travelwind’s RFID Reader SD Card for Palm OS. It’s simple to use: just holding your Palm device firmly and wave or rub the mushroom-tipped SD card on the surface until you get…
Almost a year after they were first announced, the Adidas 1 self-adapting shoe will be hitting the streets, with limited supplies shipping out March 18th and an official worldwide launch April 1st. Adidas is putting plenty of money on the line, with a $20 million ad rollout and all the necessary promotion needed to convince…
There is no greater hell than being addicted to Xbox Live and always worrying you’re missing something when away. Simultaneously understanding that and assuming you have friends, Victor Gonzalez Gomez presents XboxFriends, a simple Palm OS app that hooks up with WebSphere Everyplace Micro Edition to keep track of which of your sniper whore friends…
FireWire Depot has announced these two new FireWire hard disk drive enclosures, the G-SATA [left] and the G-Drive mini [right]. The big G-SATA is available in sizes up to 800GB (using two drives, obviously) for $1,200, while the G-DRIVE mini is $150 for a dual FireWire/USB 2.0 40GB version. They are pretty, if punched aluminum…
MobileBurn has a gallery of new shots from Motorola’s upcoming V6 PEBL clamshell phone, including this shot that gives a little peek on what to expect from the keypad inside. I’d like to see a shot of this in someone’s hands, as nice as these are. I want this to be as tiny as its…
Totally unbiased print rag the New York Post is running a rumor that our very best friends forever at the New York Times’ Circuits section may be getting the boot, to be replaced by a new section “dedicated to shopping, fitness and fashion.” I hope we didn’t have anything to do with it. We just…
Microsoft’s Techfest is the annual gathering of the peons to vie for the attention of Sir William of Pinkslip. One of the big names at this years event is Teddy. While outwardly innocent, he’s actually loaded to the gills with camera, microphones, face recognition software and the ability to track children while broadcasting images and…
Myriad options exist for verifying your identity nowadays, but one that seems the easiest for technophobes to figure out is signature verification. Secure Signature Systems has released a biometric pen that, when plugged into your computer’s USB port, analyzes your signature to confirm you are who you say. The Bio-Pen offers the advantage of zero…
MXL is showing off their new Desktop Recording Kit, a very promising condenser microphone designed for home and mobile recording. The mic itself is self-powered, removing the need for a pre-amp or external supply, and connects directly to any XLR input, or right into a laptop or PC via an XLR to 3.5mm miniJack connector.…
For all you companies wasting valuable time and money on computer support and maintenance, IBM has an answer: more software you’re going to have to spend hours and hours of IT time training your staff to use for themselves. The Thinkpad R52 is IBM’s first R-Series to run with Intel’s Sonoma chipset, and the first…
Intel’s Developer Forum is usually less for the company to show off their next Blue Man-celebrated achievement and more for suggesting the directions computer developers can move in with Intel technology. So when Intel Veep Don MacDonald gets up on stage with a square metallic mini PC concept that looks strangely reminiscent of a certain…
Wired discusses a fresh use for the iPod shuffle that actually takes advantage of its simplicity: The South Huntington Public Library in Long Island, New York is letting out shuffles with an audiobook saved to it. Library patrons are borrowing shuffles with Grisham’s latest on them and listening to them in their cars or wherever…
MobileTechReview has a nice round-up of the upcoming Pocket PC/Windows Mobile smartphones that we should expect this year, including this as-yet-unreleased Amoi G3601, a 300MHz clamshell design. We’ve got high hopes for Windows Mobile around here, with Palm straying far from the path, and Symbian resolute to downplay the ‘smart’ part of its smartphones. There…
WMMNA has a piece on James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau’s Augmented Animals concept. Spiked jackets for aerial protection on mice (and other rodents) and an “acorn positioning system” which helps squirrels remember where they buried their food are just a couple of examples of the systems these two have developed. A jacket with “motorized telescopic…
While it’s a bit of a “we’re not dead yet” press release, Polymer Vision has made enough progress with its rollable displays to have a product number, which is something. The 5-inch PV-QML5 has a QVGA resolution and has only four shades of gray at the moment, but they’re getting closer. Polymer Vision expects to…
In Japan, actively damaging your alveoli is as cool for schoolkids as it is here. Keeping with this trend, administrators (headmasters, etc.) are now using a new type of breathalyzer to determine just how entrenched in Flavor Country you might be. Kanematsu Wellness’s iki iki Monitor is a $650 grey box for convenient breath testing…