Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Last-minute reports are indicating that Bill Gates’ pre-conference keynote address at CES will probably not unveil the Xbox 2, despite rumors to the contrary (and contrary rumors). Now it appears the Xbox 2, code-named ‘Xenon,’ will be shown off at the Game Developers Conference or perhaps even E3. https://gizmodo.com/xbox-2-to-be-unveiled-at-ces-23602 Xbox 2 announcement looks unlikely as…
PCWorld’s review of the Gateway Photo Jukebox is less than compelling. The 5GB hard disk-based player’s size is “close to those of the heavier 20GB Apple IPod,” while the color screen is too small to really be of much use, especially for viewing photos. All in all, it looks like another also ran—maybe that’s why…
ZapToPhone are selling “Tsunami Aid Ringtones,” the proceeds from which will be donated to UNICEF’s tsunami relief efforts. Different levels of donation are available, with each level (up to $9) netting you a different ringtone, all of which are the national anthems of affected countries. Assuming everything is going to UNICEF (and there’s nothing to…
Vonage is dropping some killer gear on us today, with product announcements that include this new Wi-Fi Voice-Over-IP handset from UTStarcom that will let Vonage subscribers make calls anywhere they can log onto a Wi-Fi connection. With an 80-hour standby time and three to four hour talk time, the F1000 looks practical enough to use…
What would make Apple announce a upgraded Xserve G5 just a week before MacWorld? Could it be that they’re so crammed full of new product announcements that they’re actually pushing stuff out early? Wishful thinking, perhaps, and idle besides—this 2.3GHz Dual G5 rackmounted machine is a beaut. Why can’t all my machines be rackmounted, huh?…
First, I should say: I’m sorry about shining those laser pointers at the jets. I just thought they’d crash or something—I didn’t realize people would get all freaked out. I promise never to do it again, but as my influence over military spending is patchy at best (my line iteming of R&D for a carbon-fiber…
No pictures yet, but apparently Motorola is set to announce a partnership with snowboard manufacturer Burton to produce a line of outerwear that not only has space for iPods and other portable music players, but will use Bluetooth to communicate with a bit on the sleeve that can control incoming and outbound calls, as well…
It’s technically illegal to bundle a bunch of Nintendo NES games with your portable DVD player, but god bless Taiwanese manufacturer Fontastic Telecom for doing it anyway, especially since their little entertainment unit can actually play them. And a double portion of blessing on them for including the seemingly superfluous telescoping antenna on top—it fully…
TimeTrax will be launching a raft of new products this week at CES, including this version of their XM satellite radio reciever and software that will directly copy songs recorded from the XM service onto a user’s iPod. While it’s somewhat impossible to, say, pull an entire album down from XM, it’s still somewhat surprising…
MobileTracker is reporting that Cingular will be getting their own version of the RIM BlackBerry 7100* series, branded as the 7100g. The keyboardless T-Mobile 7100t has been a relative success for the company, despite recent issues with the network access from the carrier. UK carrier Vodafone has their own version of the 7100 which is…
Looks like those Samsung concepts weren’t the only ones to leak out onto the web, as iDNES.cz displays what they presume to be the entire 2005 Samsung GSM phone road map. It’s an attractive looking bunch of phones, with traditional clamshells complimenting rotating screens and all sorts of other interesting (if perhaps pointless) features. And…
If you’re wondering how Sanyo can cram an 8-megapixel sensor into this new VPC-C4 camera, I can tell you: cheating. It’s really just a 4-megapixel unit which can use interpolation to upscale the resolution of the shots. That’s a not a bad thing, really, but it will provide results far different than those from a…
Having made many of the “must have” lists for Xmas 2004, WowWee is introducing follow ups to their breakout product, the Robosapien. A new 7-inch Mini Robosapien is the first to be shown, shipping in February for just $10. More robots will be shown at CES this week, including a new ‘Robosapien V2,’ a ‘Roboraptor,’…
Here’s a pic of that new AMD Alchemy-based portable video player from FIC, called the ‘Vassili.’ It’s cool and all that it uses the new AMD chip that does look mighty nice, the specs of the player itself aren’t all that impressive: 20GB hard drive, 3.6-inch screen, and USB 2.0. I think it’s pretty safe…
AMD has announced a new chip called the ‘Alchemy’ Au1200, designed to power portable video devices of all sizes. The hot heat about the Alchemy is two-fold: first, it can resize almost any major format video into different resolutions on the fly (upscale and downscale, it seems), meaning that devices that use the chipset won’t…
The Quark claims to the world’s “highest performance classic spinning top in the world.” That means it’ll spin for a long, long time—up to 15 minutes a twirl, they say. Manufacturer Quirkle will even include a laser pointer with each purchase to aid in “precision dynamic balancing,” as well as a glass spinning surface (aka…
There’s an opportunity for set-top manufacturing companies like Moxi and 2Wire to really outclass TiVo, simply because they designing devices around a very specific set of, well, specifications. The newly announced 2Wire MediaPortal, for instance, isn’t just a satellite receiver. It’s also an internet/Ethernet-enabled media streamer with a built-in 250GB hard drive, designed to provide…
Gawker Media (publisher of Gawker.com, Wonkette.com, Gizmodo.com, Defamer.com, Fleshbot.com, Screenhead.com, Kotaku.com, and Jalopnik.com) is looking for a corporate intern. You will have to share a Glock. Update: We’ve been flooded! Hold off sending in any more emails for now. The ideal candidate will be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as s/he bounces out of bed each day…
The StroboPick is a tiny strobe light guitar tuning pic, designed to let you tune your guitar visually by shining red and green LEDs on the string until they line up. While strobe tuners have been around for a while, the StroboPick is considerably cheaper than conventional $200 models, ringing up for just $35. And…
There is just a teensy bit of information floating up about the Samsung SGH-P777, an EDGE-capable phone that should show up on Cingular sometime in Q1 of ’05. MobileTracker has the basics, including this tiny picture we ripped off. I would expect to hear more from Samsung real soon, as references to the SGH-P777 are…