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So maybe the Verizon bid for Sprint isn’t actually happening after all—or it’s happening without Vodafone’s approval. The UK mobile carrier stated that they hadn’t been talking to Verizon about the Sprint bid at all, despite what the Wall Street Journal had reported. That doesn’t mean Verizon isn’t waddling up to propose to Sprint, but…
Ooh, looky, a special edition inMotion! One could be forgiven his or her ignorance in asking what is so special about it, for the differences between this and the non-special-edition inMotion are, well, nil. Nonetheless, it is special by virtue of being black, the absence of color, the optical equivalent of a soul-sucking emotional vortex.…
Lexar’s new flash memory drives are a great idea. Each one is no larger than the USB connector itself, meaning that unless they can make the memory sticks shorter, this is just about as small as they can get. Lexar says they hope the drives might take the place of CompactFlash or SecureDigital cards. That’s…
China wins. When any country can support an entire company dedicated to purveying products that produce electric shocks, it’s clear that it is going to succeed in the international market in a way Geneva Convention-signing countries never will (okay, maybe they signed it, but nobody cool actually adheres to it). Consider the Yantai Qinglu Automation…
Just a few months ago Network Attached Storage (NAS) was the Hot Now and it seemed like everybody was rushing a product to market, even companies that didn’t traditionally put out products in that segment. The Asus WL-HDD, for instance: a Wi-Fi hard disk enclosure for 2.5-inch drives. Odd, but potentially useful, for sure. Well,…
I don’t know if it’s lust or inevitability, but I’m turning around on the iPod Flash rumors. Not only because of fantastic mock-ups like this one from Jack Cheng (100% Photoshop, by the way), but because it just seems like all the pieces are coming together. Now I have no idea exactly how they’ll do…
Samsung has shipped their new RS-MMC flash memory format, in sizes up to 128MB. It’s even smaller than miniSD, if that were necessary. Remember when CompactFlash seemed like such a wonder? Press Release [SEC.KR via SorobanGeeks]
Sometimes reporting that hard drives are going to get bigger feels a bit like noting that water will be remaining wet, but when Toshiba announces that its 1.8-inch hard drives will be seeing a bump to 80GB next year using a new “perpendicular bits” technology, that means we are duty-bound to note it, because those…
Canal PDA’s original article about the most bizarre Palm OS applications was so popular that they translated it into my harsh, guttural language for my edification. Then, using a series of hand signals, I was able to communicate that they should probably go ahead and translate it into English, since that’s what most of our…
A company called Bladox is selling an auto alarm kit for cellphones that uses an accelerometer to determine if your car or bike has been taken without your permission, then uses the phone to call or leave an SMS to any of a variety of pre-programmed numbers. Even better, they sell it as a kit…
This Sprint/Nextel merger is becoming a fat people orgy—just when the couples’ waves of undulating ham-blubber start to move in a terrible, captivating cadence, an even more swollen contender oils themselves up and takes their place in an unholy tripod. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Verizon has gotten a wink and a…
X-Gadget has a pretty okay comparitive review between the Audiovox PPC-6601 and the PalmOne Treo 650, both running on Sprint’s Vision network. Both phones are newcomers to Sprint’s stable, and I’m sure more than a few people are eyeing them both trying to make a decision. And I don’t know about you, but the Audiovox…
In a disingenuous announcement, Blockbuster has announced that it is (to quote the CNN article), “abolishing late fees on all its video tapes, DVDs, and video games as of Jan. 1.” Sounds great, until you read down just a paragraph, where they explain that rented products will still have a due date. If you go…
I can’t really get with anything that uses the term ‘bling bling’ at this point, especially when its describing a set of earbuds that look like they were dipped in glue and then rolled around willy-nilly in a few shiny crystals. At least the people at Modphone and NYC Peach have the decency to glue…
This little vo-tech called “MIT” is working on a project to develop “biohybrid” limbs that will use not only mechanical assistance to help amputees get around, but also regenerated tissues and implanted sensors to control the prosthetics. It sounds like a project to take much of the various existing prosthetic technology and bundle it into…
Product Highlights • Siemens SX66 launched by Cingular [MobileTracker] • Casio QV-R62 [LivingRoom] • Startup Tries On Virtual Tailoring [ExtremeTech] Business • T-Mobile USA: No 3G For Two Years [MobileBurn] • Mobile multimedia slow to catch on [BBC] • A Blackberry for each and every CEO [Corante] • Sprint, Nextel could make deal this week…
Believe it or not, robotic fish aren’t anything new—Issac Newton developed a coal-fired sturgeon in 1013 A.D., while the ancient Sumerians used to ride on the backs of stone-and-sinew whales as they travelled the space lanes in search of sweet alien snatch. But pre-existing technology never stopped the Chinese from trying their hand at something—this…
The USDA is using RFID tags to track chronic wasting disease (not related to chronic wasted disease, an affliction that sweeps our college campuses every Fall) in deer and elk. About 100,000 ear tags will be distributed to cervid farms, where the animals are raised for food and hides, allowing farmers and other USDA-affiliated workers…
SorobanGeeks has a picture of a new prototype electronic paper from Hitachi, which according to a story on the subscription-required Nikkei Net, is just 3 millimeters thick. It also appears to be in color, presuming that this picture is an actual device and not just a mockup. Hitachi plans to release a product using the…
Congratulations to Engadget, who has beaten us handily in the 2004 Weblog Awards. I will be spending next weekend darning Philip Torrone’s iPod Socks. Best Tech Blog [2004WeblogAwards]