Samsung’s camera division has been busy lately. Yesterday we saw the NV11 and the i7, today we’ve got the L74 Wide. This 7-megapixel camera is equipped with a 3.6x optical zoom on its 28mm wide-angle lens. It features a 3-inch touchscreen LCD through which most device functions are controlled. Like other new Samsung cameras, it features face recognition AF and AE. It also has Samsung’s fancy ASR image stabilization, which should help with higher ISOs. → Read More
A while back, we reported that Apple would be releasing an 802.11n enabler as a software download for $1.99. Sure enough, look what has showed up on Apple’s website. The download allows for you to unlock 802.11n wireless capabilities in the following Macs: • MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo • MacBook with Intel Core 2 Duo • Mac Pro with AirPort Extreme option • iMac with Intel Core 2 Duo (except the 17-inch, 1.83GHz iMac) Apple notes however, that if you buy the new Airport Extreme Base Station with 802.11n, the enabler is already included in the box. So don’t buy that enabler just yet, cheetah pants – you may be able to save two bucks and buy some Pringles to eat while you download torrents at blazing fast speeds. Official Site [Apple] → Read More
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/syndicated_player/index.jhtml You don’t need any silly blogger to convince you that Vista is by and far the best Windows operating system yet. No, you need Microsoft’s chairman Bill Gates, who sat down last night with the Daily Show’s John Stewart for quite awhile and discussed the OS, as well as password protection and that pesky F12 key. It appears as if the Daily Show’s crew went all-out for the chairman’s visit, as the Vista logo is every-freakin’-where on the set. If the charming Microsoft boss doesn’t make you want to get Vista, we don’t know what will. Catch Part 2 after the jump. → Read More
Well this is about the darndest thing I’ve ever seen. In our scouring, we uncovered a Flickr photoset of a person who has seemingly every Apple Macintosh device ever made in an elaborate basement setup. You name it and this person seems to have it. I think the real question is, who has the money to do something like this? People with more money than me, clearly. Flickr Photo Set → Read More
http://www.podtech.net/player/podtech-player.swf?bc=3F34K2L1 While D.A.V.E. isn’t the most clever acronym in town (it stands for Digital Audio-Video Experience), it looks to be a promising gadget thanks to its slim design and features. Seagate’s D.A.V.E. is basically a small, 20GB hard disk with Bluetooth and WiFi built right into the device. You can transfer files to and fro without the need for a PC, making it perfect for consumers who need more storage on their cellphones or other enabled devices. The best part? It supposed to cost under $200. No word yet on when it’s going to hit the market, but we’ll definitely be sure to keep an eye on this gem. Seagate introduces “Dave,” portable wireless storage device [ScobleShow] → Read More
Aside from a traffic light changer/MIRT, a GSM/GPS jammer is second on my list of devices I should own, but don’t because I’m trying my hardest not to be a jerk. However, if I ever do feel like being a bit of a devious bastard, I can order this GSM/GPS Jammer from DetectNu, maker of radical spy gear. The device plugs right into your vehicle’s cigarette lighter for mobile power and is designed to block all GSM and GPS signals in the surrounding area. According to DetectNu, this is for the ultra-paranoid who think they’re being tracked via GSM and GPS. No word on pricing but it’s available through DetectNu directly. GPS and GSM jammer [Navigadget] → Read More
Damn you Apple. You sure do like to tease us, eh? You take down your entire online store to get us all wound up then drop a big pile of colored iPod Shuffles on us while you laugh and call us girly names. You can now scoop up a Shuffle in pink, orange, lime, blue, and silver – similar to the original iMac colors and all are available to buy right now. But why no previous announcement about the $79, 1GB MP3 player? According to some (Josh mostly), the covert release was in response to Microsoft’s recent release of Windows Vista. We doubt it, but what do you think? Coincidence or response to Vista? Apple Store → Read More
I’m sure a handful of you hooligans have been inside a Borders or Starbucks and have seen that “T-Mobile” wireless network lying low. Truth be told, the T-Mobile HotSpots around the country are great ways to connect to the Internet, but they’re also a little pricey for the casual user. So this brings us to Microsoft Vista. Vista users who connect to a T-Mobile HotSpot can receive three months of free, unadulterated, steamy access. Everyone else however (XP, 2000, Linux, OS X), is getting the shaft – until now. Use the following user agent switching process in Firefox and within minutes, you’ll be surfing the Internet at no cost to you. → Read More
I must say I was born in the wrong decade and I thought the 80s rocked my socks off. If I only I had the gadgets and gizmos these young whippersnappers had these days, I’m not even sure where I’d be right now. Maybe I’m earning 7 to 9 figures a year, driving a wicked fast car, living on my own surfer’s paradise and having wild uninhibited nights with super models but no, that is not how it worked out. My existence is culminated by the fact that I am just another cube monkey working for the man, inhabiting an apartment in the supposed greatest city on earth which is actually an urban jungle that wretches my stomach everytime I walk out the door but hey at least I’m famous, right? Anywho, had I been in possession of these wonderful spectacles I may have graduated from college in a timely manner and achieved those dreams. My senior classes would have gone much smoother with the MyDo Bururu since it would have scared the crap out of me everytime I fell asleep. Set to go off on 4 different levels to shake you awake, pick some up for $370. Wake Up Jackass [Plastic Bamboo] → Read More
As one of CrunchGear’s many resident alcoholics, I feel it is my duty to present to you the following DIY contraption. It seems some lovely gentleman was able to rig a rice cooker and a plastic garbage bag together so that he could produce a rice-based cooking wine. The article explains in great detail what you’ll have to do to in order to get a speakeasy up and running in your domain. So remember kids: should you become bored one day, you can whip your father up a cheap and easy Father’s Day present with a little creativity and a whole lot of rice cookin’. Garbage Bag + Rice Cooker = Alcohol Still [Instructables via MAKE] → Read More
Whoa! The Apple store is down all of a sudden and no one has a clue why. Could it be a Mac tablet? Maybe the iPhone is getting a shipping date? Perhaps there’s just SQL trouble? What do you think Apple is up to? → Read More
Perhaps you’ve heard of this Nintendo Wii every person and their uncle keeps talking about. Well the word over at GameDrift is that they’ve confirmed Nintendo is going to be releasing the Wii in multiple colors. For now, red and black are confirmed, but don’t be suprised to see the trend continue until you can spell out ROYGBIV with the colors Wii. No dates, times, locations, or information at all has been given aside from the two new colors though, so don’t start holding your breath for a Mario Kart Edition Wii or any jazz like that. It doesn’t even matter though, since we all know that the Playstation 3 is still the best console, like, ever. Confirmed: Nintendo Announces New Wii Colors [Game Drift] → Read More
<div align="right" class="center" There’s a scene in the film Thirteen Going On Thirty where, at a boring party, all the party-goers break out into an ad hoc recital of the dance moves to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. While I firmly believe the rest of the movie sucked, this scene was good, and it’s has become a staple in teen flicks; apparently Hollywood producers think people can arbitrarily break into choreographed dance routines at the drop of a hat. As the video above demonstrates, this might be the case. Naw, this was planned, and it kicks ass. Sure, it’s not gear, but it’s geeky enough to be relevant to our core demographic and our non-nerd readers as well, so enjoy. How long do you suppose it took them to get it all together? If any of my soon-to-wed friends are reading, you are so doing this at your wedding. That is all. → Read More
BBC Tetris Documentary: Amazing Get Your Game Boy Fix Blackberry Pearl + TeleNav GPS = Hearts Move Over Hello Kitty, Mashimaro Is In Town The Help Key: An Airport Tech Survival Guide → Read More
Zoho continues to rock along, releasing new products every few weeks (see Zoho Wiki for example) that have turned their Ajax office suite into the best on the web, bar none. See here for all of our previous Zoho coverage. Today they’ll release their newest product – Zoho Notebook – into private alpha for selected users. After a feedback and testing period they’ll release this to the public in March. Notebook is a product that allows users to create, aggregate, and collaborate content in an online whitespace from other Zoho services as well as any web content. Embedded applications will work just fine as well. Not surprisingly, Notebook follows a notebook metaphor, consisting of books, with pages that you can drop content from services like Zoho Writer and Sheets onto. The pages currently supports adding spreadsheets, word processor, task, planner, contacts, and calendars as pages or embedded widgets on the pages. Other embedded objects consist of text, images, video, HTML, RSS, javascript, Flash embeds and webpages. Images, video, and audio can be drawn from third party services or recorded right from within the program using recorders from Flixn. Notebook will also come with a browser plugin for Firefox and IE you can use to cut and paste web clips into the notebook. If you can’t find what you need on the web they also have some simple drawing tools (text, box, circle, line, comment bubble) to get the job done. Each object on a page can have its z-depth changed. Click on the screen shot above for a larger view. This goes way beyond what Google Notebook offers, which is really just a content clipping service for websites. A good analogy to Zoho Notebook is Microsoft OneNote, a desktop application. But with sharing and versioning. Each notebook allows very fine grained access control. You can publish a book publicly to a static URL, share just a page, or share just an object on a page by granting read and write privileges to other Zoho members. They’ve also integrated Skype status right into the objects, pages, and books so that you can chat to collaborate with the users you’re sharing with. In the release, they plan on also adding a Zoho chat box to provide another way to connect for members not on Skype so you can edit in real time. Each object and page has version controls as well. Project → Read More
KushCash is a mobile payments solution that launched in 2005, and they’re pushing out a new version of the service this morning. Back in 2005, mobile person-to-person payments were seen as a viable niche, since PayPal didn’t yet have a mobile product. KushCash promoted their product to the urban elite – the surf and skater crowds in Southern California where the company is based. Their world changed significantly in March 2006 when PayPal Mobile launched. KushCash is a not-bad service but it requires a software download that most phones don’t support. PayPal’s solution uses the text message platform that all cell phones can access. Given PayPal has an easier to use product and it actually works on most phones, I was compelled to ask KushCash this simple question: How do you get over the PayPal hurdle? The answer: Hmmm…good question, how do we tackle that giant? We don’t. At least for now. Why tackle a bloated army when you can train a village of talented warriors from far away? I think that what KushCash offers is a completely different beast in its own – yes, of course we’d love users to use KushCash for all types of merchant, sales and personal transactions – and they do, but what I think that KushCash offers that behemoths like Paypal and other smaller competitors don’t is personality, ease-of-use and a fresh format and attitude. If the mobile payment market was set in an old black and white high school movie – we’d be the new student that arrived in the middle of the year. Handsome, yes. Smart? Yes. A rebel? Yes. But he loves his mother and comes home every night for supper, but tears it up on the drag strip after dark. We’re the first to offer social lending features and financial network bragging rights. Regardless of all of that, I think that KushCash would appeal to users that don’t want to use what’s out there. There are users that want a service that functions like Paypal Mobile, but maybe executes it in an easier and more relaxed way but backed with the same safe and secure financial/privacy measures. Feedback is great so far, we have surfers, bankers and babysitters that use KushCash for social lending AND for business. We’ll check back in to KushCash in six months and see how they’re doing. → Read More
Portland based SplashCast is launching this morning after a long beta period. Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote a long review late last year after demo’ing the product (and he liked it so much he now works there). Splashcast is a little hard to describe, but once you get it it makes sense. It’s a Flash media player where the user can make various channels of content – including text, video, pictures, and audio files – and then embed the player containing those channels on a website. It basically incorporates functionality lots of other embeddable products. YouTube videos, photo slides shows like those offered by Slide, podcasts feeds, etc. can all be added as channels and will take up a fraction of the screen real estate required by all of those other services. For already busy websites, the Splashcast player is much easier to stomach than 3-4 widgets from separate companies. Each channel of content also has a RSS feed, so interested viewers can subscribe to it and not have to come back to your website for access. Splashcast will host content directly, but the real utility comes from plugging in videos from Youtube, photos from Flickr, etc., so that you can keep your media where you want to and not have to copy it over to Splashcast. You can even add voice overs to any of the show segments as Marshall has done below. http://web.splashcast.net/p/ Splashcast originally started as QMind, a creator of enterprise e-learning software, and had raised $1.3 million from angels. They relaunched last summer as Splashcast and are currently working on a series “A” round. → Read More
For those of you who don’t know the basics of widgets, or the difference between desktop and web widgets, check out this surprisingly unbiased overview post on the Yahoo Widgets blog where they talk about the pros and cons of the four major desktop widget platforms offered by Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Apple. A key factor when deciding which platforms to consider when building a widget is the overall distribution and the ability to build a single widget for desktop and web use. It’s going to be hard to argue against Vista when thinking in those terms, which will very quickly have greater distribution than all of the others combined on the desktop. And Vista widgets also work on Live.com pages. For companies with enough resources, however, building on all four platforms is relatively straightforward. The post leaves out all of the widget startups, like Fox-backed SpringWidgets. And more are coming soon. Developers should keep an eye on those platforms as well and build to them if and when they gain traction. → Read More
Sick of seeing that bloody red Nokia E65? We thought so. Check out the E65 in a refreshing black/brown/metal combo that really makes it look stunning – especially with the leather palm rest. If you want to see it in every possible angle and inspect every last detail, hit the link for a plethora of pics. As for us, we’ll be keeping an eye out for this one during 3GSM for sure. → Read More
I never, ever thought I’d say that $150k was a bargain for anything, but then I found the Ecto 1 for sale on Hemmings. This is the real deal, the actual Ecto 1 used in the Ghostbusters films, refitted to its original form. This modified ’59 caddy comes with everything you remember from the film, including the unique and god-awful siren. Next to the proton pack (you’ll have to build your own), this is the most iconic gadget in the Ghostbuster’s arsenal. Whoever buys this, listen: you’ll be tempted to gather three friends and dress up like the Ghostbusters. You’ll be tempted to careen around town with that siren screaming through the night, scaring confused pedestrians. You’ll be tempted to lean out the window and yell things like, “There it goes! It appears to be a class 4 spook, perhaps a Dangold’s Shambler! Get me closer, Ray!” while driving by startled, excited families. When these temptations strike, good buyer, we say give in to them. Ecto 1 Product Page [Hemmings, via Boing Boing] → Read More
