Update on the TechCrunch Tablet: A humble (and messy) beginning. Prototype A has been built. It’s in a temporary aluminum case that a local sheet metal shop put together for us that’s at least twice as thick as it needs to be, but the hardware has been defined and is nearing lockdown. We booted the machine in the case for the first time today, accessed the Wifi network and were able to navigate a web page via the touch screen.
Most of the work is transitioning to software and UI, and real industrial design work on the case is beginning. → Read More
Our former writer and good friend Mike Kobrin now lives in New Orleans. Keep him and NOLA in your thoughts tonight. → Read More
At some point we are going to run into the issue of media players just cutting their way out of our pockets. You’ll have to buff the edges so you don’t slice your fingers off while changing tracks. I guess we’re not quite at that point, but 4.5mm is pretty damn thin. This thing doesn’t have much branding, and I’m not sure I can count on a place called “Component Warehouse” for support if my player snaps in half during shipment, but it’s all worth it to take off that last 2mm. → Read More
We have here what appear to be some actual, big-boy shots of the impending T-Mobile HTC Dream. You know, the Android phone? As always, take these types of things with a grain of salt, although these photos do look pretty convincing. The shots were grabbed from a Chinese-language forum and sent to Engadget. My Chinese isn’t all that good, considering I’ve never been there, spoken the language, or learned to read the many and varied symbols. These photos should be worth a couple thousand words in any language, though. → Read More
Behold! PAX in pictures. There will be more later, I’m taking a photo every other step. There are cosplayers, nerds, enforcers, classy ladies, and everything in between. Click through for our first batch of PAX-y stills. → Read More
I mentioned it in an earlier post, but as it all went down while I was in the middle of swappin’ out cameras, I missed getting this little gem on video. Fortunately, ye olde Tube of Yous has come through. To explain what you’re seeing: About halfway through his set, Coulton pushed an iDVD-built video menu to the concert hall’s projection screens. It had two items: one labeled “Play this one”, one labeled “Not this one”. After a few rounds of playful banter between Coulton and a sound guy whos name he simply couldn’t remember, they managed to tag-team the audience into chanting for the not-to-be-played video (The camera used in that video up above didn’t quite pick up just how loud the chant was – people were pretty riled up). “Sound Guy” clicks the no-no video, aaaaaand it’s a rickroll. There were a few thousand people in that concert hall. Could this be the largest simultaneous Rickroll in the history of the intarwebs? → Read More
You hear that rumble? Thats an army of geeks, gettin’ down so damn hard that the very walls around us were beginning to crumble. Okay, fine – it’s just a nasty bit of clipping caused by the compact-car sized subwoofers lining the edges of the stage. They were inescapable. Wherever we stood, it was like the subs were in our camera. Sounded amazing in person; on film, not quite as nice. Read on for impressions of the set and a shot of the crowd showing off their gadget collection. → Read More
Late last year we discovered that MySpace cofounder Tom Anderson, arguably the most popular individual on the Internet with 240+ million MySpace friends (he is added by default to every MySpace account) was actually 37 years old, not the 32 that he continues to claim on his MySpace page.
Now we’ve learned a much more colorful part of Anderson’s history: In 1985, when he was fourteen and in high school in Escondido, California, Anderson was subject to one of the largest FBI raids in California history after hacking into a Chase Manhattan Bank computer system and subsequently showing his friends how to do it. He was never arrested because he was a minor, but the FBI confiscated all of his computer equipment and some newspaper accounts of the incident stated incorrectly (see image below) that he was “convicted in federal court of computer hacking and placed on probation” (the statements were corrected in subsequent articles). Anderson used the hacker name “Lord Flathead.”
MySpace and Anderson would not comment on this post. But most of the information is now available online as news articles from the 1980s (and earlier) have been added to Google and other search engines. We came across an initial article accidentally and started investigating from there. Some of the information in this post has been obtained by a source close to Anderson. → Read More
I had the best spot in the house, standing on a nice sturdy chair staring down the 10x zoom lens of an HD camera from about 15 feet from the stage. Then the battery died on the camera and security kicked me off my chair, simultaneously. After egging the audience into rickrolling themselves, Jonathan brought Felicia Day (who, by the way, we’ll be spending a few minutes with tomorrow afternoon for a quick Q&A) of The Guild and Dr. Horribles Sing-Along Blog to be the voice of GlaDOS. Too friggin’ awesome. Update: Second (and, yes, quite a bit better) video after the jump: → Read More
It’s no burning man, but CrunchGear is live at the Penny Arcade Expo where we’re playing RPGs, engaging in cosplay, and decreasing our chances of perhaps, one day, losing our virginity. Pop by CrunchGear for more news and photos. → Read More
