24 hours have passed since the launch of the Android Market, the Google equivalent to Apple’s App Store. Medialets has conducted a thorough analysis of the two store launches. The verdict: the size of Android Market pales in comparison to Apple’s store at launch, and won’t allow for paid applications until next year. But the stores are more alike than they are different, with very similar… → Read More
I guess if you’ve still got a landline, you’re a primary target for fraudsters. After all, it’s the year 2008 and you have a landline. Fortunately, something that sounds like it’s out of a 2004 SkyMall catalog is coming to the rescue. The TrueCall device answers every call with an unknown number instantly and asks who it is. The person identifies themselves, then the system… → Read More
Disclaimer: it’s a refurb, but still a hell of a price for a great remote. Remotes like these Harmony’s are must-haves if you use multiple AV components. They consolidate everything into one, very easy to use package that’s programmed on your computer making controlling your entire AV system a breeze. It’s too bad that the 880 sends out only IR signals and not RF… → Read More
Looking to develop your big idea for the mobile world, but just not vibing with the iPhone or the Android platform? Sony Ericsson wants you to come hang out in their camp for a bit. Along with adding an XPERIA category to the 2008 Sony Ericsson Content Awards, they’ve released a new Windows Mobile SDK to the public. Amongst other things, the new SDK adds drastically improved support for the… → Read More
One year ago today OiNK’s Pink Palace was shut down by police. It’s only appropriate to pour one out for it today. OiNK had been in operation for a little over three years; I had joined exactly one year before it was shut down, invited to the party by CrunchGear alum Vince Veneziani, who’s now kicking about over at GearFuse. Be sure to say hi. The thing about OiNK (and its… → Read More
Last week we reported that Next2Friends had come out with what appeared to be the first application for the BlackBerry Curve and Pearl handsets to stream live video to the Web, in a similar fashion to early players like Qik, Flixwagon, and Kyte. That’s pretty interesting because till now the BlackBerry has been a bit like the PC guy in those Mac ads – a little dorky, without those cool… → Read More
HD Radio seems to be drifting along, picking up supports in a leisurely fashion with Audi being the latest manufacturer to pick up the format. The alleged next-gen radio technology should be standard on most Audi vehicles by the 2011 model year as the luxury carmaker strives to deliver the best of the best. Sirius Satellite has been standard for a while now on most Audi models but HD… → Read More
The Bryston BR2 Multifunction remote is an audiophiles wet dream-type remote. Those type fantasize of spending 500 bones on a 1980′s Zenith TV look alike remote to control their high-end audio equipment. No word if the remote sports RF type signals or universal brand controls, but it does come with a 20-year warranty; something I wish my $500 Monster Cable AVL300 remote had when it… → Read More
It’s gonna be a long, cold, dark, cord-filled winter for those of you waiting for wireless HDMI devices from the likes of Belkin (FlyWire shown above) and Monster Cable. Electronic House is reporting that the technology’s not quite there yet. An unidentified owner of an A/V store in Manhattan told EH the following: “HDMI is not perfected yet. I was eagerly awaiting shipments from both… → Read More
57,000 Rage Wireless Guitars were sold to date and now the Chinese-made Guitar Hero axe is being recalled. Allegedly, if an user installs the AA batteries incorrectly, a circuit board malfunctions causing acid to leak and the world to implode. Owners are asked to return the dangerous guitars to the original place of purchase for a full refund. Maybe you can apply $40 to $60 refund to… → Read More
The 2008 Rails Rumble, a competition for Ruby on Rails coders, saw 131 web applications launch into the wild this past weekend. The quality of the applications increased dramatically this year, turning the competition into something of a startup hyper-incubator, with the goal of producing apps that not only win votes but become sustained products.
The rules are simple: you, along with up to… → Read More
Vivienne Tam’s ornate little HP notebook debuted in September during fashion week and it was supposed to launch in October, but Glam’s Tech Chic site is now saying that the Vivienne Tam Edition will be out in December. We’re still not sure on the specs, but we do know that it will have an Intel Atom proc. And I’d say it’s a safe bet that the screen size is 10-inches… → Read More
Google finally got around to fixing Gmail on the Blackberry and J2ME phones like the Nokia N95 or Sony Ericsson W910i. Now you can compose emails while offline. When you hit “send, they sit in the outbox until your handset finds a network again. Gmail is also being updated with the ability to compose and save more than one draft at the same time, toggle between different email accounts, and… → Read More
The ultraportable 11.1-inch Sony VAIO TT notebook is available in a “James Bond 007 Edition” for $2,399. Sony’s only selling 100 of these, so if you’re really into Bond you might want to get a move on. The rig itself isn’t all that different from the standard TT series except for that little 007 logo down in the left-hand corner, a leather case, and some noise-canceling headphones. Aside… → Read More
Right after Helio worked with Pantech on the Ocean, Pantech cranked out the strikingly similar (albeit with less spring-loaded-slider goodness) Duo. This morning, Pantech announced that not only had all the Duos currently sitting on AT&T’s shelves been bumped up to Windows Mobile 6.1, but that the folks back at home could get in on the fun too. If you’ve got a Helio Ocean 0.8… → Read More
Kudos to Dvice, which put together this pretty gosh darn interesting map of voting machines in the U S of A. The map shows, county by county, what type of voting machine is in use—electronic, paper, optical scan lever and punch card—and ranks them on how error prone they are. Electronic voting machines are less error prone, while punch cards—remember Florida?—are most error… → Read More
If anybody buys this, will you please leave a comment so I can live vicariously through you? Unfortunately all my monitors are currently working just fine, otherwise I’d buy this myself. Buy.com has the 20-inch Viewsonic VA2026W monitor for $179.99 with free shipping, plus a $30 mail-in rebate that’s good until November 2nd. Specs include a 1680×1050 resolution, 2000:1 contrast ratio, 5ms… → Read More
Cloud computing keeps advancing like rolling thunder. Amazon today announced a major upgrade to its EC2 compute cloud service and Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim has decided to spend more time at his startup Arista Networks, which sells 10-Gigabit Ethernet switches aimed at handling the loads at cloud-computing data centers. And just yesterday, RackSpace announced two small acquisitions to help… → Read More
We’ve all heard the “red wine is good for you” argument before, but let’s face it; not everyone would choose a glass of red wine over a nice, cold beer. I wouldn’t, at least. Anyway, the actual benefit of drinking red wine comes from a cancer-fighting chemical called resveratrol, which occurs naturally in grapes. The problem with the red wine argument is that you’d have to consume… → Read More
I’m not sure if there was ever any doubt that the TouchWiz UI would show up on US handsets eventually, but Samsung’s gone and confirmed it via press release anyways. TouchWiz is a Samsung-made user interface specifically tailored for touchscreens. Its best known feature is likely its widget system, which allows users to drag and drop widgets onto their homescreen from a drawer hidden… → Read More
PSP owners- Fire em up and download the update. → Read More
With a wood neck, a rosewood fingerboard and metal frets, Logitech is taking Guitar Hero to an uncharted realm of douchebaggery with its Premiere Edition Wireless Guitar. The $250 wireless axe is probably one of the best feeling fake guitars ever, but that doesn’t make it right. Hopefully if you show up at your buddies house for an evening of jamming with this thing, it… → Read More
It was rumored for a few days but now it’s official: the E3 we all know and love is coming back next year. While the Entertainment Software Association says pretty much anyone will be allowed to attend, E3 2009 won’t suffer from the excess that plagued previous expos. Journalists will still be able to meet publishers behind closed doors without having to stand next to strippers, for… → Read More
Oopsies. Seems that just about every initial copy of 2K Sports’ NBA 2K9 for the PC shipped out without the ever-important CD key. You know – that, like, 72-digit sequence of letters, numbers, and symbols that you have to ceremoniously enter when you first install the game in order to prevent piracy? A forum post on 2K’s website started out innocently enough with a simple “I can’t find my… → Read More
You’ll soon be able to stream Netflix movies on certain Samsung Blu-ray players. The official announcement is expected later today, but we already have a couple of details. From the current player lineup, only the Samsung BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 will be compatible; more players are expected to be compatible as we move forward. You can find those players for around $400 and $300 online… → Read More
Japanese toy maker CCP has announced the U-Diver, its remote-controlled micro submarine, will be sold in Japan starting at the beginning of next month. CCP isn’t really an international company but belongs to the Bandai Namco group, meaning a future release outside Japan isn’t impossible. The U-Diver, which was showcased for the first time during the Tokyo Toy Show 2008 in June, will… → Read More
Casio Japan yesterday unveiled a G-Shock and a Baby-G [JP] that are “exclusively geared towards couples” and designed “with the special atmosphere of Christmas Eve in mind”. The two watches will be available in Japan as the so-called Lover’s Collection from November 29 (set price: $280). The G-Shock model (AW-590LC-7B) is sized at 52.0×46.4×14.9mm and weighs 58… → Read More
The Japanese are perhaps the most active people in the world when it comes to blogging and reading blogs so it’s not really surprising to see the world’s first blogging plant (a Sweetheart Hoya, to be exact) coming from this country. Midori-san (“Ms. Green), as the 40-cm pot plant is called, is the customer magnet in an Internet cafe in Kamakura (a small town west of Tokyo). → Read More
In August I speculated that music may be the single biggest factor helping MySpace keep its commanding lead over Facebook in the U.S. market.
It’s not that Facebook hasn’t experimented with music over the years. Artists can set up pages and promote themselves, for example, although few choose to do so. Facebook also awarded iLike (the only music service with real traction on the site) with the… → Read More
Last week we reported that Next2Friends had come out with what appeared to be the first application for the BlackBerry Curve and Pearl handsets to stream live video to the Web, in a similar fashion to early players like Qik, Flixwagon, and Kyte. Now it’s about to hit the BlackBerry Bold, and, more significalty, the mainstream Motorola Razr. → Read More
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