At $249, the Samsung SC-MX20 falls delicately between cheap flash-based camcorders and more expensive hard drive-based camcorders. It strips down some features that may not be necessary in the first place – high definition video, still photos, etc. – but adds something that most less expensive flash camcorders don’t have: an optical zoom. A big optical zoom, too, at 34x. That, coupled with… → Read More
Boston University, home of the Fightin’ Aristocrats, is working on “Smart Lighting” that includes LED lights and a optical networking adapter. Each light works as its own access point and can mesh together for full in-home coverage. Instead of transmitted radio waves, the system pulses an LED to all an sundry, ensuring that outsiders can’t piggyback on your network and… → Read More
It wasn’t so long ago that we wondered if YouTube would ever start to flex its marketing muscles. Now it is trying to squeeze more money out of the ads on its homepage and just today it introduced the YouTubevertorial. Starting with music and videogame partners, YouTube will begin inserting click-to-buy links below select videos. Right now, these affiliate links connect to iTunes and Amazon… → Read More
Facebook’s integration of Microsoft’s Live Search raises two main questions: first, how does Facebook stand to benefit? And second, how does Microsoft? To answer these questions, we must recognize that each company faces its own type of problem and, therefore, stands to benefit uniquely.
Facebook and social networks in general still struggle to prove that they can monetize their vast inventory of… → Read More
Reports are filtering in that iPhone 3G owners are receiving their replacement USB power adapters before the Apple-announced shipping date of October 10, 2008. The updated adapter look the same expect sport a green circle on the metal prongs side to differentiate from the recalled versions. Hopefully, this version’s metal prongs will not break off in outlets, causing obvious safety… → Read More
Docstoc founder Jason Nazar sends in a humorous screen capture from Digg. Refresh this story titled “Living With A Drug Dealer As A College Roommate” enough times and you’ll see a house advertisement for upcoming Digg meetups. That ad, matched with the story, begs the question, which one is the drug dealer? → Read More
Computer components bedazzled with LEDs seem to indicate speed in the same way that stickers on the back of rice-burners do. So with that fact in mind, the Lexar Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3 memories with LEDs highlighting the memories activities must be super fast. I kid, I kid as the PC3-10600 DDR3-1333MHz memory shouldn’t be sluggish by any means. The modules will be available in 1GB… → Read More
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1785993&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo. This cute video by Keith Loutit shows tilt-shifted beach scenes that make everyone look like mini-mes on a mission. The technique, which uses reduced depth of field tricks to make things look… → Read More
Excellent. Microsoft will be doing the unveiling at the Professional Developer Conference at the end of the month, so it should get some good exposure. I got to watch a developer put together an app at Surface HQ a few months ago, and he convinced me that the library and SDK are such that fun and interesting apps can be made relatively easily, and taking advantage of the Surface’s unique… → Read More
This thing runs Symbian, is unlocked, and has an 8-megapixel camera. Hokey smokes! Expect a full review next week as I put this thing through its paces. → Read More
Announced at E3 and coming to the Xbox 360 on October 28 in North America is Scene It? Box Office Smash. “Scene It? Box Office Smash” also is Xbox 360’s first game to debut with the New Xbox Experience’s player Avatars. Players can literally put themselves into the game through personalized characters that respond to your play and interact with each other throughout the course of the game! → Read More
This $59.99 gadget holds quizzes for kids. You can study vocabulary, math, science, and just about anything else simply by picking questions from LeapFrog’s online system or typing in questions and answers yourself. And, unlike a set of flash cards, no one will pants you for staring at the Crammer. They’ll just think you’re using a cellphone. Interestingly, you can even program… → Read More
Are you ready to ruuuuummmmmble? MIT is offering a course in “Street-Fighting Mathematics” and the course materials are all online, ready for you to rock out in some TapouT and throw down some dimensional analysis in this bitch. This course teaches the art of guessing results and solving problems without doing a proof or an exact calculation. Techniques include extreme-cases reasoning… → Read More
As we saw in the last barrage of mouse reviews, there’s a lot that goes into making a good pointing device. While seasoned mousemakers like Razer won out at the end of the day, NZXT showed it can make a nice device even though they are more in the hard hardware business. Well, looks like Silverstone is making a similar bid for expansion. They’re known for their power supplies and cases… → Read More
When the DSi was launched last week, Nintendo rebranded Wii points to Nintendo points to try and give a sense of synergy between the two systems. Sounds good in theory, but you may or may not have noticed that Nintendo will not allow you to transfer points between the two systems. It wasn’t something I thought about until I just came across it and thought I’d share. But it doesn’t mean much… → Read More
Repetitive Stress Injury, commonly called “Blogger’s Wrist” by bloggers, is a serious danger to people who make their living by sitting in front of a computer all day. Obesity is a big one too, but mainly affects editors. I’ve searched for mice my whole life that reduce wear and tear on my poor tendons and ligaments, but although I’ve found some really nice ones, I… → Read More
http://www.viddler.com/player/f852d79a/ The Kodak EasyShare Z1012 IS is a 10.1 megapixel camera with 12x optical zoom and image stabilization. It also records video at 1280×720. The Good This camera is really, really light. It’s surprisingly light. You could easily forget that this thing was in your pocket. It’s got a fast start up time, which means you’re less… → Read More
Embracing a concept found in just about every spy movie ever made, Sony Ericsson and SAAB have announced that the Xperia X1 will be able to communicate with the SAAB 9-X Air concept car, controlling some of the basic functionality (Read: No, you can’t drive with it.) Directly from the handset’s panel system, 9X-AIR/X1 owners will be able to: Lock/Unlock the doors Control interior… → Read More
Nikon, yes, Nikon, is pushing the dream of living like the Jetsons one step closer with the Media Port UP300x and UP300 PMP headsets. The two models sport a .44-inch 640×480 screen that appears to the equivalent of a 50-inch screen when folded down in place, which displays everything from video files, to music details and even a web browser thanks to the built-in WiFi connection. Users can… → Read More
Anybody who is considered the “geek” amongst their less tech-minded peers best look out. The BlackBerry Storm has made its way to the moving picture box, and they decided to go all Coen Brothers with the ending. For the next week or two, you get to deal with a constant stream of “Hey! Hey! You like computers! What’s on the other side of the Storm?!” from anyone who can’t use Google. → Read More
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1853931&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1Arduinoboy mGB from trash80 on Vimeo. This haxor installed an Arduino Mini into a Game Boy case and then used a MIDI keyboard to play through the internal speaker. It basically turns the Game Boy into a synthesizer. The code is open so you can… → Read More
MySpace has partnered with computer giant Hewlett-Packard to introduce a number of new print options to the popular social networking site. Beginning in November, users will be able to click an HP-branded “Print” box embedded on their MySpace pages to access a printer-friendly version of any portion of their profile that can be printed from their home printer. The announcement was made today… → Read More
Update: Web search is now back, as is Facebook’s post about it. See our observations below.
It’s been a long time coming, but it appears as though Facebook finally has begun integrating Live Search into its main search bar, thereby providing web search in addition to its preexisting profile search capabilities.
The functionality appeared earlier today for users, only to disappear again. Facebook… → Read More
Oh, Google. The company has just launched Mail Goggles, a feature that helps prevent you from making a drunken ass out of yourself when using Gmail. When turned on (it’s an optional feature), it asks you to confirm that you really want to send an e-mail. By default it’s only active late nights during the weekend, when people are most likely to send embarrassing drunk e-mails. When you… → Read More
Oh my. Facing mounting debt and increasing costs, AMD is splitting into two parts: one to design chips and one to make them. The move is made possible by a $6bn infusion by two Abu Dhabi investment firms, an amount which will go a long way toward relieving debt and covering the cost of establishing the manufacturing arm (“Foundry” for now) as a workable partner. They’ll be… → Read More
After years of clamoring from Mac users who feel a bit left out in terms of software support, it looks like RIM is finally getting on the ball. BoyGenius has managed to get his hands on an early edition of BlackBerry Media Sync for Mac, and all is lookin’ … well, early. It’s limited to playlist and music library syncing at the moment, without much in the way of video, photo, or… → Read More
Mozilla has posted more information about Geode, the Labs plugin we foreshadowed yesterday that helps websites detect your current location. Geode is also now available for download here.
Geode is a forerunner to Firefox’s future implementation of the W3C Geolocation Specification, a standard that (once universally implemented) will allow websites to serve up localized content and services within… → Read More
We’ve had brushes with the PocketSurfer mobile internet device in the past, but here’s a look at the PocketSurfer 2R – an update to the PocketSurfer 2. If you haven’t heard of the PocketSurfer before, it’s kind of an odd device as it uses a way-slow Vodafone GPRS connection as its data conduit. → Read More
Google launched Knol, a monetizable Wikipedia, last July, and since then most people seem to have either forgotten about it entirely or decided that it will never be as good as its Wiki predecessor.
Today the site is launching a new section called Knol Debates, and while I don’t think it will ever get me to use the site as a reference encyclopedia, it’s a great idea. Google has brought together… → Read More
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