Yes, it’s funny, but it’s also a very good idea. Remote controls are among the worst-designed pieces of technology we have to deal with these days. They’re being replaced, somehow, but even more complicated controllers, but one of these days we’ll get it right. → Read More
eBay is having second thoughts about how easy it will be to spread the Kijiji brand in the U.S. The company is testing out the name “eBay Classifieds” in two cities, San Antonio and Pittsburgh. A letter sent out to Kijiji members states:
We here at Kijiji thought it made a lot of sense to start using the eBay brand name. After all, we are part of the eBay family and we are a classifieds site…so “eBay Classifieds” just seemed like a good idea.
Maybe it also has something to do with the “j”s and “i”s blending together beyond recognition in “Kijiji.” It’s not just the name that needs work. The number of visitors to Kijiji sites worldwide was up only 7 percent in January to 23.2 million, while Craigslist grew six times faster and widened the gap. It ended January with 41.4 million unique visitors (comScore numbers). → Read More
Anyone over the age of 30 may fondly remember Earl Weaver Baseball for Amiga, DOS, and the Apple II. I myself had an Apple IIc and split most of my time between Earl Weaver Baseball and Hardball! during my formative elementary school years. Now we’re hearing that one of Earl Weaver Baseball’s original designers, Eddie Dombrower, is porting the game to the iPhone. → Read More
If you’re moving to a two- or three-display setup, one of the questions you have to ask yourself is whether you want two “equal” displays or a “primary-secondary” setup. A smaller monitor like this Westinghouse is a good option for a secondary, being cheaper and smaller yet still reasonably sharp and bright. Whether this particular Westinghouse is for you depends on a few things. → Read More
The Wii Cordless Keyboard from Logitech is eligible for a $20 mail-in rebate until March 7th. Amazon carries the keyboard for $39.99 before the rebate, although it’s currently out of stock. If you don’t mind waiting a bit, though, you can buy it now and Amazon will ship it to you when it’s back in stock. → Read More
And here we go again. After Dell (and later Intel) petitioned to have Psion’s “netbook” trademark canceled, claiming it was a generic term and that Psion wasn’t even selling anything called a “netbook” any more, Psion responded by saying it’s been actively selling the “Netbook Pro” (above photo) even though the machine is no longer manufactured. → Read More
We last wrote about the upcoming Jimmy Fallon show quite some time ago, noting that NBC would be using THE INTERNET to create “buzz” and a “following,” so that when the show launched—the first episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon airs this Monday night—there would already be some sort of audience. We’ll see how that turns out; NBC and Conan O’Brien look to be fairly confident he’ll succeed. → Read More
Last we saw of this thing, it was also being called the Galaxy 7, but all of the specs were already in place. Well, Asus has finally granted the P835′s wish and made it a real boy. Wait, no — they’ve just made an official announcement. We knew all this stuff months ago, but it’s good to check in: last-minute tweaks to the UI or, say, built-in storage can have a serious effect on price and availability. It looks like nothing has been changed this time, but if you don’t believe us, feel free to compare this Russian review with the official spec sheet or the phone’s page. → Read More
A disheartening report in the Orlando Sentinel finds that some people are switching from broadband to dial-up in order to save money. Sad but true, it seems. Those who are switching are “not the iPod crowd,” according to NetZero CEO Mark Goldstein, but mostly people from older generations who use the internet for very basic e-mail and light web surfing. → Read More
“World of Warcraft is the crack cocaine of the computer gaming world. Some people can’t drag themselves away and will play it till they drop.” This chilling warning comes from the Swedish Youth Care Foundation, which swooped into action after a 15-year-old boy “collapsed” (says The Sun, which is quite sensational) after playing the game for 24 hours straight. → Read More
Well done to the Authors Guild! Amazon revealed last night that the text-to-speech feature in the Kindle 2 will now be optional for publishers. The guild had been tenaciously fighting this feature, arguing that it had the potential to turn the Kindle 2 into a de-facto audiobook player. Right or wrong, Amazon has caved, and now publishers will be able to dictate wether or not the Kindle 2 is able to read aloud their books. → Read More
Photo gift service Personello has launched a simple but useful web service dubbed DAZZ that lets you preview a wide variety of goods with uploaded photos on them, completely automated and with both custom images and video clips.
It seems like a no-brainer for any personalized photo gift service provider to offer a similar functionality, but to the best of my knowledge DAZZ is currently the only one of its kind.
What you do is create an account on the DAZZ website and upload a photo that you’re considering printing on things like mugs, mousepads, t-shirts, teddybears, snowglobes, jigsaw puzzles etc. to give away as a gift. The startup’s ‘DAZZigners’ will then strip out the background and create a collection of so-called photostyles (e.g. Flowers, Heart, Sepia, Pop Art, etc.) centered around the main subject of the photo. → Read More
Remember BigDog? And its diminutive friend, LittleDog? Here’s a little more footage and testimony from the soldiers at Fort Benning in Alabama. There’s not a lot of new info but it’s nice to see it’s actually in real trials and not sitting in a lab somewhere. I think they’re going to need to do something about that buzzing noise, though. → Read More
All I have to say to Hearst is “Good luck, bro.” The flatlining publisher, which produces magazines such as Popular Mechanics, Esquire and Cosmopolitan, has revealed that it’s working on an e-reader. The idea, of course, is to cut down the cost of creating a magazine—all that paper, ink, storage, delivery, gas, etc. adds up, especially in an environment when ad sales are way down—without sacrificing that “magazine” feel. Too bad it’s doomed, and does, indeed, sacrifice that “feel.” → Read More
In a heated bidding war, ToysRUs bought the domain name Toys.com at auction for $5.1 million. ToysRus really wanted the domain, for obvious reasons. Everyone except ToysRUs and domain holding company National A-1 (owner of domains such as free.com, boys.com, girls.com, and divorce.com) bowed out of the auction at $3 million. The last $2 million was just those two companies going back and forth for hours.
ToysRUs really didn’t have much choice. If it wants to be the first thing people associate with toys it really couldn’t afford to allow anyone else to own that domain, even in this economy. Who says real estate is dead? → Read More
There’s an episode of Seinfeld (“The Slicer”) where George and Jerry discuss the merits of skin care and the skin care industry. Neither of them think very highly of either—at one point, George tells Jerry that all you need to do to take care of your skin is “wash it, dry it, move on!” That’s how I’ve always felt about remote controls: there’s no need to complicate the celebrated procession of turning on and off the TV and DirecTV receiver, of opening and closing the DVD or Blu-ray player; there’s sure as hell no need to shell out hundreds of dollars merely to lower the volume of your sound system with a shinier piece of plastic than the one that came in the box. So I’ve always believed, at least; and to an extent, still do. But you know what, gosh darn it, after using the Philips Prestigo SRT 9320, I’ve come this close to reconsidering my anti-fancy remote position. (I know for a fact that, broadly speaking, I have a problem with “luxury,” wether it be fancy remotes or fancy restaurants; it’s the peasant in me.) If I had never heard of the remote my life wouldn’t be all that different; but, I don’t know, as a piece of consumer electronics, as example of what can be engineered, well done to the crazy Dutchies at Philips. → Read More
It’s no secret that I love old NES games, and of course Contra is among my favorites. You can imagine my delight, then, on finding that some utterly insane NeoGAF forum members had put together a start-to-finish remake inside LittleBigPlanet on the PS3. Using the toolset they’ve been able to sort of jury-rig the guns, turrets, bosses, and even the rear-perspective base battles.
Hats off, my friends. Hats off. → Read More
I’d be skeptical of this Wii knockoff by a reputable hardware company, except that Asus has already gone down this road, so why not Acer? The Hornet, as reported on this Turkish site, appears to be an Atom-powered supercompact nettop meant to be clippped to the back of your monitor or HDTV, and has what appears to be a camera on the top corner. The camera will, I’m assuming, track the motion of your little Acer Wiimote and let you “enjoy in various kinds of PC games!” → Read More
Some women are getting creative trying to make some quick cash in these troubled times: they’re trying to sell their eggs to fertility clinics. Inquiries to one fertility clinic in Illinois, for example, were up 40% in 2008. It sure beats stripping, but according to one clinic only 5-7% of potential egg donors are actually accepted. Egg donations may seem like an easy way to mak big bucks, but t actual payouts are often far less than the rumored $10,000, averaging $4,200 nationwide. Plus you need to go through a full background check, as well as medical, psychological and genetic tests. → Read More
