How cool is this? My friends and I have fun tinkering with audio gear every once in a while, but this awesome hack is beyond anything I would have thought up. By taking apart a drive, mating it with a tape recorder, and doing a few other really cool things, this talented hacktress has made 3.5″ floppies capable of holding about 15 seconds of analog audio. And you have to hear it, some sort of signal bleed makes it have this crazy reverb effect. → Read More
On March 18, 2008, Steve Jobs was deposed by the SEC during its investigation of Apple’s stock option backdating scandal. The deposition was never made public until Forbes published it on Friday, after obtaining it through a Freedom of Information Act request. (Full deposition embedded below)
Jobs explains his reasoning for why he asked the board for mega grants of options for both himself and his top executives, but claims ignorance of the mechanics of how that was done after the board approved the grants themselves. (It was the falsifying of board minutes for a meeting that never occurred, not the backdating per se, that got Apple’s former general counsel Nancy Heinen into hot water with the SEC—this deposition was for a case against her). There aren’t too many revelations on the legal front in the document.
But the document provides the first detailed account of the incident from Steve Jobs himself in his own words. What comes through in the deposition is how Jobs sees himself and his’ fierce loyalty to those who work for him. For instance, after selling NeXt to Apple in 1997, his initial reason for acting as a consultant was to get “some of the NeXt people into some jobs where they could help Apple.” He himself was reluctant at first to take on the CEO role at Apple because he didn’t want the people at his other company, Pixar, to “think I was abandoning them.”
Then when it came time to reward his “ultra key” executives with one million options each, two of them were from NeXT. While he was taking care of his top lieutenants by trying ti “surprise and delight them with what a career at Apple could be”, he was “hurt” that Apple’s board didn’t do the same for him. So he had to have a little talk with them about swapping his 20 million then-underwater options for 7.5 million new ones, which they did.
I’ve excerpted some of the juicier bits from the deposition after the jump. → Read More
We’ve seen some strange concepts in our time, but this has to be one of the weirdest and most unlikely. This concept KissPhone is probably going to stay imaginary, since it’s the most ridiculous thing in the galaxy. Capture the movement, warmth, and “sucking force” of a lover’s lips and transmit it in real time to a pair of robo-lips? Yeah, I see a market for that. It’s called crazy people. → Read More
Do you have an extra digital camera lying around that you wouldn’t mind sending hundreds of feet in the air? Got a couple hours and a lot of thumbtacks to spare? Well, this DIY project is for you, then. It’s a very complicated way of mechanically triggering your camera while you’re away — say 100 feet down at the end of a long piece of string. → Read More
One thing MySpace has is a lot of holes in the executive ranks. Founding CEO Chris DeWolfe has been hurriedly replaced by Owen Van Natta (our thoughts on that are well known). Cofounder and President Tom Anderson is having “discussions” about “assuming a new role in the organization.” And last month three of the top (and most capable) execs (COO, SVP Product Strategy and VP Technology) left to start their own company. More MySpace execs will soon be leaving, voluntarily or not, as Van Natta fills the gaps and adds loyal lieutenants.
The first announcement will likely be a replacement for the COO spot, who will be the no. 2 exec at MySpace. A number of current MySpace execs are hoping for the job, particularly Jeff Berman, president of sales and marketing. But our understanding is that the COO spot is definitely going to an outsider.
The most likely candidate, we’ve heard from sources, is former AOL exec Mike Jones. Jones’ company, Userplane, was acquired by AOL in late 2006. And Jones worked closely with former AOL boss Jonathan Miller, who is now overseeing all of News Corp.’s digital assets, including MySpace. → Read More
One of the many unsavory aspects of the hiring of Owen Van Natta as the new CEO of MySpace: the rewriting of recent history around Van Natta’s involvement in Project Playlist. The communications group at News Corp. (MySpace’s parent company) is busy spinning Van Natta’s departure as a simple transition from one job to another, but that’s far from the truth. Nor does their story take into account the sad state of the company that he ran for just a few months before leaving for greener pastures.
Here’s how News Corp spins this: This is a natural changing of the guard as a CEO of a small startup takes a bigger job. There was an orderly transition, and Project Playlist has a new CEO with great experience. Nothing to see here, please move along.
Here’s the real story: Van Natta joined Project Playlist in November 2008, just about five months ago. He told investors and employees he was in for the long haul. And he hired an executive team under him that came with his promise that he’d lead the company to a win. Bob Pittman invested in the company, he told recruits, which is true. But he also let rumors that the company raised $20 million in new funding fly. In fact the company raised much less than that. And Van Natta also underplayed the problems with labels, suggesting that deals were imminent and the litigation was going to be settled. And now that Van Natta has abandoned the company, they’ve had to scramble to find someone to run the company. That’s why John Sykes, who was already a board member, was forced to step in. → Read More
The SprintCam is a pretty heavy-duty slo-mo camera. This version, v3, can take 1,000 frames per second, resulting in a look at physical actions in full HD that is unprecedented. How much does it cost? Lots and lots, but just look at that footage. → Read More
This project, designed to piss off the creator’s girlfriend, is a tank with a Nerf gun, speakers, and remote controlled base. The resulting tank is pretty cool although the goal – to terrorize a woman who would live with a guy who would build such a magical thing – is a bit odd. Maybe he wants to be alone?
Maybe he can reverse the suction on the Nerf gun. → Read More
Take a look at the Jansen walker, a laser cut robot built out of plastic and some spare nuts and bolts that were lying around. Ok, and maybe an Arduino cpu. You too can build one of these, all you have to do is buy the parts and assemble it. Oh, and program that cpu using the servo code that you can download. → Read More
When I was writing my last book, I used to go run at the gym for about an hour every morning to clear my head. The TVs were always set on ABC, so I’d zone out to either “Live with Regis & Kelly” or “The View”–two shows I’d never watched before.
I was always struck by the constant fear mongering about the Internet, particularly on “The View.” It seemed every day there was a story about pedophiles patrolling MySpace, ex-wives putting retaliatory dirty-laundry-airing videos on YouTube and 20-somethings getting fired because of college keg party pictures on Facebook. The message to housewives was loud and clear: DO NOT LET YOUR KIDS USE THESE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE SITES! → Read More
Need to Ionize your water? Keep yourself safe from “raditations?” Find ghosts? Don’t buy the junk Wired looked at in order to test the validity of their claims.
The most interesting product, the KYK Genesis Water Ionizer, a $2,000 lump of nothing, is features a picture of Ed Begley Jr. as well as a bunch of writing in Korean. The results of the ionization experiment? A bunch of water in the kitchen. → Read More
Ignite is a pretty cool show, it allows people share information with others. It’s not your normal long, boring slide presentation (who hasn’t experienced death by Powerpoint?) because there are a few rules. → Read More
The Thanko madness goes on and on. The Japan-based gadget maker is now selling a “lightoscope” [JP], a term coined by the company itself. Apparently, a lightoscope is a combination of a microscope and a light. And yes, it has a USB interface, otherwise this wouldn’t be a Thanko product. → Read More
Sanyo has released a new “eneloop”-branded and battery-assisted bicycle [JP] that’s aimed at people (in Japan only for the time being) wanting to replace motorbikes and mini vehicles with a “green” alternative. The so-called CY-SPG226′s battery is powerful enough to let the bike travel about 85km with a single charge (which takes 3.5 hours). → Read More
We now have it straight from the horse’s mouth: the Windows 7 Release Candidate will be available for public download on May 5th. The Windows 7 beta team reports that they’ve had a feedback report sent to them at the rate of 1 every 15 seconds during the busiest periods. They also indicated that they have actually used this information, and it’s helped to improve some of the more bleeding edge features coming out. → Read More
Japan-based Digital Cowboy today announced the Movie CowBoy DC-MC35ULI [JP], a device serving as an iPod dock and an HDD media player that’s compatible with 3.5-inch SATA HDDs (sold separately). Users wanting to watch movies from their hard disc can directly connect the box-like Movie CowBoy with their TV via HDMI. → Read More
Time Warner Cable might be backing away from its tiered pricing proposition, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to do it gracefully. An Austin TWC customer with a Road Runner unlimited data plan got his connection unceremoniously severed, and after investigating, found out it was because he’d used a shocking 44GB in one week. → Read More
This Express TV stick thing could be pretty handy. Of course, there are other TV tuner solutions out there, but are any this portable and sport 4GB of storage? Great for catching up on network TV, and you can record right to your hard drive as well. It’s a bit bulky for a thumbdrive (try this one if you want small), but if you only want to carry one of the things around, why not make it a TV too? → Read More
