As anyone who has spent some time with any recent HTC-made Windows Mobile phone ought to know, HTC has a serious knack for taking mobile OSes and customizing them – and there’s no better OS for that than Android. After cranking out the Dream and the Magic with only limited modifications, all signs indicate that HTC is going all out with the tweaks on the upcoming HTC Hero. Over the past few weeks, a build of the HTC Hero ROM has been floating around, albeit closely guarded, amongst the developer community. A hacker going by the name of Haykuro would port it to the G1, then demonstrate the new features on video. Eventually the build leaked without without Haykuro’s permission, and it spread like wildfire. It’s a buggy beta build and lacks some of the features we’ve already seen (like the Rosie UI home screen), but it’s relatively functional and gives us a sneak peek at some of the cool things to come from the future HTC Android devices. → Read More
Over the past few days, perhaps you’ve seen a few tweets pop up in your stream from people you follow that end with the “spymaster” hashtag. If not, it’s likely you will soon. Spymaster is a new social game based around Twitter in which you do spy-like things such as buy things on the black market, assassinations and put money in Swiss bank accounts.
For doing all of these various tasks, you get in-game fake money, and/or points to level-up to become a better spymaster. But if you try to do too much, too often, it will wear on your body and you will lose energy points. Plus, if you fail in assassination or other tasks, you can get injured and lose money. But the genius of this game is its tie-in to Twitter. You sign-up for the game with your Twitter name using OAuth, and your fellow spies are other Twitter users. So when you attempt to assassinate one of them, it will tweet that out to all of your followers including both of your names — and to the followers of the person you tried to assassinate, if they turn the setting on. → Read More
Now here’s an app many creative professionals might find useful. The DSLR Remote iPhone app lets you trigger your camera’s shutter, adjust almost any of its settings, and view photos it’s taken. The catch, unfortunately, is that the camera needs to be wired to a computer for this to work. Even so, I can think of plenty of situations where this could come in handy, though admittedly there are few where a professional would absolutely need it. Still, the more tools you have, the more versatile your whole setup is, and who wouldn’t want to snap pics via their iPhone anyway? → Read More
What’s a modern computer user to do? You’ve got your thumb drives, your backup drives, your joystick, your drink warmer, your drink cooler, your USB humping dog, your USB blow-up doll, and a hundred other things littering your desk. And even the best motherboards only come with 10 or 15 USB ports. If only there were some way to plug in all of these things at once, in some sort of… hub. Brother, your prayers are answered at last! With this 49-port powered USB hub, you can live it up and never worry about unplugging anything ever again. → Read More
Everyone knew today was the day that Microsoft was going to launch their new search engine. Everyone’s been talking about it for months, and the press and marketing efforts were carefully tailored to maximize the impact. Thursday, May 28, 2009 was supposed to be Microsoft Bing Day.
A little after 8 am this morning Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer himself took the stage at the exclusive All Things Digital conference near San Diego, California and announced to a few hundred elite executives that Microsoft would soon be releasing its new search engine, and that it would be called Bing.
One problem right off the bat: the Bing.com site wasn’t live. And since press didn’t know the name until Ballmer said it, it took a while for the news to spread.
Another problem: A team of Google engineers based in Sydney was simultaneously announcing a stealth project 4+ years in the making called Wave. And it wasn’t being announced to a select few top business executives. Instead, the team that created it was showing it to 4,000 developers at the Google IO conference in San Francisco, California. → Read More
Chinese, as a character-based language is obviously tricky to translate into English. But following today’s launch of Microsoft’s new oddly-named search engine, Bing, the world wants to know what it means. We have an answer.
While you might associate “bing” with the Chinese flatbread, or a number of other things that Wired broke down. We were sent perhaps the ultimate translation in the form of a fortune cookie that just happened to pop up after someone’s dinner tonight. One translation for “bing” is apparently “disease.” Some more digging on the web indicates this as well. → Read More
Here’s the full video of the Google Wave demo from this morning at Google’s IO conference in San Francisco.
Our full review of Google Wave is here. Exclusive interview with the founders is here, and our video and notes from the press conference is here. → Read More
File this one under “If I were a rich man.” Too subtle to be steampunk, too steampunk to be retro, and too retro to be modern, this simple little knob is absolutely beautiful. And what does it do? Well, it’s a dimmer for “nearly all incandescent lamp configurations (up to 300W max) and many halogen systems as well.” Smooth rheostat lighting for any lamp, very handy though probably not worth five bills in and of itself. Still, for the man who has everything but a dimmer, this is a lovely little piece of hardware. → Read More
Plastic Logic is showing off a prototype of its thin-film electronic reader at the D7 conference. The main difference between what Plastic Logic is trying to build and the Kindle is that its screen technology is much thinner, lighter and can be incorporated into more flexible form- factors. I shot the video showing what it can do.
Check out the video after the jump. → Read More
It’s pretty crazy over there at All Things Digital, and in the hubbub it looks like the Zune HD has had its picture tooken and video shotten. This little video tour shows off the smoothness and speed of the UI, which looks like it has adapted extremely well to the touchscreen. I have my doubts about the screen resolution (480×272 is… well, passable), but the fact that it’s OLED makes for beautiful contrast, and I think that aspect is really emphasized by the stark Zune UI. → Read More
Yow. When I first saw the above video I was like, “Who the hell’s been following me around on the weekends and filming me?” Then I was like, “Oh, that’s not me. It’s a guy named Damien Walters. Also, I tend to sit quite still most weekends.” At any rate, this is Parkour meets Ninjitsu, meets advanced gymnastics (the kind used in fights between Ninjas and Pirates, not the Olympic kind). [via Geekologie] → Read More
At the Amazon shareholders’ meeting today, Bezos beat around the bush Kindle-wise, preferring not to state how many Kindles had been sold and how much money had come from and gone into the project. “I beg your indulgence on the question” was his way of stating “not palatable for shareholders at this time.” However, he was more forthcoming on the possibility of a color Kindle. Of course they’re working on one, why on earth wouldn’t they be?
But despite recent advances and even a color eBook on the market, Bezos says that color e-ink displays are “not ready for prime time,” and he doesn’t expect a color Amazon device for years. → Read More
Maybe it works, but seeing ads on Google for Microsoft’s new Bing search engine just doesn’t seem to send quite the right message. Plus, the ads link to a nearly blank landing page, since Bing hasn’t launched yet.
Microsoft is rumored to be spending up to $100 million to advertise the Bing launch. I wonder how much of that Google will end up getting…
There are also ads pointing to a Ning site called BingHub. I can’t imagine why whoever created it is spending cold hard cash to promote that, either. → Read More
Panic, the maker of shockingly good Mac software, is having itself a nice little sale that you may want to take advantage of. From now until 11:59 PM PDT on May 29 (so, a little over a day) you can buy Transmist, Coda, Candy Bar and Unison for 50 percent off. → Read More
Criterion hasn’t given up on Burnout Paradise even after outing Burnout Paradise: Cops and Robbers. The latest expansion pack adds a lot of real estate to the already huge world. Big Surf Island has 45 new billboards, 75 new Smashes, and even new vehicles to burn around town while working towards the new Island license. The demo video is a bit long-winded at 8:40, but if you’re a true Burnout fanboy like me, you’ll be envious during the entire thing. Especially when you see the monster jumps that are coming soon. → Read More
SourceForge, an tech news and e-commerce network has acquired Ohloh, a social network for developers and directory of open source projects, for an undisclosed amount.
SourceForge owns and operates a number of tech media websites, including SourceForge.net, a centralized location for software developers to manage open source software development; Slashdot, a tech news site; ThinkGeek, a marketplace for tech goods. → Read More
With handsets like the Storm 2 and the Blackberry Tour coming down Verizon’s pipeline, it’s sort of hard to get excited about anything else they’ve got. That’s not about to stop LG though – they’re poised to launch three new handsets on Big Red within the next few days. Let’s take a look: → Read More
Good idea: get that heavy DSLR off your neck. Many of us know the pain associated with a big ol’ camera and a four-pound L-series zoom.
Bad idea: hang your heavy DSLR off your hip, where your $1000 lens will constantly get bonked by your leg and whatever low obstacles you’re around. → Read More
We’re all pirates because of DRM. That’s the conclusion of a new UK study—and it’s a long one, coming in at 200+ pages—. The idea here is that the DRM schemes imposed by rights owners do just as good a job at restricting people who have legitimate claims to the material as it does restricting those without any claim at all. → Read More
Google unveiled its new communication tool, Wave, this morning with a bang at Google I/O. The blogosphere is a buzz with talk of the new product, which blends email, instant messaging, collaboration and real time functionality into one platform. And Wave will open up its API soon to developers and will eventually be an open source product, letting the developer community take an active part in shaping the platform. We spoke to Wave’s creators yesterday, brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon. One question that’s is on everyone’s minds is whether Gmail and Google Apps become obsolete with the emergence of such powerful platform?
TechCrunch IT Editor Steve Gillmor caught up with Google co-founder Sergey Brin (who he also talked to about Chrome yesterday) after a Q&A session with Wave’s creators, and asked him about the future of Google Apps and more. → Read More
