We’ve covered the pain ray before — millimeter wave radiation emitted from a dish that excites the water in the top layers of your skin. It heats you up something fierce, but technical issues and widespread protestation of the use of such a ridiculous weapon has forced the Pentagon to aim it at something a little less likely to complain: geese.
Now, if you’re in the northwest like me, you know that Canadian geese, while great-looking birds and majestic creatures, are a huge pain in the ass. They bite kids, they crap all over the place, and they never stop honking. So while I normally don’t advocate shooting pain rays at animals, it’s better than just gassing them, which is the current practice. → Read More
It’s not so much that it’s chubby as that there are unfair expectations placed on its dimensions. What is a hard drive to do when 12.5mm is considered fat? Because that’s what the mother of appearance-based computing, Apple, is saying. Apple’s sleek hardware won’t admit any hard drive thicker than 9.5mm — a shocking bit of hardware elitism. → Read More
If your next dinner party turns out to be even half as awkward as the last one, you’ll need to have these “Wind Up Breakdancers” on hand if you want people to stay for coffee and passive-aggressive banter between you and your significant other. → Read More
Twitter is great for a lot of things, but I think my favorite use of it is public smack-talking. Just read what Lance Armstrong has to say about his Tour de France-winning teammate, Alberto Contador. And in the tech world, we have some good smack talking from Verizon directed at rival AT&T today.
John Czwartacki, who is the policy blog editor for Verizon, sent the following public message on Twitter, “This what USA’s most reliable wireless network sends BEFORE a conference. #VDC“— complete with a TwitPic (below) of a giant Verizon truck parked outside the conference to bolster signal. → Read More
I question the continued existence of mobile internet devices (MIDs) like the Mintpad, seeing as all our phones are turning into MIDs. You can’t fight convergence. Still, as long as there’s a little room in the market, stuff like this will stick around. Mintpass makes, among other things, a little MID called the Mintpad, which looks like a perfectly functional little thing (GPS, web, etc), and the next version will be sporting Android. Who knows whether we’ll see it on this side of the Pacific, though. → Read More
There seems to be a little controversy over these German LEGO ads. The Making History campaign uses LEGO blocks to recreate historic moments. You have to admit that they are well done. But you see, a guy on Flickr has been doing this for sometime and one of the ad images is a little too similar to be done accidently. → Read More
Earlier today we learned that Apple had begun to pull all Google Voice-enabled applications from the App Store, citing the fact that they “duplicate features that come with the iPhone”. Now comes even worse news: we’ve learned that Apple has blocked Google’s official Google Voice application itself from the App Store. In other words, Google Voice — one of the best things to happen to telephony services in a very long time — will have no presence at all on the App Store. If there’s ever been a time to be furious with Apple, now is it.
A Google Spokesperson has told us the following:
We work hard to bring Google applications to a number of mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users — for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.
A British DJ (well, ex-DJ), Steve Miller, claims to be allergic to Wi-Fi. As such, he’s had to spend recent days hiding away in his house, away from any and all Wi-Fi signals. Supposedly he’s one of the 2 percent of people who suffer from electromagnetic sensitivity. → Read More
When I read yesterday that Retweet.com was about to launch a competitor to Nick Halstead’s Tweetmeme, I dropped Nick an email to ask if he had anything to say about it. He didn’t reply to my email, and now I think I know why. Look what Nick just posted on the Tweetmeme blog: What caught my attention was that some industrious individual (@travisketchum) had left a comment on the TechCrunch article that he had been doing some digging around on the website and had found a link to their development environment. What we found ourselves was that our retweet button Javascript and the WordPress plugin code seemed to have been directly copied from ours. We are happy for others to learn from our endeavors and flattered by the copying but some of our more complex JavaScript was obfuscated to deter others from attempting to re-use our code. We take a dim view of trying to pass off our code especially when it is attempting to create a competitor. We our seeking further legal advice and will be pursuing every avenue to protect the hard work of our team. Can this be true? I’ve emailed Nick for more information, and I’ll be trying to get hold of Retweet.com’s COO, Tyson Quick, as well. Update: I’ve been alerted to the following similarities in code between the Retweet.com and Tweetmeme. (1) Take a look at the code for Retweet.com’s Retweet button (retrieved from http://174.129.199.128/meme/static/retweets.js at 17:43 today): → Read More
You know that audio goes along with THX logo. It’s called the Deep Note apparently and this guy set out to recreate the entire thing in the program SuperCollider. I have no idea what’s going on once he starts explaining the coding behind the creation, but the end result is astonishingly close to the real thing, which is even more impressive when you learn that the original score has never been released. Start at the beginning and listen to all six steps in order. → Read More
If Zappos was a forced sale, would someone please come force me a raise?
Zappos just filed its S4 with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which details the history of the merger talks with Amazon. There’s a lot of boring boilerplate here, but one of the more interesting bits is on page 68, where there’s a confusing breakdown of Zappos’ ownership.
The percentages appear to add up to way over 100% because the shares of Venture Frogs are essentially counted three times. Venture Frogs was the firm Zappos CEO and CFO Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin used to own that first invested in Zappos back in 1999. Because either of them “could” contol the voting shares, the SEC counts each of the shares under their names, as well as under the Venture Frogs name.
But once you back that out, one thing is clear: No one could sell the company without the blessing of Hsieh and Lin. CEO Hsieh owns 29.4% of the common shares, CFO Lin owns another 2.7% and Venture Frogs– the firm they started and jointly manage– owns another 39.9% of the shares. → Read More
Admittedly, I’ve never been in prison (putting technology bloggers in with regular inmates is NOT safe for the inmates) but I’d undoubtedly try to smuggle in a cell phone and, at the very least, a netbook of some type. Apparently cell phones are a big problem in prisons nowadays and body orifice scanners (see previous coverage here) may not have quite caught on yet. → Read More
High-end portable DVD players are a scam. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. Sure you can pick up a Walmart special for $75, but those $200 models just don’t make sense when most people already have a notebook with an optical drive and a larger screen. But notebooks get hot and you might not want your little ones holding it for hours during a road trip. Enter the CradleVue. → Read More
I can guarantee than maybe 5 percent of you have ever heard of Swindon Town Football Club, but the team’s partnership with EA FIFA 10 should make them a powerhouse in the Manchester City sense sooner rather than later. For this season, and this season only, the team’s players will be running around the pitch with the FIFA 10 logo emblazoned on their chests. → Read More
Google finally sold back its 5 percent stake in AOL to Time Warner. Originally valued at $1 billion in 2005, Google ended up getting back only $283 million, including some cash distributions. There goes roughly $700 million, but Google already took a writedown on the investment back in the fourth quarter when the whole world was going to pot and nobody really noticed.
Time Warner took back the shares in preparation for the eventual public spinoff of AOL. When Google initially bought the shares, it valued AOL at $20 billion. Based on the price Time Warner paid for the repurchase of the shares, AOL is now worth $5.7 billion. → Read More
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/6555681001?isVid=1&publisherID=769341148 Please heed my warning. Do not watch the video above unless you really want to know the ending of Lost, which was of course revealed at the show’s Com-Con event. Apparently the script was suppose to be read on Jimmy Kimmel Live after the final episode’s airing next year; Josh Holloway had different plans. Oh, and there is a NSFW word spoken at the end of the video. → Read More
Awww, that’s a shame. Red Steel 2, the impressive-looking Wii MotionPlus showcase piece from Ubisoft has been delayed until next year. Oh, and Splinter Cell: Conviction will be delayed as well. → Read More
Last week, we wrote about the Bing Cashback contest that rewards Bing searchers with a chance to win a $500 gift card. Well, the contest is in full swing, and if today is any indication, to win, you don’t even need to have the correct answer.
Today’s question was: “Bing #cashbackpack Trivia: What Bing cashback percentage does drugstore.com offer?” To find the answer, simply search for something like ““drugstore.com bing cash back” on Bing, and you’ll see the sponsored result right at the top.
The answer? 20%. The problem? The winner said 10%. → Read More
It may be that we’re entering an era of lozenge-shaped phones with little to distinguish them from one another, but that doesn’t mean phone makers shouldn’t even try. Honestly, if your phone looks and acts like every other phone and its specs are for the most part the same, why did you put it out?
Philips’ V808 is their first Android-based smartphone, so I guess you can’t blame them for sticking to the basics. → Read More
