Behold! A portable TurboGrafx-16 system. A modder named Bacteria (eewww) cobbled together a very nice-looking system called “IntoGrafx” featuring three-hour battery life and a 5.4-inch screen. The IntoGrafx plays original TurboGrafx game cards (the system uses an actual TurboGrafx board, after all) and there’s a region switch that allows you to play either Japanese or US games. All in all, it looks really well done. Now to track down an old Bonk’s Adventure cart. TurboGrafx/PCE console – *IntoGrafx* [Bacteria via hack a day] → Read More
Apparently, it’s been leaked by some loose-lipped presenter at a Microsoft event that “Windows Mobile” is out, and “Windows Phone” is in. Well, Microsoft, I try to get your back now and then when you’re misunderstood or wrongly accused, but this is beyond the pale. I can’t think of a worse name to call your operating system. Let me count the reasons why: → Read More
It looks like the cool thing to do now is bash HP over its environmental record. Yesterday’s Greepeace action was a huge story for several minutes, drawing attention, apparently, to the company’s rubbish record with respect to various chemicals in its products. And today The Register has photos of shipping containers, used to ship things. → Read More
OK. Let’s try this again. I’ve passed out the first set of prizes to unnamed persons and this is Round 2. TO VOTE COMMENT ON THIS POST WITH THE EXACT NAME OF THE DEVICE YOU’RE VOTING FOR. THAT IS THE ONLY TEXT THAT SHOULD APPEAR. I WILL DO AN SQL QUERY ON THE COMMENTS DB TO FIND THE WINNER. LITERALLY COPY AND PASTE THE NAME OF THE DEVICE INTO THE COMMENT FIELD AND POST IT. VOTE ONCE. VOTE ONLY ONCE. DON’T USE AMAZON’S MECHANICAL TURK. DON’T ASK THE WEIRD GUY FROM IT WHO YOU NEVER INVITE TO PARTIES BUT TALK TO AT WORK TO MAKE YOU A VOTING SCRIPT! IF YOU ARE THE WEIRD GUY IN IT, I’M SORRY. THEY JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU. IF I HELD A PARTY YOU COULD COME. IF YOU CHEAT I WILL BE SAD. I WILL CLOSE VOTING ON MONDAY AT NOON EASTERN! Keep the entries coming. There’s still one more round. With that, let’s give this another try. → Read More
And you said the recession was making it hard to find a good watch. Well fear not, friends. The Praesto Fliegeruhr (Whatever. Just call it the “flying hour” or something) will cost $360 for a pre-order and will be shipped around November when the custom watches are shipped to the manufacturer. Plus you get a t-shirt! → Read More
Facial reconstruction technology is great for solving homicides and whatnot but it may have also found a weird, creepy niche in the personalized urn category. That’s right, just $2600 plus a couple good photographs and you, too, can keep your own ashes in your head. → Read More
Today, Yahoo died as a search engine. If the deal with Microsoft is approved, what will replace it will be Bing, the search engine that Microsoft launched only two months ago. Within a few months time, Microsoft will go from owning 8 percent of the U.S. search market to 28 percent (comScore). That is still less than half of Google’s 65 percent, but it could give Microsoft a fighting chance in the search wars against Google.
While the agreement was a long time coming, Bing was the cherry on top, so to speak. Earlier today, I spoke with the two executives who oversaw the negotiations for both sides, Yahoo EVP Hillary Schneider and Microsoft SVP Yusuf Mehdi. I asked how big an impact Bing’s sudden success had on bringing the deal to a close. → Read More
Dude. Sweet. I don’t have kids, let alone anyone who really ever rides in the back seat of the car but if I did, I could easily justify a $130 outlay for not one, but two (two!) replacement headrests with built-in 7-inch LCD screens. Maybe I should just get these and then always ride in the back myself while the little lady handles the driving. → Read More
Well, we never thought it would happen because of its intense rivalry with Google, but Facebook is almost ready to launch an official app for Android phones. Hints are already popping up here and there, but I’ve been able to confirm it. The app could hit the Android Market (its version of the App Store) as soon as the end of this week.
Facebook’s Android app will launch with a more limited set of features than its current, and very popular, iPhone app. For instance, it won’t have an inbox, I’m told by a source who has seen it. But it will have the full Facebook stream, which is really all you need. The Facebook Android app is built around the stream and status updates. It was built with Facebook’s new Stream API. Your updates keep coming in, with a notification number telling you how many new items are available at any given time. → Read More
It seems the Palm Pre is too little, too late for Sprint. According to Sprint’s Q2 financials for 2009, they’ve lost nearly $400 million dollars, and “total wireless customers declined by approximately 257,000.” It’s not all doom-and-gloom, though! Sprint can smile about “18 consecutive months of improvement in Customer Care Satisfaction and First Call Resolution”! → Read More
Is Apple losing the plot? I ask this because, having just read this bollocks (Apple wants to make jailbreaking illegal because it supposedly threatens our nation’s cellphone tower infrastructure, and thereby threatens our national security), I’ve read nothing but well-reasoned, anti-Apple invective. Come, let’s explore the phenomenon. → Read More
Hot on the heels of Belkin’s iPod shuffle adapter announcement yesterday, iLuv has announced a similar adapter of its own. It looks almost identical, albeit a bit more corner-y than Belkin’s round-ish offering and it’ll cost five bucks less — $14.99 versus $19.99. → Read More
In case you’re hurting for more choice when it comes to shopping for 1TB hard drives! Yup, Samsung’s Spinpoint F3 has now reached the 1TB mark by way of two 500GB platters. → Read More
There has been some talk about the Associated Press’ new system, called hNews for some reason, for protecting its precious copywritten materials from bloggers, pirates and pederasts. The system will include a DRM system that will make sure you can’t cut and paste data from a browser to a blog post, thereby ensuring that no one can steal the AP’s valuable, value-added content. As I recall similar systems were implemented by websites back in the days of AOL. They didn’t work because you could just view the source code or, interestingly enough, take a screen shot. The system works by putting something into a digital container and then sending to Google or whatever. This same system, as you recall, has prevented the rise of piracy in the music and movie arenas and must be applied to the written word before the Internet fails and we all resort to getting our news from “prophets” who will line major thoroughfares opining on things they believe happened, whether or not they are true. In short, we’ll be stuck with cable news pundits. → Read More
I’ve been running Snow Leopard and just got yesterday’s update. I’m pleased to report that the Quicktime logo now looks like Robocop’s gonad. Look at this thing: it’s brushed steel, glowing blueness, and a big, bold Q all in one delicious package of “wow.” → Read More
Time Warner released it second quarter results today, and the numbers aren’t good. Overall, revenue was down 9% versus the year-ago period as poor results from the publishing, film and yes, AOL dragged down the numbers for all. CEO Jeff Bewkes remarks are telling:
At the same time, we’re continuing the reshaping of Time Warner that we started last year. We’re on track to spin off AOL to our stockholders around the end of the year. Separating AOL will benefit both companies – enabling Time Warner to concentrate fully on our core content businesses and improving AOL’s operational and strategic flexibility.
That’s three AOL mentions in three sentences. Clearly, Time Warner is happy to let everyone know that it will only have a couple more quarters of dealing with that division’s nosedive. → Read More
Not for nothing, but it looks like the sale of The Pirate Bay may well be in jeopardy. You’ll recall that the site announced last month that it had found a buyer in Global Gaming Factory. The deal was predicated on the ability of GGF to come up with nearly $7 million, which now doesn’t look all that certain. → Read More
If you’ve been holding out for an affordably-price big box of thump for your humble abode, Amazon has a pretty good deal going on the Velodyne VRP1000 subwoofer for just over a hundred bucks and featuring free shipping. → Read More
Remember Laserdiscs? Those large-size video mediums almost no one outside Japan bought in the 1980s and 1990s? I never thought I would write another post on LDs after the one in January this year in which I reported about Pioneer stopping the production of LDs players forever.
But yesterday the same company (which manufactured the best hardware) issued a new press release [JP], saying it still has some players in stock, the DVL-919 ($1,000, pictured on the left) and the CLD-R5 ($400, pictured after the jump). The main difference is that the R5 only plays LDs and CDs, while the 919 also can be used for DVDs (region 2). → Read More
BBG points us to this Palm Pre commercial remix that forces us to ask the question: Was Tim Robbins dead or dying in the Jacob’s Ladder. Was it like in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge? Why haven’t I watched that movie lately? It was really good. Even crazier REAL commercial after the jump. → Read More
