Amazon has launched a hosted relational database service, Amazon RDS, as part of the suite available at AWS. The new service is a hosted MySQL database instance with the full capabilities and access rights as a normal self-hosted DB. As a hosted solution, the service has an ability to scale out across computational, memory and storage requirements while still being treated as a single db instance by the end user. Pricing stars at $0.11c per hour for the smallest scale specification, and is available now on the AWS site. → Read More
Well, you can stop trying now. You’re not going to win that costume party. I’m going to come to it in a monstrous Gomora costume as big as a tree, shooting smoke and lighting up my monster eyes. Unless you come dressed as Ultraman and vanquish me (unlikely) I’ll be taking home first prize. → Read More
With the DSi still fresh on the market (relatively so anyway), it seems strange that Nintendo would want to replace it so quickly. But hey, they did it with the GBA, so why not? Japanese paper Nikkei reports that Nintendo is planning a new plus-size version of the device, which is to sport a 4″ screen (or screens). Sounds good to me, although the DSi already enlarged and improved the DS Lite’s perfectly good screen. So a 4″ one would probably be more for the real hardcore kids. → Read More
Flip definitely created a market that no one knew existed, when the came out with their now famous line of portable camcorders (or pocketcams). There have been a few other brands, with a few different feature sets, and now Vivitar is going to throw their product into the lineup. → Read More
Want a Blu-ray player? Want a Netflix streamer? How about both for $100? Best Buy has you covered with the Insignia NS-BRDVD3. → Read More
Google Voice is a great way to manage phone hell by giving you a single phone number that automatically rings your mobile, home, work and other phones based on your choice of rules and settings (who’s calling, when, etc.). But people are still stuck with their legacy phone numbers, and moving completely away from them is difficult.
I solved the problem by simply porting my mobile number away from AT&T over to Google Voice, a feature that Google says will be launched more broadly eventually.
Others solve the problem via the Google Voice application on various phones. But even then, if someone calls your old mobile number and leaves a message, you have to deal with it separately.
Not any more. Tonight Google is launching a third option, a new feature that allows mobile users to move their voicemail away from their carrier and over to Google Voice. The benefits: your mobile voicemails go into your Google Voice inbox along with other voicemails and text messages, plus you can create custom greetings for callers and your voicemails are all automatically transcribed (sometimes hilariously). → Read More
Judging from this video, the Windows 7 launch in Japan was certainly more, shall we say, flamboyant then the launch here in the US. But the really amusing part is the fact that the host couldn’t get the touchscreen to work. → Read More
Netpulse, an interactive media platform for fitness equipment, has secured $3.1 million in Series A funding led by Javelin Venture Partners with DFJ Frontier participating. The company says it will use the investment to further development of its interactive entertainment platform, which is specifically designed for integration into fitness equipment and screens cardiovascular machines like treadmills and elliptical machines.
While many gyms and fitness equipment include screens to watch TV nowadays, Netpulse’s technology gives users access to live HD television, a touch screen, on-demand videos and music, and provides iPod/ iPhone connectivity, and personalized workout data. Netpulse’s screen has not yet been launched in fitness centers and will be rolled out various gyms later this year. → Read More
Of all the people on Earth, I’m probably at least in the top 100 of “most mice handled.” Not a particularly prestigious list to be on, but I’ll take what I can get. And I’m probably one of the biggest proponents of splurging on a good mouse. Mamba, G500, Mighty Mouse (if it’s any good)… just go for it, you use this thing for hours in a row and it might as well be the perfect fit. But like all things, there are exceptions. For instance, when a mouse costs over a grand. → Read More
Just a PSA, really: The newest iMacs are somewhat limited in their capability to be used as external monitors for your laptop. I’d consider the functionality to be a bonus to begin with, but if you were going to be relying on it, better make other plans. It seems that the DisplayPort on 27″ iMacs (there isn’t a video in on the 21.5″ ones) is a bit picky on what it takes an input from. Using various adapters, iFixit determined that at the moment, the only devices which can use the iMac as a secondary display are those equipped natively with a Mini DisplayPort. I won’t editorialize here other than to say what’d you expect? Apple was going to ignore the chance to sell another accessory? → Read More
A little birdie, also known as an e-mail, tells me that EA Sports will flip the switch on Dynamic Season Mode in NBA Live 10 tomorrow. Well, for the Xbox 360 version; PS3 owners will have to wait till Thursday. This, of course, coincides with the start of the new NBA season, to be won, according to that same NBA Live 10, by the Cavs. → Read More
When I first heard that Microsoft was going to be publicizing Windows 7 in the legendarily offensive “Family Guy,” I thought “Wow, either Microsoft is cooler than I thought or they’ve never actually seen the show.” Unsurprisingly, it seems to have been the latter. → Read More
Interesting note regarding DJ Hero, where “interesting” means “potentially bad news.” One of those fancy analyst types, someone at Cowen and Company, has slashed sales expectations by a little more than 50 percent. That’s nothing to brush aside if you’re Activision. → Read More
The Audit Bureau of Circulations has released the numbers for the top 25 daily newspapers in the U.S. based on their weekday circulation numbers. Not surprisingly, the numbers are bad — okay, awful. Exactly one of the top newspapers has shown growth when compared to where they were 6 months ago. That paper is The Wall Street Journal, which is now the number one paper in the country thanks to USA Today’s staggering loss of nearly 20% of its readership the past 6 months.
And it’s not like WSJ is growing like gangbusters, it grew 0.61% in the last six months. → Read More
Believe it or not, but FIFA 10 isn’t the only soccer game around. In fact, Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 just came out in Europe, and was the top selling game there last week. Not the top selling sports game, but the top selling game overall. Yeah, it’s big. → Read More
Note the “Western Eyes” Short Version Trust me. Paranormal Activity sucks. Go see Astro Boy if you have to see something this week or weekend. A Real Boy The original Astro Boy aka Tensuwan Atomu was created in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka as a reaction to post-war technological advances and the swift industrialization of the island nation (see also Godzilla). This is not really that original Astro Boy. The plot in this update is pretty wonky: there’s this boy named Toby and his dad, Dr. Tenma (the voice Nicolas Cage), a scientist for the Ministry of Science for Metro City, a city that floats over the barren wasteland that is now Earth. Robots help out the humans by washing stuff for them but humans are like “Robots aren’t people” and there’s essentially robo-apartheid. Tenma meets up with his buddy Dr. Elefun, some dude with red and blue space stones. The blue one is the good one and it contains boundless good energy. Elefun wants to use the blue one to clean up the Earth. Then there’s the red one, which is the evil stone. And the President wants them both to make weapons. Spoiler: The President is a douche. → Read More
Orkut continues to undermine Google’s Data Liberation Front, whose singular goal is to “make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products”. Earlier this month the Orkut friend exporter, which makes it easy to export your friends’ contact information to a standard CSV file, was mysteriously broken due to a bug. The timing of the bug was more than a little suspect — Orkut has been hemorrhaging users lately in India and Brazil as people flock to Facebook, which takes advantage of Orkut’s friend export tool to help users make the switch. Now Julio Vasconcellos over at Armchairfounder has noticed how Orkut managed to fix their bug while still making it harder for members to switch to Facebook: the tool works, but it no longer includes your friends’ Email addresses. → Read More
I’ve always considered the Grooveshark web app’s UI to be quite amazing, so I was wary when I was granted preview access to the service’s new look, which the startup is presenting publicly for the first time today (at 12 AM EST). Fortunately, they somehow managed to make it even more awesome than it already was, and the makeover was more than a new lick of paint as it also included a number of performance tweaks to make it run smoother.
In case you’re not familiar with Grooveshark: it’s a great web-based music search, play and management tool that’s been around since April last year. You can use the app to instantly look for and listen to music, and there’s the quintessential social component that allows you to interact with people from its community and discover new music from others’ choices. → Read More
Well, this is a bit of a strange twist. For the first few months after launch, the development mentality surrounding Android was a developer’s dream. Huge chunks of the operating system were made open source, the development team was pleasantly transparent, and the roadmap clearly sketched out the trails ahead. Then they released Donut, and all went more-or-less mum. It was no secret that Android 2.0, codenamed Eclair was to follow – but what such updates would contain was anybody’s guess.
Well, Google’s finally ready to share the innards of Eclair with the world. And by “world”, we mean a small group of developers hand-picked to attend an invite-only, NDA-required development event. → Read More
Seriously, who doesn’t want a pet dinosaur? Sure, Jurassic Park makes it seem all dangerous and life-threatening and such. Would you really let that stop you? I think not. But until genetics research and cloning catch up to our imaginations, we’ll have to settle for robotic proxies. And everyone’s favorite little Camarasaurus just got back on the market. → Read More
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