You might be able to squeeze a little more storage into those Blu-ray discs soon. Sony and Panasonic have been working on increasing the maximum capacity per-layer from 25 to 33.4GB, and the new version might be ready for market in the near future. → Read More
It’s not quite as endearing as the (also terrifying) BigDog, but the OmniTread robot does seem pretty useful. That is, if you don’t need to go fast. The bot is a specialist in navigating rubble and small spaces, and could help locate people trapped under collapsed buildings. There is a risk of them running in terror, but if they’re pinned it shouldn’t be a problem. It’s designed by roboticists at the University of Michigan, and right now there aren’t any production plans. But if it were to prove itself in a quake or other disaster, they might find themselves with a government contract right quick. [via Coolest Gadgets and TechEBlog] → Read More
So here’s a somewhat interesting gadget. Instead of converting a PS3 into a hand-held device, a crafty modder named techknott built a custom transmitter. The transmitter allows a player to not only control their PS3 remotely, but also to view the output on a small video screen. → Read More
If you live in a northern climate, tomorrow marks the first real day of hunkering down for the cold, cold winter with nothing to look forward to until spring. We used to have the new season of Deadwood starting up in February, but HBO killed it. → Read More
Hold on to your hats, folks! It’s a doozy. Wait… I’m being told it’s actually a minor, but significant, change to an Acer Netbook, and one we already heard about. Sorry.
Well, as long as you’re here: it seems that the popular Acer Aspire One, a perfectly decent netbook if I ever saw one, is going to be sporting the new Atom N450 processor. This is the newest Atom, and it lowers wattage while integrating graphics. So you can expect slightly better battery life and better performance, although the clock speed is still hanging out at the same old 1.66GHz. → Read More
Pardon me, miss? I’d just like to tell you that I think your hat is fly. Dope, even. Too bad you’ll never remember my face. Memorize it now and then lose me forever. Unless, of course, you’ve somehow got a camcorder hidden in that thing! That’s unlikely, as your hat is far too stylish to be a technology product. → Read More
It’s almost January 1st, 2010 and we’ve been mulling over our favorites of 2009 – and the previous decade. Here we present another installment of our “TenYears” list. We already did the biggest losers in the tech industry but why not talk about the biggest product flops? Here are a few of the biggest failures of the decade, starting with one monster release from a fairly well-known company. → Read More
Last year‘s Satellite Radio Awards were a smashing success, so let’s do it again! Only this time I’m throwing out the idea of handing out awards to the whole of satellite radio (and these awards are obviously just for fun), and instead will focus my energies on the channel that I spend 99 percent of my time tuned into: XM Channel 202 The Virus. If It weren’t for 202 I would have killed my subscription some time ago. → Read More
When Daniel Raffel emailed and asked if we’d be interested in publishing his list of favorite stuff from 2009 we quickly agreed. He has worked on some of the more interesting projects in Silicon Valley over the last couple of years, and has his finger on the pulse of new technology. His post is below.
As the year winds down, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at my favorite tech launches this year. As I started assembling my list and bouncing them off friends I started to group them into the following categories: New Projects, New Products and Services, Feature Updates, and iPhone Apps. This list is an admittedly subjective batch. For instance, you’ll notice I am clearly interested in these trends: games, geo services, HTML5, identity, mobile, music, social updates, and web development. I’d love to hear what you think were exciting developments this year! → Read More
Good old John Gruber. While the rest of us are panting, he sits in the corner, calmly stroking his luxurious beard. He thinks the Tablet is real, the “leaks” and “mock-ups” aren’t real, all of his best sources say Apple’s best designers are incognito, and that Steve loves the project. → Read More
They’re baaaack! I just spotted the greatest beverages on Earth in my local Rite Aid while shopping for New Year’s Eve refreshments. The last I heard, Pepsi discontinued the Throwback line after a brief early summer run. But according to Wikipedia – who’s never wrong — the HFCS-free sodas are back for a limited time. Why, oh why, did I give up soda a few days ago. Who does something like that before New Year’s anyway? → Read More
If you’ve been following Snuggie news as closely as I have, you’ll definitely have noticed that most, if not all, Snuggie knock-offs are far superior to the original. Take this Snuggle Suit, for instance. It’s $20 and you could wear it as an actual outfit around many parts of New Jersey without getting a second look. → Read More
There’s no shortage of web-based interactive toolbars to choose from. This week, a new startup is entering the space, Wibiya, that provides a compelling web-based, customizable toolbar to publishers.
Wibiya’s toolbar for blogs and publishers integrated services, social media sites, applications and widgets. Everything is customizable, giving publishers the ability to add Facebook Connect, enabling Twitter alerts, and more fairly easily. The toolbar has a fairly in-depth integration with Twitter, Search, latest tweets, Tweets about each page and more. Publishers can also bring their Facebook Fan Page stream to the toolbar. Interestingly, Wibiya has an “app store” of sorts, where publishers can customize their bars with a variety of apps, including Google Translate, YouTube, games and more. Unfortunately the app store is limited with only 25 apps at the moment. → Read More
http://www.ustream.tv/flash/live/1/615375Online video chat by Ustream These dudes are doing a 48 hour Zelda marathon for Free the Children. They’re playing Faces of Evil (the CDi version, which is amazingly bad) right now and are accepting donations at Extralives. Up next is Ocarina of Time. Watch and donate! → Read More
In my humble opinion, conventional wisdom should dictate that any netbook that’s still sporting a 1024×600 resolution should be overlooked immediately. We make an exception today for Acer’s 10.1-inch 532h, which features Intel’s upcoming N450 “Pine Trail” chipset sporting a 1.66GHz Atom CPU. → Read More
Ever wonder what stories of 2009 the people of the Internet found most interesting? I can’t really help you there, but I can tell you which stories on MobileCrunch got the most pageviews. Now, you might assume that most of our popular stories involved the iPhone, but — well, actually, you’d be right. The iPhone isn’t alone on the list, of course; Android makes a handful of appearances amongst our most popular stories, including one that I never would have seen coming. → Read More
It’s New Year’s Eve and you’re stuck in front of a computer. Sorry, bub. You might as well turn your speakers on and zen out to the American Museum of Natural History’s The Known Universe video put to Exogenesis by Muse. The somewhat boring, but also high-def, original video is after the jump if you want to burn even more of your day. → Read More
This story is not nearly as interesting as I was led to believe. Some guy bought something in the online game Entropia Universe. He bought it with in-game currency—PED3.3 million, to be exact. It just so happens that that amount, PED3.3 million, can be converted at will to real life currency. At current conversion rates that equals approximately US$330,000. So if you want to say that the guy bought an in-game item for US$330,000, well, be my guest. → Read More
The Asus Eee Stick might be dead, folks. According to a Digitimes report, the company has slashed the development department down to only 20 team members from the original 100 and more cuts might be coming. Long story short, the department isn’t delivering the goods. I mean, have we ever seen a good use of the Eee Stick? It’s not like the Eee netbooks were ever that great at gaming. → Read More
A few weeks ago we wrote about a mysterious Easter Egg on Google’s homepage that we dubbed The Google Countdown. After clicking the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button with no search query entered, the page would display a countdown timer ticking down the seconds until… something. A little trickery with our computer clocks revealed that the timer was counting down until January 1, 2010 at 12:00 AM (the New Year, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention). But nothing happened once to timer reached zero.
Today, Google has flipped the switch on its New Years surprise. No, it isn’t an amazing new free web service. Instead, it’s a cheesy digital fireworks display that overlays the classic Google homepage with multicolored stars and ‘Happy New Year’ banners dancing across the screen. I can’t help but be slightly let down, but then again, it’s only five more days until the rumored launch of the Nexus One. And it is kind of funny. → Read More
