Media Markt is large German retailer with, it seems, an overactive Twitter account (and, it must be said, a very red website). Netbooknews.de claims they caught them in the act of tweeting the name and price of the upcoming Apple Tablet.
I’ll not tease you. It says iPad, and the price is €499 with a €120/month T-Mobile contract or €899 without. Hmm. I’m thinking nein. → Read More
Just wanted to give you all a heads up, we got an email stating that the Zune system is undergoing scheduled maintenance starting in about an hour, and will be down all night. You should still be able to access and use your locally stored content though. Microsoft promises that everything thing will be fine, and you’ll be able to get back to the social in the morning. → Read More
Inspired by Avatar, this crafty fellow created his own version of the Pandora jungle. Made using conductive thread, fiber optic strands, and LEDs, he built a rather impressive looking patch of grass that lights up when you touch it. I’m not sure what the practical usage of this would be, but it’s one of those projects that is just cool to look at. → Read More
Time to bust out that wallet and preorder that new Leica! The M9 is now available for pre-order, and it’s pretty impressive. 18 megapixel, using a custom designed sensor from Kodak, the M9 is a digital viewfinder camera, and part of Leica’s new line. → Read More
Who knows if these are real, but these are easily the most legitimate looking pictures I’ve ever seen of the supposed Apple Tablet/iPad/iSlate/iBook/Whatever It Will Be Called. Further, UI designer Dustin Curtis tells us a friend sent him these pictures — and from what we hear, that friend could work at Apple (he wouldn’t confirm that). → Read More
Yesterday, we noted that multiple sources have heard Steve Jobs refer to the soon-to-be-unveiled Apple Tablet as the “most important thing I’ve ever done.” Today brought two statements out of Apple that are just about as close as you’re ever going to get to a confirmation of that.
In Apple’s press release for its strong Q1 2010 earnings, Jobs said the following: “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.” What’s odd is that not only does Jobs (or anyone at Apple, for that matter) usually make no comments about as-yet unannounced products, but why would he do so in a release about the previous quarter’s earnings — which have absolutely nothing to do with the tablet? He simply had no reason that he had to make that statement. I can only interpret that as he’s just that excited about what he’s going to unveil on Wednesday. → Read More
Ruggedized computers are typically pretty ugly, and the Juniper Systems handheld is no exception. Designed to withstand extreme temperatures, and drops onto concrete from a height of up to 5ft without damage, it’d be the ideal thing for the construction site or roadworks project. → Read More
I have a confession to make. I’ve never been able to solve a Rubik’s cube. I had a solved one in my office for years, but its one I bought at the store, removed from the package, and put on the shelf. Everything was fine until my son got hold of it, and jumbled it up for me. → Read More
I’m just going to take it. That’s right, Comcast. This is me, waving my white flag. I’m not going to complain to you any more. Why did I even try in the first place? It’s like trying to erode Mount Rainier with licks. So from here on out, I’m just going to take it. All the outages, all the fees, all 20 levels of customer service. Who was I kidding, anyway? → Read More
Everybody likes Helvetica, and even if you’re a little sick of it being used everywhere, all the time, I’m sure you won’t turn down a delicious cookie based on it. To be honest, Impact would probably be more practical for cookie-making, but that really won’t do if you’re hosting a typography party (I can haz frosting?). → Read More
Cloudkick, a Y Combinator-incubated startup that offers a free server management system to businesses, is rolling out its freemium model and additional features. Cloudkick provides detailed graphs on the health of your servers, and tools to categorize and keep information about what each server is doing. Cloudkick’s dashboard allows you to easily add or remove servers from Rackspace Cloud, Amazon EC2, Linode, GoGrid, Slicehost, RimuHosting, and VPS.NET and then monitor an unlimited amount of instances. You can see all the servers in one place, and color-code and label each server.
Cloudkick will check whether servers are alive and functioning and then alert you, via email, if servers go down. Cloudkick also provides data on bandwith and other metrics on servers in easy to use graphs and tables, allowing you a visual snapshot of server activity. You can also access servers straight from web and can run commands through your web browser remotely, which is handy when you are trying to manage servers from another computer → Read More
To be fair, the $12,000 figure cited in the headline is pure guesswork on my part. But when the 40″ version of the TV, reviewed here at FlatPanelsHD, costs £6000 (about $10,000), it’s easy enough to do the math. These mega-lux TVs are meant to be the final word in current LCD TV technology — and will of course be worth less than a fig once AMOLED is the standard. Until then, however (probably two years), these B&O sets will remain, high-cost, high-quality, and high-fashion displays for you to watch heavily compressed cable news on. → Read More
In the vast pantheon of watches, the aviator is a timeless paragon of virtue and class. Traditionally given to folks who fly in planes (hence the term “aviator”), these watches were larger than standard watches and often had big crowns for easy winding. The IWC Big Pilots Watch is a classic in the form, with the clear, legible numbers and top triangular noon pip.
But, like great paintings, watches often stray from form, and often with positive results. If the Big Pilots Watch is “Whistler’s Mother” then the Praesto Modern Fliegeruhr is Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup cans. At once this watch is an homage, a little work of art, and a sly dig at the stuffy establishment. → Read More
If Canon can pull this off, it’ll be a real coup. A recent patent shows a method for embedding an electronic image inside the viewfinder, while still retaining the pentaprism mechanism for bona-fide direct optical viewing. The layout they show is probably simplified and spaced out a bit for the sake of clarity, but the general idea is that you’d have the EVF above the optical VF, mainly for shot review without having to take your eye away from the camera. → Read More
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640 It was established at some point that Crisitano Ronaldo, the Portuguese international who gets red cards for Real Madrid, can kick a soccer ball at around 130 km/h. People keep track of this for some reason. This here robot… thing can kick a soccer ball at more than 200 km/h. Somewhere, Mr. Ronaldo is quietly sobbing to himself, on top of a huge pile of euros. → Read More
Since leaving Google last October, former product manager and Jaiku co-founder, Jyri Engeström has moved his young family back to Helsinki and started rooting around for the next thing to work on. Aside from working on his wife Ula’s long term project to create a hyperlink for any physical object, Thinglink, he’s also been seeking angel investments.
Today he joins the board of XIHA Life which is run out of Sunnyvale, California, Switzerland and Finland. At the same time the startup has announced a $1 million seed round. Veraventure led the round, joined by other angels and the company founders. Jani Penttinen, XIHA Life co-founder and CEO, says the money will be used to push the mobile platform and international growth. → Read More
Free advice: Although the traditional definition of a bandolier is that of a bullet holding apparatus, do NOT try to get through airport security with this travel bandolier if you decide to stash bullets in one of the pockets. → Read More
Over the weekend at the MidemNet music event in Cannes, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta took the stage to talk about the current status of the struggling company. During his keynote interview with Billboard editorial director Bill Werde, Van Natta stated that MySpace was showing an increase in unique visitors for the first time since the middle of last year. In fact, Van Natta said that according to comScore data, MySpace visitors grew by 7 percent between November and December. That may sound like great news for the site, but it may be misleading: many of these new users may have simply been redirected users of Imeem.
MySpace completed its acquisition of Imeem on December 8, and the music service was promptly shut down (Imeem was out of money and its music licenses were expiring). As soon as Imeem shut down, MySpace redirected all of its traffic to its own music site. → Read More
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