The Venn diagram that drills down to the target buyer of this $800 chair must be a weird mix of people with lots of money, a tiny apartment, and sore legs. In cube form, the product “serves as an ideal footrest or stores unobtrusively in a closet.” → Read More
When Jason Kincaid tried out the iPhone app online music streaming startup Grooveshark built and showed off in July 2009, he wrote that it was great but that he “wouldn’t expect this to pop up in the App Store any time soon”. He was right on both counts.
Grooveshark now says it has given up on its ambitions to get approved for the official App Store, claiming that Apple has been “ritually rejecting” the app for “primary selfish reasons”. We’ve heard that song before. → Read More
When Jason Kincaid tried out the iPhone app online music streaming startup Grooveshark built and showed off in July 2009, he wrote that it was great but that he “wouldn’t expect this to pop up in the App Store any time soon”. He was right on both counts.
Grooveshark now says it has given up on its ambitions to get approved for the official App Store, claiming that Apple has been “ritually rejecting” the app for “primary selfish reasons”. We’ve heard that song before. → Read More
So many cool things you can do with Arduino. The possibilities are endless now that we have the technology! Jazari has constructed this very elaborate solenoid/Arduino rig to play a myriad of instruments, all with two Wiimotes. Sure beats playing percussion in band back in high school. [BoingBoing] → Read More
Earlier this week, news broke that the EU was opening an antitrust investigation into Google — and Microsoft’s fingerprints were all over it. One of the three companies filing complaints about Google is owned by Microsoft, while another is a member of a group that’s partially funded by them. Google promptly responded to the inquiry with a blog post called “Committed to competing fairly” that gave a brief overview of how its search rankings work.
Today, Microsoft has written a blog post that admits that it played a part in instigating the inquiry, stating that “complaints in competition law cases usually come from competitors.” And it’s also accusing Google of “telling reporters that antitrust concerns about search are not real because some of the complaints come from one of its last remaining search competitors.” → Read More
Oh boy, Monday can’t come soon enough. That’s when Intel’s expected to announce its N470 Atom CPU, according to CNET. → Read More
The video above shows off the fancy-pants landing system in the new F-35 Lightning II. Notice the massive hatch just behind the cockpit that helps slow the aircraft down for shorter runways. Of course if that doesn’t work, there’s always the vertical-landing mode on some models where it really could land in your front yard assuming you don’t mind your grass getting burned to hell from the hot gases and whatnot. → Read More
Remember that big, 15-member hit squad that assassinated Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh? They were on camera for most of the time they were on the job, walking in and out of hotels, getting picked up on cameras at the airport. No one still knows who they are and they couldn’t have stopped them. It was dead tape until something happened. → Read More
The Jabra GO 6430 headset has the best audio clarity I’ve ever heard from a Bluetooth headset. It’s unmatched. It’s too bad that my ear and the headset don’t get along. → Read More
One of the more frustrating things about shopping for electronics is the fact that many devices don’t hold their value for very long — you can’t typically buy a cell phone and expect to sell it for $200 a year later. At least, that’s how it used to be. Now Palo Alto-based startup Ztail is teaming with online mobile phone retailer LetsTalk to do exactly that for mobile phones: buy a phone through LetsTalk, and Ztail will tell you on the spot exactly how much money they’ll give you 18 months down the line if you want to sell it back.
Here’s how it works. LetsTalk now features a ‘ValueLock’ banner for the vast majority of its phones, including popular devices like the Motorola Droid (ValueLock is essentially a branded version of Ztail’s service). Each phone has a ValueLock Price, which is the amount Ztail will pay if you decide to send in your phone up to 18 months later (this price is the same no matter when you send in your phone, up to the 18 month cutoff). The catch is that in order to redeem your ValueLock deal, you have to purchase your next phone through LetsTalk too. The site appears to have competitive prices, so this shouldn’t be a huge deal. → Read More
We covered various products from Tokyo-based robotics venture ZMP in the past, including a mini robo car, but we never had the chance to blog about an actual robot car (from any company actually). Granted, it’s just a one-seater and not really “robotic”, but the so-called RoboCar G [JP], which is an electric vehicle, doesn’t look too bad and might be the beginning of a new trend. → Read More
From the product description, We wanted to make a clock that was ultra-hackable, from adding a seperate battery-backed RTC to desiging the enclosure so you could program the clock once its assembled. Translation? This clock is for true nerds. Video after the jump. → Read More
$39.95. That’s all you have to spend to protect your home from the comfort of your bed. Buy two! One for each side of the bed! Buy three for the bottom of your bed when you and the missus are doing the “strangle dangle thing.” Buy one for the couch! Buy one for the pool-side lounger! We’re living in crazy times, people. This is the only way you’ll survive. → Read More
Everything moves at a lightning pace in the mobile world – everything, that is, except network rollouts. Where as handsets can go from announced to old news in the blink of an eye, network upgrades.. can’t.
Take Verizon’s upgrade to 4G technology, for example: they announced the move to LTE in February 2009, and began testing in one small market nearly half a year later. They’ll be firing it up for commercial use for the first time later this year, with plans to launch in 30 markets before the year is out.
Fortunately, things seem to be speeding up. Verizon has just disclosed plans to double their LTE footprint, just a bit over 1 year after launch. → Read More
Tokyo-based crap gadget maker Thanko continues to amaze. The company today announced [JP] a mouse with an integrated speaker, believe it or not (Thanko already gave us the “mid-air” mouse, the USB cooler mouse, a heated mouse, and a liquid mouse). → Read More
First PRMac, and now NBC Universal. I think I’m just going to give up now. There’s no shaming this industry into normal human behavior. I mean, who actually thinks it’s ok to email an entire database with a test message? At least they thanked me at the end.
From: PressRelease@nbcuni.com
Date: February 26, 2010 11:38:47 AM PST
To: [EVERYONE AT TECHCRUNCH, TWICE]
Subject: Please Disregard This EmailFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Press Release
818-840-7705
PressRelease@nbcuni.comPlease Disregard This Email
Please disregard this email as we perform a test of our email systems.
Thank You
When Seesmic debuted its Twitter clients for Android and BlackBerry devices back in November, we wrote that the two apps were probably the strongest offerings out there for each mobile device. Seesmic just updated its Android app, bringing it closer to the the Twitter apps for the iPhone. Today, Seesmic is rolling out a powerful new version of its BlackBerry app.
The new version includes support for multi-accounts, Ping.fm integration (Seesmic acquired Ping.fm earlier this year) and the ability to choose your photo uploading size. So if you have more than one Twitter account, you can set Seesmic to remember all of your accounts, and easily switch between them. You can also cross-post messages between different accounts at the same time. The app allows you to set up default account which will be generated each time you open Seesmic for BlackBerry. You can add up to ten accounts with the new feature. → Read More
Don’t be fooled by the size of this Shuttle computer. It has everything that you would fine in a larger rig but is barely larger than a convential 3.5-inch hard drive at 33mm wide. But you probably knew that. After all, it is 2010 and small form factor computers are nothing new. → Read More
The news is a bit aged but Boxee Beta is now on the Apple TV which means folks who updated to the latest ATV firmware can now get their media fix on. How do you get it? Hop over here, make a nice little patchstick, and rock out.
Boxee has full instructions right here and here’s our quick how-to. → Read More
Google has made it absolutely no secret that the Nexus One is heading to Verizon. They announced it the very same day they announced the T-Mobile version that’s already floating around, and have had it listed as “Coming Soon” ever since. Alas, neither Google or Verizon is willing to spill the beans on when it’s coming. “Spring 2010!” they say, as if that satiates our desire for mundane details. But wait! There’s good news: the VZW Nexus One just took a huge step toward hitting retail. → Read More
