Say you’re going on a picnic and don’t want to bring a huge bulky pocket knife. What would you bring? Maybe a knife, a bottle opener, and a corkscrew. Or say you’re planning on dismembering and eating a baby seal? What would you bring then? Probably the same stuff. But the Switch from Quirky makes picnics and ritual seal dismemberment easy and fun! The product is a modular knife. You pick the tools, put them together, and snap the attachments shut with a coin or other screwdriver-like accoutrement. Two exterior body covers, for encasing the tool attachments. – Two slotted caps to hold the tool together, which can be removed with the twist of a quarter to disassemble the unit. – Three interior axle assemblies – small (2-6 tools), medium (4-10 tools), and large (7-13 tools) — which can be swapped in and out depending on your desired tool width. – 18 tool attachments: Standard Knife, Pliers, Scissors, Nail File, Tweezers, Thin Flathead Screwdriver, Phillips-Head Screwdriver, Eyeglass Phillips-Head Screwdriver, Eyeglass Flathead Screwdriver, Wood Saw, Serrated Blade, Corkscrew, Combination Bottle Opener/Flathead Screwdriver, Combination Can Opener/Wire Stripper, Pen, Magnifying Glass, LED Flashlight, 1GB USB Memory Stick. → Read More
Still using BitTorrent? Using a Mac? Want to try out a leaked beta of Microsoft Office 2011? Clearly you see where I’m going with this. → Read More
The biggest story in tech today is the Gizmodo stolen iPhone debacle (note that I use the word “stolen” only to keep the description brief, not in any legal way). An Apple employee with a iPhone prototype left it in a bar. Someone found it and sold it to Gizmodo for $5,000. Gizmodo got a huge scoop, but they are now facing criminal and possibly civil liability issues. John Gruber has a good summary of the first part of the story. How this all plays out is still being decided, but the police have now raided a Gizmodo editor’s home and have seized property.
A number of sites have compared this to the Twitter document scandal that we were in the middle of last year. And we’ve received a number of inquiries about whether or not we would have handled this iPhone situation the same way as Gizmodo did. → Read More
So yeah, that just happened.
Friday evening, police raided the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen. Their mission? To search the premise and confiscate all items that could be related to the supposed theft of the next generation iPhone prototype. Ever since it initially broke, this story has been fascinating for a number of reasons, and new ones continue to reveal themselves. What may be most interesting right now is not what the police did, but what they didn’t do: arrest Chen or anyone else related to Gawker media.
That raises the question: are the police going after Gawker, or are they simply looking for evidence of who actually took/found the device? And if that’s the case, is it legal to search the home of a journalist to find such information? → Read More
Pretty sure China plays by its own rules when it comes to pirated versus non-piated goods, but this story’s still worth a chuckle. Ever since Apple said that it would delay international launches of the iPad in order to placate U.S. demand— the magical and revolutionary device is flying off the shelves, it seems—Chinese manufacturers have flooded their internal market with iPad knockoff after iPad knockoff. They’re slightly less expensive than the real thing, but the important part is that they’re available right now. Not bona fide, but bona found. I love how that makes no sense whatsoever. → Read More
Facebook’s new Like button was announced last week, which allows users to “Like” any piece of content on an outside site with one click. Those likes are then transported back to Facebook and integrated into users’ profiles. This feature is expected to create a vast Facebook-centric recommendation network that transcends the social network, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg estimating over 1 billion likes on the first day of its launch. And it poses a serious threat to existing social recommendation services. One of these is Glue, a social browsing assistant that shows ratings and recommendations of movies, books, restaurants, stocks, and other things as you surf the Web (via a browser plug-in). Today, Glue is launching new personalization features that use your past likes to help you pick your next favorite movie, album or book.
Glue, which uses semantic technology to show related products and media across categories, will now scan new releases in movies, music, and books and will highlight the ones that are most relevant to you based on what you already like. Glue will also keep updating your recommendations in real-time. So as you like more on the system, the movies, music and books that are most relevant to you bubble up to the top of your recommendations. → Read More
If you’ve got the nerves to take your precious Leica M8 underwater… well, I salute you. I don’t think I could take such a sweet piece of kit below the waves unless they made one waterproof to begin with. But I suppose if they’re going to charge this much for an underwater housing, one can be fairly certain that they stand behind their product. → Read More
We’ve been looking at a few micro 4/3s cameras recently and I’m really excited about the technology. What you get is near-DSLR quality in a package that’s eminently portable, and unless you’re planning on shooting F1 racers these cameras are fast enough for most shooting situations. → Read More
There is something warm about these handmade external computer drives. They are almost like how God would have created computers. The real charm is that they are made exclusively by two dudes out of Seattle who obviously enjoy woodworking as much as I do. → Read More
Wow. Last week, Gizmodo published a massive scoop when they got their hands on what is mostly likely the next iPhone. At the time there was plenty of talk about the legality of Gizmodo’s actions (as they admitted to paying $5000 for the device). Now Gizmodo has just published a post saying that editor Jason Chen had four of his computers and two servers confiscated last night by California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, who entered the house with a search warrant.
Gawker’s COO has responded to the actions by citing California Penal Code 1524(g), which states that “no warrant shall issue for any items described in Section 1070 of the Evidence Code”, which protects information obtained in protection of a news organization. → Read More
Google’s Nexus One phone was supposed to be the Internet giant’s big entrance into the mobile market. It was the first so-called “Google Phone” in that Google was entirely in charge of selling the thing, and it carried the Google branding in a more prominent way than other Android devices. Today, the Nexus One just got kicked in the pants — big time — and it’s Google fault.
Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless carrier, will not sell the device. Big deal, you might think — after all, the carrier also doesn’t sell the iPhone, and it seems to be doing just fine. The problem for the Nexus One though, is that Verizon had originally agreed to sell the device. In fact, Google announced the partnership at its Nexus One unveiling event in January. So what happened? → Read More
Tiny wireless headsets getting new features, for free, by way of a software update? We’re living in the future, you know. → Read More
There you have it. Right from the big man himself. Best Buy will have 3G iPads on launch day. Or the email is laugh-out-loud joke and I’m a dbag for posting it. Your call. At least the email header info makes it seem legit. It’s after the jump for those that care a bit too much. → Read More
Scott Adams, everybody. If he’s not one of your heros, you probably just need to read up on him a bit more. → Read More
In February AOL added the ability to message your Facebook friends on AIM, giving Facebook users a nice stand alone client to chat with their Facebook friends. Since then, more than 1 million people have used Facebook Connect on AIM to access that Facebook friends list, AOL tells me, and all of these were new installs of the AIM client.
That’s about 5% of the total 21 million monthly AIM users, according to Comscore. And those numbers should rise significantly – recently AOL also added the ability to sign into AIM directly with your Facebook credentials. → Read More
Hey, Android handset owners! Tired of your iPhone-toting friends bragging about how they can tune into SiriusXM radio on the go, while you can’t? Me too. (Don’t have any friends who happen to have both SiriusXM accounts and an iPhone? Me neither. We’re pretending, okay?) Fret no longer! Your time in the shadows of inadequacy is nearing its end, friend: SiriusXM is officially coming to Android. → Read More
Yet another video of an iPad-controlled home surfaces. Like it or not, soon our entire lives will be controlled by an iPad. You might as well jump in the kool-aid line now while it still tastes sweet. [via Electronic House] → Read More
Playdom is continuing its shopping spree today with the acquisition of social game developer Merscom. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
It appears that the acquisition is based around talent and Merscom’s branded games business. Playdom says that it plans to leverage Merscom’s expertise in working with IP owners as the gaming giant moves to develop partnerships with “powerful global brands.” Founded 16 years ago, Merscom has produced over 250 games in total and over 30 casual games for such brands as Lifetime Networks, Paramount and Starz Entertainment and is currently developing games for Sea World, Purina, National Geographic and NBC Universal. → Read More
Obesity sucks. Unfortunately, smart phones generally don’t do much to make the problem any better. Sure, there are plenty of exercise-assistance apps, like RunKeeper, built to make exercising easier and thus more likely to happen — but for the most part, our smartphones help us to move less. Why walk to the computer downstairs, when you’ve got the web in your pocket? Why walk aimlessly around the city looking for a fun new restaurant, when there are a million review apps telling you where to go and Google Maps telling you the shortest way there? Looking to counteract this, Snaptic has launched the “Move Your App!” developer challenge. The idea is simple: develop an Android app that gets people up and moving, and you could win an all-expense paid trip to the TED Global 2010 conference. → Read More
Remember way back in like 2007 when this chair was all the rage? It’s basically an accordion-style seating system backed with two pieces of plywood and you can fold it and flip it any way you like. It’s eco-friendly and it’s made in China. → Read More
