Look, I love my kids as much as they next guy, but do we really need a tub enclosure that fits right over your old, big tub designed to ensure that your wee ones are easier to grab when they’re all lathered up?
This $2,200 “tub extender” was part of a bathroom fixture trade show, a show that I believe CG should definitely cover next year. Basically it helps you by bringing the wee ones a big higher out of the tub but why not just wash them in the sink if you’re having that big a problem? → Read More
It was inevitable. First we had pay-per-post, then pay-per-tweet, and now we have pay-per-video. As personalities on YouTube start attracting larger, and more loyal audiences, they are increasingly seen by marketers as an effective advertising channel. MyLikes, a social marketing network that already matches influential bloggers and Twitterers with advertisers, is now moving to YouTube. For instance, blogger Chris Pirillo, who has 120,000 subscribers to his Lockergnome YouTube channel, produced a sponsored video for the iPhone app Siri which shows him doing a demo of the virtual personal assistant. → Read More
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there’s a serious race going on once again for the right to be Twitter most-followed user. Ever since actor Ashton Kutcher beat CNN to the one million mark, he’s been in the lead — and now has some 4.8 million followers. But pop star Britney Spears is quickly catching up, with nearly 4.8 million herself. So the race to 5 million is on. But if one revoluationary has his way, those two will have company at the top.
Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, has announced his intention to join Twitter. Considering that Chavez reguarly writes a newspaper column, and has his own radio show, the fact that he would use this newer mass communication medium isn’t that surprising. But what is surprising is his apparent goal. “I’m sure he’ll break records for numbers of followers,” Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s head of communications told Bloomberg today. → Read More
While we have our own ideas about what should constitute a slow motion film, I guess this one from NASA is okay. I mean, if you like explosions and enormous hulks of metal rising into the air, and flames.
Okay, okay, it’s totally freaking awesome. → Read More
I love this device. It’s always bothered me that if you lose a USB key, you lose the data as well. The Lok-IT secure USB device makes it so I don’t have to worry about losing it. Well, other then the purchase price. The technology is pretty cool in that the computer can’t see the drive until the PIN is entered, so it’s not easy to hack. → Read More
Yammer CEO David Sacks dropped by TechCrunch today to talk about corporate and sales milestones. The “Twitter for enterprise” startup, which won TechCrunch50 in 2008, continues to grow nicely.
Yammer now has 70,000 corporate clients, and 800,000+ total seats (users). At least 1,000 of those companies are paying for the product, and Sacks says 10%-15% of seats are converting to paid. 70% of Fortune 500 companies are using Yammer, says Sacks. Paying customers include Cisco, Nationwide, AstraZeneca, Alcatel-Lucent, Sungard and Molson Coors. → Read More
Denon is jumping into the the 3D market with both feet, bringing two new Blu-ray players to the market. Both feature 5.1 audio, BD Live, Netflix, and YouTube Streaming, and (my personal favorite) 1GB of on-board memory. → Read More
Earlier today news broke that police had raided Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s home in connection with the iPhone leak last week. Authorities got a search warrant and removed four computers, two servers, and more. However, in light of claims by Gizmodo’s attorneys that Chen should be protected by California’s Shield Laws, we have just been told that the authorities are not yet looking through this evidence.
I just spoke to Stephen Wagstaffe, Chief Deputy at San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, who told me that nobody has yet been charged in the case, and at this point it is “just an investigation”. He says the investigation is “looking at any hand that touched or had something to do with this phone” but that the investigation is not currently targeting either Gawker or the person who originally found the phone — rather, police are collecting every fact they can to present to the DA, who will then make a decision. → Read More
This is the final version of the WePad, and it’s currently earmarked for a July release. We’ll see, of course. Anyhow, the device was shown off to the press in Germany earlier today, and several videos demonstrating the interface are now online for our viewing pleasure. It does look mighty slick, but you wonder if that’s enough to take on Cupertino’s “magical and revolutionary” device. → 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 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 used by reporters. → Read More
People love arcade games, and have since the 50′s. Some of the earliest games were based off of other recreations, like for example bowling. I remember playing one of these in the arcade in town during my youth, but it never held the attraction to me like Battle Zone or Asteroids did. → Read More
Denon just announced its 2010 lineup, which includes a crap-ton of new A/V receivers. The company totally revamped its entire lineup, releasing ten new A/V receivers at each price point from $249 to $7,500. The whole line got some fine upgrades, too. Every model now rocks 3D-friendly HDMI 1.4, audio return channel and Consumer Electronics Control support. Analog-to-HDMI conversion and HD Audio decoding from Dolby to DTS is also included, although not in $249 entry-level model. Most models will hit retailers in the coming months so it might be best to hold off your next A/V purchase until the model in your perspective price-point launches. Wouldn’t want you to get buyers remorse. → Read More
Just a handy reminder to all you PC gamers out there that Valve has fully released the new Steam Client UI update. → Read More
Denon has released a new set of headphones, bringing the company’s total number of headphone models to 14. These new headphones, while exciting from a metaphysical standpoint (Questions can me asked, including “Does Denon really need to sell 14 different headphone models?”), are also interesting from a practical standpoint. The two in-ear models are iPhone and iPad compatibvle while the AH-NC800 – price TBD – are noise canceling.
Click through for the press release. Because we weren’t sent images I’ve placed an image of Burt Reynolds here instead. → Read More
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
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