I keep looking at SSDs, and then I keep changing my mind. The right combination of price, performance, and storage capacity just hasn’t hit yet. Another roundup done by yet another technology blog reviewed the latest generation of SSD products, only to come to the same conclusion: the performance hit at the low end price point continues to make going to SSD too impractical for many users. → Read More
When I hear “car kit,” I usually think cigarette lighter adapter and a rickety dash mount. Magellan’s new Premium Car Kit (creative name, there) costs a bundle but it’s got a pretty complete set of features and is mercifully back-compatible. If you’re looking to adapt your iPhone to your car and don’t want to buy more than one package, this would be a good one to go for. (Banana man added for… → Read More
I know not all of you out there are avid TF2 players, but this is too nutty not to post. The latest TF2 update reveals the Wrangler, a way for the Engineer to control his sentry, at the same time protecting it from damage and increasing its fire rate. The only downside (other than replacing your pistol) is that the sentry is inactive for three seconds afterwards. Overpowered much?! → Read More
Bill Ruppert is back with more cool EHX gear. This time he turns a guitar into a string bass using only pedals and he adds a slow snare drum by rubbing the strings with a warranty card. → Read More
Get ready for Xbox Live Arcade to become a bit more useful. Microsoft’s Major Nelson announced today that there is a significant update to Xbox Live Arcade, including a new recommendation engine and visual browser system. → Read More
Remember that famous expression championed by Sun Microsystems, “the network is the computer”? As the Internet gets more and more pervasive, that expression is becoming more true than ever. Case in point, Lexmark all-in-one printers now allow you to read any RSS feed on their touchscreen interface. That’s right, you can keep up with global politics or the latest World Cup action right from your… → Read More
WakeMate’s quest to help you kiss your groggy mornings goodbye continues. The Y Combinator-funded startup has become something of a poster child for the mantra “Hardware is hard” — when the company debuted its gadget in November, it promised to start shipping devices the following January. That didn’t happen, and the company didn’t have a concrete date for when the first batch might ship. A… → Read More
AdSafe Media, a brand verification platform, has raised $7.25 Million in Series B funding, led by Atlas Venture with participation from existing investors Founder Collective and others participating.
Launched in May 2009, AdSafe Media uses algorithmic modeling and human verification to rate and verify the brand safety of content on commercially supported Web pages via a proprietary system. The… → Read More
In terms of interesting backgrounds among people in the tech space, Jeff Ma has one of the most interesting. If you’ve read the book Bringing Down The House or seen the movie 21, the main character is based on Ma — yes, in the movie he’s a white guy, but still, that’s him. He was a member of MIT’s now famous blackjack team for seven years. From there, he went on to co-founder a sports startup, … → Read More
A patent applied for by Amazon in 2006 has been made public today as a consequence of its being granted, and its language is rather more wide-ranging (and forward-thinking) than we might have expected. Depending on the interpretation, Amazon’s patent may be broad enough to justify a lawsuit over devices like the Nook and Alex, both of which sport a design clearly claimed by Amazon. The… → Read More
I’d been living under Apple TV hegemony for about two years I bought an early 40GB model, upgraded it to 80GB, and then hacked it. When hacked, the Apple TV is actually useful. Hacked it was, in short, one of the easiest ways to get video on my NAS or networked Macs to my TV. Unhacked it’s sort of like a really nice guy who works in insurance sales: you want to like him but he keeps… → Read More
Last week, we noted that Best Buy was looking into firing the employee that made the hilarious EVO versus iPhone 4 video (and the rebuttal video). The employee, 25-year-old Brian Maupin, was placed on suspension as Best Buy decided what they wanted to do. Today brings some good news: they’ve decided not to fire Maupin. But Maupin has decided not to return to work just yet, as he’s not sure he’s… → Read More
Flattr is a new startup with an inovative business model, coming out of Sweden. In fact it’s the brainchild of a group of people formerly associated with The [infamous] Pirate Bay, including Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi. It’s highly ironic that Flattr has sprung from a similar group that refused to pay for content, like movies. But Flattr just might work because there are already signs that the… → Read More
Peek might have a serious problem on its hands. There are widespread reports of users not getting their messages either in a timely manner or at all. Even worse, there are more than a few users stating they are getting other people’s emails, Twitter feeds, and text messages.
Peek was originally supposed to be a dead simple email-only handheld device — a smartphone alternative, really. But over… → Read More
It took years for the technology to come out, but in-flight WiFi was supposed to be the next big thing. The problem is, no one really uses it. Is it still too expensive? Too much of a pain to pull out the laptop? Whatever the reason, less then 10% of people flying are using in-flight wifi. → Read More
Using a bike as a power source is nothing new, but the idea of providing your own power is getting more and more attractive as people find their lives full of energy-sucking devices. Nokia just a couple weeks ago started pushing a little phone charger for bikes, and if I ever bought another Nokia phone (unlikely) I’d definitely pick one of those up as well.
If you felt like building your own… → Read More
ReadWriteWeb had a solid scoop last week when it uncovered Twitter was set to go live with an account called @EarlyBird. Well, it has just gone live, with a tweet pointing to this page where the company explains what it’s all about.
Looks like Twitter is about to start offering users exclusive, time-bound deals, events and sneak peeks, for which it has partnered with a number of (yet unnamed)… → Read More
Getting into retro gaming is often difficult. Trying to get a hold of antiquated game systems in good working order, much less three, can be tough. No longer, the RetroN 3 Video Gaming System has finally arrived. → Read More
Kudos to Blizzard for putting an end to Anonymous Cowards everywhere. Well, at least on their own official forums. Starting with the release of StarCraft II in a few weeks, Blizzard WILL DEMAND~! you use your real name to participate in the forums. Oh sure, you’ll also be able to have your in-game character’s name displayed alongside your real name, but don’t let that fool you: accountability has… → Read More
The number of visitors to MySpace UK has halved in the last six months, TechCrunch Europe has learned, leading to a fresh round of layoffs at the London office of the social networking site.
According to internal figures that we’ve seen, monthly visits to MySpace UK are down from a peak of just under 10 million at the start of the year to around 5m as of the end of June 2010. If indeed this is… → Read More
The kid who allegedly leaked footage of the U.S. military up to no good to Wikileaks faces a maximum of 52 years behind bars. The moral of the story is, leaking information, even if it’s for the greater good, doesn’t make much sense when you work for the military. Maybe that’s not the moral, but it’s certainly the lesson to be learned here. → Read More
Last week, the Feds shut down nine video sites for piracy and copyright violations. The enforcement was a combined effort by the Department of Justice, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center under the Department of Homeland Security. It is the new Intellectual Property Police, and they are fighting to save Hollywood.
The… → Read More
Oh those jokesters over at the AP — the fun never ends! Last night, we wrote a post noting that Woot was (humorously) calling out the AP for not following their own ridiculous rules when quoting from content. By Woot’s calculation, using the AP tool, the AP owes them $17.50 (but Woot was nice enough to offer them the chance to buy some headphones off of Woot instead). The AP didn’t like that… → Read More
Enterprise software giant EMC has acquired data warehousing company Greenplum Software. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but the acquisition is an all-cash transaction.
Greenplum, which has raised $61 million in funding, develops database software for business intelligence and data warehousing applications. Greenplum has a number of high profile investors, including Sun Microsystems and SAP… → Read More
Here it is, the first tweet from LeBron James. No, he’s not saying where he’s going — at least not yet.
Instead, James uses his first tweet to acknowledge that it’s really him (though Twitter still hasn’t verified the account, I suspect they will soon), and notes that it was fellow NBA star Chris Paul who got him to sign up. Here’s the tweet: → Read More
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:340747 As you know, Dr. Michio Kaku is the man. The theoretical physicist, perhaps best known for co-founding string field theory, was on The Colbert Report last night talking about all sorts of fun stuff, including the fact that we’ll have Harry Potter-eqsue (or, to make it game-y, Metal Gear Solid-esque) invisibility cloaks… → Read More
In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama announced the Department of Energy will loan almost $2 billion to two solar energy companies: Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing. The loans will go towards developing solar energy plants.
With the funding, Abengoa will build a solar plant in Arizona that can power 70,000 homes. When completed in 2013, the plant will be one of the… → Read More
God bless them for trying. Sony Japan will release two PlayStation Move bundles to hopefully kick-start the motion controller era. Oh, wait: the motion control era started nearly four years ago with the Nintendo Wii, and now it’s in danger of losing the casual audience to things like Farmville and Farmville-ville. That’s the game where you play the role of someone who’s playing Farmville. You’ve… → Read More
Google has now joined global publisher Pearson to become one of the first founding sponsors of TechHub, a new co-working space and innovation centre for technology start-up companies in central London. The space has a launch party on Friday and officially opens on Monday 12 July.
It would appear Pearson came on board to tap into startup talent, but for Google the TechHub project is clearly of… → Read More
Vision-based augmented reality — that is, pulling in data from a device’s camera and using it to position and rotate 3D models drawn on top of an on-screen view of the real world — isn’t really anything new. We started seeing tech demos of the concept 5+ years ago, and games like Sony’s Eye of Judgment have been doing it for nearly as long. More recently, the concept has been moving to mobile… → Read More
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