This isn’t big news to anyone but PS3 hackers, but I wanted to include it just as a “ahhh yeah” shout-out to all the people fighting to use their hardware however they like. The PS3 is limited to FAT32 formatting, but with the release of this library, you can now hot-swap NTFS-formatted drives, making home development and backup easier — as well as perhaps allowing for easier playback of large video files. [via PS3Crunch - wait, PS3Crunch?!] → Read More
There’s been a lot of speculation in recent months about where Twitter would put down a European base in its efforts to expand its operation. Certainly I’ve been bugging them in the last few weeks about whether they would come to London. But now we have the answer: London it is – at least for five people whose jobs will be largely about sales and commercial partnerships. → Read More
It’s still winter, but once spring comes, it’ll be time to cut the grass again. If you’re too lazy, then let a robot do it — oh yeah the future is here. Husqvarna has been around for a while, but today are better known garden items instead of dirt bikes. Their latest offering is called the Automower 305 and it promises to lift the labor of grass cutting off of your shoulders. → Read More
Given that enabling PGP encryption is as easy as ticking a few boxes in both Mac OS X and Windows, it’s no surprise that the authorities are now increasing their efforts to combat the scourge of people wanting to keep their private data private. For starters, new Secret Service recruits are given a one-week crash course in computer forensics, presumably so agents will be able to say with confidence, “Oh, dear, this drive is encrypted, better call my supervisor.” → Read More
Google has been on a mission lately to outline some of the cooler, newer features coming to Chrome on their Chromium Blog. Today brings one of the biggest yet: Background Apps.
This feature has existed on various builds of Chrome/Chromium for some time now. But Google hasn’t been touting it, and it wasn’t really clear how it would be used and/or useful. Well today, it’s very clear. And again, very cool. Essentially, Chrome-based web apps are going to be able to be always open, but hidden in the background. → Read More
When you use a phone to take video, one of the major issues that makes that video look bad is that you’re unable to keep the image steady or straight. Tiny variations in inclination or rotation lead to ugly compression problems like skew, and anyway the image looks best when it’s stationary due to the H264 codec algorithms. You could, of course, put together a simple steadicam with a string and a washer, but this Kickstarter project from Woxom looks like a good “real” solution to the problem. The gimbal mount is really what makes it. → Read More
Ever find yourself posting a ton of pictures to Twitter and Facebook and Dailybooth and so on and so forth, just to have them fall into the digital abyss? The people behind vvall, a stealthish mobile photo app, have created GRID, a humble project that attempts to organize your social photos chronologically, separating your own and your friends’ online image trails by date and days of the week.
In a wider scope than Twitter apps like Lookedon, GRID right now covers four platforms (Facebook, Twitpic, PiczPlz, and Dailybooth) but aims to add others like Instagram, Flickr and Yfrog as soon as technically possible. This feat is obviously challenging, as there are 82 different apps that post photos to Twitter alone and dealing with all the limitations of different APIs is akin to herding cats. → Read More
A couple days ago, Readability was pissed off. In an open letter to Apple, they noted that the new subscription policy “smacks of greed”. And they threatened to abandon Apple’s platform in favor of the open web. This message resonated with many, as there’s a huge amount of unease about Apple’s new policy in the developer community. But now, just two days later, Readability has re-submitted their app to Apple for review. And apparently, a “love letter” to the company is forthcoming.
So why the change from war to peace? Has Apple’s policy already changed? Well, no — not yet, anyway. Readability’s Richard Ziade said his tweet was a “joke” and had this to say: → Read More
As medical records move online, doctors are increasingly bringing laptops into the exam room to take notes, write prescriptions and more. But laptops can be cumbersome, and the iPad has emerged as a popular device for medical professionals. In fact, one out of every five doctors in a private practice own an iPad. Enter DrChrono, a Y Combinator-backed startup that produces an iPad app and SaaS for doctors.
The free iPad app allows doctors to schedule patient appointments, write prescriptions and send them to pharmacies, enable reminders, take clinical notes, access lab results, and input electronic health records. The electronic medical records element is key because the Obama administration is currently offering strong incentives for doctors to start moving their health records online. DrChrono will help doctors start, finish and manage this process. → Read More
Type in coupon code 10SALE40 to rock 40% off of SeV this month in honor of ScottEVest’s 10th anniversary. Don’t feel like it? No big whoop. What, we want to fight about it? No. → Read More
Sick of telling time the old way? Spice up your time-telling time with the open-source, hackable and Arduino-based DOTKLOK. Basically, you can get a bunch of different ways to tell time. Different customizable animations will make you proud to show off your hard work the next time someone asks for the time. Speaking of time, it passes in a unique way with numbers and abstract/geometric patterns. It also has classic video games like Pong, Tetris and Pacman, that pretty much makes it sweet in our book. → Read More
Lookin’ to hop on board with T-Mobile? Do you burn through data and texts like no ones business, but don’t really use your phone as a phone all that much? The stars have aligned for you, my friend — but only for a limited time. They’re not saying how long this deal will stick around, but T-Mobile has just put up a new Limited Time promo plan. $80 gets you Unlimited Data, Unlimited Texts, and 1500 minutes. That’s $20 less than their Unlimited Everything plan, and $10 less than their non-promotional 1000 minute, Unlimited Data/Text plan. → Read More
We’re one week ago from the PC multi-player demo of Crysis 2. Exciting! (It actually is, I’m not sure that came across well.) As the game’s release approaches, its developers have started opening up. First up: the game’s soundtrack. → Read More
Microsoft released some new mice today with some pretty direct names: Express Mouse and Comfort Mouse. I’d have gone with Magic Mouse, but Apple probably already took that. → Read More
With all this talk of copy-and-paste (or, more recently, talk of failed updates bricking handsets), it’s easy to forget about the other feature of Windows Phone 7′s first big update: CDMA support. In other words, it opens the door to Windows Phone 7-ville to Sprint and Verizon. Based on a handful of tweets out of Sprint and the discovery of a page lingering around on Sprint’s own server, it looks like they’re planning to hop onboard right quick. → Read More
One thing we night owls know about working at night is that lighting is key. Too much or too little can cause some serious strain. That’s why people come up with versatile clip-on LED task lights like the Mantis. The Mantis lights up your workspace by clip mounting the light anywhere. You can also use it as a free standing unit. The Mantis has 11 LEDs in a sort of rocket ship looking case. It’s powered by two AA batteries that run the light for 30 hours. → Read More
Really good news for the small game developers out there. Epic Games has changed the licensing scheme for its free Unreal Development Kit, the end result of which is independent game developers paying less than they previously had to. The way it works now is that developers will have to pay 25 percent of the game’s net revenue once it hits $50,000 in sales. The old threshold was $5,000. → Read More
Meet the man who killed the television industry. In the mid Nineties, while he was looking at a Fry’s ad, Anthony Wood invented the personal video recorder (PVR). From this epiphany, Wood founded ReplayTV in 1997, a PVR company which, for a short while, gave TiVO a run for its money.
But Wood not only invented the PVR, he also helped kill it. In 2002, after leaving ReplayTV, Wood founded Roku, a self-styled “cable killer” hardware company which provides a box for accessing on-demand video.
Almost ten years after founding Roku, Wood really is starting to scare the traditional cable industry. He’s already sold a million Roku boxes and streamed a billion minutes of content from Roku devices. And this year, Wood expects to sell a million and a half boxes, thus making Roku, Wood says, the 10th largest cable company in the US.
Video ahead. → Read More
It looks like the police, at the behest of Sony, have raided the house of graf_chokolo, one of the preeminent members of the PS3 hacking scene. How about that for a chilling turn of events? → Read More
Barnes & Noble’s Nook is a solid ereading device, but it’s hard to wholeheartedly recommend it over the less expensive and arguably superior Amazon Kindle. Still, the Nook is doing just fine and B&N reported recently that they believe it has 25% of the domestic e-book market. That works out to be a larger marketshare that B&N has in physical books although that might change as Borders is in a bit of trouble. There wasn’t any specific numbers in reference to the 25% number, but that number is in line since the Nook is the second most popular ereading device. Not that there’s anything wrong with second place. → Read More
