Andrew Ainsworth, the creator of the original Storm Trooper gear in Star Wars, won an infringement case against Lucasfilm allowing him to make and sell his $3,000 helmets without suffering the sting of litigation. Ainsworth made the original armor in 1976 and now sells it on his site, SDSProps.com. → Read More
It floored me to think that here I was, cruising down this familiar two-track at nearly 60 mph. This is the route to one of my tree stands and generally a trip done in my father-in-law’s Ford F150. But my teeth were still intact and I didn’t feel like the trail was crushing my spine. I was floating along in this $89k Lexus flagship, cooled by air-conditioned seats, jamming to Sublime on Rdio over a Bluetooth link to my Droid X. The windows were down, the sunroof open and I have two bottles of water in the air-conditioned cooler box directly under my right elbow. Life was good.
The 2011 Lexus LX 570 served me well over the last week. It performed admirably as a camping utility vehicle in the backwoods of Michigan and equally as well around town. I don’t think I’ve ever been more satisfied with a vehicle that has a potential deal breaker. → Read More
Technologizer has a great retrospective on one of the most powerful information creation machines ever built – the IBM Selectric. The result of “seven years of research,” the Selectric typewriter entered the national consciousness in 1961 and died only when its creator, IBM, began to create its electronic replacement.
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Netflix has just announced a deal with CBS Corporation to license TV shows from the media company for subscribers in Canada and Latin America. Netflix previously signed a two-year agreement with CBS for U.S. subscribers in Februaruy. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
CBS says that beginning in September (for only $7.99 a month), Netflix members in Canada will access seasons for “90210,” (the new one) as well as past seasons for a number of Showtime titles including “Californication,” “Dexter,” and “The United States of Tara.” Canadian members will also have access to shows like “Numb3rs,” “Sleeper Cell,” and “Twin Peaks.”
The Droid X2 is one of those phones that you learn to quickly stop judging by its bezel. Despite having nearly identical hardware to its less powerful predecessor, the handset shipped with some pretty notable under-the-hood improvements. But one thing was still missing: Gingerbread.
Luckily, Verizon has released the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update this morning so the Droid X2 can continue to masquerade as a 2010 handset while performing like its fresh out of the box. → Read More
Ultrabooks are supposed to be the PC’s answer to the MacBook Air. These notebooks are said to rock hardware platforms very similar to the Air’s but, you know, run Windows instead of OS X. The first crop from HP and Asus will likely hit during the fourth quarter of 2011 but won’t be Air-killers right away. They’re going to be too expensive. → Read More
TribeHR, a company that develops a human resources software for small businesses, has raised $1 million in seed financing from Matrix Partners.
TribeHR offers a human resources software designed specifically for small and medium businesses. The SaaS simplifies and automates companies’ ability to track employee development, new employees, vacation and sick time, job postings, goal setting and much more.
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Thanks to the rise of the popular, non-business smartphone – namely any phone that supports app creation – carriers can expect to sell 420 million units this year, taking over a quarter of total phone sales away from “traditional” phones.
The winners in this race? Samsung and Apple. The loser – by a long shot? Nokia, with a fall from 40% to 24% in one year.
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Pixazza, a Google Ventures-backed photo tagging service that has been compared to an “AdSense for Images,” is rebranding as Luminate today, and debuting a new platform for in-image apps.
As we’ve written in the past, Pixazza allows publishers to identify, tag and match products found within online images on their sites and then link them back to the inventories of Pixazza’s network of advertisers. The service, which can be integrated in a site by adding a single line of code, allows consumers to browse the photos featured on a site and mouse over it to reveal information and pricing about similar products, and if desired, click to purchase. → Read More
After Apple’s purchase of face recognition software provider Polar Rose, we were unsure what Apple had planned. Now, thanks to a little 9to5mac digging we know that face recognition (FaceRec? FaceTimeRec? FaceSnatch?) will be baked deeply into iOS 5 and support a number of clever features including, potentially, the same wacky effects available in Lion’s Photo Booth app.
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Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: → Read More
A couple weeks ago, I went to a hotel suite in Manhattan to get a demo of BuddyTV’s new iPhone app, which hit the app store a few days ago. In the video above, CTO Bill Baxter takes me through the main features. He shows me on an iPad for easier viewing, but the app is for the iPhone and soon Android. It combines a viewing guide on your iPhone, with social features like chat and being able to broadcast what shows you are watching to Facebook and Twitter. But it also suggests shows for you to watch that are airing now, upcoming, trending, or on your favorites list. The app works with Google TVs, and eventually will be able to act as a remote with tablets and phones that sport an IR transmitter. → Read More
Olympus first announced the E-PL3 late in June, but at the time only the E-P3 (which we recently reviewed) had a price and a date. No longer! The E-PL3 is now officially coming to the US in September, though Oly didn’t want to get any more specific than that.
At $700, the E-PL3 is $200 cheaper than the E-P3; the two share the same sensor, image processor, and general camera capabilities (including interlaced video, unfortunately), but the E-PL3 lacks the sexy OLED touchscreen. Instead, it has a tilting, 3″, 480×320 LCD. It also lacks a built-in flash, something to think about if you’re looking for an all-in-one device (an external flash is included, though). → Read More
Prices for rare earth elements have gone through the roof in recent years, with China basically monopolizing the market for these rare substances (the country currently produces a whopping 97 percent of all rare earths used globally). But in the field of electric vehicles, the dependence on rare earths could be a thing of the past soon: Professor Nobukazu Hoshi’s Lab from the Tokyo University of Science has developed an electric car that doesn’t require any kind of rare earths. → Read More
Since I am our resident steward of infographics I figured I might as well highlight the creation of the very first Blekko infographic (below), brought to you by our friends over at Cognitive SEO. CLICK THROUGH FOR FOURTEEN THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT BLEKKO … → Read More
Considering that it hasn’t even been out a week yet, it shouldn’t be too surprising that many users and developers are still getting used to OS X Lion. This includes Google, makers of the popular Chrome web browser. While we previously noted that a version specifically tailored for Lion was in the works, Google said that it may take a little while. But an update today already brings two key features.
First, Chrome 14, which was just released in the Dev channel today, removes window scrollbars by default. This mimics the look and feel of other OS X Lion apps, include Apple’s own Safari web browser. These bars now only show up when you’re actually scrolling a page. → Read More
Ads are everywhere: They’re in our content, they’re online and offline, they’re on buses, billboards, and more. I’ve been told just to “get used to it” — that the advertising proliferation is only going to continue — so I’m thinking of selling some space on my forehead. Might as well take advantage. Of course, those who are successful in digital advertising are generally those who can find these non-traditional areas to use as advertising space, especially if they prove more effective than typical display (or banner) advertising. Late last year, a young startup called Solve Media began taking ads into a new niche digital territory by reformulating … CAPTCHAs. → Read More
As the sun just starts to set here on the West Coast, we’ve got a bit of news straight from the other side of the globe: Fujitsu and KDDI (Japan’s second largest wireless operator) have just confirmed that they will launch the world’s first phone running Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) sometime in September.
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