Never have I been happier to be a Cablevision subscriber. The New York area company will offer the fastest broadband in the United States starting next month. Top speed is said to be 101 megabits per second downsteam, and 15 megabits per second upstream. My [private high-def BitTorrent site whose name I've removed] account is jumping for joy. → Read More
Would you still consider your TV to be a necessity, or has its functionality largely been replaced by other devices such as your computer? Well, the largest number of Americans since 1973 no longer see television as a necessity. Only 54 percent of Americans think TV is a necessity these days. Not surprisingly, young people are least likely to call TV a necessity. → Read More
To completely rip off Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Sundays are for watching TV, playing video games and building up your BitTorrent ratio. As it turns out, Sundays are also for finding out that the iPod touch is being used in American military theaters, helping troops translate from one tongue to another, taking photos and showing them to locals (“see, your town’s mayor is really does like us!”) and… → Read More
Billy Mitchell is a pompous ass, but that’s 90 percent of the reason why he’s The Man. As many of you know, he holds a certain Donkey Kong record. And now someone wants to break that record. Good luck, bro. → Read More
How fast is your broadband Internet connection? (Do you even have a broadband Internet connection?) A quick trip to Speedtest.net shows that I’m on a 13mbps/1.7mbps connection. That’s not bad, but in places like Japan, where you can buy a 150 mbps for $60 per month, little kids playing Quake would laugh at my puny connection speed. See, in other parts of the world, for any number of reasons… → Read More
Let’s not split hairs: the United States of America is an awesomely fat country. A full 26 percent of Americans were considered obese in 2007—by 2048 nearly every single American (statistically, at least) will be obese. We’re not even talking about “yeah, I can stand to lose a few pounds,” but medically obese. And this is just a guess, but could things like this be part of the problem, a… → Read More
In the late 1990s, when I used to watch Fox Sports News in the morning before school, there used to me a commercial for the Wall Street Journal. Something about two kids, both alike in dignity, but one who was raised by a Wall Street Journal-reading family, and the other, ostensibly, by a pack of wolves; wolves don’t read too well. Naturally, the kid from the WSJ-reading family went on to become a… → Read More
Oh, North Carolina. The state, which is home to Ric Flair (pictured here), is now considering a tax on downloadable items. This, in a time when people are losing their jobs left and right. Download an eBook, get taxed. Download a song, get taxed. Download a movie, get taxed. Download a game, get taxed. You get the idea. → Read More
As I said on the podcast earlier this afternoon, the U.S. military has retrieved that MP3 player that was loaded with sensitive information. The guy who bought the player made out pretty well: the U.S. embassy there gave him a shiny, new MP3 player in exchange for the old one. Best $10 he’s ever spent? Could be. → Read More
A Kiwi bought an MP3 player in Oklahoma. No, that’s not a setup to a bad joke, but the chilling, real life ordeal that’s currently the long national nightmare of New Zealand. → Read More
Some five-employee company you’ve never heard of is bullying the US International Trade Commission in order to ban the importation of certain devices from the likes of RIM and Nokia. Why, you ask? Because this company thinks these foreigners have violated one or more of its patents. Just who is this knave? Find out, after a few words from our sponsor. → Read More
The FCC may not have done enough to promote next month’s transition to digital TV, but that doesn’t mean Your Government has given up on you! Congress has just asked for an additional $650 million to pay for more digital converter box vouchers. → Read More
President-elect Obama, who’s about to inherit one hell of an economy, is a huge gamer. Actually, hold that: no he’s not. He does, however, play the occasional game of Wii Bowling with his daughters. → Read More
We all would have guessed it and now IIEE Spectrum Online has come up with some detailed and up-to-date statistics (from last month): Japan boasts the world’s highest density of robots. → Read More
It looks like the U.S. is well on its way to becoming a modern Western country after all. Congressional leaders are trying to find funding for high-speed passenger trains, one of which would take people from New York to D.C. in just two hours. Other big lines would take people from Seattle to Portland; all around the midwest with a hub in Chicago; about Florida; about California; and connecting… → Read More
Apparently the U.S. is walking “ass-backwards” into nanotechnology, which is totally not surprising. We’re not properly assessing the risks involved with playing God, we’re not telling the public what we’re working on and we’re not even sure why we’re messing with the science. (“We” being the scientists involved.) What’s worse is that, since we basically… → Read More
Capcom released the demo for Resident Evil 5 last week in Japan, but did you know that you, the average American Xbox 360 owner, can play it right now? It’s extraordinarily easy, since all you need is a bank CD or DVD and the wherewithal to burn a data disc. Are you ready? → Read More
No story has ever annoyed me as much as the Black Friday death that occurred at a Long Island Wal-Mart last week. What’s worse is that, right now, it doesn’t look like the police will be able to identify the perpetrators. They’ll walk away scot-free, content with having bought some piece of garbage widget for $5 less than they would have paid on any other day. That, and having… → Read More
Google’s new voice recognition search application for the iPhone works great with the standard American accent. Try to search for things with a different accent—Scouse, Cockney, Geordie, etc.—and you’ll likely get nothing but nonsense. For example, when someone tries to search for “iPhone” in the standard Scottish accent the application hears “sex.” Searching for… → Read More
The military, in an effort to stop the spread of a destructive worm, has banned the use of flash drives, CDs and other media by its personnel. The ban applies to computers connected two Department of Defense networks, the non-secure NIPRNet and the secure SIPRNet. The worm, Agent.biz, is spread by the use of flash drives and the like. Once a computer has been infected, the worm fetches code from… → Read More
As Señor Arrington alluded to, CNN rolled out its 3D hologram-thing during its election coverage last night. Thirty-five HD cameras are filming the reporter, Jessica Yellin, which then send the images back to producers in New York. The technology was developed by these guys. (CNN’s “Magic Wall,” if you’re interested, was developed by a company called Perceptive Pixel, which was… → Read More
In addition to listening to Ron and Fez tonight, you may want to check out CNN even if Fox News is your preferred network. Why is that? Oh, just the fact that they’ll be using 3D holograms to talk to people “in-studio.” It’s just like Star Wars, the movie series that passed its sell-by date some time ago. Says USA Today, the mouthpiece of America’s third grade education… → Read More
Just a quick heads up to satellite radio listeners, Ron and Fez (noon to three) will be hosting some sort of election night extravaganza tonight starting at 7pm EST. Best of all, it’ll be on both XM and Sirius—XM channel 202 and Sirius channel 197. Of course, you could also stick to the more “traditional” POTUS (XM channel 130) for your satrad election coverage, but where’s… → Read More
My fellow Americans: tomorrow’s the big day, Election Day, wherein we are able to exercise our right to wait in line all day at a fire house or elementary school, rubbing shoulders with “neighbors” and trading pleasantries about what we think about that Obama fellow. It should be fun. Yet, our voting system stinks. Not only that, but our voting system could be vulnerable to fraud, and… → Read More
http://www.g4tv.com/lv3/34590 The upcoming downloadable content (DLC) for Mercenaries 2 has two special characters that you’ll no doubt recognize. Yes, that’s Barack Obama and Sarah Palin running around the game’s battlefields with grenades, machine guns and rocket launchers. In some of the more violent moments, Obama throws a grenade into a tank, killing a man inside and Sarah… → Read More
There’s only five days till this insufferable election ends, and one of the more interesting stories as far as we’re concerned (“we” being the tech community) was that “Obama buying Burnout ads” from a few weeks ago. Some people freaked out, others were all, “What’s the big deal? Just drive past the ads,” and others were like, “People play Burnout?” It was fun for… → Read More
America’s sons and daughters are still Over There, fighting the good fight and making it possible for jerks like us to fawn over cellphones, big screen TVs and impossibly tiny laptops on a daily basis. Naturally, any chance to learn more about what high-tech gizmos they use is welcome by all of us here. For example, Blackhawk has developed the High Performance Fighting Uniform, which goes… → Read More
The epic struggle against illegal immigration continues, as American authorities turn to technology to help them secure the homeland. Specifically, they’ve turned to drive-through X-ray portals to help detect both illegal immigrants and unwanted matériel. Of course, there’s the predictable conflict between privacy rights advocates and government officials. You know, “you’re… → Read More
Did John and Cindy McCain use their telecom industry connections to have a cellphone tower built right by one of their many houses in order to improve signal strength? That’s what the Washington Post implies. It seems the McCain’s Sedona, Ariz. ranch didn’t have the best cellphone reception in early 2007, so Cindy—what was that word John called her? Begins with a… → Read More
So you’re racing down the road in Burnout Paradise and you’re all, “Was that an Obama ad?” Yes, yes it was. EA has confirmed that the Obama campaign is running ads in several of its video games including Madden NFL 09, Need For Speed: Carbon and, as you see here, Burnout Paradise. The ads appear only after having connected to Xbox Live—it’s not like these ads are… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
