In July, after the Google I/O developer event, I reviewed the newly unveiled Nexus 7 tablet after using it for a bit. Most people fired off snap reactions about their thoughts, but I decided to put it through its paces, and I’m glad that I did. Another guy who took some time to sort out his thoughts was our very own MG Siegler.
I also wrote a review about the Nexus 10 recently, the larger model… → Read More
Apparently all is not well in e-book land. In an unusual move, publisher Macmillan took out an ad in the Publishers Marketplace magazine protesting the tactics being used by Amazon regarding pricing. The issue is Macmillan is trying to raise prices to $15.00 and up, and Amazon is trying to lock the prices at $9.99 and up per title. → Read More
Look at that beard. That beard screams freedom. It also screams “we’re in Afghanistan with zero idea of how to win or how to get out.” The beard is the star of Medal of Honor, EA’s rebooting (please consider “rebooting” to be a noun here) of a franchise that fell off the cliff, oh, after Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. It’s due next year for the usual platforms; more info will be revealed… → Read More
We here at Crunch may use the Internet for fun little things, like Twitter or Spotify (I’ve tried the U.S. version—it’s pretty great), but it’s only a matter of time till the Internet becomes just another place where governments can fight each other. Cyberwar, etc.! → Read More
Doug Aamoth here in Boston at the 2009 RoboBusiness Expo with some fodder for the “Robots Will Eventually Rise Up and Kill Us All” debate. No matter which side of the argument you support, if you’re someday killed by an autonomous robot it won’t have been made by iRobot. → Read More
Motorcycle and ski enthusiasts, among others, have known about d3o’s polymer compound for years and it actually saved my brother’s limbs from a nasty motorcycle accident last year. I first saw this material in the summer of 2007 at Spyder’s SIA booth.
Well, the British Army has finally wised up and contracted d3o Labs to line their 20-year-old Mark 6A helmets with the shock-absorbing… → Read More
Those wacky Israelis! Police there used a “skunk bomb” for the first time on Friday as part of a crowd control action. The bomb is actually more like super soaker water gun that sprays a vile smelling liquid on people. The liquid is so foul smelling, that people instantly recoil against it. The theory is, if people are freaking out over the horrific smell, they’ll stop doing whatever it… → Read More
http://www.liveleak.com/e/7bb_1210698031 Interesting article over on Military.com about how some Predator pilots are beginning to show signs of psychological stress even though they’re not technically fighting on a battlefield. The pilots spend most of their time in air-conditioned trailers in front of an array of monitors, piloting the remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) from just… → Read More
Okay you guys. If you see one of these MAARS (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System) robots heading your way, do not try to pet it. The machine gun mounted squarely to the robot’s frame might look cute, but those bullets sting. The first batch of MAARS robots have been shipped out from British company Qinetiq to the US military recently and should see some action over in Iraq. The machine… → Read More
What a pleasant, soothing video of a graceful, six-legged stinger-tailed killing machine used for “logging,” whatever that is. All that needs to be done now is to equip these things with front-mounted lasers and let them loose in a big city. In a non-paranoid world, this machine is a logging prototype made by John Deere in cooperation with Plustech Oy. It’s not new, either, as… → Read More
Northrop Grumman’s RQ-4 Global Hawk HALE just completed a 33.1-hour unmanned flight over the weekend at Edwards Air Force Base in Rosamond, CA. The High-Altitude Long-Endurance aircraft set an endurance record with the flight that reached upwards of 60,000 feet and when it landed still had two hours worth of fuel remaining. The RQ-4 is the “world’s first fully autonomous HALE unmanned aerial… → Read More
[photopress:killerrobots.jpg,full,center] An artificial life expert warned today that robotic soldiers (like the one pictured here) pose a threat to human life, and not just the bad guys’ lives. The robots, said the dude from the University of Sheffield, are currently safer in that they need a human being to give the final go-ahead to open fire. As the technology improves, however, this last… → Read More
[photopress:googismad.jpg,full,center] In Internet time, the Microsoft bid for Yahoo! is not already old news, but it’s also teetering on the boring. All the more reason to squeeze out detail after detail, then, about each party’s motives and why, as chief executive put it, Google may have just declared “formal war” on Microsoft. Hooray for war metaphors. As you know… → Read More
Ok, so beyond poisoning us with lead-filled children’s toys, China is getting ready to blow our GPS satellites out of space. China is claiming that space above its country is its property, and is prepared to say “stay off my lawn” with star wars toys it’s currently developing. The only way that we, as the last remaining superpower, can respond is with bad-ass X-Wing-style… → Read More
Prepare yourself for some hard-hitting, sensational news. The next decade will bring us a computer-led cyber war the likes of which ye have never seen. Our only chance of survival is to lock down our computer systems with state-of-the-art security software, according to a recent report. Oh by the way, the report was written by McAfee, a company that just happens to sell security software. → Read More
Wiki image, dontcha know? Surely you’ve heard of the German Enigma machine and the Allied efforts to crack it during World War II. Well researchers, using a rebuilt Colossus machine (yup, that’s it right there), wanted to see how fast they could crack similar codes, only they made it into a contest. They invited amateur coders to see who could crack the code first: a giant… → Read More
What started off as a HS prank to piss off my English teacher, Miss Hunt, has spilled over into my cubicle life, rather, did spill over into my cubicle life. But I was using paper clips, pens and rubber bands to piss off co-workers and the occasional paper football. Office workers really do have a full arsenal of weapons at their disposable if they use a bit of creativity. But not everyone is as… → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=20836 I don’t know much about this video other than it’s part of the Brothers in Arms series of video games. Those graphics look absolutely sick though for the Nintendo DS. Gameplay doesn’t look half bad either. Makes me want to buy a DS again! Brothers In Arms DS: Whoah [Kotaku] → Read More
The United States of America. I love this country. Blindly. So when I read that China has taken steps to launch a “cyber war” against us, it greatly upsets me. A senior general in the U.S. military, the best military in history, recently said that while numerous countries try to hack the military’s network infrastructure, China goes above and beyond the established decorum. So… → Read More
Shock: several “old media” companies—the likes of Time Warner, Viacom and News Corp.—now view “new media” companies like Google as direct threats to their livelihoods. In essence, “old media” wants you to stop having fun using the Internet, streaming content on demand, time shifting with TiVo and place shifting with Sling because you’re ruining… → Read More
An iPod saved a soldier’s life over in Iraq, or so the story goes. A picture of a destroyed iPod showed up on Flickr with a message saying that it was destroyed in a firefight between a U.S. soldier and some Iraqi miscreants. Supposedly an AK-47′s bullet tore through the soldier’s handy dandy iPod jacket pocket, where Apple’s little portable media player stopped the bullet… → Read More
Our brave men and women are fighting “over there” and they’re using some pretty advanced equipment to bring freedom to a desperate people. This video delivers eight glorious minutes of our bravest detailing the technology they use to spread democracy around the world. Lots of awesome explosions and guns in this one. My favorite is the eyepiece the soldiers use to check Google… → Read More
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