Let’s put it out there right now: I am personally not a fan of Klout, which ranks people based on their Internet interactions and engagement on services like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. I have nothing against the company whatsoever, and this is a vertical that someone was going to get into sooner or later.
However, I still feel like the whole concept is bunk. → Read More
Damn: Alec Saunders, VP Developer Relations & Ecosystem for RIM, has got some pipes. This little ditty, sung to the tune of Keep On Loving You by REO Speedwagon, is RIM’s way of saying that they still love the developers who have dedicated their lives, businesses, and livelihood to the platform. That, my friends, is a nice, honest sentiment. → Read More
Every once in a while gag sites pop up in our email that make us chortle lightly and say “Sure, we’ll bite.” To wit: SexDistance.com allows you to see, ummm, how far you go when you have intimate relations with another person. You feel me? You see where this is going?
To use it you enter your, ummm, length and effort expended in the achievement of great justice. The service then calculates how… → Read More
Over the past day or so the vituperation against the iOS 6 Maps app, AKA the Maps app that makes you wish you were running Android, has been rising on the blogosphere. Why? Well the app is kind of wonky, it doesn’t have StreetView, and it looks and feels like a twee designer’s vision of a ratty road atlas – hard to read yet surprisingly calming.
A new Twitter account @iOS6maps is offering a bit… → Read More
I know you guys might have forgotten to get your favorite robotic horse a gift today, but this is International Creepy Robotic Boston Dynamics Robotic Horse Day, and it’s important to get out there and celebrate the magic of the creepy robotic horse. → Read More
Robotic arms haven’t been the same since Tomy stopped making the Armatron but that doesn’t mean you have to live your life without a robotic helpmate. The Fixbot Robotic hand is a DIY project that requires a bunch of time, servos, and 3D printed parts, but it’s easy to make if you have a little time. It’s part of a marketing campaign by Sugru, a self-setting moldable rubber for repairing… → Read More
If you were told you could listen to the radio at a reasonable level in your cubicle and that you were going to be allowed to keep your stapler, this is probably the tape dispenser for you. The T-EM50 by Koyoku will spit out tape at pre-determined lengths again and again, ensuring a perfect piece of tape every time. → Read More
With all the rumors about a new 9-pin connector on the iPhone, what could be better than a tube of bamboo that amplifies your iDevice or Android phone in a sustainable way? The iBam 2 is basically a tube of bamboo that channels sound out and away from the phone, thereby creating a superior, bamboo-infused experience. → Read More
If you call the Dell support line, chances are you’re the lucky winner of the chance to pay $300 for Dell warranty protection. Laptop Magazine called Dell three times with a number of simple problems, including trackpad issues and software problems. Each time the CSR informed the reporter that they had won a “daily drawing to purchase a four-year extended hardware warranty for our laptop for… → Read More
Why spend a few hundred on a Parrot AR.Drone when you can pop over to Brando and pick up a $49 quadcopter that fits in the palm of your hand and does flips.
The Quadcopter uses “New Design Technology” to be “The Most Stable (like the real?) Floating in the AIR.” I’ll let Brando’s breathless authors take it from here: → Read More
If ultrasonic baby pictures aren’t enough, how about a resin-cast 3D model of your live fetus floating in clear lucite? An Ebisu health clinic, Hiro-o Ladies, is working with a 3D printer called Fasotec to create Tenshi no Katachi – Shape Of An Angel – so the entire family can see what that squirt is doing in your womb. → Read More
Whether you’re into nude Canadian elk-dancing or Honda tailpipe sniffing, our sexual peccadilloes are all unique. That’s why there’s Offbeatr [NSFW. Seriously. Chill]. Described as a “kickstarter for porn,” the site allows you to support super SEXXXY porn projects that could include a movie on Japanese squid porn or an up-close look at MILF clog-dancing and shape-note singing.
Ben Tao and Eric… → Read More
Hey, how you doing? You’re really pretty in that dress and those shoes. Are those shoes new? No? Could have fooled me. Sit down a minute. I just want to look at you. Did you see that fight outside? Totally two guys hitting each other over some girl. Would you ever let guys fight over you? I would.
Do you know I paint? You should sit for me.
So there’s this new thing, MySecretLuxury.com. It’s… → Read More
Burf aka Simon Burfield is an iOS programmer and Lego experimenter who tries to take building blocks to the next level. Interestingly, if this wild rideable Lego wheelchair is any indication, he’s left the next level and is now firmly in the distant future.
Made with 12 Lego NXT motors and 12 multi-directional wheels, this carefully designed prototype can carry around a 198 pound person and is… → Read More
The Kuratas Mecha robot is an art/aspirational nerd project by Suidobashi Heavy Industry. This full-sized Mech robot features a ride-in cockpit, “rocket” launchers, and a “smile controlled” BB Gatling gun. That’s right: when you smile, this thing unleashes thousands of tiny plastic BBs.
Unveiled at Wonder Fest 2012 in Tokyo, you can control the robot with either a set of master-slave joysticks… → Read More
If you’re like me, you never real got into spectator sports. Maybe it was the jock-induced swirlies or maybe it was the pointlessness of ball-based games, but I couldn’t give two shot puts about the Olympics. Thankfully, there’s the Olwinpics Blocker from FFFFF.at. → Read More
If you’re heading down to Radio Shack to buy a brand new Tandy 1000 (the hottest PC out there!) then you may want to bring this handsome brick handset designed to work with your “smaller” phone via Bluetooth. You can whip this baby out in line while you write a check out for your PC, modem, and MS-DOS 3.0 purchases. → Read More
As if the rules at the 2012 London Olympics didn’t sound draconian enough, the organization has banned personal Wi-Fi hotspots from the games, thereby ensuring that people will just tether their phones in secret and surf the web like the champions they are.
This follows hot on the heels of prohibitions from sharing Olympic news via social media. Can we all just agree that this isn’t about… → Read More
Look guys and gals in publishing, sit down. You can bring in your Coco Water. Totally. Yeah. We have some gluten-free sandwiches coming in and I promise this won’t affect summer hours. You can still not come in on Friday. Yeah, you can take off your loafers. Whatever.
Ok. I know you’re confused and hurting. Revenues are falling and ebooks are killing your old surefire model of shipping books in… → Read More
For decades, publishing consisted of two distinct landmasses separated by a deep, impassible chasm. On one side you had kids from Yale who became Associate Editors at the big six – the big houses – and then brought in their friends to write alternately blissful and horrible prose. Then, on the other side, you had everyone else. With the rise of the e-book market, however, a land bridge is growing… → Read More
The Oppo Finder currently holds the silly title of being the thinnest smartphone in the world. Measuring in at a svelte 6.65mm, the Finder is 1.95mm and 2.75 thinner than the Galaxy S III and iPhone 4S, respectively. But the thin size doesn’t mean the phone is fragile. In fact the company recently demonstrated the phone’s toughness by using it to hammer several nails into a wooden board. → Read More
You deserve a break today, indeed. Augmented reality pioneer Steve Mann visited a Parisian McDonald’s with his family earlier this month. Mann has a system called the EyeTap physically installed in his skull that records photos and video, and can display augmented reality data directly in the user’s line of sight. Upon ordering, McDonald’s employees at 140, Avenue Champs Elysees, Paris accosted… → Read More
As we were wandering through the Atlanta meet-up last week we stumbled upon a charming young man wearing a glove studded with circuit boards and embroidered with what looked like silver thread. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that it was a wild homegrown glove made by a pair of former design students. → Read More
In what appears to be a final burst of notoriety-seeking and odd behavior, Funnyjunk’s crack lawyer, Charles Carreon, told Ars that he had won because now he was “famous” and “notorious”.
“Mission accomplished,” he said, apparently without irony or self-awareness. → Read More
In Part Umpteen of the endless struggle by Matthew Inman AKA The Oatmeal vs. weird lawyer Charles Carreon, we find our hero beset by the accusation that he is impersonating a charity for collecting a large amount of money and giving it to the NWF and ACS. ““If IndieGoGo pays Inman the money in the Charitable Fund, and Inman personally donates the money to NWF and ACS, he will be unjustly… → Read More
At TechCrunch we like to get the rest of the story. That’s why we go in-depth, hard-hitting, and close to the ground. Nowhere is that clearer than in this hardcore, hardball, and soft cheese interview with the folks from the Melting Pot, a popular fondue (from the French “What do we do with this old cheese? Melt it?”) restaurant that may or may not be in your general vicinity.
The Melting Pot… → Read More
The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman wrote an open letter to the lawyer who has been harassing him for most of two weeks, Charles Carreon. Carreon just sued Inman as well as the National Wildlife Fund and the American Cancer Society. You can see some background here but this is all as crazy as it sounds.
I’ll avoid giving much context because Inman deserves a break and Carreon seems so oddly earnest… → Read More
So here’s a nice twist to the whole Oatmeal saga: the FunnyJunk lawyer who has been aggrieved by the Internet is now suing the National Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation.
Yes. He’s suing the bears. And the cancer. → Read More
Hey, Internet. Come over here. You sitting down? Cool.
So anyway, there’s this thing I need to tell you about. No no. Over here. This tab. Stay right here.
So this guy at NYU made something special. Are you listening? Put down your phone. Listen. So they made a machine that prints… no, don’t check Twitter. They made a machine that prints burritos.
It’s called BurritoB0t.
I know… → Read More
TheOatmeal is a great web comic featuring funny birthday cards, wacky bear sex, and other merriment. It’s drawn by Matthew Inman and is great. Now, however, it’s the target of a decidedly odd – and funny – slander lawsuit.
Sadly the post is up and down right now but the gist is that Inman posted slanderous comments about FunnyJunk, a website dealing in funny junk. The letter begins: → Read More
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