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AT&T Says Free WiFi for iPhones Will Come... Someday
Posted by Gizmodo US Edition at 11:45 PM on May 10, 2008
All AT&T's flip-flopping between offering free wireless at Starbucks and then taking it away—turns out it was some peon screwing up after all. A spokesperson for the company told the New York Times that the confusion was due to a "human error." But the day when iPhone users can definitively access the internet while sipping on frappuccinos will come, the PR flack assures, AT&T is just refusing to say when. Oh, come off it, AT&T. The cat's out of the bag already, you might as well roll out the service now. I'm sure there will be plenty of secrets you can accidentally release before deadline in the future. [New York Times]
At Maker Faire 2008, a group of carnage-loving individuals pitted the 2007 Holiday Toy Darling Pleo against the heavy duty battle bot, Vicious Verdict, in a no holds barred competition. Needless to say, the sniff-n-grunt capability of the Pleo was not match for the blade-equipped bot, which turned Pleo into fillet meat. But the funniest part of the video (below) might be the background shrieks little kids, who were forced to watch their Christmas present get shredded. Mean, perhaps, but undeniably funny. [
If you're rich enough to have a dedicated media server from the likes of Crestron, Elan, Escient, Kaleidescape, ReQuest or Apple—a strange one to mix in, I thought—you can go off and buy Rolling Stone magazine's 
Truth be told, the "Biodomotica Secret Underwater Lab" is not actually secret, or underwater, or even a lab for that matter. The name actually referrers to Italian designer Massimo Marazzo's project website where one can find designs that are as unique as they are baffling. A selection of these concepts are available in the gallery below.
The Gadget: This olympus microphone plugs into a recorder and your ear, recording whatever you hear. That makes it perfect for recording mobile phone interviews, which traditional telephone voice recorder setups meant for landlines can't.
Moshi's Zefyr is a portable cooling pad for the MacBook that provides a near silent fan, powered by USB, and offers a temperature drop of roughly 3 degrees Celcius. The Zefyr is designed to place your MacBook at an ergonomically beneficial tilt, and when not in use, the Zefyr collapses to better fit in a bag.
The patent shown is for an aircraft to be powered off the ground using a plasma technology. Subrata Roy, a University of Florida aerospace engineer, proposes the existing technique of passing a magnetic wave through a conducting fluid can produce a force strong enough to lift an aircraft off the ground. Granted, the example in the patent is only 15 cm, and attempts by others haven't gone particularly well. But with phrases like magnetohydrodynamics being thrown around, I keep flashing back to the space travel scene in Contact and getting excited. Subrata Roy must be a poet. [
We first came across the 
Get a load of this racket. A company called Marilyn Light Bag has developed a series of purses equipped with a GPS tracker in the event that it is lost or stolen. A device, the product page claims, can not be deactivated by a thief. The real kicker here is that the first two months of GPS monitoring are free, with a US$15 charge for each month thereafter. So, essentially you are paying for your purse in perpetuity—all in the hopes that you might be able to recover the bag if it should ever vanish (but the contents may be another story). Prices start at US$30. [
The class action lawsuit brought against Apple for PowerBook and iBook power bricks with the potential to spark has been settled. If the final approval for the settlement goes through, Apple will pay US$25 to US$79 to customers who "bought an adaptor made by Apple or another company to replace a failed one." [
By installing the vmcNetflix plug-in to a Vista Premium Media Centre computer, you can watch streamed Netflix content on an Xbox 360. It's buggy, but it's a lot better than watching Netflix on a laptop screen. (Providing you have Netflix, an Xbox 360 and a Vista Media Center.) Maybe Netflix should open up streaming to lots of devices, not just windows PCs as of today. I know Mac support is coming, but combining wide support for their online services with disc delivery, it could be a pretty sweet hybrid of the old and new. Video demo post jump. [
If you came across this Nintendo DS resold by King Deco, the question isn't if you would kill it but how. My plan would involve a hazmat suit, the jaws of life and that big pool of molten steel from Terminator 2. But enough about me. How would you kill this Nintendo DS? [
It was a 
Attempts at making a glove into a communication device for the deaf have been going on for years now, but a group of undergraduate computer engineering students at Carnegie Melon have come up with what has to be the most practical design to date. The main difference being that it translates sign messages through a mobile phone as opposed to a bulky computer. And the best part is that the device uses fairly inexpensive materials to work its magic.
In a conference call today Activision said that their DS rendition of Guitar Hero will be hitting stores in June, and Nintendo was so impressed by the controller add-on, that they're allowing the hardware to be included with the game as a bundle set. Activision didn't discuss price or specific release day, but it's good knowing the game is coming sooner than later. Let's hope it's as awesome as the console version. [
Unless you want to spend money on replacing your AV gear or replacing your pet, you're going to have to protect one from the other. Sound & Vision Mag has seven suggestions on how to do just that. Among them are wrapping up your rat's nest of wires behind the TV, placing a ScatMat (not what it sounds like) to gently shock little animals that step near your goodies, shielding your screen and hiding your remotes. Sounds like a pretty good warmup for when you have to baby-proof your AV gear a few years down the line. Especially with that ScatMat thing. [
Did you get stuck with weekend duty at work? Are you just plain bored at your job? Sitting in an office all day may not be the most exciting way to spend your time, but that does not mean that you can't make the most of it. And when I say "most of it" I am definitely not referring to increasing your productivity—the following gadgets will destroy any chance of that. However, they will certainly help keep you entertained until quittin' time—especially on a Friday afternoon.
A White Plains, NY woman who was the victim of burglary, including her MacBook, used the Back To My Mac screen sharing feature to turn on her webcam and capture images of the unwitting culprits using the computer. As a result, police were able to arrest the thieves and recover most of the stolen goods, which included two laptops, two flat-screen televisions, two iPods, gaming consoles, DVDs and computer games.
For those living in the UK, the BBC iPlayer is a pretty fantastic VOD service with one drawback: you have to watch shows in-browser. Now one philanthropist coder has written a Vista Media Centre interface for the iPlayer. So you can view BBC content on your TV without the PS3 and Wii workarounds, or, at the very least, break free of your browser's annoying viewing restrictions. It's a free download, so all you Doctor Who fanatics should have plenty of cash left over for living-room-destroying merchandise. [
Did you know Daredevil's costume was supposed to be black, like the night, instead of bright flaming red? That's because Matt Murdoch is blind, and the bastard couldn't tell one material from another. Did you know I made this story up in order to introduce the Bright-F design, which scans clothing and speaks the colour so you don't match lime green with puke brown. We have a hard enough time dressing ourselves as it is, so we could see this being a tremendous help to the visually impaired. You know, if it were real. [
It's tough to keep track of the iPhone's slow global release, so one Apple fan assembled all the data into one easy to read map. If the country is red, then they either have the iPhone or will be getting it this winter. (Note: Switzerland, Spain and Poland are still just rumoured, not official).
A group of electrical engineering students at West Virginia University has built the most insane beer pong table ever. It's got lights all around that react to the music playing as well as a pair of built-in swirling ball washers. It's incredible. They're taking orders for them now if you want one of your own, but be warned: this first one cost them US$1,000 and 400 hours of work to complete, so it won't be cheap. Hit the jump for a video of it in action, and be sure to skip to 2:30 unless you think still photos of electrical engineering majors and circuit boards are suddenly cool when set to Linkin Park.
The 
Its recently been revealed that Toshiba is planning to use Sony PS3 technology in its upcoming TVs and Notebooks. The OC Register's Gadgetress got her hands on the Toshiba's Qosmio notebook (shown above), which will use the SpursEngine chip, jointly developed between Toshiba and Sony around the Cell. The processor will handle much of the video and multimedia processing, taking the load off the main CPU.
There's plenty of room left to build in the world's major cities; we just have to be MacGyver about it. Because when one group of architects looked at an alley, they saw the perfect lot for a five-story building that's less then eight feet wide.
A laptop microphone can be pretty handy, but not all computers have them built in. Narae Inter's Recorder Mini is a tiny microphone that will fit in any standard mini jack microphone port and pick up sounds within a 10-metre radius. Released only in Korea at the moment, we're not certain about the price, but the magic of the internet could surely make the product part of your mobile arsenal. Like your USB hub. And your gun. [
AT&T has flip-flopped yet again on the issue of iPhone customers getting free access to AT&T hotspots. While 
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