RSS Feeds
|
BR DE ES FR IT JP NL UK US
Babblebaby
|
Defamer
|
Gizmodo
|
Kotaku
|
Lifehacker
One thing you can say about the Vudu video wonderbox is that it gets better all the time. AVN--the Adult Video News--is launching a dedicated porn channel on Vudu. While you'll have to pay for every flick you watch, there are at least two reasons it's better than the FyreTV streaming porn box that Chen loves so, so much.
Delta will join the other airlines using Aircell's GoGo cellular data service, becoming the first of the U.S. biggies to announce concrete plans for a fleet-wide rollout. They're starting with their 133 MD88/90s, then moving on to hit every plane by summer of next year. It'll run you US$9.95 for flights less than three hours, or US$12.95 for longer flights. There goes our last possible Internet-free haven...I mean, yay! Read on for the full release:
So, we had the allegedly-USB-powered popcorn maker... and now we have an Instructable for a USB frying pan: good enough to cook an omelette in around seven minutes. This device is a lot more basic, apparently requiring nothing more sophisticated than two aluminium pans, some broken ceramic as insulation and a tungsten coiled filament with some basic wiring. This time, the cooker draws power from two USB sockets... does that make it any more believable? I'm no electronics expert: so I'll leave that up to you lot to sort out in the comments. Suffice it to say I'm not sure I'd be attempting to eat eggs cooked via my computer's USB output power. [Instructables—Thanks, Dave!]
Get your orders in now, because you won't see a 128 GB SSD going for these prices, well, anywhere for several years--yet alone inside the tasty 12.1" Thinkpad X200. Yes, you're seeing it correctly--that's subtract US$70 from the total, which comes to US$1,434 with the mistake. Also notice the 64 GB SSD going for a real-world US$830 premium. No word on how IBM will handle the mistake of course, but if you were planning on buying an X200 anyway, might as well give this a try and play dumb. UPDATE: Party's over, unfortunately. The 120GB SSD option has been yanked.
Olympus and Panasonic rolled out a new standard for interoperable lenses and camera bodies today in Japan, which means we could see yet another new camera category smashed in between consumer, pro-sumer, con-fessional, and all the rest. The Micro Four Thirds system is basically a slimmed down version of the two companies' Four Thirds system, which allowed member companies to build lenses and bodies that were digital-only and interoperable between brands. And while the new Micro version may not sound like much, it could result in the revival of an all-digital, Leica-like quasi rangefinder system with tons of high-quality lens choices.
We're not sure what possessed one man to load Windows Vista onto his PS3--hopefully for the science experiment, not the promise of Aero--but he did and the world will never be quite the same. The only catch is that if you think Vista is slow on a PC, you're a spoiled, rotten person. In this clip, Vista takes roughly 25 minutes to boot and 12 minutes to open Notepad. Because in order to run Vista on the PS3's unique platform, the tester had to use the processor emulator QEMU--apparently rumours that Vista ran on tears are unfounded. [PS3Hax]
At the Rock the Bells festival on Sunday I asked some of the most important hip-hop artists in the game—and my heroes since childhood—what they hated most about the iPhone. Whether they owned it or not, most of the stars had a good reason to dis the overhyped phone, and their answers ranged from the mundane (Trugoy from De La Soul says it's "too cute") to the slightly crazy (dead prez's M-1 brought up the Matrix and Big Brother). Only Wu-Tang's Method Man couldn't find a way to bring the pain—we expect a new single, "F-A-N-B-O-Y Man", any day now.
In similar style to the SIMable product Wilson showed you back in May, Brando now has its own SIM-hacking device available, and says it works to unlock, unchain, free, liberate—whatever—Apple iPhone 3Gs from being tied to one operator. The slim chip-and-circuit gizmo hugs the rear of your SIM and messes with the signals that go between it and the iPhone (or, indeed, a large number of other GSM and 3G phones) in a way that unlocks the device. Brando's product still requires you to cut your SIM to make room for the chip aboard it, but it looks a fairly simple operation. And it's two thirds the price of the SIMable: just US$21. [Brando]
An Israeli company, Aespironics, is trying a new approach in re-designing an old faithful drug delivery system: the inhaler. They've teamed up with an expert in drug atomisation and a wind turbine researcher, and have come up with a breath-activated, turbine-assisted design that should be slim, cheap and easy to produce, and deliver dry drugs to the users lungs without leaving them sticking inside the mouth. Sounds amazing doesn't it? Particularly when you consider the implications of a simple, compact and cheap dispenser for aiding ill people in the developing world. The team is planning tests for the year end, and thinks a product could be on the market within three years. If it's an inhaler slim enough to fit in a wallet, I'll take one soon, please: lugging around a conventional one is annoying. [I21c via Medgadget]
As you know by now, SpaceX's most recent rocket launch attempt failed early in its flight, destroying the vehicle and sending its satellite payload and the ashes of James Doohan—Star Trek's original Scotty— into the ocean. It's just what happens sometimes with space technology: there's so much complexity, so much technology/aerodynamics/engine chemistry and engineering that just has to work perfectly, in sync and under high stress. And that's a point that is elegantly detailed by one of James' sons in a letter to BoingBoing about the SpaceX launch. It makes for poignant reading.
We first showed you the rainbow-illuminated Luxeed LED keyboard a year and a half ago, but then it was in Korean letter-style versions. Now it's got plain old Western characters and is on sale in the US. It's not quite in the same league as the legendary Optimus Maximus, sure, but with 430 LEDs embedded inside—each fully controllable with some custom software—it actually sounds pretty impressive. Check out the video: it's psychedelic, man. Or, at least, vaguely sci-fi looking anyway.
The inexorable march of solid-state drive technology continues forward with news from Micron Technology (one of the worlds leading semiconductor suppliers) that they're going to produce SSD's with a read speed of 250MBps. That's more than twice the speed of the drives Samsung announced last month (90MBps.)
We all know that Apple's MobileMe had a difficult birth: but it's quite another thing to be able to read the criticisms of the service from his Steveness himself. And over at Ars Technica they've got hold of an internal Apple email that Steve Jobs sent out to Apple employees detailing his displeasure that MobileMe was "not up to Apple's Standards." It needed both more time in testing, and a piece-by-piece launch, rather than attempting to launch it as a "monolithic service," he thinks.
Sonos upgraded their ZonePlayer lineup to the ZP 90 and the ZP 120. The ZP 90, which connects to existing home theatre amplifiers, is essentially the same as the ZP 80, but now features SonosNet 2.0, which combines MIMO antennas with Sonos' existing mesh network. The ZP120, Sonos' main amplified unit, also includes SonosNet 2.0, but is also smaller (17.8 x 7.6 x 20.3cm vs. 25.4 x 10.2 x 20.3cm) , lighter (2.3kg vs. 4.5kg), and has more power (55W vs 50W) than the previous ZP100.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 2:05 PM on August 5, 2008
David Flynn over at APC just loves his mini-notebooks. And it looks like they love him as well, considering that he's gotten the scoop on the Australian pricing and release dates for the S10 ultra-portable that was announced overnight.
We can expect the Ideapad S10 at the end of September for $699, which is for the 80GB model (a 160GB model is also expected).
Head over to APC for more details, including which colours won't be coming to Australia.
[APCmag]
Posted by Nick Broughall at 1:20 PM on August 5, 2008
A few new details about AMD's mysterious Fusion CPU/GPU combo chip have leaked to the Web and they seem to confirm what some rumours have been saying, namely that AMD would be making the chip with help from the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest chip plants. ATI, whom AMD bought two years ago, had been a long time customer of TSMC so the deal makes sense. The technical details point to the first processor under the Fusion name will launch Q1 of next year, and will be a dual-core Phenom CPU running along side an ATI RV800 as GPU at 40nm, a "half-node" size that will probably transition to 32nm within a year. It's an exciting idea, we just hope AMD can pull it off. [TG Daily]
Yeah, USB Fever just started taking pre-orders for this super thin iPhone hardware unlock tool that attaches to your SIM card, but be forewarned — it requires that you cut the corner off your SIM in order to work. If you're up for the challenge, it will supposedly start shipping on August 20 for US$35. [USB Fever via iPhone Atlas via IntoMobile]
Posted by Nick Broughall at 12:18 PM on August 5, 2008
Good news for people looking for a smartphone that isn't made by Apple - the HTC Touch Diamond is now available through Telstra.
For a Windows Mobile device, this is one of the best available, thanks to the fact that TouchFlo 3D essentially hides WinMo deep within its interface.
Being a Telstra exclusive (at the moment), it's only available on an $80 plan over 24 months (or $999 outright), which as you'd expect from the big T, doesn't include any real data allowances ($10 on a business plan). Considering that HTC were pushing this as a real web browsing machine when they launched it in Australia, that's (another) missed opportunity from Telstra.
Hopefully the other networks will remedy the situation when the exclusive arrangement ends in a couple of months...
[Telstra]
Posted by Nick Broughall at 12:06 PM on August 5, 2008
The VisionAire projected multitouch (or more accurately, multiswoosh) hologram is an early, rough iteration of an extremely exciting concept: fully interactive holographic displays. Obscura Digital has adapted their proprietary multitouch software to the Musion Eyeliner hologram projection system, which is most notably responsible for the holographic Gorillaz effect during the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 10:50 AM on August 5, 2008
If you're looking for a lesson in how to piss off customers, just look to Optus. Perhaps it's just a side effect of offering better iPhone deals than the other major carriers, but reports are flooding the internet of customers who, not being able to get their hands on an iPhone, signed up for a raincheck. And despite being told they'd be waiting as little as five days for their phones and that they wouldn't be charged until they had their hands on their iPhone, are now receiving bills and being told that they will have to wait until September before they will receive the phone.
Forums like MacTalk and Whirlpool are filled with stories of disgruntled "customers" who after discovering the long wait involved with their raincheck, have tried to cancel their order, only to spend hours on the phone to Optus' customer support without resolution.
Even The Australian has heard reports of the shenanigans, today running a story entailing the now repetitive story. Speaking with an Optus spokesperson, the confusion seems to come from the terms around the raincheck itself. From the Oz:
According to the policy, customers can either connect to an advertised plan; order the advertised mobile phone and use alternative equipment until the advertised mobile phone is available; connect to the advertised plan, order the advertised mobile phone and suspend the advertised plan until the advertised mobile phone is available; or connect to the relevant advertised plan and buy a different mobile phone that is in stock.
How clean does Extended Stay Hotels think its surfaces are? Very, very clean. So clean it hired a lady (probably for a little bit more than its US$59.99 nightly rate) to lick various surfaces around their hotel. It certainly looks real and has all the real links and notations that an Extended Stay Hotel website should have, but Boing Boing has its doubts. Can't we just enjoy a lady licking a toilet/washer/dryer/toaster/refrigerator without calling fake on it? More licking after the jump.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 9:36 AM on August 5, 2008
A reader just tipped us off to the iPhone 2.0.1 update being out RIGHT NOW. Just fire up your iTunes and click the old update button and you'll be able to grab it. We're updating now and will let you know what's different. Right now all we see is "Bug Fixes" listed under the changelog, but there's a security update info link in the update screen as well, so it might be that. [Thanks tipster!]
ZOMG! The Dark Knight! Xbox 360! All in one!
At the Rock the Bells festival on Sunday I asked some of the most important hip-hop artists in the game—and my heroes since childhood—what they hated most about the iPhone. Whether they owned it or not, most of the stars had a good reason to dis the overhyped phone, and their answers ranged from the mundane (Trugoy from De La Soul says it's "too cute") to the slightly crazy (dead prez's M-1 brought up the Matrix and Big Brother). Only Wu-Tang's Method Man couldn't find a way to bring the pain—we expect a new single, "F-A-N-B-O-Y Man", any day now.
How clean does Extended Stay Hotels think its surfaces are? Very, very clean. So clean it hired a lady (probably for a little bit more than its US$59.99 nightly rate) to lick various surfaces around their hotel. It certainly looks real and has all the real links and notations that an Extended Stay Hotel website should have, but Boing Boing has its doubts. Can't we just enjoy a lady licking a toilet/washer/dryer/toaster/refrigerator without calling fake on it? More licking after the jump.