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Tech News5-0 App Turns Your iPhone into a Police Radio Scanner
If you’ve ever dropped in on police radio before, you know how oddly fascinating it can be. 5-0 Police Scanner Radio is a $2 app that lets you check out feeds for police, firefighters, transit authorities and more—and gives you a guide to police codes so you can figure out what the hell they’re talking … Continued
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Tech NewsWho Is the Gayest Robot of All?
As Out magazine shows us, there have been some faaaabulous robots over the years. Obviously the Nick Swardson-voiced Gay Robot—a bit from a failed Comedy Central pilot—takes the cake, but what about the the less obvious examples? The spangly Cylons from the original Battlestar Galactica? Effete C-3P0? Bitchy Hal9000? Yeah you think about that last … Continued
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Tech News
Tripping Out and Seeing Skulls
A cube of 1728 plastic heads is floating in the middle of the Stockholm Furniture Fair this year, a light installation by Swedish designer Alexander Lervik entitled Dimensions. The skulls continually pulse with color; each alternating male and female head has an LED light inside of it. I wonder what people there think of it, … Continued
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Tech News
Hints of Apple TV Gaming Buried in iOS 4.3 Beta Code
An Engadget tipster sifting through the code for iOS 4.3 beta 3 found mention of “ATVGames” and “ATVThunder,” with references to some sort of controller, leaderboards, game scheduling, and a store front. It’s hard to imagine that Apple would just flip the switch for iOS 4.3, but it does seem likely that iOS games are … Continued
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Tech News
Turn Your Assault Rifle into a Golfball Launcher
Do you own an AR-15, an M4 or an M16? Do you wish it could shoot golf balls instead of bullets? What do you mean “no?” Just listen to these testimonials for the Golfball Launcher, a $20 accessory that screws onto the end of your assault rifle in place of a muzzle break: Absolutely awesome. … Continued
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Tech NewsBreakeroids for iPhone
Asteroids has always been a little too frenzied for me—there’s nowhere to hide!—and Breakout, Blackberry classic though it may be, can get a little bit tedious. Breakeroids, a Frankenstein-style combination of the two, strikes a highly playable, deliciously neon balance. What is it? Breakeroids, $2, iPhone The top half’s asteroids, the bottom half’s breakout. That’s … Continued
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Tech News
HP’s WebOS Bounty: Touchpad Tablet, Pre 3 and Veer Smartphones
HP’s webOS devices are finally here: The Touchpad tablet—an sleek affair with iPad-competitive specs—as well as the bigger, badder Pre 3, and a teeny, Pixi-esque slider called the Veer. Hands On: HP’s TouchPad Tablet Looks Great, But Moves Slow Although the Touchpad I played with is not the final version, my impression of the HP … Continued
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Tech News
WebOS Coming to PCs This Year
They’re not offering many details—we’ll hear more “throughout the year”—but HP mentioned today that they’re planning on bringing webOS to PCs and printers. A spokesperson told SAI that it would run on top of Windows, a customized UI on top of Windows. Seems kinda silly, until you imagine it on one of their hot new … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy & Security
Sneaking Past Airport Security on the Baggage Conveyor Belt…For Love
The Awl has a nice interview with Edward T. Hall III, a sensitive young man who made a splash in the news recently for trying to sneak past airport security by crawling on the luggage conveyor belt. But it’s OK! He was doing it for love! Or, more specifically, to make it on a flight … Continued
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Tech News
Scientists Building Robots an Internet of Their Own
At the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, scientists are building RoboEarth, a sort of Wikipedia for robots that will let them independently share instructions for tasks they’ve mastered. Needless to say, Oh shit! Dr Markus Waibel, a RoboEarth researcher, explains that a lack of standardization is keeping robots isolated and largely ineffective at … Continued
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Tech NewsA Never-Ending Viewing Platform Nestled in the Swiss Alps
If you’re a student at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, you don’t just go outside and look at the Swiss Alps—you build a continuous 720-degree spiral viewing platform out of which to view them. The viewing platform, dubbed the Evolver and constructed by the institute’s Alice Studio, required 24 wooden frames to be deposited … Continued
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Tech NewsSocial Media
Settlement Says You Should Be Allowed To Bitch About Your Job on Facebook
Today, American Medical Response, an ambulance company based in Connecticut, reached a legal settlement with a woman who claimed she was fired for complaining about her boss on Facebook. The National Labor Relations Board says that the company has agreed to revise its employee handbook’s “overly-broad rules” in regards to “blogging, Internet posting and communications … Continued
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Tech NewsGoogle Translate for iPhone
While perhaps not quite as HOLY CRAP futuristic as Word Lens, Google Translate is a tool that can actually help you when you’re travelling abroad. The new iPhone app lets you translate phrases both talked and typed in dozens of languages. What is it? Google Translate, free, iPhone Though a web app’s been around for … Continued
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Tech News
Lots of Great EA Games on Sale for $1 in the App Store
AHHHHHHH FIRE! Fire sale that is. EA’s got tons of great games on sale in the U.S. App Store for just a buck. A buck! TouchArcade lists ’em all: Phone/iPod touch games: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Mirror’s Edge Tetris SimCity Deluxe Pictureka! The Simpsons Arcade Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Need For Speed Undercover Need … Continued
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Tech News
EcoModo – The Best of TreeHugger
Twelve post-apocolyptic cities of our future, candy houses are actually green, hacking laptops into digital picture frames, questioning if “green” hard drives matter, if flat-pack schools go too far, and more. Solaris Watch Concept Brings Solar Power to High End Fashion Designer Olivier Demangel has come up with a watch most any tech geek would … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
A Brief History of Rockets, and Why They’re Not Getting Any More Advanced
Over at Slate, Neal Stephenson charts a brief, fascinating history of the rocket, starting with Hitler’s V-2 during the second World War and ending with today’s sophisticated rockets, capable of launching complex communications satellites that can cost up to $100,000 a pound. But here, Stephenson explains, we find ourselves locked in: To employ a commonly … Continued
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Tech News
These Valentine’s Flowers Will Never Wilt
If you’re going to be far away from your loved one this Valentine’s Day, you could send them real flowers, which will smell good but will inevitably wilt after a few days, or you could send them these beautiful newsprint flowers from itunube, which won’t smell like anything in particular but will last forever—well, only … Continued
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Tech News
Simplenote for iPhone
There are apps you enjoy and there are apps you rely on. For many of us at Giz, Simplenote is the latter. Clean, quick, flawlessly synced notes, on any device you happen to be using. What is it? Simplenote, free, iPhone, iPad and Web. In many ways, a good app is a simple app. One … Continued
Kyle VanHemert
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