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Tech NewsOpenStomp Coyote 1 is Hackable Open Source Effects Pedal For Real Guitar Heroes
Anyone who is a fan of 1960s-era guitar idol mythology knows that crazy custom circuitry and effects pedals are nothing new. But the OpenStomp Coyote 1, the “world’s first open-source guitar pedal” updates the trend for today’s slightly more nerdy shredders, who can recreate the crazy circuit bending of yore in a custom software package … Continued
By John Mahoney -
Tech NewsGadgetsShapeways Allows You to Materialize Any 3D Object, Star Trek Style
While visiting the Philips research lab here in Amsterdam I came across a company that is getting the Star Trek replicator closer to everyday life. Imagine being able to create any 3D object you want-a World of Warcraft avatar, a chess set, a lamp, a Lego piece you are missing, a house for a train … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsGadgets
Shooter Fire Extinguisher Adds a Little Nerf-iness to Battling Blazes
Were the humble, boring old fire extinguisher to be reworked in the style of this concept design, dubbed Shooter, they’d be grabbed from the wall and used inappropriately in offices waaaay more frequently. Because, as its name suggests, the device is meant to behave like a friendly Nerf-style grenade launcher, aiming plastic pellets of CO2 … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsPalm Treo Pro Sized Up Against Competition
Most of us can size up the functionality of a phone from its spec sheet, but a phone’s practicality, usability and enjoyability falls to a whole other series of factors. Form factor is a biggie. In this clip, you’ll see the Treo Pro literally sized up against the smartphone competition (including the Palm Centro, Motorola … Continued
By Mark Wilson -
Tech NewsGadgets
Canon’s E1 Digital Camera is Shiny, Curvy, in Baby Pink and Blue
Canon’s clearly trying to add a certain girly appeal to some of its latest digital cameras, since compared to the gruff, black 50D the upcoming E1 is particularly curvy and comes in vanilla, powder blue and baby pink. It’s no optical slouch though, despite its simple looks, with 10-megapixels, 4x optical zoom and optical image … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Navigon 7200T GPS Has 3D Landmarks, Free Live Traffic Info
Navigon’s upcoming 7200T GPS unit has some pretty high-end features: voice destination entry, photo-realistic 3D views of roads with lane guidance icons and 3D landmarks built-in. But its niftiest feature is free real-time traffic info updates with no subscription fees, for life. That’s just got to be handy, and comes over an FM receiver from … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech News
HTC’s S740 Is the Touch Diamond With a Keyboard, Runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard
HTC’s gone and followed up their S730-which was itself an HTC Vox successor-with the HTC S740. The latest phone keeps the slide-out candybar form factor, complete with keypad on front and QWERTY on the back, but also takes huge design influences from the HTC Touch Diamond. It runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard edition (the gimpier … Continued
By Jason Chen -
Tech News
HTC Dream Engineering Drawings Reveal its Skinniness, Big Chin
Yesterday we had the FCC imagery to give us some of the HTC Dream’s sizes, but today over at Androidguys.com they’ve got hold of engineering drawings that give us the full data: it’s pretty skinny. Interestingly it’s got a bent chin that looks a lot like the MotoRizr design, but the screen here slides to … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Nokia N79 and N85 Roll Out Officially, With US 3G Aboard
After yesterday’s dribble of info, Nokia’s upcoming N79 and N85 are official now, and do indeed carry WCDMA support for US 3G goodness. The N79 has a 2.4-inch screen, 5-megapixel camera and comes with a 4GB microSD card in the box for storage, while the N85 has a 2.6-inch OLED screen, 5-megapixel cam and 8GB … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Nokia’s N96 Now Official, Quad-Band and HSDPA
After much leaking of information, Nokia’s N96 slider cellphone is now official. It’s a quad-band, US 3G-enabled (WCDMA) phone with a 2.8-inch screen, 16GB of built-in memory, a 5-megapixel Carl-Zeiss Tessar lens, A-GPS and 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi. The media-player functions of the phone get their own dedicated slide-out keypad, as we knew. It’s due out … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech News
Canon EOS 50D Official: 15-Megapixel Prosumer DSLR Is First With Digic 4 Processor
Canon’s EOS 50D probably isn’t the DSLR you were praying they would unveil at Photokina, but it does fill a gaping hole in their lineup between the low-end prosumer 40D and semi-pro 5D. The 15-megapixel shooter is their first DSLR with the Digic 4 processor, which has a few new light-oriented tricks up its sleeve, … Continued
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Tech News
Where Cellphones Go After They Die: A Photo Essay
Technology Review has a fascinating photo tour of a ReCellular facility, where many of the phones “traded in” for new ones end up. Dealing with thousand of phones at a time, the workers are charged with figuring out which phones can be reused, which can be broken down into their component materials and which are … Continued
By John Herrman -
Tech News
iPhone Dev Team Releases PwnageTool 2.0.3, Jailbreaks Latest 2.0.2 Firmware
This release adds support for Pwning the 2.0.2 5C1 firmware on the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as an update to the latest version of Installer.app. Mac-only for now but, as usual, just sit tight for a few days. [iPhone Dev Team via TUAW]
By John Herrman -
Tech NewsTreadmills Used to Play WoW (Verdict: Even Usain Bolt Couldn’t Cut It as a Blood Elf)
Most avid World of Warcraft players don’t wonder too much about what it would be like to truly run as often and as far as their avatars, because a.) that sounds hard and b.) they’re too busy wondering would it would be like to run at all. Nonetheless, some crafty young WoWers managed to hook … Continued
By John Herrman -
Tech NewsThe Wrong Door: If Terry Gilliam Directed Transformers as a TV Variety Show
Leave it to the BBC to introduce a show about robots attacking humans and generally making a mess of the landscape that’s both funny and tailor-made for the ADHD audience. The Wrong Door is a violent, live-action Robot Chicken prone to the same breezy matter-of-factness that made Terry Gilliam’s Python interludes both funny and horrifying. … Continued
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Tech News
Six Fun Things to Do With Serious Military Hardware at a Russian Armaments Show
The International Defense Exhibition of Land Forces went down in Moscow this past weekend, and it seems like it was a pretty a great time, judging from these photos sent in to our good friends at English Russia. First stop, obviously, is to strap on the Tevas and nautical print Hawaiian shirt for a quick … Continued
By John Mahoney -
Tech News
Wind Turbines Murdering Bats By Popping Their Lungs
On the list of ways to go, having your lungs explode is definitely on the gnarlier side. Too bad for bats in treehugging locales, though, because that’s what’s happening to them, due to a pretty serious error with their awesome echolcation systems crossing with the seemingly benign forces of Bernoulli’s principle put into motion by … Continued
By John Mahoney -
Tech News
Question of the Day: Would You Ever Consider Using a Palmtop MID?
At the Intel Developer Forum last week, a lot of the buzz on the demo floor was around new Atom hardware. There were the requisite netbooks and EeeClones floating around, but it seemed like peculiar little quasi-computers, or palmtop Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) stole the show. Sure, it’s impressive to see a full, net-connected Vista … Continued
By John Herrman -
Tech News
The Ultimate Speed Bump: There is no Escape
While the city of Philadelphia is content with using 3D images to deter speeders, the authorities in ShanXi province, China are taking a far more drastic approach. They built a 100 foot long, 2 foot high, winding speed block smack dab in the middle of the Jing Zhuang highway. Sure, it scratches up cars, looks … Continued
By Sean Fallon