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Tech NewsGadgets36-Inch Twitching Spider: Your Worst Nightmare in Lamp Form
I have yet to meet someone who is genuinely not creeped out by spiders, so I would imagine that you could get a lot of laughs out of a 36-incher that features four twitching legs illuminated by purple incandescent lights. It would be great as a Halloween decoration, or for placing next to your partner … Continued
By Sean Fallon -
Tech News
Intel Opens Door for Army of MacBook Air Clones
Muffled by the cacophony of like a million netbooks and the wireless power that’ll power our cyborg brains at the Intel Developer Forum was the low-key introduction of Intel’s next-gen 45nm dual core chips for ultra-thin notebooks-i.e., the dwarven chips that made the MacBook Air possible. Now that everybody can snag them, expect a surge … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgets
A Skyscraper So Tall Builders Can’t Use Walkie-Talkies
If you want to build a skyscraper 2,275 feet tall, you will face engineering challenges comparable to those of the Space Shuttle just because its sheer size. One of them is communications. When the unbelievable Burj Dubai started to get really high, the construction workers discovered one problem that seems obvious now: their walkie-talkies stopped … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsPrivacy & Security
Mexico’s Rich Embedding GPS-Assisted RFID Tags Under Their Skin In Case of Kidnapping
Mexico has a pretty serious kidnapping problem-so serious that there is now a market for a $4,000 RFID implant procedure (plus a $2,200 annual fee) that promises to help track victims down. The system uses an implanted capsule under the skin that talks to an external GPS transmitter that you’ll need to be kidnapped with … Continued
By John Mahoney -
Tech News
Homemade Teddy Bear Cam Catches British Caregiver Stealing Money, Not Shaking Babies
A man and his daughter thought something was up when their terminally ill grandmother was losing money from her house, so they wrote down the serial numbers of the money in her purse and set up a DIY camera inside a teddy bear. It only took one day for the grandmother’s caregiver to go and … Continued
By Jason Chen -
Tech News
iPhone 2.1 Will Break OpenClip Copy and Paste Between Apps
OpenClip is an open-source framework that brings copy and pasting between apps to the iPhone (without jailbreaking!) by exploiting the fact that applications can read from another application’s documents directory, endrunning the sandbox issue. Apps using the framework look through every app’s doc directory for the most recently changed OpenClip file to get the paste. … Continued
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Tech News
Chococlock Is Designed to Make You Fat, Diabetic
Why would anyone spend $37 on a cuckoo clock that spits out a chocolate ball every hour is beyond me. Why would anyone spend the same amount on a cuckoo clock that does that and has a cheat button so you can eat a chocolate treat every single second, steps into firmly stupid territory. In … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsGadgets
Scientists Create Smoothest Mirror Surface Ever
A team at the Autonomous University of Madrid have created what they’re calling the smoothest mirror surface ever made. It’s flat down to the size scales of individual lead atoms, and was made by depositing lead onto silicon crystal at freakish temperatures of -173 to -133°C. This messes with the quantum properties of electrons in … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech News
Sponsors Thanks
It’s the last weekend before Labor Day, which (according to fashion mags) are fine to wear white after. Great. We’ve got plenty of shirts with Autotrader, Chevy Fuel Solutions, Clone Wars Soundtrack, Coors Light, Elgato Systems, Equifax, Gamestop, Hotflops, Lenovo, Microsoft Windows, Puma, Samsung, Sharp Aquos, Sprint, Starwood Aloft Hotels, Stolichnaya, T-Mobile, Toshiba Gaming, Unscrew … Continued
By Jason Chen -
Tech News
Apple To Crank Out 45 Million iPhone 3Gs Over the Next 12 Months
Business Week is citing an internal Apple source today who is hinting at the company’s upcoming manufacturing plans for the 3G, and they’re huge-between 40 and 45 million phones by this time next year kind of huge. The numbers are necessary, obviously, to cover for the impending Best Buy availability and the additional 20 countries … Continued
By John Mahoney -
Tech NewsGadgets
AirKick Human Catapult Sends Your Flailing Body 26 Feet Into the Air
We’ve seen before how fun getting launched in the air over a body of water can be. Now we have another way to do it: the AirKick Human Water Catapult. Powered by air and water, the AirKick launches people over 26 feet in the air and into either a pool or a foam pit. Creator … Continued
By Adam Frucci -
Tech NewsGadgets
Star Wars Mini-Lightsabre Requires Obligatory “Swooosh” Mouth Effects
According to the manufacturer, this $45 Star Wars USB Lightsabre, which connects to the USB port to charge up its battery and glows in the dark with a blue light, is “a lamp”. Sure. Whatever. We see it and the only thing we can imagine is a mini-Jedi mini-duel to mini-death, doing mouth sound effects. … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech News
TomTom Go 940 Live Leaked: Includes Live GPRS Traffic Data and Google Searches
A “leak” at a UK online retailer’s site reveals a whole bunch of info on TomTom’s Go 940 Live GPS system: it looks like the system comes with a GPRS unit to give it live traffic and fuel-price info and the ability to Google search. Yep, alongside the IQ routing and intelligent lane advice that … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech News
Intel Explains In What Year We’ll Be Cyborgs But Terminators Will Kill Us Anyway
2050. That’s the year that you’ll plug your brain into a toaster. Intel doesn’t know how, precisely, but according to Intel CTO Justin Rattner’s recent keynote at the Intel Developer Forum, they’re working on it. From Intel’s summary of the event: He said Intel’s research labs are already looking at human-machine interfaces and examining future … Continued
By Mark Wilson -
Tech News
Acer Drops Price of Aspire One to Impulse Buy Territory
Acer’s Aspire One was already one of the most affordable 8.9″ mini-notebooks on the market, but now they’ve gone and dropped the price further while adding a 6-cell battery version to the mix. The Windows XP version (120GB hard drive and 1GB RAM has been reduced $50 from $400 to $350. Their Linux system (8GB … Continued
By Mark Wilson -
Tech News
Google Courting Verizon to Become Exclusive Search App on All Phones
The WSJ is reporting on a deal that’s close to completion between Google and Verizon Wireless, our second-largest mobile carrier, to become the exclusive search tech across all of their phones-potentially bringing a Google search bar to the homescreen of every VZW piece. Aside from the obvious web and local searching, the Google engine would … Continued
By John Mahoney -
Tech NewsGadgets
Sexual Gadgets Can Now Be Seized at US Borders Too
First it was liquid bottles. Then laptops. And now they are seizing our penis extensors, penis pumpers, and other sexual gadgets. The FDA is saying that they represent a real risk and federal border agents have now a guideline to confiscate them at US territory entry points. The list would be hilarious if it weren’t … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsGadgets
Holeder Earphones Concept Avoids Bacteria By Hanging in Your Ear
These unlikely-looking earphones have been dreamed up by designer Yoonsang Kim to combat the bacteria build-up that normal in-ear ‘phones apparently have. They also hang together behind your neck when not in use, as a neat solution to that “oops my earphones are dangling” issue. There’s just one flaw I can spot: just peering at … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech News
A Comprehensive List of Ultraportables, Netbooks, Mini-Notebooks, Or Whatever You Call Them
When the Asus Eee came out, the market was simple. There was only one tiny, cheap laptop so you knew which one was for you. That was less than a year ago, but things move quickly in the tech world. Now it’s tough to keep up with the major brands offering mini-notebooks, let alone every … Continued
By Mark Wilson