Propeller-like iPod speakers
These made for iPod (and any other MP3 device in general apparently) �14.95 propeller-inspired speakers promise 10 hours of play from one AA battery. When you're done with them or need to move the part elsewhere, they fold into a small tube, esily stored in a backpack or bag or something similar.  ¶ 4:56 AM 0 Comments

  The Faltulence Filter, making airline life easier one stink at a time
Probably the most important device this year so far is the Flatulence Filter. No need to hold it in on long flights any longer. I wonder if it comes in an industrial strength verison. -via geekblue-  ¶ 4:51 AM 0 Comments

  Singing Stags are all the rage
Don't like kids? Scare the hell out of them with the �169.99 Buck The Singing Stag. In the spirit of that sining bass everyone bought in the past few years, Buck comes pre-programmed witih six songs, including "Rawhide" and of course "Sweet Home Alabama". He also can be hooked up to your cd player so he can pretty much sing whatever you want him to. Check him out in action here.  ¶ 4:42 AM 0 Comments

  Nokia introduces wireless internet tablet that will change lives (if anyone would buy it)
Nokia has introduced another device that will probably be as popular as the Ngage. The Nokia 770 internet tablet is made for quickly browsing the internet and checking your e-maik wirelessly. It doesn't have a hard drive but has 128 mb of onboard flash memory. No word on if that will be upgradeable, but I would hope it would be. The Nokia 770 also runs off of linux and the browser it uses is the Opera browser. Using opera is better than using some watered down device specific browser or even a WAP browser, ick.  ¶ 4:36 AM 0 Comments

  The Official BitTorrent search page is now up Now you can officially search for torrent files on the official BitTorrent Home Page. It seems to work pretty good so far so use it now. No telling how long it'll be up :)  ¶ 3:35 PM 0 Comments

  Alereon shows off WSUB running at 480 mbps Aleron (a leading semiconductor company that is apparently without fab) gets crazy with the wireless connectivityby showcasing the first integrated demo of Wireless USB (WSUB) running at 480Mbps at the Wireless USB Developers Conference. While this technology hasn't really taken off yet, it's only a matter of time before WUSB devices are as commonplace as regular USB devices. -via gigaom-  ¶ 1:07 PM 0 Comments

  Offical announcement of MSN's Virtual Earth Most likely in a direct response to Google's satellite imagery website, Microsoft officially announced their satellite imagery web site Virtual Earth, stating that it's supposedly due out this summer. What differentiates this service from Google's are a few things, the ability to add local data (businesses and such) to your map as well as the ability to view the satellite images at a 45 degree angle. It looks pretty dern good too.  ¶ 5:41 AM 0 Comments

  Scientist use Lasers to build uber-small structures on human hair Researchers straight out of Boston College Chemistry's lab, have developed a way to deposit a polymer at the focal point of a laser beam. Scanning of the laser beam in a certain pattern allows the laser to form 3D patterns effectively creating features that are 1000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. In normal-people speak, they found out how to build super-tiny structres on a piece of hair. This could possibly lead to super tiny products built into our skin, hair and/or clothes. I see the shampoo industry jumping all over this one. -via BoingBoing-  ¶ 11:46 AM 0 Comments

  Flat speakers coming to Japan
TDK Japan breaks out some flat speaker goodness with this portable 2.1 audio system. The speakers offer sound output over 360 degrees apparently and will be sold for less than 90 EUR in Japan from July onward. What would make these suckers even more useful is if they had sticky backs and connected wirelessly to the main unit. Then you could put those 360 degree speakers on the wall and not have to worry about clearing off half your desk for your super dope boom box. Nice. -via akihabara news-  ¶ 11:27 AM 0 Comments

  Bill Gates gets drilled by Walt Mossberg at D Billy G touches on all kinds of topics in his interview with Walt Mossberg at D. Everything from tablet pcs to the technology they're looking to release in the near future (or not so near in Longhorn's case, zing!). Apparently they're looking to compete with Google's mapping search software. Paraphrased from Billy G himself:

This is the summer release I'm showing you. But we're working on
new things. But we're working with partners like pictometry to
get images from planes that are taken at 45 degree angles. Much
better. You get angular views as well as top-down views.

That would be schweet. Would it be free and as easy to use as Google's is? Sure it will, since Microsoft is known for building awsome, unbreakable, easy to use products. Yeah...sure.  ¶ 10:57 AM 0 Comments

  Next iTunes release to offer Podcasting Support Steve Jobs demo'd some of the new iTunes features last night at the Wall Street Journal's D conference. When asked if there was any chance of using iTunes for paid podcast content Jobs said he was open to looking into it. He also gave us some insight into why the ubergeeky Apple folks have had a hard time getting an iTunes cellphone out yet, stating:

"As you know from our limited success at getting our computers into the Fortune 500, Apple's never been very good at going through corporate orifices in order to get at the end users. And if we can't do it with 500 companies, you can imagine it's even harder when there are only four."

Proving that no matter how rich you get, being a geek with awakrd social developement doesn't get better with money. What could be telling is that when asked about iTunes eventually selling movies, Jobs opted to not outright lie and state that he was going to have to "leave that answer to our actions in the future." iTunes to sell movies for major motion picture studios? That might something to look forward to.  ¶ 8:51 AM 0 Comments

  Using XMLHttp After reading all this XmlHttp hoopla and seeing it work all kind of wonders, I realized I wanted to be cool too. I wanted in on the asynchronus database calling. After finding this article, I decided to see how hard it would be to set this up for use in one of my pages. Basically, I have it using javascript to call my aspx page that is only returning, row by row, what is in my databse (which was a list of yahoo im addresses). What was tricky for me was that the XmlHttp is very sensative. If you tell if to send a request to http://domain/page_a.html, you won't be able to get the code to work by going to http://domainIP/page_a.html. I tried to do so and I got back some unauthorized errors in the handy Firefox Javascript debugger window. I am still having a problem setting the font-size for the resulting output so any input on that would be great. Also, if it seems like the changes you made are taking effect, delete your temporary internet files, refresh your page and take another look.
I posted my code here since I couldn't get my html code to show in this post properly.  ¶ 6:52 AM 0 Comments

  Star Wars Revenge of the Sith mints money Shocking absolutely no one, the last Star Wars flick (alledgedly, has any one heard Lucas state that this is it recently?)brought in $158.5 million since it's early Thursday morning opening. Worldwide the flick, which pretty much everyone thinks is the best of the prequels (including me), took in over $303 million worldwide. This has to be good news to the suits who were all kinds of nervous since box office recipts have been a little low this year. Bascially summing up the Star Wars experience was moviegoer Dorien Armentrout,

"I remember when the first Star Wars came out. You didn't see it once. You didn't see it twice. You just saw it till you couldn't see it anymore," Dorien Armentrout said. "I'm sure going to see it again, at least once."

  ¶ 6:17 AM 0 Comments

  Nextel users to get Windows Mobile edition Smartphone
The first Windows' Mobile edition cellphone bulit for iDEN phone networks, the Motorola i930, has been approved by the FCC (FCC ID AZ489FT5843). The i930 cellphone is set to bring it's smartphone-nees to Nextel users soon. It will come with iDEN/GSM connectivity, a 65k color screen and a camera (surely with some kind of megapixelage) among other features.  ¶ 6:09 AM 0 Comments

  MP3 able cell phones aren't iPod killers There's an article up on the WSJ online site deatiling why music capable cellphones aren't going to be able to topple the iPods reign as DAP king(or queen for all you pink Pod lovers). One of the main reasons the iPod is here to stay, for now at least, is the Apple brand. While Apple has built a reputation for it's products being easy to setup and use making many users fanatical followers of the company, the cellphone industry has little to no brand loayalty and a measily 55% customer satisfaction rating. I would say their more into making a profit (up to $4.00 and/or $4.99 a month for a few 10 second ringtones?!?) than making something their consumers find easy and fun to use. One good point the article makes is how exactly would transferring music to your cellphone work? Would you be able to make backups or bring your library of tunes to another phone if it was lost or stolen? As fun as it is paying $0.30 per picture to e-mail out not-as-good-as-a-digital camera photos, I doubt many would like being forced to only play songs you download from your cellphones musice service and not be able to transfer your music from your PC.   ¶ 6:01 AM 0 Comments

  BitTorrent Search portal set to open soon Looks like BitTorrent is going to be getting aBitTorrent specific search engine. Coming from the BitTorrent team themselves (Bram Cohen and a handful of other developers), the search results will also show sponsored links, generating revenue for BitTorrent with every clickthrough. The sponosored links will come courtesy of Ask Jeeves who has demo'd the website for the Wired news team. We'll see how good the site works when it's launched sometime in the next 2 weeks or so.  ¶ 5:29 AM 0 Comments

  Samsung's latest cell phone
Here's a picture of the SGH-Z300 3G cell phone from Samsung. The W-CDMA and GSM SGH-Z300 phone is MP3 and AAC compatible and it even rocks a Digital Power Amp. No pricing or release date info has been set.-via akihabara news-  ¶ 4:46 AM 0 Comments

  Make the PSP think it's bigger than it really is
Want more out of your Sony PSP UMD movies? Nyko has the product for you. Their Theater Experience Sony PSP case. It enables your movies to play longer via an included rechargable battery, built in stero speakers and dual headphone jacks for those long uncomfortable road trips. Hopefully, the rechargeable battery is good for more than just PSP movies...like, I dunno....games!?! Since that is it's preimary function. The reason it exists and all.  ¶ 11:39 PM 0 Comments

  Control your pet
Wup Fido into shape with this harnees that keeps your pet in check. It supposedly reduces the amount of training you need to give your dog since all you have to do is lock them up in a harness and let their hyper-actvity steer your ride. They won't be able to get too crazy since they are subject to your breaking and turning. As fun as this looks, might it be just a tad bit harsh? I wonder how well it handles corners.  ¶ 11:31 PM 0 Comments

  Make your life easier, get Rotating plugs
Brilliant! Falling into the why-didn't-I-think-of-this category comes the rotating electrical plugs making it easier to plug in large plugs that would normally block you from plugging anything else into the other plug. Just plug the big plug in and rotate it out of the way. -via boingboing-  ¶ 12:58 PM 0 Comments

  Netflix swallows Walmart DVD rental business WalMart gets the heck out of the rent-DVD-by-Mail business but giving Netflix what they had of their DVD rental business in exchange for Netflix recommeding WalMmart as a place for their customers to buy DVDs. WalMart DVD rental customers have until June 17th to decide if they want to go with Netflix or just have thier service discontinued. While this is great for Netflix since it's one less competitor to worry about, Walmart wasn't much of a threat in the first place. They had less than 100,000 customers which isn't all that much.   ¶ 9:37 AM 0 Comments

  Organize your Google Homepage Google is now letting users create and personalize their own Google homepage. It works like Microsoft's MY MSN website. You tell Google what content you want to see and you can drag and drop the columns to position them to how you want them to look. I don't know why it took Google so long to do this but it seems to be worth the wait. I do like being able to integrate my Gmail account in there though. That's hot.  ¶ 6:07 AM 0 Comments

  Star Wars Revenge of the Sith is a good movie
Overall it was a good night. Seeing the movie at 1202 was awsome and the people we saw the movie with kept things interesting. This was the movie everyone wanted to see when they first heard about the prequels. $8.00 well spent.  ¶ 7:21 PM 0 Comments

  Got breakfast?
Nothing like doughnuts in the am...300 in the am that is. Sure enough, as the movie got out and we made our way outside (around 240ish), Krispe Kreme doughnuts were available by the box load for the sugar depraved. I couldn't really stomach eating those at 3am. Plenty of other people did apparently. TheLastLineup.com were the people behind all of the events they had going on. It was cool to be entertained the whole time but the people in costumes stole the show.  ¶ 7:15 PM 0 Comments

  Fellow-semi Geek Hans (we're not hardcore enough to dress up)
We like Krispe Kreame yes we do, we like Krispe Kreame, how about you! We got these hats from the guys who were running the contests and raffles. We didn't come close to winning prizes (that trivia was hard!), we did walk away with these nice doughnuts-supporting hats. We had to take them off when they tried to get people wearing the hats to go to the front of the theater and partake in a dance contest. I dance for no one...but myself!  ¶ 7:13 PM 0 Comments

  Find two seats together in this?
This is how the theater looked by the time I got in there. I was thinking I would be alright since I got there 4 hours early. For shame you uber-geeks!  ¶ 7:09 PM 0 Comments

  Darth Vader, all around nice guy
Star Wars Revenge of the Sith was an awsome movie. This guy probably had the best costume. The lights and breathing thingamabob were even working. He worked the crowd while we were outside, shaking hands and scaring little kids. Good times.  ¶ 7:06 PM 0 Comments

  Were I though my place in line would be
The line rounding the corner.  ¶ 4:31 PM 0 Comments

  Where I got in line
My place in line at the back of the building.  ¶ 4:31 PM 0 Comments

  TDK spits out 100GB writeable Blu-Ray disc I wonder how Toshiba is going to counter this one-up manship. Last week Toshiba announced that they got their HD DVDs to hold 45GBs on three-layers. Not to be left behind, TDK brought the pain and upped their Blu-Ray capabilitites to a four-layer BD that can hold a whopping 100GB of data. IT also supports a write-speed of 216Mbps. These new discs use TDK's Durabis coating which allows BDs to get rid of the protective coating to make room for more storage. I wonder if this would have any implications for these next generation game consoles coming out later this year and next year.  ¶ 1:33 PM 0 Comments

 
If it's good enough for panda-bear rockstars, it's good enough for me. It's the worlds first digital audio player to use perpindicular storage, packing more capacity onto a smaller drive. Toshiba, upgrading their Gigabeat F-Series, has managed to pack 40GB onto a ingle 1.8 inch drive. Lookout for what is sure to be a wave of new tiny, high-capacity digital audio players. Toshiba gets bragging rights for being first though.  ¶ 5:12 PM 0 Comments

  Innovation for door handles
Let everyone know if you're door is locked or not with the Brighthandle from Swedish company Brighthandle.com. The LED handle glows either continuously red when locked and green when it's open. I wonder if there a color for "if the room's a rocking, don't come a knocking..". Maybe orangle or purple would be a good color for that. -via OhGizmo!-  ¶ 9:02 AM 0 Comments

  We have an online music store too!
Microsoft is trying their darndest to make a dent in the whole we-have-an-online-music-store-too "niche". They have a buy one get five free deal going on where you can (guess) basically get 6 songs for the price of one ($1). They come in the DRM'd WMA format, which is unfortunate but it's what they have to offer. The price isn't too bad though.  ¶ 6:25 AM 0 Comments

  Averatech introduces new Tablet PC that no one will buy
Averatec's tablet PC, the C3500 has been reviewed by pockt-lint and it wasn't all that flattering. Basically, Averatec has tried to make the tablet pc more affordable but in doing so, just about everything about the tablet PC has suffered. From battery life (isn't that great, less than 2 hrs from a full charge) to the actual digital pen (doesn't work too well, the PC is slow to respond to the pen and it needed to be recalibrated regularly to work decently). Doesn't sound like the Tablet PC will be getting any more popular anytime soon. Thank you Averatec, thank you.  ¶ 5:36 AM 0 Comments

  Latest Premini members from DoCoMo
DoCoMo has annouced the latest members of the Premini line, the IIs. The IIs packs a 1.9" QVGA screen and comes with a 1.3 megapixel camera. Since it's not 3G-able, you only get data-transfer speeds of 28.8kbps. No pricing info yet but I'm guess it will cost more than $25 and less than $1000. You can bet on that.  ¶ 4:48 AM 0 Comments

  Samsung's motion tracking, beat boxing SCH-S310
Samsung has announced the SCH-S310 motion tracking "beat box" phone. Apparently it will come with a load of pre-loaded music clips so you can create your own music on the fly, considering you have good musical tastes (if you don't, spare us all the agony and get a different headset ready phone). The motion tracking technology sounds pretty cool, you'll be able to erase message but shaking the phone and you will be able to scare the old and terrify the young by being able to dial numbers by writing them in the air. The phone will be around $500 and released in Korea only for now.  ¶ 4:43 AM 0 Comments

  Samsung MM-A800 now available in the US
Samsung has released the 2-megapixel, voice-to-text enabled Samsung MM-A800 in the US. In addition to still pictures, the phone can also record up to 30 second video clips. Being speech-to-text able means that you can speak messages into the phone, and the MM-A800 will convert it to text and send it off as a message. It also pack a 240x320 resolution, 262k color screen. Making it easier to enjoy the new Sprint TV services. The phone is abour $349 after a rebate from Sprint.  ¶ 4:35 AM 0 Comments

  LG unveils 5-megapixel lineup
In a press conference Monday in Seoul Korea, LG Electronics showed off their new line of 5-megapixel cell phones, the SV550, KV5500 and the LP5500. The SV550 was billed as the world's second 5-megapixel phone behind the SCH-S250 let loose last October. The highest resolution camera award will have to go to the Samsung SCH-V770 which is a 7-megapixel phone.  ¶ 4:27 AM 0 Comments

  Final version of MSN Desktop Search is released Microsoft released the final version of it's Desktop searching software today. This latest version adds more file types to the list of files you can search for. It still doesn't search previously visited websites like Google's Desktop Search does and it only runs on Windows 2k or Windows XP.  ¶ 4:19 AM 0 Comments

  New iRiver player coming to Korea
The iRiver T10 is set to launch in Koreaon the 20th of May with a starting price of 159000 WON (around $158US). The sporty little player will come in three colors, each one being a packing a different storage capacity. The Lime Green unti will be 256MB, the Cherry Red will sport 512MB and the Orange Yellow will rock 1GB of storage. It'll come with a 1.1 inch color LCD display, an FM tunerr and will play WMA, OGG (sweet!) and of course MP3 files.  ¶ 12:06 PM 0 Comments

  Want to build a good, cheap gaming system? Tom's Hardware Guide walks us through Dylan Walsh's experience of building a sub $1,000 gaming machine. They decided to go with the building of one rather than ordering a pre-built machine because they've done it before and are good hardware geeks. It's better to be able to call up the actual part manufacturer for support than some support center who might send you their way anyway.  ¶ 11:32 AM 0 Comments

  "The Long Tail" theory moves into the mainstream The Long Tail has officially lost it's street cred. The Mainstream (ie USA Today) is starting to pick up on the the Long Tail theory that a lot of money can be made by making all kinds of content available to consumers and letting them pick what they want (usually unpopular obscure stuff). USA toay threw together a panel of industry heavyweights to discuss the future of digital entertainment and Long Tailing came up. Tivo chairman Michael Ramsay stated:

Given the choice, people will migrate towards a much greater variety, and the deal is you've got to make everything available to everybody so that they're not restricted. And if you do, the market for that more esoteric, more specialized stuff is just as big as the market of the mainstream stuff.

-via pvrblog-  ¶ 8:17 AM 0 Comments

  ionKids helps you keep an eye on your deliquent children
If you're still on the fence on being an overbearing/overprotecting parent and looking for something to kick you over, look no more. Check out the ionKids child monitoring system. The wrist device your child is supposed to wear is water and tamper resistant and will only detach from the wrist via a special key. It can also tell if the space between the device and the actual wrist is increasing and will send an alarm to the base unit. You can use the devices within 500 ft of each other (outdoors, indoors you get 350 ft) and if the child moves out of that range then alarms go off putting the device into Find mode so you can track'em down. -via popgadget-  ¶ 8:10 AM 0 Comments

  Get all up in an Olympus MR-100
Want to see the inner workings of the Olympus MR-100? Check them out as DAPreview.  ¶ 6:54 AM 0 Comments

  Amazon gets their sale on Amazon is running a cell phone accessory sale that looks like it will last until May 23rd. Even that Motorola Razr for $99 deal we posted a few days ago is still in effect. Get in where you fit in.  ¶ 6:07 AM 0 Comments

  Mini TV packs some nice features
This is a perfect mini TV to take on the go since it's pretty small (10.2") and packs a lot into the screen itself iMac-style. It packs a CD/DVD player as well as being MP3 and JPEG compatible. Set this sucker up in your bathroom for some nice, porcelain viewing.  ¶ 5:33 AM 0 Comments

  New GPS from Sony
For under 2000EUR you could get your hands on these new Sony GPS models (in Japan for now of course) that display most of Tokyos streets in 3D. The NVXYZ777 and the EX have a 6.5" WVGA 800x400 touchscreen, are MPEG1 and MPEG2 compatibile and can store audio files on it's 30GB HD (the EX can at least). Being that some of the streets are displayed in 3D, it must be easier to distinguish landmarks and such. Hopefully you can switch between 3D and 2D views.  ¶ 4:28 AM 0 Comments

  Firefox gets funny Check out these awsomely funny promotional clips for Firefox. They're getting /.'d at the moment so you might have a hard time getting in. Keep trying though, they're pretty cool.  ¶ 10:32 AM 0 Comments

  Google acquires Dodgeball Google has acquired two-man SMS social networking firm Dodgeball for an undisclosed amount. Dodgeball basically amde it easier for people to hook with with friends, friends-of-friends and even crushes via SMS messaging thru your cell phone.  ¶ 6:27 AM 0 Comments

  Google Web Accelerator no longer available
The Google Web Accelerator ready for prime time? Maybe not so much. Appaprently all these problems people have been having hasn't gone unnoticed. Google now has this statement on the web accelerator web page:

Thank you for your
interest in Google Web Accelerator.
We have currently reached our
maximum capacity of users and
are actively working to increase
the number of users we can support.

I can finish that statement for them: "We have currently reached our
maximum capacity of users and
are actively working to increase
the number of users we can support so the product will work for more than our employees instead of not work for anyone who downloads it. We'll let you know when it's fixed becuase we'll be all like, boo-yah critics, what's broken now punks! And the critics will be like, oh sorry Google you guys are cool. Can I buy some more stock?" (why I used quotes when I made this up myself you ask? because I'm crazy that's why). I think the web accelerator is an awsome idea and I'm sure that Google will sort it out sooner or later, it's good to see a company move somewhat fast though. Microsoft probably would have just tried to patch it or claim that it was our pc's that were af fault.  ¶ 5:39 AM 0 Comments

  Archos AV700 - coolbut not cheap
Archos's upcoming AV700 portable media player looks nice. It has a 7inch 16:9 screen with support for MPEG-4/DivX.Windows media DRM, USB 2 on-the-go and a 40GB / 100GB versions.As cool as all that sounds the thing isn't going to be cheap, $766 for the 40GB version and the 100GB version will run you about $1,150.  ¶ 4:37 AM 0 Comments

  World's first Windows Mobile 5.0 device
Taiwanese manufacturer HTC has unveiled the first Windows Mobile 5.0 pda/phone hybrid thingamabob dubbed "The Universal". The Universal is powered by a 520mhz Intel Xscale processor and 128mb of RAM. It comes with a full-on qwerty keyboard as well, making it easier to edit MS Office documents. The phone/pda will also support 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth and come with two cameras. One for taking 1.3 megapixel pictures and one for shooting moving pictures (video). With the ability to flip the screen and pivot 180 degress, it kind of looks like an uber small desktop pc or something. Keep an eye out for it come the second half of 2005.  ¶ 4:29 AM 0 Comments

  Next Sony laptop to have EDGE built-in
Sony's next Vaio, the Sony Vaio T350, will be the first laptop to have high-speed Edge wireless technolog built-in. The EDGE service will by provided by Cingular with an unlimited rate plan available for $79.99. The Vaio T350 itself will run you around $2,999. The laptop is also WiFi and Bluetooth enabled making it a pretty capable wireless machine.  ¶ 4:15 AM 0 Comments

  Cingular launches high-speed EDGE cell phone
Cingular has launched the high-speed EDGE enabled LG A7110 . The LG A7110 cell phone has a 128x160 pixel color display, 32MB of built-in memory and a video-able VGA flash camera. You can get the LG A7110 from Cingular with a Service Plan for $99.  ¶ 4:31 PM 0 Comments

  Get cool
Do you sweat a lot? If you do then you will dig these air conditioned shirts. Even though they look kind of look of like shirt/jackets, the fans will keep you cool enough to not worry about your pit stains. Right on.  ¶ 7:58 AM 0 Comments

  Yahoo launches Music service
The company that does not quit (ie. Yahoo!) launched their Yahoo Music Unlimited music service. For $6.99 a month, you get to rent songs from their 1 million+ strong song library. You don't only have the rent option though. You'll be able to buy a full album fo $8 and for $0.79 you can download a song permanently. Pretty much beating everyone (iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody) at the price game, it's not expected that Yahoo will topple what is the iTunes giant since Yahoo music downloads don't transfer all that easily to an iPod. Yahoo will suport devices from Dell, Creative and iRiver. Good move on Yahoos part but the fact that it isn't iPod compatible isn't helping them out.  ¶ 6:28 AM 0 Comments