Whether you’re a fan of Apple or not, you have to admit that they aren’t a company that unquestioningly accepts the traditional way of doing things. The latest change that they are rolling out will allow customers to complete their Apple retail store purchases by using an iOS app. How does it work? Apparently a future [...]
The Samsung GALAXY Nexus (Image: Samsung/supplied)
I’ve been a user of an Android phone, HTC Desire, for sixteen months. I bought it with a contract and as a way to step into the smartphone world, first as a user and potentially later on as a developer. I love my HTC Desire, but HTC has proven to be a company that thinks about bells and whistles first and foremost, making me consider a change. I was originally thinking about waiting until sequel to Galaxy S2 is released next year, but now have decided to buy the phone Google developed in cooperation with Samsung, the Galaxy Nexus (available for pre-order at Amazon (UK)).
What do you get when you add footage from a year long time-lapse shoot of Tokyo with sound from the sci-fi classic “Blade Runner?” Nothing less than a geek masterpiece, that’s what. This is one video that you will want to watch in HD on the biggest screen you can get your hands on, with [...]
It isn’t often that we come across a deal this hot, especially when we’re still weeks away from Black Friday, so get ready. Staples is selling the awkwardly named Acer Aspire AS7560-Sb819 for $450, after a 25% price drop. And you can save and additional $100 if you trade in your old laptop, reducing the [...]
Google’s given Microsoft plenty of flack for its “patent bullying” tactics against Android makers. But interestingly enough, Google’s buddies at Motorola Mobility have been pocketing cash from RIM — to the tune of $228 million in a nine-month period last year alone. Motorola hasn’t specifically reported the name of the company from whom it’s been [...]
While it has been speculated for some time, signs that the MacBook Pro line will be getting much more MacBook Air-like are clearer than ever. The latest report has Asian supply chain sources saying the 15-inch LCDs for a thin Apple notebook are already being manufactured. The report describes the LCD as belonging to a [...]
Big science can be scary. As we learned with the Large Hadron Collider, in order to learn certain things about our universe sometimes science needs to do things that haven’t been done before and that some people might perceive as being slightly risky. As it turns out, the LHC didn’t create a black hole and [...]
Pumpkin carving geeks across the world, put down your knives because the contest is over. We have found the most nerdy pumpkin out there. Above is a pumpkin undergoing a laser carving process to create a Medusa head that, when finished, could be enough to turn you to stone if you look at it directly. Credit [...]
It’s not news that geeks love data. Or graphs. Or graphs and data. Graphs and data arranged on poster-like canvases in such a creative manor that they earned themselves a whole new name: infographics. With many in the US about to head out for the evening with their kids or to stay at home and [...]
With the recent Netflix pricing debacle still fresh on consumers minds, it seems like a bad time to announce a price increase on a competing movie rental service. Redbox seems to be saying “Damn the torpedoes!” as this week it announced a 20 percent price increase for daily DVD rentals. Of course this only adds [...]
The new webzine reading mode in Dolphin Browser for Android was a nice feature addition. It formats pages on supported websites nicely for reading on mobile devices… but it was doing something else that wasn’t nearly as good: passing your browsing history back to their servers using an unencrypted channel. The EFF was all over [...]
After learning that Apple was tying Siri exclusively to the iPhone 4S, we wondered whether the jailbreak community would be able to change that. Within a day or two, Siri’s user interface was successfully ported to the iPhone 4, but Apple’s servers weren’t responding, rendering it non-functional. The same developer now has Siri fully working [...]
If you want a version of Linux aimed squarely at the masses hooked on Windows, look no further than Ubuntu. It has repeatedly pushed development in its own direction away from the norm in a bid to make the alternative operating system more accessible and appealing to users beyond the typical Linux user. The latest [...]
It’s time for Halloween, and what better way to get into the spirit than to dress up in a scary costume? However, anyone can buy a mummy mask, a vampire cloak, or a Spiderman suit. What if you want to geek it up a little bit? Here are our suggestions for Halloween costumes that will [...]
Dell makes a compelling case for IT professionals in this promo video for their upcoming Latitude ST tablet. Confident professionals (or confident professional actors) are seen giving presentations, teaching students, and accessing medical data with the slate. It’s an appealing glimpse of what tablets can offer to a workplace. The only problem with this is that [...]
Creating a TV show all about technology is tough due to the rate at which it changes and having to appeal to a mass audience, meaning not that much appeal for geeks. The Gadget Show broadcast in the UK does a better job than most, and its latest build segment has to be the best [...]
The Google Doodle for today celebrates Halloween, and its creation required a number of the Google geeks spending a bit more time than usual away from their PCs. That’s because this doodle isn’t an image, animation, or interactive piece of work, it is instead a time-lapse of Google employees carving pumpkins to portray the Google [...]
Maybe Hollywood should have made all the 2012 movies end the world in March next year, as that is when 7 Billion Person Day is estimated to happen. The infamous day that the world’s population hits then exceeds seven billion people. For companies like McDonald’s, this is welcome new as it validates the signs proclaiming “billions [...]
I don’t know how we missed this, but last Wednesday Microsoft held a local press conference detailing a number of new services available to Australian consumers. While Kinect Voice Control was announced at the event, I’m personally much more excited by the announcement of Zune Music purchases and Zune Music Pass for Australia. Samsung and Sony also have music subscription services in the works and available but Zune Pass, in my opinion, is much more interesting given the amount of devices it’s already available on in the US and right here such as Windows Phone, Xbox and Windows. It’s also very timely given the announcement of Nokia Windows Phone’s.
Steve Jobs’ sister, Mona Simpson, has published a eulogy about her brother in the New York Times today. Simpson delivered eulogy was given at a memorial to him on October 16 at the Memorial Church in Stanford University, the same university where Jobs gave a speech.
Anyone that has battled hordes of mosquitoes while camping or out on a hike, has wished horrible deaths on the annoying insects. Hence the whole industry around disposing of them: bug zappers, mosquito magnets, and the good old fly swatter are all best sellers as humans wage war against the blood sucking, disease carrying nuisances. How [...]
For all you geeky musicians out there, you can now bring technology to your traditional violin, viola, cello, and bass in the form of the Keith McMillen Instruments K-Bow, a Bluetooth sensor bow capable of mimicking the wood and gut that have been used in the past. Created so that modern string musicians could integrate computing [...]
Probably one of the geekiest holidays of all, Halloween brings many traditions with it. Eating enough candy until one bursts, designing just the right Dr. Who costume to impress friends and last but not least, making the best geeky pumpkin carving to one up those pesky neighbors! If you are a bit behind in your [...]
In this edition of TECHGEEK Weekly, host, Stewart Wilson is joined by Tom Solari to deliver you the best (and worst) in news. We talk about the happenings at Nokia World, Some things you didn’t know about Steve Jobs and the sexy thermostat.
Want a cool idea on how to recycle those old tires that are just lying around in the backyard or the vacant lot? If you have three months, lots of patience and talent, you might be able to do what Korean artist Yong Ho Ji has done. Pictured above is a lion sculpture that Ji [...]
What happens to portable video game systems when they die? Why, they become zombies, of course. One creative individual has shown us proof of this occurrence with his custom-made Zombie Gameboy figure. This brain-eating (or motherboard-eating?) undead portable is the creation of self-proclaimed nerd Donald “kodykoala” Kennedy. He got the idea when he found an [...]
Trying to cram a desktop OS onto a smartphone has never made much sense. That hasn’t stopped the folks at In Technology Group from shoehorning Windows onto the original xpPhone. Apps designed for a desktop-sized monitor and keyboard + mouse control running on a pocketable device? Count me in! But with the impending arrival of [...]
When Amazon announced the Kindle Fire last month, the device that it most reminded people of was the Nook Color. The Fire may be getting some extra competition soon, as a sequel to the Barnes & Noble’s seven inch device is expected to arrive on November 7. B&N’s eReader/tablet hybrid has been a surprise hit [...]
Mid-range laptops are a little tricky. So often these days we see bargain basement machines that are barely equipped to run the latest software, much less run it well. Then the offerings tend to jump up to higher end systems with pricey add-ons like Core i7 CPUs and Blu-ray drives. Today’s deal defines the mid-range [...]
With Android tablets (at least those not called the Kindle Fire) hardly making a dent in the iPad’s sales, you wouldn’t think they would be a high priority for a video game retailer. Yet that isn’t stopping Gamestop from adding them to their retail stores, as they continue their attempt to expand beyond the finite future [...]
If you had high hopes for the future of webOS once HP took over, your expectations have probably been on the decline recently. Get ready for them to bottom out: HP is going to kill off its webOS division sometime in the near future. There’s always the chance that someone else will swoop in [...]
The BlackBerry PlayBook didn’t sell as well as hoped at the $499 starting price RIM slapped on it, so recently they tried deep price cuts to see if that would help. Even at $299 in the U.S. and Canada, the PlayBook didn’t fly off shelves. Now, RIM’s trying grocery store tactics: buy two, get one [...]
Owners of the new iPhone 4S may not have long to wait for a jailbreak. Though it’s still far from a public release, developer MuscleNerd has shown off the first images of a jailbroken 4S. MuscleNerd tweeted the following early this morning, assuring followers that the jailbreak is making progress: If you’re new to all [...]
The PS Vita is due to launch on February 22 next year across the U.S. and Canada. Many gamers already have their pre-orders made, and now just have a long wait of nearly 5 months. You could get it sooner by importing one from Japan, but I’ve already predicted a $1000 price tag if you [...]
Google has always been the type of company to release a product in beta and let their audience help them fine tune it. This practice worked great when the products were all free. After all, how could you complain about something that’s free? When the products started to cost money, and not insignificant amounts of [...]
Motorla’s Droid 3 may only have come out this summer, but now that the company has brought a sexy, new RAZR to market it decided the original Droid line needed a refresh, too. Take a look at the Droid 4, exposed in all its glory thanks to a series of leaked photos obtained by Droid [...]
One of the major selling points of the Kindle e-reader is its ability to store thousands of books without getting any bigger or heavier. Try and do the same with physical books and you soon wouldn’t be able to move under the weight, or even carry more than a dozen or so. Well it turns [...]
Did you jump into the early adopting fray, and snag an iPhone 4S before any of your friends? While the experience of using the new iPhone is greatly improved, there is the small matter that it looks exactly like the iPhone 4. If you’re into flaunting your gear, this could prove problematic. Thankfully, all it [...]
The idea of integrating electronics into the clothes we wear isn’t a new one. The problem so far has been figuring out how to add our typically rigid components to a flexible piece of material. Even then, how do you keep them from being damaged over time, or adding undue weight to a garment? Juan [...]
If you have ever owned an Android phone, you may have experienced a disturbing trend. It appears that, in the race to produce a phone that’s bigger, better, and faster than the previous, long-term software support often goes by the wayside. Even if you were already aware of this tendency, the above infographic may open [...]
Believe it or not, there is a sheet of glass present on the right in this image When it comes time to purchase a new laptop or display for your computer, the question always arises of whether to purchase one with a matte or glossy display. The glossy, glass displays are meant to look brighter [...]
Running a data center of any size is an expensive business due to the hardware costs, the cooling required, and of course the large amounts of electricity needed to run one. When you’re the size of Facebook those costs escalate due to the size of the data centers you need to operate. So when it [...]
Ego Leonard’s got a pretty good life, from the sound of things. He’s toured around Europe and England. He’s beloved by the ladies. He’s an internationally recognized member of the arts community. And he’s a giant Lego mini-fig. Earlier this week, he rode the tide to shore in south Florida, winding up on the sandy [...]
In a surprising bit of news, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has done an about-face and decided not to ditch its PC business after all. New CEO Meg Whitman said that the reversal came down to research data, which indicated that the projected damage to its supply chain and procurement was going to be too great. They had [...]
Microsoft has certainly learned a lot from Apple during the last few years. Their new penchant for elegant design, which arrived in Windows Phone 7 (and will continue in Windows 8′s Metro UI), may define the look of all of their products a decade from now. At least that’s the impression we get from their [...]
Not long ago, Mozilla coders announced that they were starting to build PDF.js, a way to display Acrobat documents in the browser using pure web code. No longer will you have to fight with an external PDF plug-in in Firefox. Huzzah! Development on PDF.js has progressed to the point now where you can take an [...]
DARPA is well-known for setting difficult challenges that take teams of clever people to figure out. But usually they involve creating some form of intelligent robot or a craft capable of hypersonic flight. The research agency’s new challenge is a little different. DARPA is focused on developing new technology and solutions for use by the [...]
Take a look at the rather novel vehicle design you see above. Sporting “tent-cloth” tan paint and a collapsible front and rear body, we know this bad-boy is at the top of anyone’s dream car list. All kidding aside, this vehicle does actual exist. Called the iSAVE-SC1, it is produced by Japanese company Humanix and [...]
It’s with great trepidation that we risk waking the slumbering iRumor giant, and suggest what the next iPhone could bring. One of the biggest questions is whether Apple will add LTE to its next hardware update. Will they bother? What are the pros and cons? Are they hurting by not having LTE in the 4S? [...]
Android fans from around the world rejoiced in unison as Google and Samsung took the stage in Hong Kong recently to introduce the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. With its superior screen, impressive design, and overhauled version of Android, it’s clearly the Android flavor of the month. One of the larger points of contention surrounding this device so far [...]
Back in September, a mysterious and snazzy BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 remix popped up in China. Now it’s looking a whole lot more official than it once was, with the strikingly similar BlackBerry P9981 unveiled by RIM and the folks who crafted it, Porsche Design. Gone is the plastic front bezel, replaced with a shined-up [...]
Anyone who has watched the film Back to the Future 2 and has seen Marty McFly ride his hover board around Hill Valley has probably been dreaming of doing the same. Of course, movie magic aside, it was known that the world was a long way off from having this dream become a reality. Well, [...]
Tapping away at your smartphone or tablet’s on-screen keyboard isn’t an arduous task when you’re able to look at it. But what about those times when you need to direct your attention elsewhere while you poke at it — say, when you’re driving and you want to tell your media player to skip the current [...]
Even with the Qwikster debacle and significant price rise, we all know that Netflix remains a very popular service, and one that is quickly becoming a major drain on network bandwidth as more people stream content. Just how much of a drain the service is has been revealed in Sandvine’s The Global Internet Phenomena Report: [...]
We’ve seen some ambitious crowd-funded projects through the years, but this one just may take the cake. The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is aiming for nothing less than an A-to-Z instruction manual for anyone who wants to create a new civilization. The project is the brainchild of Marcin Jakubowski. After finishing his 20′s with [...]
E-readers are really starting to come of age with Amazon recently updating and reducing the price of the Kindle. The Nook, Sony Reader, and countless other e-readers are also doing swift business due to the benefits they offer over printed books. The combination of a paper-like screen and thousands of books stored in a very [...]
It’s no secret that the world of high-end mobile phones is currently dominated by the iOS and Android operating systems. To help you get a perspective on their latest releases, we gave you head-to-head spec comparisons between the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy Nexus, and then between the Droid Razr next to the Galaxy Nexus. [...]
Laptops allow us access to computing on the go. You could argue that smartphones and tablets do the same thing, but I’d argue both are very much limited compared to the laptop. However, choosing to work on a laptop comes with a number of compromises based on what you can easily fit alongside one in [...]
After rumours hinting at the deal, Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson is pulling out of the Sony Ericsson joint venture formed ten years ago with Sony. Sony is to acquire its 50% stake in the company in a deal worth EUR1.05 billion (US$1.47 billion/AU$1.40 billion).
Sony has decided to step up its efforts to better compete with the likes of Apple, Samsung, and HTC in the smartphone market by taking full control of its own mobile hardware division. The Sony Ericsson partnership has now become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony who has bought out Ericsson‘s 50% share for $1.45 billion. [...]
It has been 14 years in the making, but UK scientists are now happy to announce a new breed of broccoli for us all to consume and become healthier. At least that’s the thinking behind this new “super broccoli.” We all know that broccoli is good for us due to it containing glucoraphanin–an organic compound [...]
The Netgear N600 Wireless Modem Router is a performer in it’s category of networking gear. Not only does it integrate many devices into a single device, it does it well. Boasting Dual-Band 802.11n, gigabit connectivity, two USB ports for sharing storage devices and DLNA streaming, the Netgear N600 let’s users turbo boost their network with speedy and reliable connectivity.
Don’t bother checking your calendars, folks, because it’s definitely not April 1st… but Bing and Firefox have teamed up and released an official download together. Yes indeed, Microsoft and Mozilla are joining forces on a browser. It’s been announced over on the Bing blog and the bits are available now from releases.mozilla.com/bundles/ if you prefer the direct [...]
Sharing high-speed internet connections with trusted friends and neighbors is a pretty common practice where I live. As long as no one bogs down the router with excessive traffic or skips out on their portion of the bill, it’s all good. But normal routers and their limited range are so… limiting. Fear not, WiFi rebels [...]
OSX/Tsunami-A, a new Trojan horse for Mac OS X has been discovered by Sophos. The Trogan is a port of the linux virus, Troj/Kaiten. Which embeds itself into the system and listens for commands on an IRC network. What makes this Trojan particularly nasty is that the controller can instruct your computer to DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) a particular computer/server/ip address. The trojan also allows the controller to run any script or command on your Mac as they wish.
This morning, at the Nokia World conference, Nokia announced the Lumia 800. The handset, which Nokia is calling the “first real Windows Phone”, is based on the N9, Nokia’s recently released (and ultimately doomed) Meego-powered smartphone. The Lumia 800 packsa a 3.7-inch AMOLED curved display (480×800), a 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 processor, 802.11 b/g/n, 16GB of [...]
In case you missed the news, a former Apple employee named Tony Fadell, who was instrumental in creating the first iPod, has decided to tackle a somewhat unexpected product category with his new company. He certainly found a market that Apple has yet to lend its magic to. Fadell, known as the “father of [...]
Still toting a Nexus One, and wondering if it will get an update to Android 4.0? It looks like you won’t be getting any help from Google, as the search giant has confirmed that the original “Google experience” phone will not be getting an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich. This comes from the mouth of [...]
Passenger aircraft haven’t changed much over the years, and apart from the paint job, most pretty much all look the same. But with fuel costs rising, more people traveling everyday, and a need to cut costs wherever possible, new designs are starting to appear. Airbus decided to go big with the introduction of the A380, [...]
We’re used to our smartphones and tablets getting upgraded processors, higher resolution screens, and better batteries. We’re accustomed to seeing their displays get larger, and their casing lighter and thinner. But what if you could one day add “more flexible” to that list? Nokia is investing in this future, with a vision of bendable phones [...]
If you thought Amazon was the tablet marketplace’s best hope for a true Apple competitor, it looks like you were right. Pre-orders of the Kindle Fire continue to be brisk, and it’s already well on the way to becoming the best-selling Android tablet of all time. Two weeks ago, more than a quarter million had [...]
If you’re an iPhone owner, you’ll soon be able to create your own fully-fledged panoramic videos on the go. Even if you aren’t planning a Street View competitor, you can discover some of the more subtle uses of 360° photography when the Dot attachment arrives next week. Once you attach Dot to your iPhone 4 [...]
Japan’s Ministry of Defense has created one of the most versatile flying robots I have ever seen, and what is thought to be the world’s first spherical flying robot to boot. The robot manages to combine the best of both a helicopter and a winged plane and can hover as well as travel very fast [...]
The most common excuse I hear when someone justifies pirating a film is ease of access. They say, “If Hollywood would make it as easy to watch a movie using a system they want me to use versus heading over to [pirating method of their choosing], I’d use it”. Ignoring the legal implications behind the [...]
If you’re buying a tablet today, chances are the screen resolution you end up with is going to sit somewhere between the rather low 800 x 600 and the current high of 1280 x 800. iPad 2 owners get a middling 1024 x 768. That is all set to change with the next generation of [...]
2011 has been a very up-and-down year for Waterloo, Ontario’s Research in Motion. Apart from the massive worldwide service failure that crippled BlackBerry email delivery and BBM, the BlackBerry PlayBook has never quite lived up to its tablet potential. Recent temporary price cuts helped shift truckloads of stale stock, but now RIM appears to be [...]
Ah, the Ultrabook. Sure, they’re really just skinny Windows laptops designed to compete against the MacBook Air, but Intel’s sure they’re the next big thing. Provided, of course, manufacturers can get them built at the right price. The “right price” used to be anywhere under $1,000. Intel has now revised that figure to a much [...]
The Nokia Asha 303 aims to bridge the "digital divide" (Image: Nokia/supplied)
Nokia has announced its brand new Asha mobile phone line-up, featuring the Asha 303, 300 and 200/201. The new line of phones are designed to be accessible for all users, attractable and affordable to even the most price conscious person. Nokia is targeting this to the “next billion” of consumers in emerging markets.
Nokia has also announced its second Lumia Windows Phone 7 smartphone at its Nokia World event in London, the Lumia 710. The phone features the same specifications as the Lumia 800, however with a slight difference and a bit more colourful.
Siri is definitely the stand out new feature on the iPhone 4S, and takes us one step closer to HAL from Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. ThinkGeek has decided to take that association one step further though, and have produced one of the first iPhone 4S accessories aimed squarely at the Siri user. [...]
Nokia has announced the new Lumia 800 at its Nokia World event in London today. Featuring the same body as the Nokia N9 but with slight changes, and is the first phone that will be running the Windows Phone 7. In fact, it has gone so far and called it the “first REAL Windows Phone” for Microsoft.
Rumour speculation or not, it isn’t confirmed until Nokia says it’s not. Nokia World 2011, in London, is here and we’ll provide live blog updates of the event. Follow us at 7pm tonight (AEDT) and we’ll let you know if Nokia has decided to reveal the launch date of their hyped up Windows Phone 7 phones ‘Sea Ray’ and ‘Sabre’.
It turns out that international hard drive supplies aren’t the only tech-related casualty of extreme flooding that has been taking place recently in Thailand. The dramatic image above reveals a Sony manufacturing plant that has been closed due to the floods. The Sony plant is part of the Bangkadi industrial park, and is the seventh industrial [...]
Most geeks are familiar with the Alienware PC brand. Those in their 20′s and 30′s surely remember reading PC or gaming magazines back in the day and seeing the awe inspiring ads for the illustrious Alienware gaming masterpieces. Giant towers stuffed with top of the line CPUs, graphics cards that would make Unreal Tournament scream, [...]
Deep down in the seedy underbelly of the Android ecosystem there are groups of individuals who pride themselves on being able to deliver the latest and greatest of the Android OS to as many devices as possible, almost always before the manufacturers manage to get it out. Every time there is a new release of [...]
In the middle of 2010, Google finally cut the ribbon on the Chrome Web Store, making .CRX web apps available to users of Google Chrome around the globe. At first it was a bit of a mess — themes were still hosted on the original gallery site — as were extensions, and the overall design [...]
If coffee or energy beverages are your thing, would you prefer to skip that whole drinking part and just inhale it? No? Well, the makers of Aeroshot are hoping that somebody is up for that. The small canister is similar to an asthma inhaler, only the medication that it delivers is prescribed by Dr. Juan [...]
We knew the Viewsonic ViewPad 7e would hit retail shelves somewhere under the $250 mark, and now we know exactly where. The 7-inch Android 2.3-powered slate has been added to the Viewsonic website listed as costing $200. For those two Benjamins, what do you get? As is the case with most Android tablets in this [...]
URL shortening services are really useful when you want to send a link in a tweet, or the original URL is several lines long. But they do have a downside: they hide the location of where the link takes you. Many of the popular URL shortening services have taken measures to ensure the links being [...]
Bethesda is set to release the next game in the Elder Scrolls series in less than three weeks on November 11th. We’ve already seen how good Skyrim looks in multiple gameplay videos, but what does that mean for the PC rig you need to play it? Surprisingly, the minimum spec is quite modest. As a [...]
What do you get if you mix up a scoop of motivated insects with a big helping of Rube Goldberg — and top it off with a smartphone powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor? A viral video that’s too good to miss, of course. Back in the days before the recent crop of Tegra 2 and OMAP-powered [...]
It’s hard to believe the time has come so soon, but Google Chrome has received yet another +1. This time, there are several under-the-hood changes that bring increased security and one major user-facing change: a revamped new tab page. You may have seen the new tab page before. It’s been the default option in Chrome’s [...]
You just had to know that this one was coming… The hacktivist group Anonymous has issued a call to take down Fox News’ website, in response to the network’s coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protestors. The rallying cry for “Operation Fox Hunt” points to November 5 as the day of the cyber-attack. The call [...]
This is not a drill. Rockstar Games has just announced on their website that a new Grand Theft Auto game is in the works. Grand Theft Auto V will probably come in 2012 – 2013, but no official details have been revealed except that a trailer for the game will be coming on November 3 AEDT. The current homepage for Rockstar Games is simply a logo and a promise of a trailer.
Battlefield 3 is out today, and it’s a pretty big deal. The squad-based first person shooter is the prime competition for the juggernaut that is Call of Duty and, while always an excellent PC game, is a shining example of just want can be done with today’s consoles. And while the new FrostBite 2 engine [...]
Right on schedule, less than two weeks after the iPhone 4S was released to the public, the iPad rumor mill is heating up. The latest report is that the iPad 3 is being rushed into production, in order to enter production ahead of the weeklong Chinese New Year. The story also claims that the updated [...]
When Steve Jobs clearly states in his official biography that he has figured out the formula for a successful Apple TV set, it doesn’t take an analyst to see that said device may be coming soon. But that hasn’t stopped Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster from chiming in on the subject. He cites the passage [...]
You only have to look at the current crop of smartphones and tablets to know that capacitive rather than resistive is the touchscreen technology of choice. Resistive suffers a lack of accuracy and responsiveness due to its reliance on pressure for input. Resistive touchscreens do have one advantage over capacitive, though: you can use one [...]
What every gamer expected has finally happened: Rockstar Games has officially announced Grand Theft Auto V today. By officially announced I mean they have confirmed its existence and released the logo design as can be seen above. Beyond that there are no details about the actual game. The announcement was made via the RockstarGames Twitter [...]
Last month it came to light that HTC had done a very clever deal with Dropbox. In the face of Apple launching iCloud, and Microsoft already having SkyDrive, HTC decided to let anyone with one of their HTC phones have 5GB of free Dropbox cloud storage. At the time, we thought that such an offer [...]
Is anyone starting to get a feeling of deja vu? The Wii went through a period of offering a lot of white plastic peripherals, some licensed, others just there to grab your cash as part of a gaming bundle. Now it seems like the 3DS is going the same way. We’ve already seen the right [...]
Sure to become some sort of mass market toy all the kids are clamoring for (as well as a few adults), the robot bike rider developed by Dr. Geuro is a very interesting experiment in robotic technology. Named PRIMER-V2, the robot bike rider can reach speeds of 6 mph and rides its bike in a manner [...]
It’s almost certainly not on your wishlist, but the Nokia N9 is an incredibly cool handset. The Meego-powered smartphone might be a dead-on-arrival, considering Nokia’s upcoming move to Windows Phone 7 and all the news that is about to drop at Nokia World 2011, but it’s an undeniably interesting piece of hardware. After all, the [...]
People that were born before the 1990s will remember the Cold War as a time of fear and suspicion betwen the US and the USSR. At one time, the two superpowers had enough weaponry to kill every living thing on the planet 15 times over. It was a period of history that birthed McCarthyism in [...]
Nokia 800, or "Sea Ray", is expected to be announced at Nokia World in London this week
Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7 phone – the one it is betting its entire future on – could miss the US holiday shopping season. With marketing for the device in that region not starting in 2012, it could indicate that Nokia could be launching in Europe first before the all-important US region.
I have never been this jealous in my life. The Gadget Show, which was shown here on ONE HD for a while, is a television show from Channel 5 in the UK. The latest episode has had the hosts create a complete first-person shooter simulator that plays Battlefield 3 on PC. Not only is it a success, but it is an overall amazing project. Sadly you’ll probably have to be a millionaire to get your own FPS simulator, with the project costing £500,000, which is around $750,000 AUD. It’s expensive but cool. And you can check out the segment after the break.
Blizzard has used Blizzcon this year to make existing World of Warcraft players a very tempting offer, while at the same time ensuring they will continue playing the MMO for most of 2012. The new subscription deal is called Annual Pass and encourages players to sign up to play WoW for 12 months rather than [...]
It is widely known that the internet has the power to make or break a company or an individual. Most of the time, that power is used to bring to light something that went wrong or poor customer service. This story, however, is about how Amazon went the extra mile to refund a customer, even [...]
Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus has reportedly left Apple. After the company was bought by Apple, Kittlaus (and other Siri staff) stayed on and headed up the speech recognition advancement. It is reported as being a friendly departure. This comes less than two weeks since Siri launched for Apple, as the killer feature of the iPhone 4S. [...]
Car manufacturer Jaguar has had to recall nearly 18,000 of its X-Type cars after a serious software bug has been identified in the on-board system of the vehicle. The bug potentially stops a driver from turning off the cruise control system, which is more than a little dangerous. The good news is there have been [...]
If you saw our side-by-side comparison of the Galaxy Nexus with the iPhone 4S, you might have wondered how that other big Android phone that was announced this week, the Droid Razr, stacks up. Perhaps we can compare the Razr to the iPhone later on, but for now, here is our specs comparison of the [...]
In a move that would make Chris Hansen proud, Anonymous members have successfully shut down one of the largest child pornography hosts on the Internet. Lolita City and about 40 other sites hosted by Freedom Hosting had their servers taken offline — and Anonymous vowed in a statement to continue the hunt and strike down [...]
Once again, Microsoft has padded its revenue stream with an Android patent license deal. This time around, it’s Compal Electronics — another name you might not be familiar with, but it’s a very significant win for the crew in Redmond. Like Wistron and Quanta, Compal produces devices for other companies — and they’re actually one [...]
3D printing is something we are hearing more and more about. The ability to create something in a 3D art package and then physically print it at home is quite a powerful idea. Need a new hook for your door? Don’t buy it, print it instead! Now MakerBot Industries, creators of affordable, open source 3D [...]
As the launch of the $25 PC gets ever closer (sometime next month), members of the Raspberry Pi team have found time to start blogging about the history of the project. Eben Upton, director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, has been working on the project for many years, and decided to share a couple of [...]
Usually Apple updating one of its line of products comes with a mass of media attention, a keynote, and people scrambling to order the new device. That’s not the case with Apple’s latest product refresh, which seems to have been rolled out quietly earlier today or late last night. If you visit the Apple Store [...]
Americans have been enjoying it for years, Canada got it last year, and 43 other countries already enjoy Netflix streaming them entertainment on a daily basis. The UK has seen no such love, but Netflix has finally decided to launch there as well as in close neighbor Ireland. There’s no firm date yet, but Netflix [...]
In 2011, Internet Explorer 6 should be a distant memory for everyone connected to the web. There is absolutely no reason to keep using it, and many reasons to stop, not least of which being even Microsoft highly recommends upgrading to IE9 as soon as you can. It seems that some people really can’t take [...]
Two Star Wars cosplayers in the main hall (Image: Terence Huynh/TECHGEEK.com.au)
Let us indulge in some geek fandom. Armageddon 2011 was on last weekend (October 22 and 23) at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, and with previews of Batman: Arkham City and, especially for most of the editors on this very site, Rooster Teeth making a presence, we’ve decided to tag along and attend.
The past couple of weeks has seen the web filled with tributes to Steve Jobs who passed away on October 5th. With those tributes has been a lot of imagery and video from Jobs’ history, some of which has rarely been viewed before. There is one piece of footage that has never been seen before [...]
Four days before the Nokia World event, a teaser ad for the upcoming Nokia 800 (Sea Ray) has aired on UK Television; only showing glimpses of the smartphone from different angles for no more than one second.
Motorola resurrects the RAZR, Samsung wants to ban the iPhone, and BlackBerry is continuing to dig their grave. Meanwhile, Sesame Street becomes a bit more explicit, though not on purpose. All this and more on this week’s edition of TECHGEEK Weekly.
If you had an Android-powered device, a pile of Lego bricks, and a Rubik’s Cube, what would you decide to do with your time? Make a robot that could solve said cube faster than you could of course! That is what some enterprising geeks did, and they have a video to prove it. Called the [...]
Who doesn’t like a good pair of novelty slippers? If they keep your feet warm while adding a bit of comedy to your ensemble, it’s worth it for the chuckles you’ll get around the house. When Tom Boddingham decided to invest in a new pair of monster claw slippers, he had no idea what was [...]
They just don’t make unlimited data like they used to. Sprint, the last US carrier that offers unlimited mobile data, may have just taken the first step in joining its wireless rivals in the world of capped plans. The company has announced that unlimited data for mobile hotspot devices will be getting the boot [...]
There is no greater bane to a BitTorrent users than an ISP that throttles their speed down to 56k modem speeds from the ’80s. It is a topic that is hotly debated across the internet about which ISP throttles and those that don’t, or which ones will report a user for piracy or not. The [...]
According to owners of a small German café, Apple has sent a cease and desist letter over the use of the above logo. Apfelkind, which is German for “apple baby,” is a family-oriented coffee and tea house that opened this April in the city of Bonn. The owner of Apfelkind, Christin Römer, registered the logo with [...]
We didn’t really need any new leaks to know that Apple is working on a thinner MacBook Pro. The current design has been around since late 2008 and, despite its greater capabilities, is starting to look chunky next to the ultra-thin MacBook Air. The big question, then, was whether Apple would lose optical drives altogether [...]
Back in 2009 a small percentage of the people watching the Super Bowl on TV got a shock in the form of 37 seconds of porn. Somehow or someone had flicked the feed over to the Club Jenna channel just in time to see some full frontal male nudity and a sex act performed. This [...]
There is something about anonymity on the internet that turns ordinary every day people into lumpy faced trolls. People can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to insulting someone else’s work or opinion. It is enough to make one pull the Ethernet cord from the wall sometimes. Trolling is the dark underbelly of the [...]
iOS 5 might be getting its first patch rushed out after a major security oversight has been discovered relating to its use on the iPad 2. It turns out that just by attaching a Smart Cover to an iPad 2 you can bypass the passcode protection screen and unlock the device. It doesn’t give you [...]
Just when you thought that keystroke logging by an iPhone was your biggest mobile security concern, the folks at Kaspersky Lab are saying that you need to be careful with QR codes. Apparently some have already had their code altered so that a scanning phone sends out unwanted premium text messages. One of the firm’s [...]
While the more developed countries may have an abundance of choice when it comes to selecting a computer, developing countries can hardly afford them. A number of companies are trying to change that by offering cheap computers, with the standout example being the OLPC. Next month the charity foundation Raspberry Pi starts its bid to [...]
It looks like Sony has another hacker to track down. A video has appeared on YouTube of a new jailbreak for the PS3 that requires a dongle to function. The jailbreak solution is called JB2, short for Jailbreak 2, and was apparently found being sold as an initial test run in Indonesia. It requires a [...]
With the release of the PS Vita in Japan on December 17, Sony moves away from disc-based games to the smaller and more battery-friendly game cards. Just like DS and 3DS games, it’s possible to include memory for saves on these cards meaning no investment required in a separate memory card. However, it turns out [...]
It was going to happen sooner or later, and we all knew it would be expensive when it did. OCZ have been the first to jump though, managing to bring a 1TB SSD to market for an eye-watering $1,300. The OCZ Octane SSD is a 2.5-inch drive with a 6Gbps SATA-III interface offered in 128GB, [...]
When I was growing up Disney cartoons and feature-length films were something you looked forward to appearing on TV every major holiday, and Disneyland was a place that I always wanted my parents to take me to. But it was always seen as just Disney the brand, never the clever and talented people behind it. [...]
Those of us who grew up in the latter part of the 20th century were inundated with sci-fi fantasies of humanoid robots flying spaceships, helping to win wars, and engaging in witty banter with humans and other robots alike. You could make the case that real robots have now done all of the above, but [...]
From the moment Microsoft made the Kinect motion peripheral available, people were experimenting with it beyond the realms of the Xbox 360. Interest was so great in fact, that Microsoft ended up releasing a Windows development kit for it. Earlier this week we saw how the Kinect is being used to create a touchscreen on [...]
Unlike most images that have something gigantic in them, this one is not Photoshopped. The mouse in this picture really is that big! Introducing the “BIG” mouse made and sold by Brando, a maker of odd novelty products such as this one direct from China. This bad boy measures out at 175 x 105 x 55mm, [...]
Researchers at Georgia Tech have demonstrated the ability to use an iPhone to log keystrokes from a nearby desktop computer. If it sounds like something out of a James Bond movie, you might be surprised at the relative simplicity of the tech behind it. As it turns out, all that is used is the iPhone’s accelerometer. [...]
The “air-battle” in the broadband wars just got its newest combatant today, the ViaSat-1 (VS1). Billed as the next step for satellite broadband providers, the VS1 is capable of transmitting data to the ground with a throughput of 140Gbps, doubling the speed of what was previously possible through ISPs using satellite communications. Currently ViaSat has [...]
We know that the camera in the iPhone 4S is something special. Unless you’re a professional photographer, it could probably replace any camera you already own. But how does it stack up next to a $2,500 dSLR? We have some side-by-side pictures for you to decide for yourself. The dSLR in these samples is a [...]
The iPhone 4S is off to a great start in terms of sales. As with every other iPhone launch before it, fans and casual users have been quick to snatch up the latest and greatest from Apple. They’re selling like hotcakes, but have you ever wondered just how much each iPhone costs Apple to make? [...]
Surely you have heard about Siri by now, right? Apple’s voice recognition/A.I. service launched exclusively on the iPhone 4S last week, to much fanfare. Many have hailed it as a revolutionary breakthrough in human-device interaction. Others, however, have dismissed it as a novelty, a gimmick, and a supreme time waster. I would never try to [...]
Toshiba Mobile Display has already impressed us this week by unveiling a 4.3-inch display that has a higher pixel density than the iPhone 4′s Retina Display. But little did we know the company had another, even more impressive display ready to show off a day later. The screen you see above is a 6.1-inch LCD [...]
There are many questions that one should not ask a woman, covering a broad range of topics. Queries like “How much do you weigh?” and “How many boyfriends have you had?’ usually do not go over very well. Those questions pale in comparison to the ultimate no-no in relationships with humans of the female persuasion, though. [...]
After all of those months of hearing about “iPhone 5″ and “Nexus Prime” rumors, the actual devices have finally shown their faces to the public. Of course, the phones that we got are called the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy Nexus. Both are showcase devices for the latest versions of their respective platforms’ firmware. If [...]
Ever since flat screen TVs replaced CRTs there has been an ongoing battle between manufacturers to make them bigger and/or thinner. Consumer models now top out at 60-inches, any bigger and you pay thousands more for them. The displays have also got picture frame-thin and much lighter than previous generations making wall-hanging a simple task. [...]
The 3DS did not have a great launch, and if the latest peripheral is anything to go by, it seems as if Nintendo forgot to include a second thumbstick as standard on the device. But such oversights and mistakes can be forgiven if the games everyone wants are available to play. Nintendo has been slow [...]
Look inside most mobile devices on the market today and they will be running an ARM processor. There’s a good reason for that. ARM’s range of chips are some of the most energy efficient on the market and a big part of why we can have performance smartphones that achieve decent battery life. As with [...]
The owner of this vintage electric powered car is laughing all the way to the bank. As Chevy Volt owners dish out almost $32,000, he is driving this 115 year old vehicle with the exact same mileage around town. Built in 1896, the Roberts electric vehicle gets 40 miles to a charge, just like the [...]
A team at the University of Pennsylvania is experimenting with something called foam synthesis, the process of creating solid foam “body parts” from a compact spray package. It could create a new generation of self-forming robots. Students and researchers working out of the Modular Robotics Laboratory at the university looked at the fact that traditional [...]
Nintendo will be holding a press event this Friday night at 10PM (AEDT) the 21st of October 2011 from Japan. Andriasang, is reporting that the event is called the ”Nintendo 3DS New Information Internet Presentation.”
In a move that should surprise no one, McDonald’s has announced that it is launching it own digital content channel for play inside of its fast food restaurants. It will be HD, and provided by two displays up to 46-inches in size per venue. The content on the McDonald’s Channel will range from local news [...]
Photo: Kainet/Flickr (Creative Commons)
The AU$11 billion deal between Telstra and NBN Co may not be finalised by the December 20 deadline, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), putting the deal in jeopardy.
Well, what do we have here? It’s another color eReader/tablet hybrid, this time from the folks at Kobo. The brand-new $200 Kobo Vox follows up the company’s new E Ink offering which debuted back in May with an infrared touchscreen. The Vox rocks as 7-inch, 1024×600 display just like the Kindle Fire. That’s pretty well where [...]
As expected, Google launched the latest iteration of the Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich, alongside the Samsung announcement of the Galaxy Nexus. While Samsung certainly wowed the audience with a truly impressive phone, the real star of the show was Android 4.0. Andy Rubin, Matias Duarte, Hugo Barra, and many more iconic Googlers took to the stage [...]
2011 has been an interesting year for the Mac ecosystem. There’s been a marked increase in the number of Mac-specific malware in the wild, most of which lurk in the shadows disguised as legitimate applications like the Flash plug-in — only to spring their booby traps on unsuspecting users following an ill-fated mouse click. Early versions [...]
Nintendo will be holding a press event this Friday night (AEDT) the 21st of October 2011 from Japan. Andriasang, is reporting that the event is called the ”Nintendo 3DS New Information Internet Presentation.”
If you visit Deezer.com right now, you might see a page like this one. Like many streaming music services, it’s not quite available everywhere yet thanks to the arduous process of securing licensing deals with record labels. Deezer, however, thinks it has come up with a pretty good solution to the problem. They’re skipping the [...]
Viewing angles may not be the single most important spec of a display panel, but if they aren’t up to snuff, you will definitely notice them. While the high-end devices on the market right now don’t draw too many complaints in this department, that hasn’t stopped Toshiba Mobile Display (TMD) from improving on the spec [...]
Native Client finally went stable in Google Chrome 14. Its potential is impressive, allowing native C code to run inside the Chrome browser and offer app performance that truly rivals that of traditional desktop programs. But there aren’t too many apps or games in the Chrome Web Store that take advantage of Chrome’s new secret [...]
As much as our world is dependent on computers of various sizes and form factors, sometimes the original “computer” of mother nature can conflict with our modern lifestyle in unexpected ways. It turns out that some serious flooding in Thailand of late is seriously effecting worldwide hard drive supplies. As Thailand is a significant center for hard drive [...]
The launch of the Kindle Fire is less than a month away, and based on pre-order figures that have already reached the 250,000 mark, Amazon needs a lot of stock to cope with day-one demand. Even so, Jeff Bezos seems to be looking ahead, and has apparently just placed an order for a second-generation Kindle [...]
Secure search isn’t a new concept at Google. They’ve been pushing it since May 2010, when the SSL-powered padlock was first made available to beta testers who wanted to encrypt their queries on Google.com. Now, however, they’re starting to roll out always-on encrypted search to users who are signed in to a Google account. While [...]
If you were watching the news in the world of Android yesterday, you would have seen two phones and a major software update announced. Both handsets instantly became the new cream of the Android crop, but only one of them will be launching with the latest version of Android. That, of course, would be Android [...]
The motivations for Google’s purchase of Motorola this summer have been treaded over many times. The patents help, and having their own manufacturer under the Google umbrella should help in reducing fragmentation. But Moto’s Droid Razr may shed a little more light on the search giant’s decision to throw down $12.5 billion on the hardware maker. [...]
Apple may still hold the number one spot in the smartphone market with the iPhone, but it has noticed the competition close behind, mainly in the form of Android handsets. One reaction to this is to update the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S as a way of enticing existing users to upgrade as well [...]
James Wilson holds iPad 2 at the Sydney Launch on March 30. (Image: Stewart Wilson/TECHGEEK.com.au)
That’s right, the iPad eveyone knows and loves will soon be available to purchase from your local Telstra Store. Telstra are allowing you to purchase the iPad WiFi + 3G version either for full price on pre-paid or spread the cost out over 24 months on a post-paid plan. As per any Telstra mobile product, you’ll experience NextG’s vast and supiror network. Too bad the iPad 2 doesn’t support LTE/4G. You can register your interest here. The full press release is after the break.
If you’ve been waiting for something really cool to try out on your recently-discounted BlackBerry PlayBook, here’s your chance. RIM has just taken the wraps off PlayBook OS 2, and the beta is now available for download. The release was announced at DevCon in San Francisco and is obviously aimed at developers, but intrepid PlayBook [...]
The Samsung Unpacked: Google Episode, which was originally supposed to take place during CTIA in San Diego last week, took place last night in Hong Kong instead. The purpose of this event was to unveil the latest collaboration between Samsung and Google, due to be the next in the line of Google’s Nexus phones. These [...]
