If you fall into the category of people that think shopping is the worst kind of chore, you may want to check out the video above. It shows the progress of a three-week old project involving grocer Whole Foods and Austin-based studio Chaotic Moon to develop a Kinect controlled smart shopping cart. The goal is [...]
It’s rare to find a quad-core processor in a machine for less than a grand, let alone a bundle that includes not one, but two LED monitors thrown into the mix. This deal on a Dell Optiplex 790 desktop and two LED monitors is that bundle. The Dell Optiplex 790 may not be the most [...]
Microsoft has finally pushed out the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, as promised, from a Windows 8 event at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Spain.
Not only is this version improved from the Developer Preview, with 100 000 changes, but it also includes plenty of Metro applications not seen in the previous Preview, such as Mail, Music, Calendar, Messaging, Video and a Marketplace to get more apps.
It isn’t too tricky to nail down near-term changes in smartphones and tablets. Faster processors, faster wireless, higher resolution displays, bigger batteries, updated software… there is a fairly short list of predictable upgrades. When you start looking at several years down the road, though, the advances get a bit trickier to nail down. We’ve grown [...]
Star Trek: The Next Generation fans must have been jumping for joy back when the series boxsets got announced for release on DVD. A nice, crisp digital copy of each series was what a show of that caliber deserved. But that’s not exactly what we got. The DVD versions were put together from the taped [...]
Microsoft Flight Simulator came to an end in January 2009 when Microsoft closed the ACES Studio. Flight sim fans were understandably upset about losing what was a great gaming series. But in August 2010, it was announced that Microsoft Flight Simulator was making a return under the new name of Microsoft Flight. The name change [...]
Smartphone manufacturers seem to be obsessed with making their handsets ever thinner and bragging about it in the form of marketing, only to be beaten the following week/month by a competitor. Now it looks as though the thin-frenzy is migrating over to the tablet market, too. Toshiba has used the Mobile World Congress this week [...]
There are all sorts of geeks — electronics geeks, mobile geeks, math geeks, so I guess it makes sense that there are calendar geeks as well. Of course to be a calendar expert you have to be a history and math geek too, but there is nothing wrong with some multidisciplinary geekiness. So, back to [...]
Those of you who can remember watching Mr. Wizard’s World on Nickelodeon in the 80′s will appreciate the video posted above. In an experiment reminiscent of one from the old Canadian show, students from the University of Pennsylvania show how you can separate two fluids that have been mixed together and suspended in a highly [...]
While millions of Apple fans focus their collective gaze on next week’s iPad 3 event, that hasn’t stopped rumors about other Apple products from trickling in. Analysts and supply chain leaks all agree that the MacBook Pro will get a design refresh sometime this year, but, until today, nobody really knew when to expect that. [...]
Apple pulled no punches in its teaser image for next week’s iPad event. The pic clearly shows an iPad 3 with a Retina display, posing for all the world to see. The high-res screen, which is Apple’s worst-kept secret since the iPhone 4 landed in a Redwood City bar, has been confirmed with that pic. [...]
After its initial release as a feature-limited Developer Preview last year, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview has now launched. Unlike the Developer Preview, just about every new user-facing feature in Windows 8 has been turned on as Microsoft steamrolls towards the final release — which is reportedly coming this fall. So where do you go [...]
Not long after the invitations for next week’s iPad 3 event were sent out yesterday, many people noticed something that was conspicuously missing from the shot of the tablet: a home button. For most companies, this could easily be chalked up to a lazy Photoshop job, but since this is Apple, we have to wonder. [...]
Yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt gave a keynote discussing the Internet. It focused on how connectivity will help everyone in the future, and most of all those disadvantaged or oppressed. However, it was the questions that followed which offered up some interesting details. Did you know that Google [...]
If we hadn’t already upgraded to the iPhone 4S, the office where I fritter away my daylight hours would certainly have given the Droid Razr Maxx a look. That is, if we’d known Motorola had this deal up their sleeves. They’re offering up to $200 cash back if you trade up from your existing phone [...]
Timeline is expanding! Facebook has announced that the new profile design will now be integrated to pages, meaning that companies will – like profiles – go all the way back to the past and add content easily to their very own “timeline”.
Pictured in the video above is Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and his Lego version of the International Space Station that was made while he was actually on the ISS. NASA had the ISS set specially made by Lego for an educational collaboration between the space organization and classrooms across the country. As you can see [...]
With the world finally coming to realize that electricity for the most part is created with finite resources, people are looking for inventive ways to cut back on their usage. One such concept device that might help fit the bill is called the Triad: a wall mountable infographic created by Aussie student Erica Pozzey. It [...]
An oddly familiar story involving severed Internet cables has cropped on the newswire. But rather than the more comedic scenario of an elderly woman cutting access to the Web in Georgia and Armenia, a ship’s anchor has caused many of East Africa’s citizens to experience a slowed internet connection. According to the BBC, a ship [...]
It’s nice when technology consolidates itself into one neat little package (e.g., laptops, tablets, and smartphones). But what about when you need one big-honkin’ screen, but not the unwieldy tower that clutters so many of our offices, desktops, and floors? The all-in-one PC is a great middle ground — you get all the desktop CPU, [...]
After a somewhat subpar 2011, HTC is looking for a big rebound this year. The Taiwanese manufacturer wasted no time pulling out the big guns at Mobile World Congress, showcasing three (technically four) new handsets that mark a bold new direction. The HTC One XL (a slight variant of the HTC One X), the One [...]
The Smithsonian has over 137 million models and scientific replicas available, but at any given time only 2 percent of those items are shown. However, with advancements in 3D printing technology, the museum would be able to not only expand its reach across the country by creating replicas, but maintain a digital archive of historical [...]
As always, Apple is finally putting us all out of our rumour-fed misery a few days before we explode, by announcing the real, official iPad 3 launch date. On March 7 at 10AM US PST at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco Tim Cook will likely take the stage to show off the new iPad, alongside other Apple conference regulars. In Australian time the even will start at the good-old time of 5AM AEDT (Sydney/Melbourne-time) on March 8 which is a Thursday (next Thursday).
While the majority of TECHGEEK’s writers (not myself) have been negative towards the PlayStation Vita, that doesn’t mean that it is a bad gadget. In fact, if you want a dedicated portable console, the PlayStation Vita could arguably be the best choice and it has been well received.
Starting this Thursday, you will see a changed Netflix. As the service’s streaming deal with Starz expires, an abundance of movies will be disappearing. Though there will still be plenty of movies on Netflix, the service will be left to rely more on its TV shows and original programming (you know… Lilyhammer). You’ll have just [...]
If you are one of the many parents that cringes each time your child grabs your iPhone or iPod Touch, there is a new Kickstarter project that you might want to check out and support. Called Ubooly, it consists of a plush sleeve that goes over your device for protection, and turns it into an [...]
It has been a long time coming, but the Raspberry Pi has finally gone up for sale, albeit in a slightly different way than previously thought. Until today, it was expected that the Raspberry Pi Foundation would be handling sales and distribution all on its own, but that has been rethought. Instead, licensed manufacturing agreements [...]
Microsoft Research has already impressed me once today with a transparent OLED display acting as an interactive 3D desktop. But even though this next demo is simpler in terms of the tech, it has the potential to create a much bigger impact on how we communicate and share online. The setup you see in the [...]
Things are looking good for Mozilla’s Boot To Gecko project. In the wake of the snazzy demo they recently released, the Foundation has now announced several top-flight partners who have pledged support. Among them are key industry players like Qualcomm and Adobe, and they’ve been joined by telecommunications giants Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom. Mozilla may [...]
Mark your calendars, Apple fans. Next week Tim Cook will take the stage and announce the next iPad. Invitations were sent out today for the event that will take place at 10am PST on next Wednesday, March 7 in San Francisco. In the event, Apple is expected to detail the iPad 3 and (possibly) an [...]
Update: Apple just sent out invites for an event on March 7th. The invite’s image clearly shows an iPad with a retina display, so we know some new gear is on the way. Nothing else was confirmed. It’s official: Apple fans are now in the “stop teasing me and release the damn thing” phase. After [...]
The video game industry has been changing at a fairly rapid pace for the last few years, with the speed increasing ever since the current generation of consoles came to market. In the console space the availability of Xbox Live and PSN has made it possible to purchase games digitally and extend games you already [...]
If you’ve watched the movie Total Recall, then you’ve probably wondered when body scanners will become that advanced. Well, Microsoft Research hasn’t developed a body scanner, but its latest experiment looks like it could certainly recreate that scene from the movie with a bit more work. The device carries the appropriately futuristic name of Holoflector. [...]
Do you know anyone who hasn’t played Angry Birds? I’m finding it hard to locate someone that hasn’t, and even harder to find someone who doesn’t recognize the name at least. Like it or not, Angry Birds is uber-popular with casual gamers, but those who are veteran players may be getting a bit tired of [...]
In November last year we introduced you to a tiny ARM USB stick PC that can run either Linux or Android. It is being developed by Norwegian company FXI Technologies and is called the Cotton Candy. At its heart is a 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor, 1GB RAM, and an ARM Mali-400MP GPU. The tiny [...]
AMD has this week launched its first ever desktop processor that ships with a base clock speed above 4GHz. The Bulldozer FX-4170 runs at 4.2GHz in fact, and boosts that to 4.3GHz when Turbo is used. The FX-4170 is the first of two new 32nm desktop processors AMD has unveiled. The second is the FX-6200, [...]
Talk to anyone about 3D displays and they’ll likely mention having to wear glasses, or at least sitting in the right position to view a 3D image on a screen. That may be acceptable for non-interactive viewing, but 3D doesn’t really add anything to our interactions with a computer as of yet — we are [...]
The crowning achievement of Google’s budding social network by far is the ability to communicate with up to nine other people across the world instantly, and for free. Since the arrival of Hangouts, Google+ users have done everything from communicate casually to conduct trans-continental business meetings. There’s no limit to what those nine people can [...]
Is it Yahoo’s last stand? A report by the New York Times has revealed that the company is threatening Facebook with a patent lawsuit if it does not pay licensing fees for 10 to 20 patents it owns, which include advertising, web page personalisation, messaging and social networking. Yes, the signs of a dying company are definitely present.
First announced last May, the Asus PadFone has gotten a little more official this week at MWC 2012. The update is sleeker and sexier than the original prototype Asus showed, but it’s still the same tablet-docking phone it’s always been. So, what do the 2012 specs for the Asus PadFone look like? To kick things [...]
You remember the Raspberry Pi right? It was that $25 computer that was powered by mobile phone ARM processor and is the size of a credit card. Well all those who follow @Raspberry_Pi on Twitter and are subscribed to their mailing list will have received word that there is a “big (and very positive) announcement” coming Wednesday morning at 6am GMT time (5PM AEST).
Launching today is the availability of Telstra Pre-Paid 4G and it’s the nations first Pre-Paid 4G offering. Customers will be able to use their Pre-Paid 4G stick in 4G coverage areas but also experience HSPA+ which allows a dual 3G connection. Telstra promises speeds up to 40Mbps on the 4G network. The USB stick is small in size and features a swivel USB connector allowing you to plug the stick in at any location. Customers can purchase the 4G stick today from any Telstra store for $129. It comes with 3GB of included data which an expiry of 30 days.
Though it was starting to appear that way, not every product on display at MWC 2012 has been leaked or officially revealed in advance of the show. Toshiba, for example, is showing off a previously unannounced addition to its tablet line-up: a snazzy little 7.7 inch model carrying the name AT270. Unlike their current 7- [...]
Today, Telstra have announced the Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9 4G, the nations first 4G tablet. The GALAXY Tab 8.9 4G features a 1.5 GHz dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and a high definition 8.9 inch screen. It features Android 3.2 but can be upgraded to 4.0 in the future. The tablet also supports HSPA+ allowing Telstra customers to receive a dual 3G connection when they are out of 4G coverage.
Opera has made some major improvements to its Mobile and Mini browsers in recent versions, and today at MWC 2012 they’ve announced a new spate of enhancements to their smartphone and tablet versions. First up is a new channel for Opera Mini, Opera Mini Next. Just like it is on the desktop, Opera Mini Next [...]
It’s 2012 — shelling out a ton of cash for a desktop monitor is a superfluous expense. High-quality displays are in abundance now, and there’s no shortage of deals on the 1080p displays out there. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I saw 720p monitor advertised. The question is mostly of tech [...]
Image: photographerglen/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Internet content piracy has been an issue for a fair while, but only lately has it really begun to hit its peak with the introduction, and subsequent failure of SOPA and PIPA, as well as the shutting down of many popular downloading sites such as BTJunkie and Megaupload.
For those who have never attended, the nine day long conglomeration of events known as SXSW is an hurricane of information, music, movies, and people. Austin, Texas is simply overrun during this maddening barrage of information, each company and product trying desperately to stand out and keep you interested. The hope is that once the [...]
You can cross another one off the list of Windows Phone‘s platform shortfalls: a Skype app is finally available to use. The only issue, of course, is that first-gen Windows Phone devices didn’t include front-facing cameras. More recent models have, and they’ll be able to make two-way video calls just like their iPhone and Android [...]
The combination of Photoshop and the iPad is, at least in theory, a perfect match. Though practice can make a mouse or trackpad and keyboard feel intuitive, there’s something about physically manipulating an image with your fingers that fits like a glove. Unfortunately, though Photoshop Touch is easily the most advanced photo-editing tool on iOS, [...]
All of you physics buffs out there will recognize the genius of Dr. Don Pettit in the video above. A current member of the crew on board the International Space Station (ISS), he has conducted a number of fascinating experiments for classrooms across the country to study. In his spare time, he has also invented [...]
Launching a smartphone with a genuinely unique feature is pretty tough in 2012. We all expect every phone to have a large touchscreen, two cameras, run one of four popular operating systems, have support for all the popular apps, and some serious processing power inside. But Samsung has managed to add a new feature to [...]
Unless the rumor mill has been wildly off target, we already know most of the features of the iPad 3 — despite there not being a single official word from Apple. We expect it to have a Retina Display, a better camera, a form factor that is nearly identical to the iPad 2 (only a [...]
So far during the Mobile World Congress this week, HTC seems to be setting the pace for Android smartphone announcements. Four new handsets have been detailed, all carrying the new HTC One name. One phone we didn’t expect to hear about during MWC, mainly because Samsung said they wouldn’t be talking about it, is the [...]
Tom Lowe, a budding filmmaker, and self-proclaimed “Terrence Malick disciple,” is setting out to release his debut movie TimeScapes. The movie is a portrait on the American Southwest, and watching some of his production footage that he has posted to YouTube, one starts to realize why Terrence Malick is his hero, and then one starts [...]
In the wake of all the fanfare that surrounded the launch of the original Transformer and the Transformer Prime, it was starting to look like Asus and Nvidia had a good thing going. In the new Transformer Pad Infinity, however, they’ve opted for a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chip — at least on the 4G model. [...]
Several of today’s Android phones flare out on the back to accommodate an 8MP sensor for their rear-facing cameras. Nokia says go big or go home, cramming a 41MP sensor topped with Carl Zeiss optics into the Nokia 808 Pureview. There’s no interpolation here. At full resolution you’ll be grabbing photos that pack around 38 [...]
The rate at which new phones get released is hard to keep up with, but not as hard as the manufacturers having to come up with new names for each one. HTC is a good example, having produced phones recently carrying the names Sensation, Titan, Radar, Evo, Incredible, Desire, and Wildfire. There’s only so many [...]
Android phones are used every day by countless people. Yet only a relatively small portion of Android users unlock the full potential of their devices. Android is a customizable platform out-of-the-box, but rooting an Android handset gives you complete control over it. If you do take the plunge and decide to root your phone, what [...]
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon mobile processors have earned a good reputation for offering solid performance in smartphones. But it’s Nvidia that has been stealing the headlines lately with its high performance Tegra 3 chipset. Qualcomm has decided to respond by announcing that alongside the introduction of the Snapdragon S4 SoC this year, we’re also going to get [...]
Long speculated, the Nokia Lumia 900 – the LTE cousin of the Nokia 800 – is to go global in April. The first country to launch the device will be in Canada, and could even launch in Australia sometime later – but maybe not on LTE.
In line with Windows Phone’s spec reduction – meaning that more phones can be made for developing markets – Nokia has announced its “”most affordable Lumia smartphone”. Dubbed the Nokia Lumia 610, the phone features the same 3.7-inch display, but with a focus on being a social phone for teenagers.
The HTC Titan II has been confirmed to launch in Australia, after its chief product officer Kouji Kodera revealed that the company plans to release the phone worldwide to other LTE networks.
What happens when you double the size of the Galaxy Note? Well, you get another tablet. Samsung has introduced the Galaxy Note 10.1 – and yes, like the smartphone (almost-tablet at 5-inches) of the Galaxy Note, it will include a stylus.
HTC may be pushing more and more Android phones, but it will still have its fingers on the other mobile OS, Windows Phone. The company has recently confirmed to two different media sources that it will continue making phones with the Microsoft-backed OS, despite HTC’s overall financial woes with tough competition with Samsung and Apple.
Nokia has certainly upped the smartphone camera race with the announcement of its new Nokia 808 PureView smartphone. It is unique mainly of two things – it features a 41-megapixel sensor (yes, you read that right, there is no dot between the 4 and 1); and will be Nokia’s first Symbian phone for the year.
Sony Mobile has announced two new phones that will join the Xperia S announced back in CES last January. Called the Xperia P and the Xperia U, the two phones – which look like the Xperia S, but with different size screens – will be available in the second quarter of this year.
HTC has announced its brand new line of Android phones, touting excellent sound quality thanks to its Beats Audio investment and brilliant photography. Called the HTC One series, the phones are expected to roll out in April, and HTC has announced that all three major carriers will have the series on their networks. Which one, however, is still up in the air.
If you’re an iOS device owner who likes to read your web pages in “clean view” (plain text and images only) then your options are limited. Right now the two best ways to achieve this are by buying the excellent Instapaper app from the App Store, or simply using Safari’s built-in Reader feature. Starting next [...]
For those of you that curse gravity because you wish you could experience Superman-like flight, check out the video above. Depicting a four-minute journey of a remote controlled quad-copter through a set of first-person-view (FPV) operator goggles, it’s the closest thing I have seen to fulfilling your flights of fancy. Created by Australian RC hobbyist [...]
Like it or not, the world is facing a looming energy crisis as we continue to burn through the planet’s available fossil fuels at an alarming rate. A gallon of gasoline that used to cost under a dollar back in the 80′s and early 90′s is now averaging over $4.00, placing financial strain on industry [...]
Telstra crashes under Dodo, Nokia is number one – in Windows Phone, and why you shouldn’t get the PlayStation Vita (despite the hype). All this and more on this week’s TECHGEEK Weekly.
Siri is unquestionably a beta feature. The assistant offers some handy functionality, like sending messages, checking the weather, and setting reminders — all while using casual language. But Siri’s full powers won’t be unleashed until it gets third-party app support. Though it may be another year or two until Apple adds Siri third-party app support, [...]
Windows Phone has a new leader in the market, with HTC being over taken by Nokia. The numbers come from Strategy Analytics, who also claim that Microsoft’s big bet with Nokia is paying off with an increase of 36 percent in shipments.
Box, who provide online cloud storage, have announced that they are going to upgrade all Android Box user’s accounts and give them 50GB worth of storage. This is in an effort to get teams who work on the go or who are just looking for online collaboration on Box.
Blizzard does not have to worry about money for the foreseeable future. Even though World of Warcraft subscriptions have fallen, the game still counts roughly 10 million players scattered around the world. Then there’s sales of StarCraft, and the forthcoming Diablo III launch to help refill the company’s coffers once again. So it may come [...]
Blackberry device owners have grown accustomed to missing out on popular apps. Sure, you can play Angry Birds and read Kobo e-books, but, compared to the iOS App Store and the Android Market, Blackberry App World is a ghost town. One notable omission from the platform is Netflix. Though the popular streaming service had never [...]
“She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid. I’ve made a lot of special modifications myself.” Those epic words from Han Solo could very well be applied to the above video. Created by visual artist Francisco Prieto, it depicts the final product of a three-year labor of love to [...]
The award-winning Acer CloudMobile was already thought to be headed to MWC 2012, and now there’s a second Acer Android phone en route to Barcelona. Acer UK has announced the Acer Liquid Glow, a smaller, more humble device available in a trio of colors — and likely at a much lower price point. Whereas the [...]
Taken over a period of several weeks, the image above is a mosaic made up of several hundred photos of the same tree in Suffolk, England. Created by photographic artist Noel Myles, the mosaic takes advantage of different exposures and effects to create the thought-provoking artwork. To create his mosaics, Myles uses negatives from a [...]
No one can deny that crowd-funding service Kickstarter is turning into a huge success. You only have to look at the recent Double Fine Kickstarter to see that. It has managed to raise over $2 million with 18 days still left to go. Success usually breeds competition, but Kickstarter’s latest competition doesn’t intend to steal [...]
If you own an Android phone, there’s a good chance you have quite speedy downloads, whether it’s LTE or a (not quite as speedy) technology like HSPA+ or WiMax. What if you want to take those 3G or 4G downloads, and share them with a tablet, PC, or gaming system? You’ll need to tether. Your [...]
When you develop as many different apps and websites as Google does, it’s important to keep things consistent. Recently, it looks like the Big G decided it was time to re-tool their instant messaging platform to accomplish exactly that. Google Talk now appears set to become Google Chat — or possibly Chat for Google. The [...]
According to a Korean newspaper exclusive, Samsung is preparing to launch an edge-to-edge smartphone in the late second or early third quarter of this year. The source is short on details — and heavily butchered by Google Translate — saying little more than a Samsung official said that the razor-thin bezel on this device was [...]
If you can remember all the way back to early 2010, you might recall how the Nexus One was promoted. Of course now Nexus phones are an entire line of handsets, but back then the Nexus One was referred to by many as “the Google phone.” Google even experimented with a new way of selling [...]
If you’ve been following Geek.com for any length of time, you know about our love of obscure extreme sports. These are activities that make downhill mountain biking, sky diving, backcountry skiing, and other such activities look like a stroll in the park, on a rather pleasant day, with your lover on your arm humming a [...]
It looks like we just saw one of the first moves Apple is making with its nearly $100 billion cash reserve. The company has reportedly bought app discovery service Chomp. Apple sells apps. Chomp makes finding apps easier. It doesn’t take much imagination to think of what Apple might do with this acquisition. You can [...]
Image of Foxconn's facilities (Image by ttstam/Flickr, under Creative Commons)
You may have heard in the news that Apple has had a serious problem with building its products with China. Constant news reports from the main technology press, and soon the more mainstream press, have shined a light of the inner workings of its manufacturing partners. But, why are we so focused on Apple? We shouldn’t focus on them at all – we should be focusing on our own mass tech consumption as the reason why we let this continue.
One of the problems with using touchscreen devices is the amount of fingerprint oil that builds up on the display. While it doesn’t inhibit the actual use of the touchscreen, it very quickly starts to look messy and regularly needs cleaning. The same is true regardless of whether you use a screen film on top [...]
The cake, is of course, a lie. These Portal earrings are the work of Sugar & Vice, a UK-based jewelry company that specializes in making geeky novelty items and selling them through Etsy. For around 20 bucks, you can now have your very own Aperture experiment running “through” your head. A must-have for any portal [...]
A storm has been brewing over AT&T’s throttling policies. Late last year, the company announced that it would begin slowing down the data speeds for the top 5% of its unlimited data users. Then, last month, reports trickled in that the carrier was throttling them after only using about 2GB of data. One angry AT&T [...]
It’s about time we all invested in a good SSD. Internal or external (pick your poison), Kingston produces great SSDs at reasonable prices. Kingston’s V200 line is especially popular, as this line of SSDs includes a kit with everything you need to install the and backup your existing drive. And now Kingston is offering its [...]
Sunday afternoon. It is hot outside and in. I am at the computer surfing when an interesting image was re-tweeted by Steve Troughton-Smith. The image was of a Nokia N9 running the, what you might say, famous app, Talking Tom. The image caught my attention because of the Android Ice Cream Sandwich navigation buttons on the bottom of the screen which means Android 4.0 is now running on the Nokia N9. Alexey Roslyakov, aka @drunkdebugger, is the person respondsible for this hack.
The rise of the consumer-friendly internet has given wings to some really amazing services to help a small business. In some cases, these projects never would have left the ground if it weren’t for services like Etsy, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo. The hobbyist-turned-business-owner has a lot to deal with, in order to keep costs down and [...]
When CDs were the main format music was purchased on, there used to be a small collection of “remastered” CDs you could buy for a few extra dollars. These albums promised better quality sound and usually came on a gold disc. Apple has effectively introduced the same enhanced music to iTunes this week. Going under [...]
The Arduino platform is a great way to start experimenting with electronics on the cheap, but it has also allowed new products to be built and offered for sale. One company taking advantage of that fact is Adafruit, who have just created a new build-your-own printer. Adafruit’s main goal is to come up with new [...]
It’s official: within the next year or two, all four major US carriers will have LTE networks. The last holdout, T-Mobile, announced today that it will be building an LTE network, which will begin rolling out in 2013. T-Mobile will invest $4 billion into the deployment. The $3 billion breakup fee (plus much more in [...]
Late night host Conan O’Brien has had a Team Coco phone app for iOS and Android for some time. It lets you watch clips and full episodes, and get your fill of Conan without turning on a TV. But, until today, there was no tablet app. That has changed with the release of the Team [...]
Last month, word started to spread that AT&T was throttling customers with unlimited data plans after only 2GB. It didn’t require an academic study to conclude that something fishy was going on, but that didn’t stop wireless analysis firm Validas from conducting a study of its own to get to the bottom of it. Validas [...]
It’s not every day you find a great discount on new-enough, highly coveted Mac product, but today we have an exceptional deal. The 13.3-inch Macbook Pro is available for $299 off the retail price. I don’t have to speak to the Macbook Pro’s exceptional reputation or its cachet in the laptop space, those go without [...]
If you can remember all the way back to last week, you may recall a leaked display component that was allegedly from the iPad 3. It looked legit enough, and appeared to show quadruple the pixels (double the resolution) of the iPad 2 under a microscope. At the time, there wasn’t a lot of reason [...]
Computer animation either as part of a movie, or for the entire movie, has become increasingly commonplace. But one company still stands head and shoulders above the rest, and has done so ever since Toy Story hit theaters way back in 1995. Pixar continues to produce films that appeal to the whole family while pushing [...]
Diablo fans are a patient bunch of gamers. It’s been nearly 12 years since Diablo II saw a release, and Blizzard keeps delaying the launch of Diablo III. It was meant to come out in 2011, then Blizzard said sorry and pushed it back to early 2012. Earlier this month we were told it could [...]
If you own the original Asus Transformer and have been pulling your hair out for the last three months waiting for Ice Cream Sandwich to arrive, the company’s Facebook page has good news: the OTA update is finally starting to roll out. Back in December, Asus figured that ICS would be ready for the Transformer [...]
Human beings produce a lot of energy that mostly goes to waste. New technology to generate electrical energy from our movement (piezoelectric) is in development, but so far we haven’t managed to effectively harness the heat our bodies generate as a power source. Power Felt aims to change that. It has been developed by PhD [...]
AirPlay is an Apple feature that many iOS users don’t know a lot about. For starters, it requires an Apple TV set-top-box, a gadget that isn’t nearly as popular as other Apple products. Additionally, the best parts of AirPlay only showed up late last year with the release of iOS 5. It’s relatively new territory, [...]
When the Chrome Web Store first opened its doors, many early users were put off by the fact that the overwhelming majority of “apps” were simply URLs to pre-existing websites like Zoho and Basecamp. Things have changed, what with Chrome’s new features like Native Client and Pepper offering a more desktop-like experience and offline apps. [...]
In the current generation console wars, Microsoft relies on a 500MHz ATI Xenos graphics processor in the Xbox 360. Sony on the other hand uses a 550Mhz Nvidia RSX “Reality Synthesizer” in the PS3. However, for the next generation of machines, Nvidia may not even feature. According to a former AMD employee, Sony is already [...]
One key component of the upcoming Mozilla Marketplace is support for BrowserID, Mozilla’s vision for the future of authentication on the Web. As the Marketplace prepares to launch, it’s time for a little housekeeping at Mozilla — and BrowserID is being re-branded as Mozilla Persona. Those of you who are familiar with Firefox might be [...]
There’s no shortage of gossip in the tech community in regards to how the so-called Google Glasses would work. The basic idea is that some kind of wearable computer that displays on the lenses of a pair of glasses. As incredible as that sounds, there’s not a whole lot of tech out there that really [...]
To some extent, we’re all gear snobs. We want the latest chip, the fastest computer, the most horsepower — we just don’t want to pay the premium. Thankfully, our friends at LogicBuy have stumbled across a deal on a top-tier configuration that won’t saddle your wallet. It’s Dell‘s 17-inch XPS 17 desktop replacement and it’s [...]
Okay, LG is announcing its phones before Mobile World Congress. It has just announced that it will bring out a new Android-powered phone, the Optimus 3D Max. Featuring a 3D-capable 4.3-inch display, it hopes to capitalise on the “glasses-free” mobile trend.
Fans of the 80′s television show Star Trek: The Next Generation will fondly remember the Enterprise’s Klingon chief of security Lt. Worf. Known for his knee-jerk reactions to any dangerous situation, Worf always had the safety of the ship and crew first in his mind. If you are one of the people that watched every [...]
Well, finally. We now have another Ice Cream Sandwich phone. LG has announced in the lead-up to Mobile World Congress that it will bring out the Optimus 4X HD smartphone. And based on the specs, it is hardware-heavy, with a quad-core processor and a big 4.7-inch screen.
All tablets today generally follow the lead of the iPad. You can expect a large slab with a multitouch display, a bezel, and either an aluminum or plastic back. It’s a simple form factor that lends itself to versatility. It gets out of the way to let your content take center stage. But what if [...]
For those of you who can relate to being artistically challenged, there is hope for you today. Pictured in the video above is the Piccolo, a tiny CNC artbot that is capable of making your artistic dreams a reality. Created by diatom studio, the Piccolo is an open-source piece of hardware that will cost you [...]
In December last year Micron impressed us by producing the world’s first 20nm 128Gb NAND devices. It was 40% smaller than 25nm versions, which not only made it the smallest memory chip, but also the most power efficient too. Impressive as it was, Micron’s chip is no longer the smallest as SanDisk has managed to [...]
Image: Luc De Leeuw/Flickr (Creative Commons)
I guess it was bound to happen. The Melbourne tabloid owed my News Corp, the Herald Sun, is about to bring out new digital offerings next month and will, as long speculated by the media, bring up a paywall if you want to access all of its content.
Google announced last month that it was going to implement a major update to its privacy policies and terms of service — some 70 privacy policies will be replaced with just one for the majority of Google’s services. This new policy is also meant to be much more readable for any users wanting to understand [...]
If you haven’t noticed already, your internet may be down or working very slowly. This is due to a nationwide outage that Telstra is currently having – the cause is still unknown but services are slowly returning. The outage began at around 1.50PM Sydney time today and Telstra customers where without internet access for 45 minutes.
There is such a thing as taking safety concerns too far and the iPhone case pictured above may be one example of that. Manufactured by Piexon, a Swiss company, the Smart Guard iPhone case is designed to both protect your phone from everyday damage and your person from harm by including a can of pepper [...]
There are a few laptop manufacturers that focus on providing high performance and gaming machines in a portable form, the most popular of which has to be Alienware. But it’s Origin making the headlines today by creating what’s thought to be the first laptop to contain two GPUs in SLI configuration. The laptop in question [...]
If you like porn, you probably don’t want everyone to know about it. Even if you’re relatively open about sexuality, your love of porn isn’t necessarily something that you want your family and co-workers to know about. This can lead to many people leading double lives and keeping secrets to avoid embarrassment. One such place [...]
If Apple’s decisions were based on a democratic vote of analysts and rumormongers, then we would know with 100% certainty that an iPad mini is on the way. Though if that were the case, you would also, at this very moment, be using your iPhone 5 to flip through channels on your iTV, while sending [...]
Best Buy is having to apologize after its Greenville store managed to show pornography running for several minutes across a range of 55-inch smart TVs. The footage was seen by at least two families who had brought their young children to the store. The reason porn made it on to the TVs was due to [...]
Fujitsu’s gearing up for MWC 2012, and they’re offering up a brief glimpse of what they’ll have on display in Barcelona. The as-yet-unnamed phone is a Tegra 3 beast, packing four 1.5GHz cores and a few other Fujitsu hallmarks. When Fujitsu announced their Western smartphone and tablet market ambitions, they said that only premium devices [...]
Google is clearly trying to push its Android operating system in new directions. Only yesterday we reported about a lapdock mode found in Android 5.0 Jelly Bean. It allows you to replace everything but the large display in your laptop case with a smartphone. Now we’ve heard about another new direction for Android: augemented reality [...]
To some extent we’re all gear snobs. We want the latest chip, the fastest computer, the most horsepower — we just don’t want to pay a premium to get those thing. Thankfully, our friends at Logic Buy have stumbled across a deal on a top-tier configuration that won’t saddle your wallet. It’s Dell‘s 17-inch XPS [...]
NASA’s continuing efforts to remain relevant are paying off. A three-year old discovery of a new type of “extrasolar” planet has led scientists to believe that it could be made up largely of water, A first in the telescopic exploration of the regions beyond our solar-system. Named GJ1214b, the planet is said to have a [...]
In the not too distant future smartphones will get a new feature that means you are no longer confined to the limits of the 3 to 4-inch display your handset ships with. Instead, projector modules will be embedded in the phone and allow you to switch the display to a much larger projected version. In [...]
When the PS Vita launched in Japan it gave gamers the option to transfer their UMD PSP games to the PS Vita for a small fee. Gamers could preserve the games they enjoyed in digital form on the new platform. The service was called the UMD Passport program. Until a couple of weeks ago it [...]
Kim Dotcom has been in custody for a little over a month after the authorities raided his home and seized the Megaupload domain and assets. His requests for bail to be set have been refused in the past, but the Megaupload founder is now free, albeit with some major restrictions on what he is allowed [...]
First, Adobe decided to kill off development of the mobile Flash plug-in. This, of course, happened less than a year after Google and Adobe took jabs at Apple because their iOS devices couldn’t render the “whole Web.” Now, Google and Adobe are at it again: they’re making Flash for Linux a Google Chrome exclusive. Yes, [...]
Even though Ice Cream Sandwich launched six months ago, the overwhelming majority of Android smartphones that have been revealed since still ship with Gingerbread installed. Update schedules have been published by many manufacturers, but ZTE is bucking the trend. Their PF200 and N910 will both launch with with Android 4.0 on board. The tandem covers [...]
Update: Official info has been released for the Nook Tablet 8GB. As expected, it retails for $200 (technically $199). The aging Nook Color has also been dropped to $169. The Nook Tablet has been largely overshadowed by the Kindle Fire. Though both budget color readers launched at around the same time, Amazon’s has become a [...]
Grooveshark has a lot in common with Megaupload. Though one was a file sharing and cloud storage site, and the other is a music streaming service, both are prime targets of Hollywood and the recording industry. Grooveshark claims that it’s protected under the DMCA safe harbor, but so did Megaupload. Are we seeing early signs [...]
More leaks have started to appear in relation to new features coming soon to Windows Live SkyDrive. The new features could be a sign that Microsoft is actually taking the much-rumoured Google Drive threat seriously.
UPDATE: Microsoft, who historically have not commented on rumors at all, have since told The New York Times “The Daily story is based on inaccurate rumors and speculation.” The question of whether a Microsoft Office app is coming to the iPad is no longer in question: it’s now a matter of when. Someone with hands-on [...]
Stealing someone’s laptop could land you in jail. Stealing 30 of them would certainly earn you a longer sentence. But if you attend the University of Twente in the Netherlands, it may instead count as credit towards your degree. Students did manage to steal 30 laptops from the Twente university campus, but no arrests were [...]
The ABC will be trialling audio description on television content broadcast on ABC1, improving access to those who are visually impaired. The trail will commence in the middle of 2012 for 13 weeks with 14 hours of drama, documentary and other content that will feature audio description.
If you’re not familiar with it, 60 Hudson Street is a lower Manhattan landmark. The giant building takes up a square block in TriBeCa, towering over the surrounding blocks. While the former Western Union Building would be interesting simply due to its history and sheer size, it is notable for another reason: 60 Hudson is [...]
Just when you thought Windows XP was dead, Microsoft has yet again extended its support life cycle policies to 8 April 2014 for XP. Meanwhile, Vista’s support has been extended to 11 April 2017 and Windows 7 will stop being supported in 7-8 years, which is 14 January 2020.
Find yourself yawning at a never-ending sea of silver or black smartphones? Wish you could pick up a handset that offered a CMOS sensor that competes with a digital point-and-shoot? You’re in luck, as Fujitsu is getting ready to peddle its mobile phone wares outside of Japan. They’ll be on hand at Mobile World Congress [...]
MegaUpload’s founder Kim Dotcom has been granted bail, according to several reports from New Zealand. The North Shore District Court found that since the authorities froze all assets, he was incapable of fleeing the country.
We know that the Android 4.0 version of CyanogenMod, dubbed CM9, is on the way, offering the latest and greatest of customization over the latest version of Android. Based off the Android Open Source Project, CyanogenMod 9 will be a re-imagining of Android 4.0 from the perspective of the settings crazed user that needs control [...]
Think the Galaxy Note was too big? Well, think again with LG’s upcoming phone, revealed to the public a few weeks before Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona. Called the Optimus Vu, the phone is supports LTE, features a 5-inch display and powerful hardware and sees the return of the… 4:3 ratio display?
When Amazon launched the Kindle Fire tablet, it put a question mark over what will happen to the Kindle eBook reader in future. Will Amazon continue to offer the thinner, book-only device, or will it eventually be replaced by the Kindle Fire offering a full tablet experience along side book reading features? According to the [...]
The other day one of my children found an old cassette mix-tape from my college days in a storage box. After explaining to her what it was for, she begged me to play it so she could hear what it sounded like, only to be bitterly disappointed because we no longer have a tape-player in [...]
One big reason geeky types buy a Google-powered anything is that they assume such gadgets are going to be developer-friendly — and therefore hackable. Root access has been achieved on just about every Android tablet or phone out there, the Cr-48 running Chrome OS, and now Sony Google TV devices have been rooted, too. Don’t [...]
Watching most clocks is about as interesting as eyeballing drying paint, but the video below shows an exception to that rule. It shows off an air-driven wooden clock named the Pneumachron, which will have you wondering where the time went as you stare at the marvelous machine built by clock expert John Hilgenberg. The air-powered [...]
After Apple broke from its typical summer cycle and released the iPhone 4S in October, many wondered whether the company was making an exception, or establishing a new rule. Would the next iPhone go back to the standard June/July slot, or would new iPhones arrive every fall? According to Japanese blog Macotakara, we have an [...]
A report in a British newspaper has stated that the notorious site The Pirate Bay could be blocked to UK internet users, after a UK court ruled that the site was indeed breaching the country’s copyright laws.
It wasn’t all that long ago that a 4.3-inch screen on smartphone was considered too large by many. Now, there are multiple 4-inch and larger phones on every carrier. Even Google’s flagship device exceeds the 4.3-inch mark — the Galaxy Nexus comes in at a 4.65. The Samsung Galaxy Note has sought to raise the [...]
While all the electronic retailers are opening up pre-orders for the Lumia 800 – if you want it unlocked (the carriers, however, are quiet as a mouse); Dick Smith has given us the date when it will launch. According to their product page, the date to remember is 15 March.
For some Apple product releases, the company manages to keep such a tight wrap on its products that nobody really knows exactly what we’ll hear when its execs take the stage. Take the iPhone 4S, for example. Most of the world was expecting a redesigned iPhone 5, but they were surprised on the day of [...]
In the wee hours of the morning, RIM finally made the PlayBook OS 2 update available for download on its servers. Just a month shy of its one-year anniversary, the PlayBook has gotten a huge shot in the arm in terms of functionality. You’re likely familiar with one of the shortcomings the update addresses: the [...]
Back in December, Panasonic announced that it was preparing a full-on global assault on the smartphone market. Up first is Europe, where the company’s opening salvo will be fired in a 4.3″ shell. That phone has now gotten official as the Panasonic Eluga. An interesting choice in names, to be sure, but it probably has [...]
UPDATED: Seven Group Holdings (the people who own, obviously, Channel Seven) has sold its ownership of 4G mobile internet provider vividwireless to Optus in a deal worth $230 million. Optus has confirmed that the deal will kickstart their 4G plans, with the deal appearing to be a spectrum buy.
Owners of the Samsung Galaxy S II will now be pleased to hear that Android 4.0 will soon be coming to your device. Vodafone has confirmed that it has just received the update and will now be testing it on its network. So, let’s all rejoice for the fact that Samsung has now started pushing updates now for Ice Cream Sandwich!
CAPTCHA tests are used by a range of different online services to help check if you are actually human. The problem is, computers can figure them out quite easily, especially if they are static characters. So new, enhanced CAPCTHA tests were introduced that used audio and even video to make them more secure. In May [...]
The race is now on who can offer a better deal with the Lumia 800. Optus has today unveiled its plans for the anticipated Windows Phone from Nokia, with the company starting pre-orders for both the Black and Cyan versions of the phone.
With the recent revelation that Google might be preparing to unleash Android 5.0 Jelly Bean as soon as this summer (possibly during I/O 2012?), it’s time to start playing connect the dots. First up: a new rumor that Jelly Bean will include docking support that allows Android phones to run apps on larger screens when [...]
Canonical has announced another big step for Ubuntu, with the unveiling of Ubuntu for Android. Now, it’s not actually running on your small screen, but instead plugs into a regular computer screen. It’s a full desktop version of Ubuntu running on ARM and it’s quite impressive to see. Data and settings are synced between your phone and the Ubuntu install, with things such as SMS’s appearing in the Messaging application. You can make calls and see your phones contacts too.
If you can’t beat them, join them. That’s what happened when Nintendo launched the Wii and couldn’t make them fast enough to keep up with demand. The reason? The console’s use of a motion controller. Sony and Microsoft had no choice but to make their own versions of motion controllers and get in on the [...]
Somewhere a former Palm exec is scratching his head in confusion right now. LG has officially unveiled the Optimus Vu, and like the Samsung Galaxy Note it sports a hideaway stylus for annotations, sketching, and jotting down important reminders. At 5-inches, the Optimus Vu is similarly sized, too, though its 1024×768 display and 4:3 setup [...]
