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These USB flash drive cufflinks are a must have accessory

Posted: 01 Jun 2010 05:41 AM PDT


Picture this: You walk into a job interview well dressed sporting these cuff links. The interviewer will likely ask for your resume first thing. So *BAM* you whip your wrist around front and just like James Bond, pull apart your cuff links revealing the hidden flash drive loaded with your resume and funny pictures of cute kitties. It’s a sure fire way to land any job — or lady.

These things are real and are available in either 2GB or 4GB versions. They’re a bit pricey, though, with the 4GB version retailing for $195. Looking good doesn’t come cheap.

[via pocket-link]

New iPhone 4G videos appear and show off all the sexy parts

Posted: 01 Jun 2010 04:37 AM PDT

Mmmm gadget p0rn. What a nice way to return from an extended holiday weekend. There’s one more after the jump.
[via zdnet]

Panasonic makes the FX75 luxury point-and-shoot official

Posted: 31 May 2010 10:56 PM PDT


News of this camera leaked out a little while back, but now we’ve got the official info — except for release date and price. Seems like you’d want to include that information in a product announcement, but hey, what do I know? The new point-and-shoot, the full name for which is the Lumix DMC-FX75, is looking pretty nice, if not particularly original. I like the look of that lens, though. F/2.2 means more light on the sensor, and that means less resorting to high ISO and long shutter speeds.

Here are the vitals:

  • 14 megapixels
  • 24mm f/2.2-6.3 lens w/ 5x zoom
  • 3.0″ LCD (at 320×240)
  • HD video recording (720p I’m guessing, using either AVCHD or Motion JPEG encoding)
  • Full touchscreen operation with touch focus
  • HDMI-out (it doesn’t actually say so in the release but they include the HDMI trademark)
  • The usual modes and scenes

It sounds like a pretty solid camera — the ability to select codec and AF points suggests this is a nice alternate camera for a DSLR user who likes customizing and short shutter lag. I’m suspicious of the “intelligent resolution” system, though:

With the Intelligent Resolution technology, three areas – outlines, detailed texture areas and soft gradation – are examined pixel by pixel and automatically detected to enhance any degradation created during the digital zoom process or in high-sensitivity shooting. The outline areas are enhanced effectively to give the edges more clarity, while simultaneously giving a moderate accent to the textured areas so they look accurately detailed.

So they look accurately detailed. Because they are squeezing a 14 megapixel image out of a 1/2.33″ sensor, they have to create details where they can’t resolve them. Those fuzzy edges and noisy areas are there because the sensor can’t handle it. At least Panasonic is tacitly acknowledging it by “fixing” it.

No price or date yet, but I’d say this thing will cost… I’m going to just throw out $379.99 for kicks. Available… I’m going to say July 14th. These are purely guesses, you understand. What?

More information, as always, at Panasonic’s Lumix site.

HTC EVO 4G for Sprint Review

Posted: 31 May 2010 02:06 PM PDT

Let's clear the air right away: The Evo 4G isn't the second coming. It's not the iPhone slayer. It might not even be the best Android phone available to date. But it is a solid phone with amazing hardware running the consumer-friendly HTC Sense Android release. That's a good thing.


Hey, History Channel, thanks for running a Pawn Stars marathon on Memorial Day

Posted: 31 May 2010 12:47 PM PDT


WTF? You’re dead to me. It’s fucking ridiculous that it’s back to back Pawn Stars on the one day of the year dedicated to the service men and women of America who gave their lives for their country. Enough said. I’m furious.

My most used gadget: the P-38

Posted: 31 May 2010 12:00 PM PDT


I received a P-38 can opener some time during my seventh grade of school. I can’t remember exactly why they were given to us (I think my whole class got one, but I’m not sure), nor can I remember exactly why my adolescent self hung on to the little thing. I certainly wasn’t opening cans of beans with any regularity. Nonetheless, I kept it on my keyring, and it’s on my keyring even today. It has, without any doubt, been the single most useful gadget I’ve ever owned.

The P-38 is almost amazingly bad at its core function. It’s hard to open canned goods with the thing. It’s time consuming, laborious, and frankly hardly worth the effort (at least in modern society: things might be different were I deployed in some remote war zone). It just barely ekes by as a can opener. And yet it remains an amazingly useful general purpose tool for me.

I use the P-38 regularly to open packages. It slices through tape just fine. In a pinch, it can open the horrible plastic shells that encase many modern goods. It serves as a fine flat blade screwdriver, a small pry bar, and a straightedge. I think I’ve opened a total of four cans with it in my life, each time just to see or prove if it could, in fact, open a can.

In this age of electronic marvels, I like to think about my P-38 every now and again. I know that a manually operated can opener hardly qualifies as a “gadget” alongside the things we normally write about, but it’s fun to think about the utility — intended and unintended — of the P-38 in the context of those other things: iPads, smart phones, computers, and more.

There’s a Wikipedia page on the P-38 that delves into some more of the details. The P-38 was standard issue for the U.S. Army, which provides me the tenuous connection to this Memorial Day holiday we’re all celebrating today in the U.S!

Lady follows Google Maps directions, is hit by car, sues Google

Posted: 31 May 2010 11:35 AM PDT


Somewhere in Utah, there’s a lawyer rubbing his hands together with glee. But I think he and his client will soon find out that you waste the court’s time at your own peril. Lauren Rosenberg, while traveling about a small town in Utah, got directions from Google Maps on her Blackberry, and followed them to the letter. Even when they told her to walk down Utah State Route 224, a highway with no sidewalk. Unsurprisingly, she was soon hit by a car, and is now suing both driver and Google.

Mother of God. All I can say is that I hope justice will be served, and predatory legal maneuvers punished. I’d like to thank Laura for giving me a chance to use the above graphic again, though.

How has the exciting world of technology changed since the last World Cup? Let us count the ways!

Posted: 31 May 2010 07:30 AM PDT

A little birdie told me that the World Cup begins in just a few weeks, on June 11, 2010, in South Africa. Four years prior saw Italy lift the trophy in Germany (above), beating France on penalties. Zinedine Zidane also headbutted Marco Materazzi that day—an immense event in Internet history. A lot of things have changed since that day in Berlin, a lot of things that will shock and amaze you. For example, did you know that Facebook was still only open to college and high school students the moment Fabio Grosso smashed the ball past Fabien Barthez? So, what else has changed between then and now?

• Probably the biggest difference between now and then is that we were living in a pre-iPhone world (to say nothing of a pre-iPad world). That’s right, when Italy won the World Cup in 2006 the iPhone still hadn’t made its public debut. It later did so in January, 2007, at MacWorld. Who can forget that day?

• VoIP has matured. There’s going to be 365 cafés in South Africa where Vonage Mobile users can call their friends in the U.S. for free.

• There was no PS3 or Wii. The two consoles didn’t debut until later that year, in the fall. The Xbox 360? Just sorta there, with no real killer app to its name.

• People were just getting familiar with a new television technology in HDTV in 2006. Now, the deep-pocketed among us will be fooling around with another new television technology in 3D TV. And yes, the World Cup will be broadcast in 3D this year. Well, depending on where you live.

• Twitter was not open to the public (but was being used internally) when the tournament began in June, 2006.

• Sirius and XM were still separate companies back then.

• There was no Amazon Kindle (and no nook, obviously).

• Microsoft hadn’t yet released Windows Vista, which it did in January, 2007.

• Pluto was still considered a planet, while now it’s merely a dwarf planet. Poor Pluto.

• Famous BitTorrent site OiNK was still around. It wasn’t shut down by the man until October, 2007. ‘Twas a sad day in Internet history.

• All songs on iTunes were still encumbered with DRM. We didn’t even have iTunes Plus yet!

• The Microsoft Zune did not exist. In actuality, it didn’t really exist until the launch of the Zune HD last fall. The first versions of the Zune were decidedly “meh.”

• We were in the middle of a format war in HD DVD vs Blu-ray. Blu-ray “won” in January, 2008.

• Google Chrome didn’t exist, while now it looks to be taking over the world (along with Google itself).

• The United States had a terrible broadband infrastructure, which, in a lot of ways, it still does.

• Microsoft was “bigger” than Apple.

• On a personal note, I hadn’t started playing World of Warcraft yet, something that didn’t happen until fall, 2006.

• “The Cloud” wasn’t quite the buzzword it has since become. Pretty sure “Web 2.0″ was still on the tip of everyone’s tongues back then.

• Netflix streaming also didn’t exist back then. Whoa.

So as you can see, a lot has gone down over the past four years.

Who’s to say what exciting new developments will await us when World Cup 2014 kicks off in Brazil? Will Facebook and Twitter still be around? Will we be playing PS4 or Xbox 360^2? Will companies still insist on using DRM for whatever silly reason?

Or, was there anything that I missed? This list is by no means comprehensive, and was primarily put together while I was watching the USA vs. Turkey friendly on Saturday.

Ladies and gentlemen: the future awaits!

Flickr’d

Apple Sold 2 Million iPads In 59 Days

Posted: 31 May 2010 06:14 AM PDT

Apple had announced that sales of its tablet computer iPad have topped two million in less than 60 days since its launch on April 3. That's a whole lot of iPads in two months, and the company only started shipping units in countries outside the United States last weekend. The news comes almost a month after Apple announced that it had sold 1 million units. As previously announced, the iPad will be available in nine more - but still unnamed - countries in July and additional countries later this year.


Asus squirts out a Windows-powered EEE Pad

Posted: 31 May 2010 06:03 AM PDT

I know you’re probably conked out on an Adirondack chair with a Blue Moon in your hand by now, but listen up: Asus just announced they’re making a 10- and 13-inch EEE tablet. Welcome back to 2001!

To be fair, this isn’t your granddaddy’s tablet. It has a front webcam, a Core 2 Duo chipset, and a nice bright screen. The rest is pure Comdex 2001 when Bill Gates popped up and got us all excited about tablets the first time.

No pricing or availability, but these should be powerful enough to run a few strong desktop apps, something the iPad still can’t really do.

via Giz via Techinstyle

Stanford Graduates Release Pulse, A Must-Have News App For The iPad

Posted: 31 May 2010 05:52 AM PDT

Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta, two Stanford grads who signed up for the Launch Pad class at the University's Institute of Design (aka d.school), could have hardly chosen a better path to try their hands at startup life. The pair has gone from idea to a (very cool) digital news app for the iPad in just 5 weeks, and they're just getting started. The application, called Pulse, is essentially a visually attractive RSS-based news aggregator. On sale for $3.99 (iTunes link), the app is aimed to please both hardcore RSS reader users and people who are willing to pay top dollars for single publication apps.


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