Calling a cellphone a mere phone seems a little silly these days. The little pocket wonders now do so much they are really handheld computers. With extras. The process of mashing one or more gadgets together in the same box used to be called convergence, but that approach quietly died as the mobile phone ate up any and every rival device.
So successful has this been that whole product categories have had the life choked out of their twitching bodies by the phone. The following list is an obituary to five of them, plus a look at the cellphone's next victim.
Continue reading "Five Gadgets That Were Killed by the Cellphone" »
It is, as he puts it, an iPod Ghetto Accessory. There's something very right about these cheap horn speakers -- the clean white lines perfectly match the 2003 2G iPod. But we very much doubt the sound would be louder than that from the earbuds alone. On the other hand, they're likely to be a lot better than some passive speaker systems you can buy.
Here at the G-Lab we love Make, the magazine for hackers, modders and DIY freaks. And, by extension, we dig Makezine, the online home of the mag. Sometimes the projects are a little too ambitious (DIY DNA sequencing, anyone?) but once in a while there is a true gem, a project so cool that you can't not do it.
I will be trying this out over the next few days. I'll let you know how I get on.
Have you tried Google's new voice-enabled search application for the iPhone yet? No, and neither have we. Amidst the big launch on Friday, and the corresponding ballyhoo in The New York Times, one thing was forgotten: the application itself. Apple didn't get around to actually putting it in the App Store.
Update On Google iPhone Voice Recognition App: Look For It On Monday [Tech Crunch]
Now, reinstalling the entire system to grab a new feature is a little extreme, but this proves that the older trackpads are capable of the new multi touch goodness -- this should also work for MacBook Pros. We have our hopes that Apple will bake this into the next OS X software update (10.5.6). I took a new unibody MacBook for a test run in the store last wek and the four finger gestures, which invoke Show Desktop and Exposé behaviour, are great.
Old MBP. Do we get the 4 finger swipe as well??? [MacRumors Forum]
Fasten your seat belts — data transfer is going into overdrive.
At a glance:USB 3.0
Faster: 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and six times faster than FireWire 800
Greater power efficiency: New interrupt driven protocol optimizes power management.
Better Power Output: Power output bump to 900 milliamps from 100 milliamps allows more devices to be charged faster via USB.
Backward Compatible: New connectors and cables will work with work with devices running the older USB 2.0Continue reading "USB 3.0 to Deliver a Tenfold Speed Increase" »
On Monday we published a list of gadgets eerily similar to those that appeared in Minority Report. Now, Oblong Industries has produced a video (above) demonstrating a spatial operating system called G-speak, which mimics the film's famous gesture-based interface far more closely than Mgestyk Technologies' similar product.
Oblong says its technology combines gesture reading, "recombinant networking, and real world pixels" to get that Minority Report effect. And Oblong claims the similarity to the film is no coincidence, as one of the company's founders was a science adviser to Minority Report.
There's no word on whether the Nikes involved in the sting operation were the Hyperdunk shoes that the company tried to pass off as the real Mcflys from Back to the Future II, earlier this summer. The shoes are the company's most trendy this year, and we wouldn't be surprised if a criminal tried to make money off their popularity.
The typical lifespan of an office computer is three years before it's replaced by a new one, but 46 percent of businesses are postponing on purchasing upgrades because it's one of the easiest ways to cut costs, according to a Wall Street Journal story. Though to the average consumer three years may not seem very long to merit an upgrade, office employees use their computers heavily and tend to wear them down faster. In consequence, slower computers (and massive layoffs) amount to office productivity taking a big hit.
The software, set to release some time Friday, will be part of Google's free, long neglected mobile app [iTunes Link] on iPhone, and it will allow users to perform a Google search by simply dictating a query, according to a story in the New York Times. Examples: "When was Michael Crichton's birthday?" or "Japanese restaurants in San Francisco," or "400 kilometers into miles."
In fact, I like to imagine the scene: Fadell mentions the "L" word. Jobs' eye twitches, the flinch almost imperceptible. He motions Fadell to continue and, a few moments later, stands up casually, apparently to stretch his legs. Then, suddenly, a folding chair is in Jobs' hands, swinging wildly towards Fadell's corner of the room. Jobs smashes the entire presentation – hardware prototypes and all – and screams at Fadell to "Get the f**ck out. Get out now!"
Calling a cellphone a mere phone seems a little silly these days. The little pocket wonders now do so much they are really handheld computers. With extras. The process of mashing one or more gadgets together in the same box used to be called convergence, but that approach quietly died as the mobile phone ate up any and every rival device.
So successful has this been that whole product categories have had the life choked out of their twitching bodies by the phone. The following list is an obituary to five of them, plus a look at the cellphone's next victim.
Continue reading "Five Gadgets That Were Killed by the Cellphone" »
It is, as he puts it, an iPod Ghetto Accessory. There's something very right about these cheap horn speakers -- the clean white lines perfectly match the 2003 2G iPod. But we very much doubt the sound would be louder than that from the earbuds alone. On the other hand, they're likely to be a lot better than some passive speaker systems you can buy.
Here at the G-Lab we love Make, the magazine for hackers, modders and DIY freaks. And, by extension, we dig Makezine, the online home of the mag. Sometimes the projects are a little too ambitious (DIY DNA sequencing, anyone?) but once in a while there is a true gem, a project so cool that you can't not do it.
I will be trying this out over the next few days. I'll let you know how I get on.
Have you tried Google's new voice-enabled search application for the iPhone yet? No, and neither have we. Amidst the big launch on Friday, and the corresponding ballyhoo in The New York Times, one thing was forgotten: the application itself. Apple didn't get around to actually putting it in the App Store.
Update On Google iPhone Voice Recognition App: Look For It On Monday [Tech Crunch]
Now, reinstalling the entire system to grab a new feature is a little extreme, but this proves that the older trackpads are capable of the new multi touch goodness -- this should also work for MacBook Pros. We have our hopes that Apple will bake this into the next OS X software update (10.5.6). I took a new unibody MacBook for a test run in the store last wek and the four finger gestures, which invoke Show Desktop and Exposé behaviour, are great.
Old MBP. Do we get the 4 finger swipe as well??? [MacRumors Forum]
Fasten your seat belts — data transfer is going into overdrive.
Faster: 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and six times faster than FireWire 800
Greater power efficiency: New interrupt driven protocol optimizes power management.
Better Power Output: Power output bump to 900 milliamps from 100 milliamps allows more devices to be charged faster via USB.
Backward Compatible: New connectors and cables will work with work with devices running the older USB 2.0
Continue reading "USB 3.0 to Deliver a Tenfold Speed Increase" »
On Monday we published a list of gadgets eerily similar to those that appeared in Minority Report. Now, Oblong Industries has produced a video (above) demonstrating a spatial operating system called G-speak, which mimics the film's famous gesture-based interface far more closely than Mgestyk Technologies' similar product.
Oblong says its technology combines gesture reading, "recombinant networking, and real world pixels" to get that Minority Report effect. And Oblong claims the similarity to the film is no coincidence, as one of the company's founders was a science adviser to Minority Report.
There's no word on whether the Nikes involved in the sting operation were the Hyperdunk shoes that the company tried to pass off as the real Mcflys from Back to the Future II, earlier this summer. The shoes are the company's most trendy this year, and we wouldn't be surprised if a criminal tried to make money off their popularity.
The typical lifespan of an office computer is three years before it's replaced by a new one, but 46 percent of businesses are postponing on purchasing upgrades because it's one of the easiest ways to cut costs, according to a Wall Street Journal story. Though to the average consumer three years may not seem very long to merit an upgrade, office employees use their computers heavily and tend to wear them down faster. In consequence, slower computers (and massive layoffs) amount to office productivity taking a big hit.
The software, set to release some time Friday, will be part of Google's free, long neglected mobile app [iTunes Link] on iPhone, and it will allow users to perform a Google search by simply dictating a query, according to a story in the New York Times. Examples: "When was Michael Crichton's birthday?" or "Japanese restaurants in San Francisco," or "400 kilometers into miles."
In fact, I like to imagine the scene: Fadell mentions the "L" word. Jobs' eye twitches, the flinch almost imperceptible. He motions Fadell to continue and, a few moments later, stands up casually, apparently to stretch his legs. Then, suddenly, a folding chair is in Jobs' hands, swinging wildly towards Fadell's corner of the room. Jobs smashes the entire presentation – hardware prototypes and all – and screams at Fadell to "Get the f**ck out. Get out now!"
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