January 2008
Guitar Hero Auto-Whammy Mod is a Shortcut To... →
Guitar Hero players know that working that whammy bar is a good way to rack up star power during extended white notes, but it can be tough to switch from strumming to whammying during a solo. This guitar mod, which takes a little bit of circuitry know-how, allows you to auto-whammy—making the bar just a decorational stick. The result is a higher score and a smugness that you can only get from...
Laptop Security Alarm Software →
Better than nothing!
Circuit City Clearing Out HD DVD Players For... →
A Circuit City employee writes on the High-Def Digest forum that Big Red is taking Toshiba’s already deep HD DVD price cuts a step bloodier: They’ve tagged the cheap HD-A3 and higher-end HD-A30 as clearance items, moving them out the door for $100 and $150, respectively. Placing HD DVD on clearance effectively means Circuit City is quitting the format, at least on the hardware side....
Stormy Software Pushes Everex Cloudbook Launch... →
If you were suiting up to brave the cold and make the long, arduous journey to Wal-Mart (or walmart.com) today to pick up Everex’s $399 potential Eee PC blood-rival, the Cloudbook, just strip back down, plop back into your chair, and make a big mug of cocoa. Like enough to last you until late February, since that’s the earliest you’ll be able to snag a Cloudbook now. Everex is...
Charter Accidentally Wipes 14K Email Accounts →
dacut writes with the sad news that Charter Communications, which provides cable and Internet access to 2.6 million customers, accidentally and irretrievably wiped out 14,000 active email accounts while trying to clear out unused accounts. They’re providing a $50 credit to each affected customer, which seems a paltry sum for anyone who was less than diligent about backing up their email —...
Winners' Gallery: the Best of Contest 157 →
Last week we asked you to follow ActorTom’s lead and show us something altered to reflect what its name should actually be. We took off our rose-colored glasses and finally saw things how they really are, thanks to your astute chopping abilities. It’s a scary world in reality, so we’re none too happy to go back to our blissfully naive world outlook after hand-picking the...
Best Buy confirms it sold virus-infected Insignia... →
Filed under: Household
As we noted a week back, Best Buy’s house-brand Insignia photo frames are indeed virus-infected, but now it appears Best Buy is doing something about it. Unfortunately, info is still slim at the moment from company lips. Best Buy says it’s “connecting with our customers who may have been impacted,” and has pulled remaining inventory from the...
War Protesting Geek Style →
Eee PC says sayonara Linux, hello XP →
Forget the MacBook Air, I’m getting myself a Linux-free Eee PC. I love Windows XP and I’m a big fan of the little guy from Asus. The 4G-X, as it’s being called in the land of the rising sun, is really the 4G and nothing other than the OS is different then what we have here. I’m still jealous and I want one. It goes on sale this Friday for about $470.
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Internal AT&T Memo Details Contract Free Rate... →
One of our sources at AT&T has leaked to us an internal document; the memo details the process for obtaining a contract bundle without the obligatory 1 or 2-year commitment term. The basis for the non-commitment bundles is the customer must pay for the handset in full, losing the subsidized rate that is offered with fixed contract terms. The memo pins the start date of the non-commitment...
War protesting geek-style →
By Mark O’Neill
When you want to stage a war protest, it pays to have the geeks come along. These guys just know how to get the message across effectively….
The Real Camera Behind Cloverfield [Rumor Smashed] →
For those who’ve seen the unique monster movie Cloverfield, you know that the story is supposed to be shot by the aptly-named character “Hud” with a cheapo handheld consumer camera. You know, something you could grab at Best Buy next weekend, use once and forget about forever. Convincing the audience of that point was one of the movie’s most successful angles, since much of...
Hitachi hybrid Blu-ray camcorder hits Japan soon →
Guys, listen up. It looks like this Blu-ray thing is here to stay so we might as well start buying stuff. Case in point, this scrumptious Hitachi DZ-BD9H hybrid camcorder that records on 8cm discs or its 60GB hard drive. Yum. I wish I could take a bite out of it.
The hard drive is good for nine hours of full 1920×1080 HD or you can use a disc for one hour’s worth of footage. There’s a...
Lifehacker's Exclusive Line of Productivity... →
Not only do the editors here at Lifehacker feed your head with a feast of posts every day, every once in a while we put our programming chops to good use and build custom software for our readers. If you’ve missed any of the Lifehacker Code line of applications, scripts, and plug-ins, here’s your chance to get caught up. All of the Lifehacker Code projects listed below are free to...
Wikifying video production →
Yochai Benkler writes in with word of a collaboration between Wikipedia and Kaltura to make open, peer-production video: “Kaltura in general is an interesting effort to create an open platform for peer production of video and rich media. Very different, and from the perspective of collaboration more interesting, than the aggregated distribution platform of materials created by solo...
Turn Your Browser into a TelePrompTer with... →
Web site CuePrompter takes any chunk of text (up to 2000 characters at a time) and displays it TelePrompTer-style in an auto-scrolling, high-contrast window. You can adjust the TelePrompTer speed, text size, and display mode (normal or mirrored, if you are actually going to set it up with a reflective glass for full-on TelePrompTer duties. The web app does exactly what it says, and though you may...
WowPen Digitizes Your Writings, Drawings... →
Sure, there are really slick tablets out there meant for artists and graphic designers, but writing on a tablet is still not the same as writing on paper. That’s why devices like this unfortunately-named WowPen keep popping up; they want to give people the ability to turn their pen-and-paper drawings into digital masterpieces. Unfortunately, these things are currently better suited for...
Process Lasso →
Great tool for PCs to keep runaway processes from bringing everything to a crawl…
Pizza Hut Starts Text Message Delivery... →
Pizza Hut, ever expanding both waistlines and accessibility to their greasy goodness, has launched a new mobile ordering service allowing users to text message 4 pizza. Apparently online pizza orders have really taken off, accounting for 20 percent of total sales (that stat is either from Pizza Hut or Papa John’s, we couldn’t discern from the copy) and texting could account for another...
The Downfall of HD-DVD (video) →
Link, and apologies for the Godwinian implications (thanks, Russ Gooberman!)
The Real Reason Warner Went Blu-ray [Dirty... →
PIttsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Don Lindich reports a dirty bit about Warner’s defection to Blu-ray that we had uncovered in our own reporting of the format war at CES, and which we had confirmed through a different source (except for the payout numbers), though were holding close to our chest while we worked some other angles. Warner actually wanted to go HD DVD. They gave Toshiba the...
HD DVD fires back, slashes hardware & software... →
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
HD DVD’s response to being unceremoniously jilted by Warner going into CES was … nothing. A canceled press conference, downtrodden Toshiba press conference and rumors of further losses left great doubt that red had anything left in 2008, but now HD DVD is firing back. Leveraging its “approximately 50% market share in 2007” —...
Ford: Car owners are pirates if they distribute... →
Josh sez, “The folks at BMC (Black Mustang Club) automotive forum wanted to put together a calendar featuring members’ cars, and print it through CafePress. Photos were submitted, the layout was set, and… CafePress notifies the site admin that pictures of Ford cars cannot be printed. Not just Ford logos, not just Mustang logos, the car -as a whole- is a Ford trademark and its...
Ford: Car owners are pirates if they distribute... →
Josh sez, “The folks at BMC (Black Mustang Club) automotive forum wanted to put together a calendar featuring members’ cars, and print it through CafePress. Photos were submitted, the layout was set, and… CafePress notifies the site admin that pictures of Ford cars cannot be printed. Not just Ford logos, not just Mustang logos, the car -as a whole- is a Ford trademark and its...
Dealzmodo: Free Air Guitars [Rock On] →
If you dig air guitars, then you will flip over this (expired) dealzmodo. Offered in the UK’s Glasgow City Centre in promotion with a radio station launch, visitors could snag a free air guitar. Hell, they could take more than one. Just look at that huge inventory! [frederiksamuel via inventorspot]
Bent Objects: whimsical, emotional wire sculpture →
Terry Border is a sculptor who uses wire and household objects to make whimsical, funny and emotional little sculptures that entertain the hell out of me. His blog notes that he has a book coming out, too. Link (via Neatorama)
Bent Objects: whimsical, emotional wire sculpture →
Terry Border is a sculptor who uses wire and household objects to make whimsical, funny and emotional little sculptures that entertain the hell out of me. His blog notes that he has a book coming out, too. Link (via Neatorama)
Teenager hacks public train control system →
A 14-year-old boy in Lodz, Poland allegedly hacked a TV remote control so that he could control parts of his city’s tram system. Sounds like he identified the infrared pulses used to override the track switching. Four trams were derailed but nobody and 12 people were injured. From The Register:
“He had converted the television control into a device capable of controlling all the...
Teenager hacks public train control system →
A 14-year-old boy in Lodz, Poland allegedly hacked a TV remote control so that he could control parts of his city’s tram system. Sounds like he identified the infrared pulses used to override the track switching. Four trams were derailed but nobody and 12 people were injured. From The Register:
“He had converted the television control into a device capable of controlling all the...
Science of coffee podcast →
Salim sez, “The latest podcast from the New York Academy of Sciences goes into rather more detail than you could possibly want about the chemistry and technology that goes into growing, roasting, packaging and then eventually producing a cup of espresso.” Awesome — just downloaded this for my morning walk to the office; there’s about ten wonderful cafes on the way and...
Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES →
Fancast - Fancast: Find and watch TV Shows,... →
TimeBridge →
Blu-ray-to-PSP Movie Transfers: How It's Gonna... →
When we heard about Blu-ray-to-PSP movie transfers getting all official we got pretty excited, even though the announcement was a little skimpy on the details: How big are the files? How long will it take to download a movie? How odious is the DRM? Most importantly, when? Well, we’ve got ‘em all right here. The deets: The movies are around 1GB (standard def and PSP-optimized) and take...
NEC has its own 2880x900 curved gaming display →
Filed under: CES, Displays
We feel sorry for poor NEC. While everyone at CES is busy buzzing about Alienware’s gorgeous curved DLP display (including us), NEC is quietly showing off its CRVD-42DWX+ display that’s more or less identical: a 2880x900 (double WXGA+) panel with a contrast ratio of 10000:1. We’re assuming they’re both built by the same ODM, Ostendo, so...
Heineken and Krups bringing BeerTender to the... →
Filed under: CES, Household
Heineken and Krups have been peddling their LCD-equipped keg / fridge in Europe for a little while now, but the companies are going to give it a shot in the States and see if those American go for this whole “cold beer” thing. The unit is built to hold a 5-liter Heineken keg and keep it tasting fresh and cold for about 30 days. The LCD indicates...
http://www.oddsock.org/guides/video.php →
StreamWebTown - FREE Microsoft Windows Media Live... →
Ask Anything Saturday .TV Airs TOMORROW →
Park visitors required to sit up straight on... →
Here’s my second post today about parks in Florida: a sign in an Orlando park erected to refresh visitors’ memory of the City Code forbidding them to “lie or otherwise be in a horizontal position on a park bench.”
Tacky Fabulous points out, “Somebody must have tried the ‘I wasn’t laying down - I was just positioned horizontally’ excuse.”
I...
Park visitors required to sit up straight on... →
Here’s my second post today about parks in Florida: a sign in an Orlando park erected to refresh visitors’ memory of the City Code forbidding them to “lie or otherwise be in a horizontal position on a park bench.”
Tacky Fabulous points out, “Somebody must have tried the ‘I wasn’t laying down - I was just positioned horizontally’ excuse.”
I...
HydroPak water-activated fuel-cell generator... →
Filed under: CES, Misc. Gadgets
While still quite a ways away from our ideal method of drawing power directly from tap water, the new HydroPak generator from Millennium Cell and Horizon Fuel Cell at least trumps those heavy, dirty, traditional models in both cleanliness and efficiency. As we first heard a few months back, this water-activated, fuel cell-based “portable power product”...
Goodyear Announces an Octet of 'Rugged' GPS Units... →
Goodyear, that name you’re accustomed to seeing on tires, has decided to jump into the GPS game, sticking its familiar brand name onto navigation devices. Hey, they have something to do with cars, don’t they? The company has pulled a Garmin on us, brand spamming with an entire product line of eight different GPS units that’ll roll out at CES, and ship in Q2 of this year....
The Concrete Goals Tracker Tells You If That... →
All platforms: Productivity template designer Dave Seah is at it again with an updated Concrete Goals Tracker printable form. Designed to answer the question, “When is something worth doing?”, you fill in your desired results next to numerical totals, then rate your tasks by number. Add up your totals for each day of the week to see how efficient you’ve been with your time....
Gov’t now offering $40 to future-proof Grandma’s... →
While I’m sure this won’t effect most CG readers, hop online and get your $40 certificate for a digital to analog converter for Grandma’s old CRT TV or Dad’s TV in the garage. The Essentially, all analog television broadcasts will cease on February 17. 2009 and this box with convert digital signals to analog and many even add closed-captioning and other cool features that you wouldn’t normally...
Behold the Zune 3 aka iZune aka Zune Phone aka... →
The folks on the Zune team are no doubt hard at work on the third-gen Zune and here are some renderings and specs of what it could/should be. The likelihood that we’ll finally see the Zune phone is more than apparent with popularity of the iPhone, announcement of Android and the downfall of WinMo. If MS doesn’t pull this out soon, they’ll be dead in the water. Not as a company, though. Just in...
Wikiffiti -- stickers that read [citation needed] →
Matt says: “I recently started a culture jamming (Operation Mindfuck for Discordians) campaign that involves recontextualizing ads and signs — or anything that makes a dubious claim — using stickers with the [citation needed] tag found in Wikipedia articles. This blog post describes the project and has the first few pictures.”
One of my favorite quirks about [Wikipedia]...
Social Network Aggregation, Killer App in 2008? →
blogdig writes “Managing scattered online Social Life on multiple Social Networking sites, I sense, will become a Killer App Category 2008. There are several startups now in the “Social Network Aggregation” space and this App Category should diversify and catch momentum in 2008. Some startups are focusing on identity consolidation, others on messaging consolidation and on...
Broadcasters Given the Go-Ahead for Flexible... →
The FCC has approved plans to allow a gradual transmission to digital television. Analog switch-off is expected on February 17, 2009, but broadcasters will now be allowed to phase the old technology out, or terminate it beforehand, “if doing so is necessary to achieve their transition,” the commission has stated. Full story below.
In a statement, the FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said,...
New Years Resolutions - An Engineering Approach →
Hugh Pickens writes “Four out of five people who make New Year’s resolutions will eventually break them and a third won’t even make it to the end of January says the NY Times. But experts say the real problem is that people make the wrong resolutions. The typical resolution often reflects a general desire. To engineer better behavior, it is more productive to focus on a specific...