A new FCC filing for an Intel 5350 WiFi/WiMAX combo card that fits into Mini PCI Express slots is probably the best evidence yet for future WiMAX functionality in Apple MacBooks, but it’s still far from a confirmation. The bottom line is that with the new card, the WiMAX option officially exists for MacBooks, but as of yet there are no drivers written that would allow it to work with Apple’s line of laptops. You could actually hack your laptop and plug the card in just fine as it is now, but without the drivers (which do exist for Windows), it’s pretty useless. That said, the drivers—especially with Intel Macs—are a mere Leopard update or MacBook redesign away. [FCC Filing via ComputerWorld]
Original post by Jack Loftus
Sure, the iPod has marketshare…and what may prove to be a timeless style. But you know what kicks the crap out of that stuff? Patriotism. And nothing says “America” like red, white and blue along with a star-shaped control panel. And that’s what the Zvue Spirit is ready to offer.
The Spirit stores 1GB of tunes, including 15 preloaded patriotic tracks like Lee Greenwood’s God Bless The USA. At just 2″x 1 3/8, it seems a little small for American Hummer-driving, Big-Gulp-drinking tastes. But who are we to ever question something that in some way almost resembles the American flag? Pre-order your Zvue Spirit today for $35.99. [Zvue via anythingbutipod]
Original post by Mark Wilson
Sure, the iPod has marketshare…and what may prove to be a timeless style. But you know what kicks the crap out of that stuff? Patriotism. And nothing says “America” like red, white and blue along with a star-shaped control panel. And that’s what the Zvue Spirit is ready to offer.
The Spirit stores 1GB of tunes, including 15 preloaded patriotic tracks like Lee Greenwood’s God Bless The USA. At just 2″x 1 3/8, it seems a little small for American Hummer-driving, Big-Gulp-drinking tastes. But who are we to ever question something that in some way almost resembles the American flag? Pre-order your Zvue Spirit today for $35.99. [Zvue via anythingbutipod]
Original post by Mark Wilson
Catheters suck, but they’re a necessary evil for men who want to know if they have benign prostatic hyperplasia (quickie Giz diagnosis: you’re cancer-free, but pee six times an hour). And in addition to excruciating tube-down-your-johnson pain, the catheter also carries with it the potential for infection. The process could be changing soon, however, thanks to researcher Tim Idzenga. Basically, the Dutchman will diagnose BPH by listening to your business with a microphone.
Idzenga’s process uses a microphone attached to perineum, which is fancy pants doctorspeak for the patch of skin we layman and immature Gizmodo writers call “the taint.” From there, he listens to changes in the sound of flowing urine—specifically for the tell-tale hissing of BPH. More scientifically, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) reports that the “frequency spectrum of the sound was found to correlate with the narrowing of the urethra. The degree of narrowing can therefore […]
Original post by Jack Loftus
One of Dell’s official blogs provides a bit of clarity as to the discombobulation of the XPS gaming line in favor of Alienware. Basically, the XPS and Alienware development teams are being fused together, and XPS is going to go in a more high-end consumer direction (”XPS isn’t going away, though it may go in new directions as hinted by the XPS One and the slimline XPS m1330″) while Alienware totally subsumes Dell’s gaming side, becoming “a fantastic global brand that sets benchmarks for gaming.” In other words…
Our initial post was more or less on the money—XPS will stick around as a premium (but not gaming) line, and the Alienware brand will lose its remaining luster by becoming the bona fide game face for Dell (with low-enders to boot). [Direct2Dell via Cnet]
Original post by matt buchanan
Our memories have grown fuzzy. We can’t remember exactly what watching TV was like 10 years ago, but we’re pretty sure that it involved a 16mm projector, slide rule and a horse that walked in circles around the room (oddly enough, the horse wasn’t actually connected to anything). Now we have a slew of new viewing technologies options, like steaming media, DVRs and high definition broadcast. And today, we’re forcing you to make the Sophie’s Choice of the entertainment center:
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You know the drill. Slap fight in the comments!
Original post by Mark Wilson
When Apple purchased chip manufacturer P.A. Semi, the Department of Defense was worried. Why? P.A. Semi manufactures chips for ten different military systems, and has $100 million in deals with the DoD over the next four years. And the DoD never expected Apple to keep supporting the sweet, deadly chips.
But they were wrong.
According to The Register, while Apple does not plan to continue modifying/improving P.A. Semi’s PowerPC-based processor architecture, Apple has employed a number of veteran P.A. Semi staff members just for the task of supplying the current chips for years to come.
To us, it seems pretty logical, as if Apple is simply honoring the existing contracts/promises of P.A. Semi. Then again, it’s just such a strange move from such a painstakingly marketed company—Apple and the military certainly make for strange bedfellows. More on this point from The Register:
While the information is limited at this point, we believe the military […]
Original post by Mark Wilson
I like to believe that all of us have rock star alter egos. For most of us, these inner rock beasts sleep latently, awaiting the proper heartbreak or drug cocktail to wake from slumber and cut a hit record. Rifflet.com is a place that shares my theory—a social networking site in which users can share 1-minute clips of music they’ve had bouncing around in their heads, just to get it out there. Others can then download these tracks, respond to them or even incorporate them into songs of their own.
We had a chance to shoot off an email to the site’s creator, Jon Schwab, and ask him some questions about the site. Here’s what he had to say:
Why are you starting the site? (Other than making money, of course)
I play guitar, and when I come up with a song idea, I’m terrified of forgetting it, so I immediately head […]
Original post by Mark Wilson
Using a first-of-its-kind direct optical energy device called Noveon, one Waltham company is hoping to stamp out toenail fungus once and for all using nothing but light. The device “utilizes two discrete near-infrared wavelengths at low power” and produces no heat, according to a rep from the manufacturer, Nomir Medical Technologies. The approach could eliminate the need for expensive meds like Lamisil or Fulvicin, which work, but can cause upset stomach and liver damage. Clinical trials are set to begin soon, and the Noveon could be zapping foot fungus—and periodontal disease (think morning breath, but forever!)—very soon.
The Noveon cooks onychomycosis (toenail fungus) using two near-infrared wavelengths, but leaves healthy tissue untouched, as seen in this diagram. [Medgadget]
Original post by Jack Loftus
We haven’t nuked a CD since the 90s either, but maybe that’s only because we didn’t have the right camera setup to capture the digital destruction in all of its glory. The Wacky Archives features a few remarkable shots of our ex-favorite pastime and we strongly recommend it as an opulently wasteful way to burn 3 minutes of your precious Saturday. To see the price a microwave pays for its art, hit the jump.
…like a robot exploded in there, its silver blood splattered with Pollockian imprecision. [Wacky Archives via MAKE]
Original post by Mark Wilson
You got us, Samsung. We’re suckers for optical illusions, and your “10 Optical Illusions in 2 Minutes” is—even with the Soul advertisement—extremely entertaining. So we’re not going to feel used as we post a commercial without any clever commentary picking it apart. Though, to be honest, our brains are still hurting too much from the faces trick to write much of anything. It’s just too bad that you clearly hate homosexuals. [via engadget]
Original post by Mark Wilson
When the future goes to crap in the next 10 years or so, and anarchy rules as humanity falls into a deep, dark pit of despair, this alternate reality mask concept from Frog Design will be there to soften the blow. Invoking mental images of cowed sheep, Aldous Huxley’s soma and even the Matrix, Frog Designs describes its FrogConcept mask as an escape for the doomed people of the future, complete with a “re-skinned” reality.
The visual design casts the mask as a lifestyle product of the future, as it plays with a glaring, exaggerated coolness of the wearer. It gives an almost robotic appearance, and suggests a diversion from what we define today as “normal” physical human interaction.
Within the mask, smells, sounds, even air quality would be imitated to create a full sensory experience. The facial expressions of those wearing the device would be detected and projected onto personal avatars […]
Original post by Jack Loftus
Go kick the tires and light the fires of Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1, which is now available for download at the Mozilla Firefox site. The update delivers a few aesthetic changes, as well as what Mozilla is calling major security enhancements. Users should also expect increased performance and stability for applications like Google Mail. There’s an exhaustive list of known bugs to squash too, but that’s par for the course with any software. [
Firefox 3 RC1]
Original post by Jack Loftus
The Chicago Fox affiliate WFLD has embraced a touch of Justin.tv with their new AirFox Live helicopter feed. Viewers can now visit the AirFox website and view Google Maps GPS tracking of the chopper, along with a real-time video feed sharing whatever it sees.
Sure, this could be a novelty during their daily traffic reports, but more interestingly, the feed will be live any time that the chopper is in the air—including breaking news like fires, police chases and parade balloons gone amuck. WFLD will probably broadcast a better signal of these more intense moments as they go live to TV, but the point is more that viewers aren’t defaulting to the choices of producers, directors or sponsors to get information from a major news outlet. Then again, it’s such choices that save the average person from staring at webcams all day waiting for something to happen. [myfoxchicago via techcrunch]
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Original post by Mark Wilson
Paint the town red with T-Mobile’s Sidekick Slide Scarlet smartphone. The Sidekick Slide offers a full QWERTY keyboard, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and a large 2.5″ QVGA display screen for reading email, and surfing the web.
Read the full story here.
Original post by Michelle Ruhfass
Microsoft’s Mediaroom is the company’s IPTV solution that brings TV into to your house (much like cable and satellite) over IP. You might be familiar with it in its commercially released service forms such as AT&T U-Verse here in the US or BT Fusion in the UK. The features out now—quick channel changing, multiple channel records simultaneously without a hardware tuner limit, multi-room viewing, multiple picture-in-picture—are pretty fantastic, but we had a visit with Microsoft earlier this week and learned that what’s coming soon is even better.
First, let’s go over the features that Mediaroom offers now. With a simple set-top-box, you can grab high quality HDTV that’s better quality (seeing as Comcast has been compressing their HDTV shows like mad) than what you’d otherwise get on cable. If you’ve got two set-top-boxes, you can stream shows off of each other so you don’t have to record a program twice to […]
Original post by Jason Chen
Do you still mourn the day the networks took Airwolf off the air for good? Does the thought of flying through the cool mountain skies of the California wilderness, your trusty Bluetick Coonhound Tet at you side, excite you to no end? Me neither (city slicker, present), but that doesn’t mean this Airwolf helicopter replica is any less cool. Sure it doesn’t have an interior, and the chain gun has been suspiciously removed, but it’s got character, and probably still smells like the feathered quaff of Jan-Michael Vincent. That’s Stringfellow Hawke, to you civies. More pics and budget pricing for this hunk of nostalgia after the jump.
That dust is 1980s dust. That means this chopper is a collector’s item, not filthy dirty. Bidding started at about $40,000, and concludes later today.
[eBay]
Original post by Jack Loftus
Sorry HTC fans, the HTC Advantage 7510—HTC’s updated 3G (HSDPA) UMPC—is not coming to the US because its Qualcomm chipset is not permitted for sale here. Interested parties can still import the device for those fun extra costs and inconveniences associated with international third-party dealers. Meanwhile, we’ll celebrate that since the UMPC market is exploding at the moment, we’ll finally have plenty of other decent options among US-native tiny PCs. [jkOnTheRun]
Original post by Mark Wilson