Over at Boing Boing Gadgets, wordsmith and ex-Wired blogger John Brownlee has committed to pixels possibly the best rant ever written. What’s got his goat? The new T-Shirts for Apple store employees, worst of which is reserved for the Genuises…
Over at Boing Boing Gadgets, wordsmith and ex-Wired blogger John Brownlee has committed to pixels possibly the ideal rant ever written. What’s got his goat? The new T-Shirts for Apple store employees, worst of which is reserved for the Genuises and reads “Not all heroes wear capes”.
There’s a lot of things Apple Store employees could do to be more likable, the first of which would be to halt wearing their own o-rings as moist, elastic turtlenecks and realize that working for $10 an hour rebooting iPods for a living does not make you a member of the cultural elite.
It actually gets superior from there. Go read it. Now.
Review: Navigon GPS Provides Mediocre Guidance on the Cheap The Navigon 2100 Max If you’re climbing Mount Everest, you don’t haggle with the Sherpas. If they think they’re getting ripped off, they might just ditch you at 19,000 feet. The Navigon 2100 Max resembles that short-changed Sherpa: it’s super…
The Navigon 2100 Max
If you’re climbing Mount Everest, you don’t haggle with the Sherpas. If they think they’re getting ripped off, they might just ditch you at 19,000 feet. The Navigon 2100 Max resembles that short-changed Sherpa: it’s super cheap, but the unit sometimes balks at showing you where you need to go. But then again, you shouldn’t wholly depend on a GPS anyway, and for most tasks it does its job well, especially for three hundred bucks.
For its price, the 2100 Max is fairly swank. Its sleek and shiny lacquered-plastic bezel houses a roomy 4.3-inch widescreen and a speaker that can belt out clear directions in the windiest of vehicles. The screen’s touch-sensitive coating makes it a tiny hazy, but it’s plenty bright. The device snaps into a light yet sturdy windshield mount that’s superior than many pricier models. Even when flying over the bumpy, pitted roads of Louisiana we noticed neither shimmy nor jiggle.
If you plan out your trip far ahead of time you’ll have a positive experience. The Navigon can switch from 2-D to a 3-D Reality mode that will even show you which lane you should be in. In emergencies, you can bring up the nearest tow truck, hospital or pharmacy. And if you’re being carjacked, simply ask your assailant to hold off as you access the number for the local constable. You can even select to be scolded for speeding, and you can unlock special modes to show live traffic info ($100) or Zagat restaurants ($40).
But once you leave the highway or want to navigate on the fly, prepare for frustration. It’s hard to get the scroll buttons to register, and even when you do, they take their sweet time responding. Looking up addresses is time-consuming and unintuitive, and the Points of Interest directories are hard to navigate, especially if you don’t know the name of the business you’re searching for.
The most aggravating of all is when the unit starts talking back, arguing like a real estate lawyer. If a community isn’t a “registered municipality,” the Navigon can still find it, but won’t let you navigate to a street within that area. One address we checked simply couldn’t be found because we couldn’t provide the correct hamlet for it.
The little computer lady inside does her best at sounding out street names: She can pronounce New Orleans’ Tchoupitoulas Street superior than most tourists, but she flubs Fountainebleau. Yes, Madame Navigon’s hard to satisfy and takes patience to deal with; if you don’t have the time to convince or cajole her to do your bidding, then it’s time to spring for a pricier model.
The Gadget: Canon’s 40D DSLR is their lower end prosumer DSLR, a step above the Rebel series cams. It has, most notably a 10.1 megapixel rating and 3-inch LCD screen, Canon’s latest DIGIC III processor and live view. I used the 30D and more recently the 40D for all Gizmodo’s major liveblogging, so you’ve been seeing what the cam can do for some time now. (Which is also why I select to shoot the cam sitting atop my messenger bag.)
Price: $1499 with 17-85mm Image stabilized lens.
The Verdict: Compared to the 30D, the low light performance has been enhanced added noise reduction. (For the photography we find at trade shows and liveblogs, this is important.) The autofocus was generally faster but still sometimes wonky in low light. The 3-inch LCD is extremely useful for field proofing. The CF door has new weatherproofing. Live view is kind of useless for me without autofocus. My biggest complaint is that the 40D is a tiny underwhelming compared to, state, the Nikon D300 with it’s many more AF points and serious, serious low noise. (They’re not really in the same class, if you ask Nikon and Canon reps, but I’d think about jumping up from the 40D to the D300.) And that the 17-85 lens has always been a bit soft for my liking. Can’t explain it, but I’ve never found it to be as sharp as the 18-55 non-IS that came with the 30D. Those are my quick and dirty impressions (now updated with wisdom from the crowd below.) [Canon 40D gallery on Flickr]
To be honest, I wish that I never learned of the Josef Fritzl story in the first place—but it was hard to avoid given the severity of the crimes committed. However, the fact that a man could imprison his daughter in a basement for 24 years and father her seven children is too horrifying and baffling to ignore. Over the last few days we’ve learned the full magnitude of the events that transpired—three of his incestuous offspring (aged 19,18 and 5) had never seen the sunlight until their release and one of the seven kids died due to inadequate care. We also learned that he managed to keep the whole thing a secret—even from his wife. The question is…how?
According to police reports, Fritzl was a retired electrical engineer who used his skills to construct a basement dungeon that measured less than six feet high in some areas with a total living space composed of three “cells” measuring around 650 square feet in total. In order to prevent his family living on the outside from gaining access to the room, Fritzl constructed a gigantic 660 lb. concrete door fitted with an electronic lock behind a shelf in his workshop. The lock could only be opened by a remote control that he carried with him at all times. It wasn’t until the 19-year-old fell gravely ill that Fritzl sought medical attention and was subsequently exposed.
Currently, the authorities are still investigating the details of the case—including whether or not Fritzl had help in constructing the hidden rooms. At the very least, it seems likely given the fact that it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible for one man to handle a 660 lb. door. All that aside, perhaps the most shocking aspect of the case is that Frtizl is looking at a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted of rape. At 73, he would probably not live out the term—but the punishment doesn’t come anywhere near fitting the crime if you ask me. Even a swift death wouldn’t fit the bill. [CNN and BBC News and Yahoo]
The SmartJack Oil Pump might be more efficient at persistently suckling out the world’s remaining fossil fuels for the benefit of the captains of industry than regular oil pumps, but do they really expect anyone to buy their green pitch?…
The SmartJack Oil Pump may be more efficient at persistently suckling out the world’s remaining fossil fuels for the benefit of the captains of industry than regular oil pumps, but do they really anticipate anyone to purchase their green pitch?
And if anyone does, can they be clubbed with giant foam fists with tattooed knuckles spelling YUR CRZY? Please?
The SmartJack Oil Pump is supposed to be 30% smaller than regular see-saw beam pumps, and the unit produces about 50% less emissions. But it’s pumping out oil from the bowels of the earth! Which leads to dangerous levels of Co2, warming temperatures, and really, that is anything but ’smart.’ Essentially, it’s like saying “Mike consumes 100 million burgers a day, but look at him, he’s sweating out about 100 calories at the same time, so that’s good. Helping out the overall health of the planet right there.”
Admittedly, there is some fine technology built on top of this thing, such as a remote wireless control option (via ISP or satellite) and it can be protected with bomb-proof armor.
But the device is basically just a cosmetic paint job on an old business whose end is long past due. Which reminds me, I have to go add some decorative, nice-smelling flowers to the frame of my double-barrel and after that, I’m going to read all about the planned recycled material that the local atomic power plant went out of its way to find — you know, to be more environmentally friendly.
Samsung’s long-linger F700/u940, has been rumored to hit the big V for a while, but Phone Area’s reporting that it’s now locked and cocked in Verizon’s internal InfoManager as the Glyde, though sans date or price. Spec sheet confirms cam’s cut to a paltry 2MP but all the old specs look otherwise intact, but with added goodness of EV-DO, and Verizon’s usual scarlet bag of tricks like VCAST and VZNavigator. [Phone-Arena]
Grave news today my friends. According to a letter reportedly sent to The Inquirer by Roy Taylor, VP of content relations at nVidia, the CPU is dead — and over its steaming corpse nVidia is now free to bellow out…
Grave news today my friends. According to a letter reportedly sent to The Inquirer by Roy Taylor, VP of content relations at nVidia, the CPU is dead — and over its steaming corpse nVidia is now free to bellow out a long howl of victory as the powerhouse of PC processing.
I don’t know how much this will mean to you all but for those that don’t know a war has just started that will likely be written about for years and which will affect everyone who owns a PC. Everyone.
Basically the CPU is dead. Yes, that processor you see advertised everywhere from Intel. Its run out of steam. The fact is that it no longer makes anything run faster. You don’t need a fast one anymore. This is why AMD is in trouble and its why Intel are panicking. They are panicking so much that they have started attacking us. This is because you do still [need] one chip to get faster and faster – the GPU. That GeForce chip. Yes honestly. No I am not making this up. You are my friends and so I am not selling you.
If Intel is panicking it seems a bit more reasonable to assume their anxiety has more to do with Apple’s acquisition of P.A. Semi rather than the constant threat of annihilation that nVidia apparently represents. While, in all fairness, a GPU is superior to a CPU in certain aspects, it seems just a tad hasty to call the game just yet.
This small V-22 Osprey lookalike looks like a sleek and sexy machine, doesn’t it? The Falx Salker is a VTOL aircraft and is designed to be a hybrid electric automobile, with solar energy augmenting the 100hp engine to reach a fuel efficiency of 10 liters per hour of flight. According to their website, Falx Air Vehicles is “set to release its first 100% scale platform during 2008 leading to certification during the next 3 years.”
It will apparently weigh in at 770 and 990 pounds for the single- and dual-seat versions, and Falx sees it having many applications, including as a police vehicle (visions of the hover vehicles from Bladerunner zipped through your head then didn’t they?)
So why are we skeptical? Well, sure, the V-22 is a military automobile and it’s highly sophisticated—but it’s been under development for over 20 years. Longer, if you include all the X-aircraft that preceded it. Two of the prototypes crashed, and two early production models crashed too. So can this small UK company really overcome the same tricky engineering obstacles faced by the V22, including that difficult transition between the hover and forward flight? We’re not sure—it seems rather a lot of advanced engineering and control design. We’d love for it to be real, though. [Falx via Gizmag via Uberreview]
AT&T Wi-Fi Comes to Starbucks; Lattes Still $3 If you’re a laptop-toting AT&T internet customer, your trips to Starbucks are about to get cheaper: AT&T is rolling out Wi-Fi access at more than 7,000 Starbucks locations around the U.S. The service, unlike the T-Mobile Wi-Fi currently available in…
If you’re a laptop-toting AT&T internet customer, your trips to Starbucks are about to get cheaper: AT&T is rolling out Wi-Fi access at more than 7,000 Starbucks locations around the U.S. The service, unlike the T-Mobile Wi-Fi currently available in most Starbucks stores, will be free to “qualifying” AT&T broadband customers. “Qualifying” means customers who subscribe to the company’s higher-speed residential broadband service, small business broadband packages, and AT&T U-Verse packages.
Customers of AT&T’s cellular service, including iPhone-toting, EDGE-using suckers like me, will still have to pony up for full wireless access, though the company is promising “a mix of free and paid connection options.” In the San Antonio stores where the rollout begins today, customers can buy a two-hour pass for $4, or order a monthly subscription for $20.
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson offered the following statement, helpfully translated into more intelligible Swedish Chef-ese by the encheferizer.
“Veet zee pooer ooff oooor Vee-Fee netvurk, und thruoogh oooor pertnersheep veet Sterboocks, ve’re-a strengzeeneeng oooor ebeelity tu meet zee needs ooff tudey’s mubeele-a cunsoomer furtooelly unyvhere-a und iferyvhere-a,” Stephenson said. “Expundeeng oooor reech ecruss cumpuny-oopereted Sterboocks luceshuns neshunveede-a helps us breedge-a zee gep betveee oooor vured und vureless ooffffereengs und effffurms ET&T’s cummeetment tu cunnect peuple-a veet zeeur vurlds, iferyvhere-a zeey leefe-a und vurk. Bork bork bork!”
The guys at Psyster ought to take a look at this video. Who wants a cheap and shoddy version of something Apple already sells when you could have the smallest Mac in the World? OQO Speak forum member trf managed…
The guys at Psyster ought to take a look at this video. Who wants a cheap and shoddy version of something Apple already sells when you could have the smallest Mac in the World?
OQO Speak forum member trf managed to get Apple’s OS up and running on the tiny OQO handheld. The thought from other forum members seems to be positive, no doubt helped by the full version of trf’s video, which shows the excruciating startup time of the dual-boot machine. According to trf, “Sound, wifi, power management, and usb are working fine and the system is very responsive”. It even copes with Leopard’s Cover Flow view, although you can hear the fans kick in to keep things cool.
Over at Boing Boing Gadgets, wordsmith and ex-Wired blogger John Brownlee has committed to pixels possibly the ideal rant ever written. What’s got his goat? The new T-Shirts for Apple store employees, worst of which is reserved for the Genuises and reads “Not all heroes wear capes”.
The Gadget: Canon’s 
To be honest, I wish that I never learned of the Josef Fritzl story in the first place—but it was hard to avoid given the severity of the crimes committed. However, the fact that a man could imprison his daughter in a basement for 24 years and father her seven children is too horrifying and baffling to ignore. Over the last few days we’ve learned the full magnitude of the events that transpired—three of his incestuous offspring (aged 19,18 and 5) had never seen the sunlight until their release and one of the seven kids died due to inadequate care. We also learned that he managed to keep the whole thing a secret—even from his wife. The question is…how?
Samsung’s long-linger 
This small V-22 Osprey lookalike looks like a sleek and sexy machine, doesn’t it? The Falx Salker is a VTOL aircraft and is designed to be a hybrid electric automobile, with solar energy augmenting the 100hp engine to reach a fuel efficiency of 10 liters per hour of flight. According to their website, Falx Air Vehicles is “set to release its first 100% scale platform during 2008 leading to certification during the next 3 years.”
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