Early this morning, with this simple, joyful photograph, Barack Obama scored yet another victory: the most-liked Facebook photo of all time.
As of now nearly three million people have given the photo—uploaded to Barack Obama's timeline and adorned with a message of "Four more years"—a thumbs up. Between it and last night's most popular tweet ever (same picture, same words), Obama's win has clearly been sanctified by the United States of Internet. Picture is here.
The Verge is reporting that Microsoft is trying to nix its Windows Live Messenger client in favor of Skype. That's definitely for the best, and something we've seen coming for a while now. But it also smacks of some missed opportunity for Windows 8 and Windows Phone.
The plan, according to the Verge, is that the backend of Messenger will be moved over to the Skype client. So you still use your Messenger account and contacts, just in Skype. That move's been happening for a while, and apparently 80 percent of Skype IMs are already through the Messenger protocol. Skype is a better alternative for a lot of people than WLM, and consolidating the number of clients under Microsoft's roof is a good thing.
Messenger remains widely used—according to Microsoft's numbers, it and Facebook are the two most popular chat clients. But, honestly, when is the last time you signed into WLM? So Microsoft has been focusing more on the chat functions in Skype—especially with recent improvements to the client's chat interface—and is even integrating it into its People apps in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 in the near future. More here.
Under the guidance of Google, the open-sourced OS has become the darling among some of the world’s most popular manufacturers: Samsung, HTC, LG all make Android devices, and that’s just naming a few. Sure, Android still has a fragmentation problem, but the newest devices are better than we’ve ever seen, and a lot are coming equipped with some pretty phenomenal features: Google Now in particular.
Seeing Android grow over the past few years has been fun (Google Play has seen anenormous uptick as well), and we’ve yet to see the best Android has to offer — compare the T-Mobile G1 to a device like the recently announced Nexus 4. The differences are incredible.
Samsung’s Android-powered Galaxy Camera is coming to the United Kingdom on November 8, just in time for the holiday rush. It’s expected to cost £399.99 (approx. $637), but Samsung is yet to confirm that price tag — despite the release being just three days away.
That’s the price currently being advertised by camera retailer Jessops, and online retailer Clove.co.uk, which is now allowing customers to pre-order. The Galaxy Camera will also be available from various electronics retailers come November 8, including phone stores like Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U, according to The Verge.
Running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the Galaxy Camera comes with a 16-megapixel 1/2.3″ sensor, and an f/2.8 21x optical zoom lens. It’s powered by a super speedy 1.4GHz quad-core processor, and offers 8GB of internal storage — which can be expanded via the microSD card slot.
The device also has access to the Google Play store and built-in Wi-Fi and 3G, which means you can use all your favorite Android apps to edit your best shots and upload them to photo sharing services on the go. More here.
Skype has unveiled a series of prepaid cards for the UK, offering users without a credit card the ability to top-up their accounts starting from £10. A second £20 card will also be available in UK retailers including Asda, Currys, PC World, Sainsburys and bookseller WHSmith, with both denominations redeemable globally through the Microsoft company's online portal. More here.
Even despite the lingering presence of Hurricane Sandy, hundreds of people waited in line to pick up the iPad mini at Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store; the white models reportedly sold out in mere minutes. It’s unclear how reception has been outside of New York City, but it’s clear people are excited about Apple’s newest member of the iPad family. Apple, going up against competitors Google and Amazon, is expected to sell over a million iPad mini units during launch weekend, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.
It’ll be interesting to see what the upshot is once Apple announces sales, which the company typically does the Monday following weekend sales. More here.
Twitter is reportedly lining up a new photo filterting feature aimed at taking Instagram head-on. According to The New York Times, the San Francisco-based social media company, which processes just under a billion Tweets every 48 hours, is hoping avid Tweeters will bypass the use of Instagram altogether and instead use Twitter’s new filters when sharing photos. Twittergram?
The update is allegedly landing in the coming months, though people with knowledge of Twitter’s plans didn’t share precisely when. The social network’s scheme was put into high gear following Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram earlier this year, NYT said.
It was said Twitter had planned to purchase a company like Camera+, but those plans seem to have been scrapped in favor of creating its own system — much like the one Facebook launched with its own camera app.
“After meeting with an appraising some companies, Twitter’s executives decided the price tags were not worth the goods, and decided the company could build its own filters instead,” NYT wrote.
Instagram is a pretty formidable social media service in its own right, with monthly traffic supposedly surpassing Twitter. Twitter’s plans aren’t all that surprising; what is puzzling is the fact that it’s taken the company so long to come up with an answer to Facebook’s Instagram purchase. But it sounds like we’ll see something of interest sometime early next year. More here.
Check this little guy out. If you have any microUSB cables sitting around the house, this Lightning adapter will let you sync your iPhone, iPad or iPod without a problem. It’s teeny-tiny, but it’ll likely appease plenty of people with multiple cables, or even a USB charger. There’s not much else to report, it’s obviously only compatible with Apple’s latest set of products: the iPhone 5, iPod touch 5th gen, iPod nano 7th gen, iPad 4th gen and iPad mini. The Lightning to Micro USB adapter is available now (1-3 business day ship time) for $19.00. More here.
The company has sold, as opposed to shipped, 30 million Samsung Galaxy S III devices worldwide. That’s quite the impressive figure, and shows a substantial growth of 10 million units in just two months. Samsung’s announcement comes on the heels of news in which the company said 3 million Galaxy Note II units have been sold across the world.
It’s fantastic news for Samsung, and Android as a whole, as we head into the busy holiday season. Samsung revealed just how much time and effort went into the making of its S III, and the numerous rave reviews — and now, sales — show it was all time well spent. With Jelly Bean rolling out to the device all over the world, we can expect sales to only increase during the final stretch of 2012. More here.
What's that? You had dreams of being the first person in the world with an iPad Mini installed in your 2012 Toyota's dashboard? Well consider those dreams dashed, as Tampa, Florida's Soundwaves is way ahead of you. Like, "they already did it" ahead of you. That regular old iPad you've got in your car? Boooring.
The folks at Soundwaves had a dashboard setup fabricated ahead of the Mini's launch this morning, and filmed themselves performing the installation.
What kind of movement does a theft entail? Apple's in the process of figuring that out, today filing a patent application for a, "acceleration-based theft detection system for portable electronic devices." Apple pickers: you've just been put on watch. According to the patent filing, said device would activate an alarm of some form after determining, "whether a theft condition is present." It'll apparently figure that out based on the accelerometer built into many of Apple's mobile devices -- the same thing that figures out which way you're holding your phone. Beyond just the hardware, said theft protection system would work in concert with software to determine if the movement matches a pre-determined "profile characteristic of theft."
Of course, Apple's not the only one worried about mobile device theft, as Google already patented just such a device pertaining to its Project Glass concept. But the you'd have to be pretty brazen to steal the glasses off of someone's face without "accidentally" socking them in the eye. More here.
Apple just launched iOS 6.0.1 to consumers, but it also began seeding the latest beta, iOS 6.1, to developers on Thursday.
The update is available for anyone with a developer account and who owns an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, and 9to5Mac said Xcode 4.6 beta is also included in the package. iOS 6.1 includes a new MapKit that allows developers to “programmatically search for map-based addresses and points of interest” and return relevant information. “For example, searching the string “coffee’ would return the location of local coffee bars along with information about each one,” Apple explained.
It’s unclear what else is in the beta build, but it appears that Apple’s default Maps application is still included in its existing form. More here.
Samsung just revealed that the half-pint Galaxy S III mini that debuted in Germany will arrive in the UK on November 8th. The 4-inch, WVGA super-amoled, dual-core smartphone will alight toting Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and all that entails, like Google Now and the whole butter thing. You'll also get Samsung's video and games hub plus a 50GB Dropbox for two years if you nab the device, along with all the TouchWiz-y doodads like S-Voice and Direct Call. Phones4U announced it was taking preorders for the device earlier, which will be free on contract for £25 and up. More here.
The sequel to Frictional Games’ stupendously terrifying Amnesia: The Dark Descent, subtitled A Machine for Pigs, is due sometime in 2013. What with today being the spookiest day of the year, the collaborating (as Frictional is teaming up with the chinese room) indie developers decided it was a great time to release a trailer.
A trailer that provided a nice morning scare for me.
If you watched the onset of the trailer and find yourself wondering when, exactly, the horrifying stuff starts, make sure you wait until around the one minute mark. The next bits that follow are exactly why I can’t handle games like Amnesia and its upcoming sequel.
Apple recently said that there are 700,000 iOS applications in its iTunes App Store. Google’s Android platform, which has typically trailed Apple’s iOS in terms of the number of applications available to its users, is now all caught up.
AllThingsD today said that a Google source has confirmed that it now also has more than 700,000 applications. That’s impressive growth for Android, which hasn’t had an app store as long as Apple has. Meanwhile, Microsoft said yesterday that the Windows Phone Store has 120,000 applications, but that it’s also growing quickly. More here.
Google just released an updated version of its Search app for Android devices yesterday, and it's now (aspromised) also delivered a fairly big update to iOS users. That brings with it iPhone 5 compatibility, but the bigger news is the expanded voice search functionality, which promises "faster and significantly improved voice recognition," with spoken responses à la Google Now provided alongside the search results. Those additions also extend to iPad users in addition to the iPhone and iPod touch -- get it here.
What happens when you gut a pumpkin and replace its insides with heat-shrink tubing, solder, 128 LEDs, eight AA batteries, an Arduino board and clever programming? You get what self-proclaimed tinkerer Nathan Pryor calls "Pumpktris." Over the years we've seen the classic puzzle game Tetris ported to some amazing things, but a piece of fruit? Just in time for Halloween, this high-tech spin on the jack-o'-lantern features a fully playable Tetris game controlled from the pumpkin's joystick stem.
Whether you're a hardcore do-it-yourselfer, or a diehard Tetris fan hoping to top the system's high score (9,800 points), you can build your very own Pumpktris. Of course, its creator estimates it'll take around 12 hours or longer to build the custom LED matrix and joystem and carve up the gourd of your choice.
Out of a pool of 1,200 adults, 52 percent said they’d never heard of Windows 8 leading up to last week’s release. For all of Microsoft’s wining and dining of the tech-savvy crowd — it seems the revamped software isn’t in the average consumer conscious. The company was always going to fight an uphill battle when marketing its new OS vision.
According to The Associated Press and GfK, of those who had heard of Windows 8, 61 percent said they had little to no interest in buying a computer running Microsoft’s newest OS. About 35 percent of people who were somewhat familiar with the new system felt it would not be an improvement over Windows 7.
One 43-year-old engineer, Chris Dionne, who knew Windows 8 was coming, said he isn’t “thrilled [Microsoft is] changing things around” when Windows 7 already does what he wants it to.
Additionally, the poll highlights the lack of interest surrounding Microsoft’s Surface, which launched in conjunction with Windows 8. Of those surveyed, 69 percent admitted they had little to no interest in the device, which is a product Microsoft is hoping will fit into a tablet/laptop niche.
Microsoft’s approach to the changing market is admirable and something that strays pretty significantly from iOS and Android. The company’s task of marketing Windows 8 (and Windows Phone 8, and its two Surface tablets) was always going to be difficult. It’ll be interesting to see how consumers receive Microsoft’s new direction now that all its cards are on the table, especially since it does offer compelling features, such as a new modern user interface and full touchscreen support in laptops and PCs. More here.
Google just took the lid off a 32GB Nexus 7 tablet, and dropped the price of the 16GB model from $250 to $200. The bigger version is $249.
This confirmed earlier suspicions from price leaks to third-party retailers that Google would make its flagship tablet cheaper. In spite of the cancellation of Google's event because of Hurricane Sandy, the news is still moving along—Google also revealed the 10-inch Nexus 10 to rival the iPad. The 32GB Nexus 7 also comes in an HSPA+ version for $300. The tablet goes on sale on November 13. More here.
Scientists have developed a way to manufacture a new breed of computer chips that use carbon nanotubes in the place of silicon.
Nanotubes have plenty of superior electronic properties over silicon, but until now it's been impossible to manufacture a chip with a high enough density of nanotubes to make an effective processing unit. Now, the researchers, from IBM, have cracked it.
Writing in Nature Nanomaterials, the researchers explain a new manufacturing technique that makes it possible to squeeze enough tubes on to the chip. It involves two solutions which work like a two-part epoxy: when they double-dip their chip substrate in the two, it enables them to create neatly aligned nanotube devices, with a density of a billion nanotubes per square centimeter.
While that sounds like a lot, though, it's not quite enough for the ambitious team of scientists. James Hannon, one of the researchers, explained to the BBC:
"That's one nanotube every 150 or 200 (billionths of a meter) or so. That's not good enough to make a microprocessor yet - it's a factor of 10 away... But it's a factor of 100 better than has been done previously."
So, while they've managed a step change in their production technique, there's still some tweaking to be done. The team, however, predicts that if it can bump up its density, then it could produce processors three times faster than the current state-of-the-art, that consume a third of the power. Fingers crossed. More here.
Sharp may look like it's in trouble, but that's not stopping it bringing new displays to the market, the AQUOS Quattron 3D XL TV line. Behind the mouthful of acronyms, these LED-backlit LCD panels are the first to feature Sharp's Moth-Eye technology, designed to reduce glare and pump out bright colors, as well as a deep black. The company's 'four primary color'tech is partly responsible for the rich output, which squeezes a yellow sub-pixel in with the standard R, G and B.
All the panels run at 1,920 x 1,080, as you'd expect, sport a 10 million to 1 contrast ratio and use five speakers to deliver audio. Prices aren't fixed, but the 46-, 52- and 80-inch models will be released in Japan on December 15th, while the 60- and 70-inch variants will come slightly earlier, on November 30th. You're going to have to be quick on launch day, though -- only 10,000 units are expected to be available in the first month.More here.
We’ve seen the Nexus 4 show up for pre-order, support pages in Australia, a charging pad and even a quick-start guide, but if you want at least one more spoiler before then, take a look above. The folks over on the @evleaks account shared one more render that gives you a good look at the front, back and sides. Christmas is definitely coming early for those who can’t wait for the Nexus 4. More here.
If getting long-range WiFi is a perpetual battle, ASUS just started a nuclear war. Its fresh RT-N12HP router carries a pair of (thankfully removable) high-gain, 9dBi antennas and a separate signal amplifier that can jointly boost the range of the router's 802.11n wireless up to 300 percent versus challengers that reach the same 300Mbps peak speed. Beyond that, the hotspot mostly claims sheer flexibility as its virtue with support for as many as four separate WiFi networks and a fast toggle between pure router, access point and repeater modes. More here.
The heart of the costume is a Nikon D800 with an Eye-Fi SD card inside transferring photos to an iPad serving as the display on the back. But since the D800 isn't fully compatible with the Eye-Fi's direct transfer mode, a portable wireless router was also added to the mix to facilitiate the exchange. Oddly enough it doesn't seem as if the costume uploads photos to an Instagram account, which leaves the door wide open for someone to come along and one-up this one too. More here.
A puffy down feather jacket is one of the lightest and warmest things you can wear. But the tradeoff is that if you get it even the slightest bit wet, you'll be wearing a cold soggy mess. Not the Brooks-Range Mojave, though; thanks to a special coating on the feathers, it doesn't skimp on the warm when it's wet.
The feathers it's stuffed with are treated with a hydrophobic polymer known as perfluoroalkyl acrylate, developed by a company called Down Decor. So instead of absorbing water, the down inside the $300 Mojave repels it. And while it doesn't guarantee you'll stay completely dry, the company claims the treated feathers will only absorb about a quarter of the moisture that regular down filling would. Which means your jacket will dry five times faster and be ready to warm you again in no time. More here.
A Korean gadget site has posted images of a user manual for a device called a Samsung Nexus 10 that looks much like an oversized Nexus 7. Could this—along with that new Nexus phone—be what Google is announcing on Monday?
The pictures don't offer much in the way of hard intel beyond that in terms of features, and the sketch of the phantom gadget looks like what you'd expect from a 10-inch tablet. At the very least, it supports persistent rumors that Google will reveal its flagship slate's bigger brother at some point. This tablet is said to have a 2560×1600 pixel display, more pixels per inch than the iPad, and run on Android 4.2, a.k.a. Key Lime Pie. We'll know if the so-called Nexus 10 is actually real next week. More here.
If you're having a crappy day, go grab yourself an emergency compliment at this thoughtful website which serves up, you guessed it, emergency compliments.
There should be a special Nobel Prize set aside for geniuses who find ways to improve the simplest things in life. And this year's award would go to Shapeways user OliveBird, whose Button 2.0 turns any shirt into a convenient headphone wrangler.
It's not to say that the traditional button design isn't useful. It's just that with the addition of a subtle clamp on one edge for holding headphone cables no thicker than two millimeters, the Button 2.0 is approximately a thousand times more useful. And this isn't some design student's thesis on how to make the world better. It's an actual product you can order from Shapeways in different colors ranging in price from $3 to $4. Expensive for a button? Yes. But this is the bleeding edge of shirt fastening/cable wrangling technology. More here.
The placebo effect seems to make little sense: get ill, take a dummy pill, and you'll recover in much the same way as someone taking real drugs. While there have been many theories bandied about over the years to explain how it works, new evidence suggests that it may be genetic.
A team of researchers at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School has published a study in PLoS One that identifies the first ever genetic difference between patients who respond to placeboes and patients who don't. If it's correct, it could completely change the way drugs are tested and prescribed.
The study looked at patients with irritable bowel syndrome who were enrolled in an acupuncture trial. Split into three groups—one that received no treatment, one that got fake acupuncture with little interaction with the caregiver, and another that received fake acupuncture with real interaction—they were also analyzed genetically.
The results show variations in the COMT, or catechol-O- methyltransferase gene, affect patient response to placebo. The gene is known to be related to dopamine release—a neurotransmitter associated with reward and positive feeling—and the study shows that variations in it are strongly correlated with placebo susceptibility.
Of course, many of the usual caveats apply: this was a modestly sized study, involivng just 104 patients, which considered just one placebo treatment used for one medical condition. If, however, the results bear out, then expect to see genetic tests being used to improve both personal care and clinical trials in the future. More here.
Apple has defied that assumption that the desktop is on the outs and dropped refreshed super-thin iMacs at its event today.
They were expected this summer at WWDC, but the wait might have been worthwhile—this refresh is far more significant than we thought. The new models are 80 percent thinner (just 5mm) and about eight pounds lighter than their predecessors. We didn't anticipate a redesign, but they're incredibly beautiful from what we can see. Apple will offer iMacs in 21.5-inch and 27-inch versions, the latter of which has a resolution of 2560 by 1440.
The screen has 75 percent less reflection, and a few other features like an HD camera, dual microphones, and a stereo sound system that's supposed to be much better than the previous generation. Specs got a bump too—the new machines have quad-core i5 processors (configurable up to i7), up to 32GB of RAM, and as much as 768GB of flash storage. RAM is accessible in the 27-inch iMac, but not the smaller one. Both of these guys have four USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt, which is very nice. On top of that, there's an SD card, gigabit ethernet, and a now, a fusion drive—that's 128GB of flash storage plus 1 or 3 TB of hard drive combined into one hard drive. Doesn't sound half bad, although customization might be a bit more difficult with such a big update.
The smaller model starts at $1300 and ships in November, and the 27-incher starts at $1800 and ships in December.
Apple's new iPad Mini is here, with all the attendant fawning. But strip away the smaller size, and what is it really? A tiny little iPad 2.
Let's start with guts. The Mini runs on an A5 chip—the same one that's in the iPad 2. The major upgrade to the A5 chip in this year's iPad (the A5X was sold as a graphical update at the time). That's a full three generations back now, with the A6X out now. This is almost certainly the same chip design that was die-shrunk in the upgraded iPad 2.
In all likelihood, the Mini has the same 512MB of RAM as the iPad 2 as well. A few reasons there. For one, it doesn't have retina-level numbers of pixels to push. But then remember that the die-shrunk A5 that it's using has never been paired with anything but 512MB of RAM.
You'll be hearing plenty more about the screen, but for now, it's 162.03 PPI, at 7.9 inches and 1024 x 768.
With Windows 8 going on sale in just four days, Microsoft is doing a sensible thing and releasing a version of Skype optimized for Win 8. As you'd expect, Skype for Windows 8 has the same overarching look and feel as other apps, which is to say you can swipe from left to right to see different categories, such as recent activity, favorites and a complete contacts list. But the integration with Windows 8 goes a little deeper than that. Just as you can pinch your Live Tiles to zoom out and make them easier to navigate, you can use semantic zoom to sift through a long list of contacts. And, because Skype runs in the background, you can set up your Start Screen so that the Skype Live Tile shows notifications for things like missed calls. Additionally, Skype is now baked into the People Hub, so that someone's Skype handle shows up alongside other forms of contact, like an email address or phone number.
The in-call experience has also been modified to take advantage of certain features in Win 8. For one, you can link your Skype and Microsoft account, so that when you log into your system using your Microsoft ID, you'll already be logged into Skype. While on a call, you can conduct video chats using the whole screen, at which point chat messages from that person will show up as text bubbles on the side of the screen. At any time, you can swipe to see other recent activity, which could be handy if you're juggling multiple IM conversations at once.
If you prefer, you can also dock Skype on the side of the screen, as you can with any other program in Win 8. With the Skype chat taking up just a third (or two thirds) of the screen, you can use that remaining real estate for an IM chat within Skype, or maybe a web search. Lastly, if you return to the home screen, there's a large phone icon up top where you'll find the dialer, whose number pad allow your fingers plenty of room to hit the right keys. You'll see your balance listed there, too, in the event you're not planning on making a free call to another Skype user, if you like you'll soon be able to experience it for yourself: the app will be available for free in the Windows Store on October 26th.
Not only do lens caps protect your camera's glass from scratches that can permanently render them unusable, they also help keep fingerprints and grease smudges at bay, which can ruin a photo. And it's no different with your iPhone, which is why this case with a sliding door that protects and cleans its tiny lens is brilliant.
Designed by Ace Display, the inside of the sliding door on the Identity case is covered in microfiber fabric. So every time it's closed and opened, it wipes away grease, smudges, and fingerprints ensuring your photos are as pristine as possible. The $20 case also protects the rest of your phone too, making it a must-have accessory for the iPhone 5 which seems like its particularly prone to being scratched up. More here.
Microsoft vowed that its Touch Mouse would get Windows 8 support in time for the software's big release day, and it's being very true to its word by posting the relevant update with less than a week to go.
Mouse and Keyboard Center 2.0 saves time for those not graced with a touchscreen by introducing multi-touch swipes that bring up Windows 8's Charm bar, switch between active apps and invoke Semantic Zoom. Will the Touch Mouse update trick you into thinking you have a Surface? No, but it's certainly much easier on the wallet. More here.
So, your friends sent you a video on Kik Messenger. It's a really funny or awesome video and you want to download it to your Android or iOS device. What you need: an OLD BlackBerry device (I used a BlackBerry 8520) and another device such as an iPhone or Android.
Here are 5 steps:
1. Have the Kik Messenger conversation with the video
2. Get a BlackBerry phone and make another Kik Messenger account
3. Send the video to your other Kik Messenger account by pressing where the red circle is in the picture below
4. Open the video on your BlackBerry device and it will begin downloading on to your phone/SD card
This, over course, goes hand in hand with the related question "Would you/Do you trim your eyebrows?" This stencil, apparently getting popular in Japan, is aimed squarely at men. Worth the weirdness? More here.
Not to be outdone by Korean rival Samsung, Toshiba has become the latest manufacturer to announce it's now accepting pre-orders for its loaded repertoire of Windows 8 PCs. Naturally, this contains an array of options for all different types of budgets and preferences, including the Japanese company's Satellite S, P and L laptops or the U series of Ultrabooks, the Qosmio X875 for gamers and, for those who enjoy a more desktop-friendly setup, the LX815 and LX835 all-in-ones are also there for the taking.
As expected, Toshiba will be shipping online pre-orders on October 26th, while folks who decide to go the brick-and-mortar route should be able to physically pick one up on that very same day. There's still a lot more where this came from, but you'll have to head over to Toshiba's site to see what else the outfit has to offer.
They're the preferred mode of transport for flannel plaided hipsters, sure, but when a fixie is crafted from carbon fiber by a company with a mastery of the material, it's downright impossible for anyone not to lust over. Oh, UBC Coren bike, you are purdy. Even if $32,500 in a stupid amount of money to spend on a bicycle.
You've probably never heard of UBC until now, and that's exactly why they created the Coren. The company has been producing carbon fiber parts for Formula 1 and other high-performance vehicles for years, but recently wanted to develop more brand recognition outside of expensive cars. So they've branched out to expensive bikes as well, designing and now manufacturing this masterpiece which weighs in at 17 pounds and uses a belt drive system instead of a chain. More here.
The idea to create "the toughest watch in the world" came to Japanese creator Kikuo Ibe, when he dropped and broke a precious watch given to him by his father. The first G-Shocks were developed in the 80s, and 30 years on they're tougher and smarter than ever. One item in particular, "the ultimate G-Shock", has been developed to celebrate the anniversary, the MR-G.
The MR-G is made from tempered titanium, and the face is inlaid with Japanese gold. They go on sale in January for $10,000 a pop. More here.
Unlike the Eye-Fi wireless SD cards which lock you into a set amount of storage, PQI's Air Carduses a microSD slot so that as the tiny cards get bigger and bigger, you can easily upgrade the adapter's capacity.
And like the latest generation of the Eye-Fi cards, the $50 PQI Air works with mobile devices thanks to an accompanying iOS and Android app. So you can share photos and get your snaps online without the need for a card reader or a USB connection to a PC. It works with three devices at once too, so you can send shots to your phone and tablet at the same time, and according to the PQI site it supports pretty much every popular camera on the market today. More here.
We've known it was coming for months, but the Acer Iconia Tab A110 finally has a due date and a pricetag. It's going on sale October 30th, and it'll only cost you $230. That puts it squarely in Nexus 7 territory.
But what does that extra $30 get you? Well, more. And less.
The Iconia Tab and Nexus 7 both feature Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 processor, both have 8GB of built in storage, and both run the latest version of Android (Jelly Bean, a.k.a. Android 4.1). The Iconia has some very nice features that the Nexus 7 lacks, however, most notably, a Micro SD card slot so you can boost the device's storage capacity an additional 32 gigs. It also has a micro HDMI port, so you can watch your movies/play your games on a full-sized TV. Very nice.
The biggest disadvantage is the screen. The seven-inch Iconia Tab A110 only has a resolution of 1024 x 600 which makes for a rather paltry pixel density of 170 PPI. The Nexus 7 crams 800 x 1280 pixels into those same seven inches, bringing the pixel density up to 216 PPI. Considering that reading and watching videos are likely to be the main things you do with a tablet this size, that might just be a deal-breaker. The Nexus is also about 1.75 ounces lighter than the Iconia, and it's a bit thinner, too. More here.
You want to be a precise chef, and you know that a cup is not always a foolproof cup, depending on your equipment and your method of measuring. In order to be as accurate as possible, you'll want to invest in a scale, like this one made by industrial designer Jacob Jensen.
It's no surprise that this $128 tool is beautiful and understated—Jensen is known for audio equipment he designed for Bang and Olufsen, shown at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1978. Fifteen of those pieces are a part of MoMA's permanent collection. Now that he's turned his attention to the kitchen, you can have his brushed aluminum take on an ingredient scale brighten up your countertops—and give you much more accurate measurements. More here.
Here are the stats on the average Twitter user: she's a 28 years old American girl who has an iPhone, has 208 Twitter followers while following 102 people, tweets a lot about fashion and family, likes the color purple and uses "love" quite frequently in her Tweets.
Beevolve, a social media marketing firm, analyzed 36 million Twitter profiles and came up with a bevy of numbers that break down Twitter users. Like did you know the average Twitter user has tweeted 800 times? Or that only 26% of users favorite Tweets? Or that nearly two-thirds of Tweets come from Twitter apps? There are a ton of Twitter statistics left, check them out at Beevolve.
Cardboard never ceases to amaze. Having been deployed in gramophones, stereos and even digital cameras, one inventor now believes it can be used to make the ideal bicycle. Izhar Gafni, from Israel, spent 18 months just folding the material every-which-way in order to discover a strong enough design, and now he claims his technique is almost ready for mass production.
His maintenance-free bike uses a "secret" mix of organic materials to make it waterproof and fireproof, and is then lacquered to give it a friendlier appearance. It's expected to cost a mere $20 and weigh about 20 lbs (9 kg) -- that's 65 percent lighter than an average metal ride. In fact, this bicycle doesn't use any metal parts at all -- the solid tires are made of reconstituted rubber and a car timing belt is used instead of a chain. It lacks the swank of aFaraday Porteur, perhaps, but then you could buy 175 of these for the same money. More here.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a smell has to be worth at least a few hundred. And the next time you're chatting and come across a thought or sentiment that can't be expressed with an emoticon, maybe a specific scent could translate your feelings. At least that's what the creators of the ChatPerf are hoping.
Created by the Chaku Perfume company, ChatPerf is an iPhone accessory and accompanying app that lets you remotely trigger a small puff of fragrance, or really any smell, on someone else's iPhone. So imagine sending the smell of fresh popcorn to lure a friend to a movie, or your favorite perfume to secure a date. The possibilities are endless, except that the atomizer accessory can only hold one scent at a time. And asking someone else to refill it takes all of the surprise out of the equation. So for $63 it's kind of a tough sell when that winky emoji actually sums up how you're feeling about 95 percent of the time anyways. More here.
Tokyo Flash is the go-to watch brand for people who don't care what time it is. Here's its latest creation, which hides the time in the negative space of a maze.
The Kisai Maze is labyrinthine in its complexity. It takes some patience to work out what the hell time it is—but once you've cracked it, it's actually quite satisfying. The watch is available in stainless steel or black, and is on sale for $99 until Thursday, when the price jumps to $139. More here.
9to5mac is reporting that Apple is going to announce a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro alongside the iPad Mini at a forthcoming product announcement event.
The website cites a "consistently reliable source at a high-profile U.S. retailer", who has learned of a new, smaller version of the current 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. According to the source, a 13-inch version of the Retina MacBoook will share the thinner, lighter style of enclosure of the 15-inch version, and will be sold in two configurations—with differing processor and storage options. The source also claims that the 13-inch Retina MacBook will be sold alongside the standard 13-inch MacBook.
The 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro was launched back in June to dropped jaws, and hinted at the future of Apple's laptop line: slim, hi-res displays, SSD-only storage and no optical drives. While a 13-inch version seemed inevitable, it remains to be seen with certainty if now is the time.
Still, chances are that the reason a 13-inch version wasn't launched alongside the 15-inch computer was that Apple was taking it easy on suppliers. Whether a six-month window provides enough breathing room—and whether we'll hear of a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro in the coming weeks—well, we'll just have to wait and see. More here.
Street View is good and getting better—and that's thanks to Google's massive fleet of cars, kitted out to capture the world around us in all its panoramic glory. This is what a parking lot full of them looks like.
Google's own Masrur Odinaev posted this picture of one of the company's holding pens: the fleet of Subaru Imprezas looks like an army of camera-equipped automatons, ready and waiting to do whatever Larry Page orders them to. Which, really, isn't far off the mark. Across the world, Odinaev estimates there are in fact 250 cars buzzing around. More here.
Microsoft's already opened up the floodgates with Windows 8 pre-orders, and it looks as if those still on the fence now have a sandbox to goof off in. Pictured above is a trio of Windows 8 notebooks from a Best Buy located in St. Cloud, Minnesota. More here.
A huge part of human history revolved around tying stones to sticks. We don't do it much any more, but if we did, we'd be super good at it. These modern stone tools prove it.
Designed by Ami Drach and Dov Ganchrow, each tool is specially engineered to fit the piece of stone or flint its paired with. Digital scans taken of the flint stones let each handle account for its blade's subtlest nook and cranny, resulting in some stylish hatchets and daggers cavemen could only dream of, if that.
The tools were put on display at the recent Budapest Design Week in Hungary. No Neanderthals were around to comment, but you can imagine what they might have said: something along the lines of "oogh!" More here.
Lions and tigers and bears, join models of sharks and gorillas and gators—all the best animals, in desk tool form for $78 each. Even better? All of these creatures' teeth are properly proportioned to their bodies. More here.
