Targus to Rrelease new WiFi PAN-equipped Laser Mouse this September

Back in 2008, Ozmo Devices paired up with Intel to get its WiFi PAN (WiFi Personal Area Network) tech into low-power devices. Fast-forward to a few years later, tack on a new partnership with Targus and get ready for the first of those Bluetooth-less peripherals to hit the market. The company's new accessory teammate is planning to rollout a line of WiFi Laser mice that incorporate the OZMO2000 chip, with the first mouse to hit sometime this September. The unreleased AMW58US model will connect directly to your computer's WiFi receiver and packs a four-way scroll wheel, laser sensor and compatibility for Windows 7 -- batteries included. There's no pre-order page available at the moment, so you'll just have to sit tight and wait it out.

 

 

Skype Now Lets You Chat With Facebook Friends and See Your Wall

The latest version of Skype for Mac allows you to chat directly with your Facebook friends, hopefully bringing you a better user experience than other chat system. It also allows you to see your wall and your friends.

I wish this happened more often, because I'm tired of having to deal with so many ways to communicate with my friends and family. Imagine a world in which every single instant messaging, voice and visual communication system operated between each other, regardless of the company who owns the system. Or imagine the same in reverse: a world where you couldn't call someone's cellphone because they were in a different network. This is stupid.

 

 

This Shape-Shifting Sofa

love sofas. I love them for siestas, for reading, for playing games, for eating breakfast by the window, for cunnilingus and other fun activities. Sofas are one of my favorite things. And the Cay Sofa looks like a dream.

Created by Alexander Rehn by dividing surfaces and linking them through ingeniously placed hinges, the sofa adapts to the different positions of your body, embracing it. That's what I like about it, because I like to change positions for all the things above. No motors, no buttons. Just simply clever design. More here.

Why Do We Use The Term Cellular Phone Instead of Mobile Phone?

If I asked you about your phone, would you call it a cell phone or a mobile phone? Does it really matter what you say or is one term more appropriate than the other?

The world cellular, as it describes phone technology, was used by engineers Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young at Bell Labs. They diagrammed a network of wireless towers into what they called a cellular layout. Cellular was the chosen term because each tower and its coverage map looked like a biological cell. Eventually, phones that operated on this type of wireless network were called cellular phones.

The term mobile phone predates its cellular counterpart. The first mobile phone call was placed in 1946 over Bell System's Mobile telephone service, a closed radiotelephone system. And the first commercial mobile phones were installed cars in the 1970s.

Eventually, the two names, mobile phone and cellular phone, became synonymous, especially here in the US. But some people disagree with that usage. They consider the term "cellular phone" to be a misnomer because the phone is not cellular, the network is. The phone is a mobile phone and it operates on a cellular network. So what do you think, is this just splitting hairs or do we need to be more careful about what we call our phones?

 

 

Is This the Best New Look at the iPhone 5?

There's been prior evidence—and this might be more: a leaked screen protector and possibly-revealing case.

BGR spied the leaked case accessory, which briefly made an appearance on Case-Mate before they yanked it down. Oh, and is that an aluminum back I spy? I hope so.

In addition to the case, an allegedly-real iPhone 5 screen protector appeared in the wild. Unearthed by Hong Kong tech site Unwired.hk, the screen film also backs up the expectedly-widened home button. The dimensional difference looks to be the same illustrated by the leaked case from earlier in the month. We'll find out for sure soon! Very, very soon.

 

 

Google Loads up on IP Again, buys 1,000 More Patents From IBM

Seems like we've heard this story before -- Google buys a bunch of patents to protect its cute little green baby from all the big, bad patent lawsuits. Only this time, instead of buying a hardware manufacturer to expand its patent warchest, team Mountain View merely purchased 1,023 bits of IP from IBM. 

Covering everything from a method for filling holes in printed wiring boards to a method for file system management, Google seems to have grabbed quite the eclectic collection -- one we're sure Big G will put to work for itself and its buddies in no time. Those looking to see the full results of this latest patent shopping spree can see more here.

Windows Phones Aaren't Selling Very Well

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer was his usual frank self when he met financial analysts yesterday, admitting that the world isn't yet as keen on Windows Phone as he'd hoped. To be precise, 

Steve Ballmer: "We haven't sold quite as many as I would have liked in the first year." His cunning plan? Well, that's easy: make it all Nokia's problem. Or, as he put it: "With Nokia we have a dedicated hardware partner that is all-in on Windows Phones." Indeed, the Finnish manufacturer has now staked far more than Microsoft on the success of this "third ecosystem" and, if its imminent Mango handsets fail to turn things around, we may eventually see Stephen Elop standing behind that silent cash register.

 

 

Exercise Headphones Designed to Stay Put

When it comes to headphones built to stay put when you're exercising there's plenty of products that look hardcore but are just annoying. Polk's new UltraFit3000 headphones might just be the the most thoughtfully designed I've seen.

Like other old school speaker companies Polk has decided to make the jump from wooden boxes to headphones. I like that idea, because Polk's awesome sound shouldn't be confined to home theaters and stereos. Detailed specs aren't yet available, but I'd expect these to sound amazing. What is really going to set these apart for exercise addicts is the attention to function. The over-ear hook is pliable and made of a moldable rubbery material so that they will sit securely on your ear. Get them here.

 

 

Windows 8’s Blue Screen of Death Is Like a Sad Girl Texting You

If you decided to install the Developer Preview of Windows 8 last night, you may have run into this little screen. It's good to see Microsoft making even the worst of user experiences... friendlier? But now I'm laughing AND kind of depressed.

It's ok, Windows 8 tablet. Shh shh. It's gonna be ok.

 

 

SanDisk's Memory Vault Will Store Your Photos Longer Than Anyone Cares

According to a survey commissioned by SanDisk, family photos are the first thing people would save in a house fire, after relatives and pets. This ruggedized flash drive contains proprietary Chronolock memory management technology that has been subjected to "accelerated temperature cycling tests" to prove it can preserve data uncorrupted for up to 100 years. Maybe the product is a boon to future generations, or maybe it's just a way of convincing people to spend $90 on 16GB of storage instead of picking up a Corsair Flash Survivor for $35. 

 

 

Logitech’s Wireless Touchpad Is a Magic Trackpad for Windows

You might be one of those people who find the old mouse and keyboard standbys inadequate. Quaint, even! Maybe you embrace touch as the future of computer interfaces. You might envy the Magic Trackpad, but lack a mac. Envy not!

The Logitech Wireless Touchpad doesn't quite have the same pizazz in form or name, but looks like it could at least replicate someof the functionality of OS X's stroke-able pad. At 5 inches across, it's got pretty much the same surface area as its magic Apple brother and supports up to four fingers at a time, though lacks the Bluetooth beaming and, very frustratingly, OS X support. Why not throw it in there and give Apple some competition? Logitech's mice are a hell of a lot better than anything Apple makes—it could very well be the same for this desk swiper too. Get it here.

 

 

Windows 8 Developer Preview: When and Where to Download

Got a brain full of Windows 8? Can't stop obsessing about it? Fret not -- as of 8PM PT this evening (just under eight hours from now), you'll be able to download a copy of the Windows Developer Preview to your machine from dev.windows.com. 

Per usual, it's recommended doing so on a separate partition (or a spare machine altogether) in order to prevent unforeseen conflicts, and having a stiff glass of patience waiting nearby. Redmond's servers are going to be hammered. Windows Dev Center.

Here’s Windows 8’s Start Menu

It's not the most detailed look, but Tom's Hardware noticed a cameo of the newest Start Menu in a Windows 8 video demo. It looks... pretty bare. Stark white-on-black text, very few buttons, and, importantly, where are the programs?

Whereas Windows 7's Start Menu offers a multitude of ways to get at your software—favorites, search, a giant list of applications—this Windows Phone 7-inspired Start Menu has none of that. Just a search box. Unless we're missing something from this screenshot, which is entirely possible, this looks like a pickle. Are we meant to search for whatever we want to use, as we might via OS X's Spotlight? Are there context-specific buttons that spring up? With Microsoft revealing more and more about their next titanic OS, we'll probably find out soon.

 

 

Samsung Galaxy S II Has More GPU Firepower Than Any Android Device

Anandtech benchmarked Samsung's refreshed Galaxy S II phone over the weekend and discovered that its Mali-400 quad-core GPU contained within its EXYNOS chipset is not only powerful, but nearly 2x faster than any other Android device—phone or tablet.

The Samsung Galaxy S II was tested using GLBenchmark 2.1, and scored a 42.5. By comparison, the Samsung Infuse 4G scored a 25.5 and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 scored a 20.8. Apple's iPad 2, which runs the company's most current chipset, scored an 85.7.

White PS3 Coming to Europe and Australia in November

There's nothing a like an (almost) fresh and exciting color variant to make us totally forget about thePS4. Besides, this little dazzler will come with a 320GB HDD and two equally white Dualshock controllers, which means you'll only have to spray-paint your PS3 Move, headset, external drive to match. Look out for it at GameStop in the UK, Germany and possibly other Euro nations too, as well as at Electronic Boutique in Australia from November 1st.

 

 

Acer Iconia Tab A501 with HSPA+ hits AT&T on September 18th: $330 on Contract

The carrier just announced it'll start selling the 16GB model next Sunday, September 18th for $480 -- or $330 with a two-year contract. As planned, it'll ship with Android 3.0, and 3.1 is coming via an over-the-air update. You can sign up for a monthly plan, if you so choose, though you can also pay as you go, with $15 getting you 250MB and $25 expanding your allowance to 2GB. Customers who commit to two-year agreements will have the same choices, to be honest, except they'll also have to contend with overage fees -- $10 per gigabyte or $15 per 250MB, depending on the plan.

Remastered HD Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes Could Stream to Netflix This Fall

Well, this news is a long time coming for most Star Trek Fans. Apparently, CBS is hard at work remastering the Next Generation as an HD offering, and will beam it to you via Netflix this fall.

While no official announcement has been made, the rumblings got a Geordi-sized boost earlier this month when actor LaVar Burton, he of the visor fame, tweeted that the remastering progress being made on a few select TNG episodes was going very, very well. Also complementing all that was Netflix's pre-existing relationship with CBS, which saw the DVD and streaming service beaming all Star Trek series episodes to customers.

The remastered HD TNG episodes could arrive as early as this fall on both Netflix and Paramount's Epix station, which coincides nicely with the purported start of filming for the rebooted Star Trek movie franchise. Cross promotion is so 24th century!

Bit.ly Quantifies Internet Impatience, Old Links Get no Love

Oh internet, we love your animated GIFs and sad Keanu websites, but how much attention are we really giving each link? According to a recent study by URL shortener Bit.ly, a standard link is clicked for an average of three hours until traffic subsides by 50 percent, eventually fading away into oblivion. If we're talking about a super timely news story like an earthquake hitting the east coast, well, its half-life was a paltry five minutes. When URLs are shared on social networks, they last around 3.2 hours on Facebook and 2.8 hours on Twitter, but those on YouTube persist more than twice that long. There, link half-life is 7.4 hours -- probably because it's home to phenom bomb memes.

 

 

Ecko Zip Earbuds Pump Tunes Through a Functioning Zipper

These in-ear beauts will set you back just 30 beans -- or about a half-dozen servings of Ron Ron Juice. Other offerings include the $13 Zone earbuds, $15 Chaos II (that Chaos I was off the hook), the $20 Stomp, $25 Lace (which include a shoelace-inspired cord), and the $40 Chain, which, as you probably guessed, features a beaded dog-tag chain cord. At those prices we wouldn't expect stellar acoustics, but if you're rockin' out to any of these budz, you're probably most concerned with lookin' good. And nothing says six-pack like zippers and chains. Get them here or just search on Amazon.

Windows 8 Boots Up Faster Than a Bull Ride

What's Microsoft got to compete with the MacBook Air's near-instant on? According to a recent demonstration from its Building Windows 8 blog, the ability to take a machine from fully powered off to booted up in just under eight seconds.

The key change behind the improvement? In Windows 7, all user sessions are closed, as are services and devices in the kernel session. Windows 8, though, doesn't close the kernel session. It puts it in hibernation mode. By writing the kernel session to a disk—instead of having to restore it completely with every start up—Microsoft has seen improved boot times of 30-70%.

If you want a complete shutdown, you'll still have the option to revert back to Windows 7-style. But why drive a Volvo when you can roll in a... uh... 30% faster Volvo? More.