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Tech NewsPresident Bush Signs Bill To Create Cabinet-Level Intellectual Property Czar
President Bush signed into law today a bill that will create a centralized position in the executive branch, appointed by the president, to head up the fight against piracy and intellectual property violations. The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (PRO-IP) is backed strongly by the usuals—MPAA, RIAA, etc.—and yet faced some pushback … Continued
By John Mahoney -
Tech News
Long Overdue GPS Upgrade Could Save Airlines $10 Billion a Year
Technically speaking, you have better navigational capability in your car than the entire airline industry. Why? Because they are still relying on an antiquated WWII era traffic network that often takes aircraft on zigzagging routes towards radar beacons—costing carriers billions of dollars in wasted fuel each year. To make matters worse, the plan to upgrade … Continued
By Sean Fallon -
Tech NewsRemember This? Looking Back at the First PowerBook
With new Macbooks seemingly imminent, I thought it’d be a good time to look back in time to the first Apple laptop that changed portable computing forever: the original PowerBook. Back in 1991, Apple wasn’t the company it is today. There was no iPod, no iTunes Music Store, no iPhone. At the time, laptops (or … Continued
By Adam Frucci -
Tech NewsGadgets
iLIMB Bionic Hand Comes Closer to Emulating the Real Thing
We’ve written about the amazing iLIMB bionic hand before, but the newest version of it was showed off on the Today Show this morning, and it looks pretty incredible. For one, the guy who had it was able to simply pop one off and put another on without skipping a beat, with the new hand … Continued
By Adam Frucci -
Tech NewsGadgets
$900 Contraption Trims Your CDs to Make Them Rounder, You Poorer
We’ve certainly seen our fair share of insane, overpriced equipment aimed at overmonied audiophiles (usually from Furutech), but this is a new one to me. The Audio Desk Systeme from Germany takes your CD, spins it at a super-high speed, and uses a blade to cut it down to a more perfect circle. Apparently, this … Continued
By Adam Frucci -
Tech News
Apple’s BrickBook MacBook Event: 10 AM PST, October 14
We’re here at Cupertino to bring you the full blow-by-blow of today’s Apple MacBook Event. Keep up with our liveblog at live.gizmodo.com. It’ll automatically refresh for you, but if the system just isn’t fast enough then F5 to your heart’s content. After all, you never know when John Mayer could show up. Oh, and there … Continued
By Mark Wilson -
Tech News
Dealzmodo: Buy One Wii Game Get the Second Half Price
Circuit City isn’t planning on going gently into that good night. First they offered a more aggressive price match guarantee and now they are offering a buy one get one 50% off sale on all $50 Wii games. If you are still playing the Wii, you might want to jump on this deal before the … Continued
By Sean Fallon -
Tech NewsGeeks Support Obama
If you weren’t already convinced that Obama is the candidate of choice for geeks, there’s now an entire website dedicated to preaching his tech merits to nerds everywhere. Yeah, essentially Tech for Obama is a bunch of techie talking heads—the CEOs of Craigslist and Real Networks, Googlers, former Wired editors, among others—explaining why you should … Continued
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Tech News
T-Mobile Sells 1.5 Million G1 Pre-Orders
Haters can step back, it looks like the G1 is already a bona fide success: Accounting for that tripled production run, T-Mobile has apparently sold 1.5 million pre-orders for the G1. Pretty amazing, considering the vast, vast majority of those people have never seen or touched the G1—or any other Android phone—in person. They’re still … Continued
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Tech News
Brando Silicone HDD Case Prevents Bareback Docking
Mainly for use with their hard disk dock that accepts HDDs like SNES carts, these silicone rubbers, complete with removable end caps, will keep your disks from slipping around too much and add a modicum of extra protection for $17. If only anti-virus defense was this easy. [Brando]
By John Mahoney -
Tech NewsGadgets
16 Drawing Contraptions That Are More Artistic Than You
Drawing doesn’t come easy to all of us. I worked as a professional artist on and off for years and God knows I have seen some horrible stuff. Like someone put a pencil between their butt-cheeks horrible. Like other tasks, we have turned to robotics in an effort to make the process a little easier. … Continued
By Sean Fallon -
Tech News
Coffee Cup Powers Your Morning…and Your Gadgets
Without that cup of coffee in the morning most of us would be completely useless. Now our gadgets can get the same jump start thanks to this coffee cup charger from PowerLine. It features 2 AC outlets and one USB charging port with 200 watts of continuous power (400 watt peak). That’s enough to power … Continued
By Sean Fallon -
Tech News
Supposed Best Buy Listings for New MacBooks Show No Price Drop
We just got these printouts that supposedly show the fresh SKUs in Best Buy’s inventory for the MacBooks that’ll be unveiled tomorrow (which we’ll be bringing to you live). Besides using colors for codenames, much of the info, like dimensions and stock dates are placeholders, according to the tipster. The real point of interest is … Continued
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Tech News
Beer Phone Essentially Ensures Drunk Dialing
The beer phone isn’t the most full-featured phone available, what with its lack of a screen making everything from texting to emailing to web surfing impossible, but it is shaped like a beer bottle. And that’s more than you can say for your precious Blackberry or iPhone. Also, it’s only $12 because it’s actually just … Continued
By Adam Frucci -
Tech NewsGadgetsJapan Goes Big Brother with Vending Machines with CCTV Cameras
Following in Britain’s footsteps, it looks like the Japanese government is looking to install CCTV cameras in every conceivable public place in order to keep an eye on the populous. But since it’s Japan, they’re doing it in a uniquely Japanese way: via their ubiquitous vending machines. As anyone who’s been to Japan knows, there … Continued
By Adam Frucci -
Tech News
New PS3 2.50 and PSP 5.00 Firmware Details Surface
The official Playstation blog has dropped details of the upcoming PS3 2.50 firmware update, which finally includes an auto shut-down power saving feature for connected wireless controllers and the console itself. The update will also include a high-quality mode for the official Bluetooth headset, scene search stills during video playback, and a number of other … Continued
By John Mahoney -
Tech NewsGadgets
Walmart: Would You Like a Side of AT&T U-Verse With That Vizio TV?
AT&T is going to sell its U-Verse TV and internet service at Wally World and Circuit City in areas where it’s available, hoping to juice adoption rates. Which means that Walmart’s odd metamorphosis into a place you can legitimately go gadget shopping (at 3AM while completely hammered, which, let’s be honest, is the real appeal … Continued
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Tech News
Windows Mobile Running on an iPhone
Click to viewCall it what you will: immoral, unethical, unholy—it appears that a Norwegian developer by the name of Erik Kristiansen has actually managed to pull off Windows Mobile running on an iPhone. The video of the OS is booting on a 3G is convincing enough, but the extremely bizarre exchange between this “reporter” and … Continued
By Sean Fallon -
Tech NewsBattlestar Galactica PC Mod Can Actually Hold Colonial Vipers, Raptors
This Battlestar Galactica PC is the most impressive case mods I’ve seen in a long while, from the front side-loading optical drive player-located behind a laser-cut transparent BSG medallion, so you can actually see the disc spinning-to the opening side bay to see the interior of the PC to the front LCD screens to the … Continued
By Jesus Diaz