They may be a little too hip for their own good, but Photojojo's "Seat Belt Camera Strap" ($20 for 1; $35 for 2; plus shipping) are a hell of a lot more attractive than the garish brand-aids that come with cameras by default.
Spyware present on many iPhone Apps in a service offered to iPhone devs to a 3rd party company for statistics collected in the background from iPod touches and iPhones, including unique device ID, usage time and longitude and latitude.
* Every time you quit an application that integrates Pinch Media, the following data gets transferred to Pinch Media: iPhone UUID (the unique ID of your iPhone), Iphone Software release, iPod/iPhone version, a timestamp when application usage started, a timestamp when application usage ended and (if you allowed it) the longitude and lattitude values of your position. You can see the detailed data that gets send out to Pinch Media in the graphic to the left. * If no active internet connection is detected, the usage data gets saved to an sqlite database for every session. The next time there is an internet connection available all that data gets send out to Pinch Media servers (beacons.pinchmedia.com). * This all happens in the background. The user has no clue that data is send out to Pinch Media.
The co-founder of Pinch Media, the service in question, is quick out of the gate to respond to the post:
You might wonder if the data we collect is 'personally identifiable'. There's two pieces of data worth discussing - the UDID and the latitude/longitude coordinates. The UDID is tied to a specific phone, but can't be traced back to a user's identity - we've got no way to get your name or address from it, even if we wanted to, which we most certainly do not. The latitude/longitude coordinates are used only to provide high-level aggregated geographic reporting. So the application developer might learn that he has nine users near Berlin, but never anything about any individual. We also don't let application developers send back personally-identifiable information using custom actions - in fact, we've turned people away who've wanted to do this. There's not a single user's phone number, name, or e-mail address stored in our system, and there never will be.
I'm in Portland, OR today. Powell's Bookstore is huge, wonderful and renowned. However, I only just discovered their smaller, yet sizable "technical books" annex around the corner. HOLY MOLY. This is the mother lode for all the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things.
The layout (above) and some of the shelf category labels should give you a good idea of what you'll find: artificial intelligence, vintage & handtools, probability theory, solid state electronics, microcontrollers, CNC, Tesla, fuzzy logic & neural nets, dams, bridges, boatbuilding, artificial life & genetic algorithms, user interface design, and more. There's plenty of cozy cafe chairs, and a little collection of vintage computers in the back, including a NeXT Cube and CBM Model 8032. They even sell stethoscopes in the med ref section!
Due to rain and hail, I'm cooped up inside enjoying free wi-fi. No one cares I have yet to buy anything -- although I've amassed a pretty nice stack. If you're ever in Portland, this place is a guaranteed wallet-buster. Photos and some fun finds* after the jump.
*You don't have to be in Portland to browse the collection. For a random look, try Powell's Shuffle feature.
Here's where I'm camped out, followed by some of what I caught my eye...
Birdhouse is a notepad for Twitter, a place to collect and edit your tweets before you actually put them online. It's designed to sit alongside your favorite iPhone Twitter client as a repository for your more polished one-liners. It's wholly unnecessary for anyone who doesn't care to ever think before they tweet. $4.
More than anything, though, at least for today, it's the app with the most amusing introductory video of all time. For today. (I should have edited that.)
Although I can't imagine using this "slide pocket ashtray" to catch every little ash, it'd be a classy way to keep your cigarette butts from hitting the ground. It's $19 and covered in real nickel.
Cigarette filters are usually made from cellulose acetate—the same stuff they made the first LEGO elements out of, according to Wikipedia—which takes forever to break down.
I love my OQO Model 02, but since I got a Vaio P, I just don't use it anymore. So it's headed for eBay, where I've listed it at a very reasonable Buy It Now of $600. It's time for someone else to make the most of it, instead of gathering dust in a drawer! It's the version with Sprint EVDO.
Matt Buchanan reviews the Razer Mamba and SideWinder X8 wireless gaming mice, both of which are wireless mice finally have a fast enough response to be indistinguishable from wired mouse while gaming.
They are also both inexplicably named after snakes, which if I'm not mistaken, are corded.
The "Gdium Liberty 1000" is an intriguing proposition: Slip in the custom "G-Key" flash drive in the bottom to fire up your own custom Linux desktop, making it possible to swap your personal work environment into any of the nearly disposable netbooks from Emtec that will never actually be littered around the landscape, as the netbook itself, according to the queen of all netbooks Joanna Stern, is sort of horrible. The keyboard is apparently pretty good, though, which would make typing run-on sentences easy.
Although it won't fit as clearly into a netbook, there's always pen drive Linux.
Fast Company has a few images of products that will be shown off in Milan at "Love Design", an exhibition of sex toys that subtly integrate into household items.
Why this is huge is that there isn't a standard in this world. The closest you get is what people call 'G-Code', which is old, broken, and wasn't ever meant to drive complex CNC machines. 'G-Code' was simply a subset of a computer standard to drive sevro-driven and map-making machines forty or more years ago. There were 'N-Codes' and 'T-Codes' and more, but the 'G-codes' were the ones that made the machine move. So, like 'G53' was a command to make the machine move a certain way. It was standardized in the early 60's, and then didn't change. That controller code was, more or less, hacked for more complex CNC use a loooooong time ago and it's only gotten worse. The G-code for one machine won't work with another machine, there are all sorts of machine-specific codes and controls, and it's not human-readable.
So, enter Shopbot. They decided (wisely I feel) to forgo the whole G-code mess, and instead make their own command structure. SBP, as it's called, is more or less a simple form of Basic or Logo. It's much easier to use, much easier to write or deal with, much easier to read, and has all the things one would want in a proper computer language such as subroutines, loops, inputs, and more.
Randall "xkcd" Munroe found holding the Kindle upright in bed too tedious, so crafted this bent wire contraption that allows him to turn pages while laying on his side with only a twitch of his thumb.
But starting today, a browser add-on called Cooliris (formerly known as Piclens) is available in a new version, 1.10. It brings flashy 3D effects to browsing, and it is, indeed, cool-mostly because it's useful. Cooliris works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari, and runs on Windows, OS X, and Linux, and lets you browse massive quantities of images and/or videos from an array of sources-Google Images, Flickr, Facebook, Hulu, Picasa, your own computer, and many other venues-by zipping through a full-screen wall of tiny images that flies around in 3D space. (Its extremely reminiscent of the video-wall imagery Apple uses to promote Apple TV.)
I just popped it into the Safari 4 beta and found it to be Not Awful. I'm not sure I'll be flipping over to it every time I do an image search, but it fits right into the Safari 4 "What's New" and "History" pages.
Elizabeth Currid and Sarah Williams (University of Southern California [L.A.] and Columbia, respectively) built "The Geography of Buzz", a mapping of cultural events of relevance mined from photograph archives at Getty Images.
Surprise—most of the same art, music, fashion, and film events happen in the same part of Manhattan and L.A..
Mostly I just like the way it looks, but Flowing Data asks the right question: "Who's going to generalize the methods to use with Flickr, Twitter, and a review site?" I'll go one further and toss in Foursquare. I want to see heat maps of where my friends are at in real time.
The Book Time unit turns the pages of magazines and catalogs automatically, making it easy for those who don't have the ability to do it themselves (as long as someone else helps them load it up, of course.) That tube in front looks a lot like something that is controlled by breathe.
Which made me wonder: Do the Kindle or the Sony Reader either support any sort of remote control? A cursory search is that they do not, but the Kindle can be set to text-to-speech, which after turning down the volume, will operate as a sort of automatic page turning mechanism. That's okay, but there is a USB port on these things. They should support a basic forward/back input method. [Engadget]
Brion Vega is an Italian manufacturer of radios, at least one of which (this RR227) is based on a vintage design—and all of which look like they could be. They do the modern basics like MP3 playback from SD cards, but at over $200 a pop, are best left to the design obsessed who'd rather trade convenience for looks. [via Technabob]
If I am to presume that the "8" in the "Garmin GolfLogix GPS-8" is a model number, implying that there have been seven previous GolfLogix models, I must then refrain from making fun of a device that is designed to golfers the distance to the next hole or how far they have to go to get over that sand trap—clearly people have been buying enough for a new model.
Over 23,000 golf courses are inside the $300 device, which as far as I can tell cannot be used as a hiking or driving GPS.
Leapfrog, makers of educational quasi-computers and gaming consoles for kids, has put their first bit of software on the Apple iPhone App Store: Number Rumble is a $3 math game designed for kids six to ten.
When companies that build their entire business around selling software for their proprietary devices start making software for someone else's hardware, that's an interesting sign. (I wouldn't expect LeapFrog to leave the hardware game anytime soon, but they don't want to leave money on the table, either. But then again they never put out a game for the Nintendo DS, which they clearly saw as either a competitor or as something that would sully their "educational" reputation.)
Also interesting: That the iPhone and iPod touch are no longer so precious that children aren't allowed to play with them.
⌦ Galaga Legions – Amazon will sell you Galaga Legions for $5 by sending you a code that can be redeemed on Xbox Live. Very glad to see price competition start hitting online gaming outlets. [Slickdeals]
⌦ Xbox 360 – While we're on the subject, Dell Home is selling an Xbox 360 Pro with a 60GB hard drive (and 512MB RAM!) for $250, shipped. [Dealhack]
⌦ Hydration Pack – High Sierra Wave Hydration Pack (like a CamelBak) for $20, shipped, from REI. [Dealoco]
⌦ Parking Sensor – Easy Park Garage Parking Sensor for $12, shipped. Your grandmother will thank you. [Dealoco]
⌦ BJ's Wholesale Membership – Free two-month pass with full privileges to BJ's Wholesale Club. I've never been to a BJ's, but as I'm currently living it up with my new Costco membership, I'm enamored with the concept at the moment. [Dealnews]
⌦ Unlocked iPhone – Unlocked iPhone 3G for $800. For a model that is almost certainly going to be supplanted in June/July, that seems really high, even accounting for a carrier subsidy, etc. [Dealnews]
⌦ iPod Nano – Apple iPod nano 8GB (refurb) for $100, shipped; 16GB for $150. [Dealnews]
Recently on Offworld, One More Go columnist Margaret discusses what Halo has in common with football (the real 'football'), all of which boils down to a single verb, and how the latest DS Picross puzzle game is like sculpting with a hint of witchcraft.
All told, the cost of the shuffle's components, the headphones, and the packaging it ships in comes to $21.77, according to iSuppli's estimates. That's about 28% of the device's retail price. The smaller the component cost as a percentage of price, the higher the potential profit. This suggests the per-unit profit margin on the shuffle is higher than on other iPod models. The component cost for the first iPod touch released in 2007, for instance, amounted to about $147, or about 49% of its $299 retail price. The component cost of the third-generation iPod nano, also released in 2007, amounted to about 40% of its retail price.
Instead of going through notebooks or other plain items with a pencil, laboriously converting them them into mediocre calendars or planners, use tape to easily convert them them into mediocre calendars or planners!
At $140, I won't be getting one, but Redmaloo's felt laptop sleeves are nothing if not ... nice. They're available in orange, green, pink and gray at 13", 15" and 17" sizes.
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