Current news items regarding technology, tech companies, the Internet, the government, etc.
Heh, too funny – Someone made a Mark Zuckerberg action figure, complete with a ‘Like’ button and logo. Well technically it’s just a figurine, because you ca’t take it off its stand and bend it and throw it.
Created by the same designer who also created a Steve Jobs figurine, this “Mark” will run you about $70 and only 300 have been created; about half of them are already sold.
Another search engine is on the horizon. This one, called Greplin, aims to let you search your cloud-based data and is really more of a personal search engine than a search-the-world type of application. Think of it as Google Desktop for the Web instead of your computer.
Greplin currently works with data stores and services like Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn, Dropbox, Evernote, and of course Facebook. It also allows you to add additional services for ones that aren’t included out of the box.
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Greplin Search Engine Indexes Your Personal Data in the CloudRead More »
Steve Jobs returned from his medical leave absence to show off the latest “insanely great” product by Apple – the iPad 2. Of course the audience provided Steve Jobs with a standing ovation when he came on stage and it’s good to see him looking fairly healthy, albeit a little thin.
Jobs started the announcement talking about Random House and their 17 thousand books are joining the other publishers to provide content for iBooks. Additionally, in less than 1 year, 100 million books have been downloaded.
Always wanting to show value for the App Store developers, Jobs then mentioned that Apple now has over 200 million Apple ID accounts with credit cards linked and ready to purchase using 1-click purchasing. He questioned whether Apple or Amazon had the most accounts with a linked credit card. Next he mentioned that over $2 billion has been paid to developers cumulatively. To further drive home his point of providing a marketplace with built in consumers for Apps, Jobs mentioned that over 100 million iPhones have been shipped.
With that out of the way, Jobs then started talking about the iPad 2…
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Apple iPad 2. Steve Jobs Says “I’m Blown Away With This Stuff”Read More »
Thunderbolt is Intel’s latest interconnect technology that promises the next generation in transfer speeds, 10 Gbps. Thunderbolt-equipped motherboards or devices will have an Intel Thunderbolt controller chip that provides compatbility with a host of other connection technologies such as: VGA, DVI, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire and eSATA.
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Intel’s Thunderbolt Interconnect Technology Zooms By at 10 GbpsRead More »
The latest round of rumors concerning the iPad 2 specs are in, this set courtesy of a source that Engadget regularly uses. According to them, the iPad 2 feature a dual GSM/CDMA chipset so that it can be provisioned on either an AT&T or a Verizon/Sprint carrier.
Originally, the rumors said there would be an SD card slot and a higher resolution display, but those apparently are out.
However, the new iPad should be thinner, and have a more rounded bezel, have more RAM (512MB) and quite likely a front-facing camera.
Of course, Apple has surprised before and the rumors haven’t always been 100% on the money, so don’t count on these being the final specs.
Mattel has announced the next game in the Mindflex series called Mindflex Duels. Mindflex Duels will give two players a chance to see who can use Jedi mind tricks to control a foam ball using their powers of concentration. The goal is to move your ball to the player’s side of the table using your mind.
I’ve played with Mindflex games before and absolutely enjoyed the challenge and can’t wait to pit my superior brain against any challenger!
Mindflex Duels will be available in August for $99.99.
How great would one of the most addicting and top rated mobile games for the iOS be in the physical world? The Geeks have even rated Angry Birds as one of the best iPad apps available today. The world of Geeks shall soon rejoice in May of this year when the Angry Birds Knock on Wood Board Game is released by Mattel for less than $15.
The Mattel board game will be a table-top game. One player draws a construction card that show a picture of the pig habitat to build and while they build the structure the other player loads a catapult to send the Angry Birds flying in hope of destroying the other player’s pig habitat. I’m not sure how you explode the black birds or make the yellow birds zoom without tapping a screen so I don’t think the board game will match up to the epic mobile game.
Will the Angry Birds mobile game translate to the physical world?
If you’ve turned on Google’s 2-step verification as we recommended, you may have noticed that since then your installation of Google Chrome crashes and/or many of the individual tabs crash.
The likely reason for this is that you have Chrome’s sync feature turned on, and unfortunately, that does not yet work with 2-step verification and therefore, syncing won’t work in any case, so you may as well turn it off.
You can do that by clicking on the wrench icon in the top-right corner of any Chrome window and going to Options -> Personal Stuff -> Sync and then clicking the Stop Syncing button (see screenshot below).
Over 6 months ago, we ran the story that Watson, IBM’s latest supercomputer named after its founder, was going to play the TV game show Jeopardy. And it did, against two of the most successful (human) Jeopardy contestants ever – Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.
So what was the result? Watson simply blew them away – it ended with Watson racking up $77,147, Jennings $24,000, and Rutter with $21,600. Amazing, and of course a little scary, as this supercomputer ‘learned’ as it went, getting progressively better as the game went along.
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Remember the ELS LED light bulb that could save you a ton of money? Well that’s hardly the only game in town when it comes to new super energy-saving lighting products.
Take the newly announced Philips AmbientLED 12.5W bulb which is not only a replacement for a traditional 60-watt incandescent, but is ENERGY STAR rated as well. A few more details for you lighting/energy buffs: 806 lumens, 2700K, a CRI of 80 and a six year warranty. The mere mortals amongst us should pay attention to the 6-yr warranty.
No word on availability, but you can already pick up Philips AmbientLED bulbs in different wattages.
