Politicians have taken advantage of crowd funding – raising large amounts of money through small donations from many people, mostly through social networks – in recent years, and Kickstarter has shown that artists and creators can do the same thing. Is that why it doesn’t seem like the biggest surprise that it’s beginning to look like …
Apps & Web
‘Kick-Ass’ Writer, ‘Watchmen’ Artist to Collaborate
Mark Millar–the comics writer who co-created Kick-Ass and Wanted as comics before they turned into movies, and has lately been working on a cluster of comics at various publishers under the loose umbrella of “Millarworld”–was the central figure of Kapow Comic Con, held this past weekend in London. Millar announced four new comics …
ShairPort Hack Allows AirPlay Streaming to Any Device
Just as Sony’s settling its lawsuit with PS3 root-key hacker George Hotz, developer Jaimes Laird says he’s managed to crack the private keys for Apple’s AirPlay wireless streaming protocol.
Laird’s girlfriend moved and was having issues getting her music to stream properly, so he popped open her Airport Express, “dumped the …
New App Diagnoses Malaria Just from Photographs
For once, here’s a smartphone app that does something more productive than knocking over pig-built structures or killing time in a waiting room: A team of grad students across the country have adapted a Samsung Focus phone running Windows 7 to allow it to instantly diagnose malaria.
The student, led by 25-year-old University of …
Top Five Monday Tech Deals
It’s Monday! Time for some handpicked gadget deals.
Sony Dash Personal Internet Viewer: $80 at Woot.com (today only)
Originally released about a year ago for $200, the Chumby-like Sony Dash Personal Internet Viewer can now be had for a mere $80 at Woot.com—the deal is good today only.
The Dash sports a 7-inch …
Watch the Navy Set a Boat on Fire with Their New Laser Gun
Remember the German guy who built his own working laser gun? That was nothing. The US Navy successfully tested their version of a weaponized laser, which they used to set fire to a boat off the coast of California.
Peter Morrison, program officer for the MLD warship raygun project says, “This is the first time a High Energy Laser, at …
Blind Gamer Uses Sound Design to Beat Video Games
You’d be hard-pressed to find a gamer who couldn’t hum a few bars of the theme music for Nintendo classic The Legend of Zelda. (It’s in your head right now, isn’t it?) But, one uniquely talented man uses the game’s sounds–and nothing else–to navigate through fan-favorite Zelda title The Ocarina of Time. But, since he’s blind, Terry …
Want Photoshop but Don’t Have $700? Rent It for $35 (New Tablet Apps, too)
Adobe rolls out subscription pricing
Adobe’s powerful-but-expensive Creative Suite of design products have just gotten a more wallet friendly pricing structure: monthly subscriptions.
Starting with the new Creative Suite 5.5 product line, you’ll have the option of buying the full or upgrade versions of various pieces of software such
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Boy Scouts Embrace Inner Geek with Robotics Merit Badge
Fortunately, there is already a “video game” badge. But wanna go super geek? They’ve just added a “robotics” badge if anyone is interested in creating their real-life version of Wall-E. (We like friendly robots here at Techland, not like ones in The Terminator.)
The face of the badge has one of the Mars range rovers in the …
Steve Jobs’ Authorized Biography Debuts Next Year
Steve’s official biography is coming. Entitled iSteve: The Book of Jobs, the tome is slated to hit bookshelves in early 2012. Biblical references aside, the manuscript, penned by Walter Isaacson, has been in the works since 2009.
The biography will contain interviews from Jobs’ family, colleagues and competitors. Most importantly, …
Twitter and Facebook Users: Getting Social on Fridays
Feeling guilty for sneaking in those few minutes of checking status updates or tweets at your work desk? Don’t. It’s Friday and, according to new research, you aren’t alone in your social media longings.
After analyzing more than 200 of its clients’ Facebook pages over two weeks, Buddy Media found that social media engagement …
Shots Fired: Sony CEO Calls the Nintendo 3DS a ‘Babysitting Tool’
Sony CEO Jack Tretton just bared his claws in a catty new interview with Fortune magazine. In the interview, Tretton had some particularly harsh words for Nintendo’s new ‘3d-without-glasses’ 3DS, calling it of all things a “babysitting tool.”
Here’s the quote:
Our view of the ‘Game Boy experience’ is that it’s a great babysitting
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