Don’t get me wrong: I hate my iPhone. I only got one after I accidentally left my Droid on a bus. So I’m not coming to you as a wide-eyed enthusiast, the sort who thinks everything that Apple makes is pure gold. I don’t play Angry Birds, I don’t have a set of bejeweled Hello Kitty cases, and every day I think wistfully of the BlackBerry …
Gadgets
Amazon-Owned Netflix Rival to Launch Streaming Service in U.S.?
Move over, Netflix, there might be another streaming video-on-demand company angling for your crown.
Lovefilm, the European version of Netflix that was purchased by Amazon at the start of the year, is rumored to be close to launching in new international territories, according to a recent interview with the company’s Chief Marketing …
Justice Department Looks to Block T-Mobile-AT&T Deal
Updated at 11:53am Eastern with Justice Department press release and statement from AT&T…
The Justice Department has filed an antitrust complaint against AT&T in the hopes of preventing the $39 million T-Mobile-AT&T merger proposed earlier this year.
The filing states that, “AT&T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, …
Apple: We’ll Take That 3G MacBook Pro Prototype Back, Thanks
Apple made a 3G-enabled MacBook Pro? Who knew! And did you know someone got their hands on one and listed it on eBay earlier this month, where it almost sold for a whopping $70,000? Apple put the kibosh on that one, of course, contacting eBay to have the auction liquidated. And now they’re after North Carolina resident Carl Frega to …
Samsung Galaxy S II: Why I’m Not Buying It (Yet)
Bravi, Samsung and U.S. wireless service providers. You’ve finally brought the Samsung Galaxy S II stateside, four months after the rest of the world began enjoying the phone’s ultra-thin design, dual-core processor, Super AMOLED display and 8-megapixel camera.
In the tech world, that’s a lifetime. I remember having serious gadget …
Sony’s New 3D Head-Mounted Display Probably Hipper than Viewmaster
So Sony’s launching a new 3D head-mounted display, which looks like a pair of goggles you could sit a couple action figures in and take for a pretend Jetson-style spin. Ugly? Check. Cumbersome? Check. Potentially deadly if worn while ambling across the room to pluck an adult beverage from the fridge? Check.
Didn’t we used to call this …
How Not to Get Scammed into Buying a Fake Wooden iPad
The golden rule is that if you’re buying grey market products, always take the device out of the box to check it before you go home. The secondary golden rule is that you don’t buy from a dude who has a gold tooth in the middle of a McDonald’s parking lot. And that is the story of how one Ashley McDowell of Spartanburg, South …
Check Out These New Windows 8 Features and Screenshots
As we wait for Windows 8 to amble its way into the market, we’ll be fed teaser posts and screenshots for what seems like an eternity. That’s all part of the fun, though. On that note, Microsoft’s Building Windows 8 blog recently took the wraps off of the upcoming operating system’s revamped “Windows Explorer” features—you know, the
…
Want a Green Funeral? Liquefy Your Body with the ‘Resomator’!
If the title of this post alone makes you queasy, you might want to minimize your browser and finish whatever you’re eating before proceeding. No really. It involves things someone might do to your corpse after you’re dead, namely liquefaction, a lovely word, whose synonyms include “liquidize,” “deliquesce” and my personal favorite, …
HP TouchPad Might Not Be Dead After All
HP’s TouchPad tablets might not be gone for good, even after the fire sale ends. A company executive believes that the doomed tablet, which was more popular in death than in life, could make a comeback if HP spins off its personal computer business.
The TouchPad was on the market for about six weeks before HP announced that it would …
Supermarket Rolls Out Shopping Carts with Built-in iPad Docks
We’ve all been there; wandering aimlessly up and down the grocery aisles, silently screaming, “My kingdom for an iPad dock on this shopping cart!”
One supermarket chain in the U.K. is looking to do the unthinkable by rolling out (pun intended!) shopping carts—or “trolleys” as they’re charmingly called across the pond—with built-in …
Two Bickering Chatbots Video: Artificial Intelligence Gone Awry
More like artificial fun-telligence, am I right? Eggheads have been working for years—years!—to perfect chatbots to the point that real people won’t be able to tell that they’re actually conversing with software, not other humans.
The technology has come a long way, but what happens when you pair two chatbots together to converse …