Virtual goods, real money — our video of day one of Virtual Goods Summit

Here’s our video of the first day of the Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco. Virtual goods in games and social apps have taken off and revenues are expected to hit $1 billion in 2009. Yesterday, speakers at the “university day” talked about the basics of virtual goods and how to best integrate them into games and social networks. Hundreds of attendees are expected to hit the sold-out event again today. Check out the video below, as well as our preview interview with Norwest’s Tim Source: VentureBeat RSS Feed

Dress your iPhone for the holidays

I know that it’s barely Halloween and a month from Thanksgiving, but if you have been wondering what to dress your iPhone in for the holidays, I have something for you… They are Christmas inspired covers from Brando. There are five different styles that feature Santa, snowmen, Christmas trees … [visit site to ]

Filed in categories: News, Spotlight Gadgets, iPhone related

Tagged: Cover, iPhone

Dress your iPhone for the holidays originally appeared on The GadgeteerSource: TechBlogger RSS Feed

Zong announces expansion of its mobile payments business

Zong is expanding its mobile payment service in hopes of reaching a larger mass market of people who could find it convenient paying for items in games or other applications with their mobile phones instead of credit cards.

Today, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is announcing Zong+, a new service that will exist alongside Zong’s original service, which uses cell phone carriers to fulfill mobile payments. By contrast, Zong+ does not use the carriers to handle billing and itSource: Venture Beat RSS Feed

Nintendo DSi LL two jumbo 4.2-inch screens

Nintendo announced that the “Nintendo DSi LL” will go on sale starting November 21st, 2009, at a retail price of 20,000 en, including tax (about $220). The DSi LL will’ve two supersized 4.2" screens, with the LL standing for large size, that help the device be more functional as a mobile internet device, a music player. Like the DSi, the DSi LL gets an SD slot, but lacks the Gameboy Advance slot that the DS Lite has. Other input/output slots include the DS Card Slot, AC Source: D' Technology Weblog RSS Feed

MapQuest Teams Up with HauntWorld for Haunted House Search

If you like to be terrified, then the days and weeks leading up to Halloween are for you. One of Halloween's favorite traditions is the Haunted House and if you need help finding ones in your area, MapQuest has come to the rescue.

They've teamed up with HauntWorld to provide a Haunted House search. Simply go to MapQuest.com and either type in a city or zoom in to a city. Click the ghost icon on the On Map Search Tool. Ghost icons will appear on the map indicating the location ofSource: Search Engine Watch Blog RSS Feed

Renault Twingo V8 Trophy Picks Up Where Clio V6 Left Off [Custom Cars]

Remember the Renault Clio V6? Well Lazareth has taken the basic concept of sticking a big engine in the back seats of a little car one step further with a tinier Twingo and a bigger, Range Rover-sourced V8.

Mounting a 180 HP 3.5-liter Range Rover V8 in a custom subframe in the rear of a Renault Twingo, French customizer Lazareth has turned the most utilitarian of superminis-headlights were optional when the car first went on sale in 1992-into a supercar eater. Virtually everythingSource: Jalopnik RSS Feed

Sprint Palm Pixi price and release date announced: $99.99 starting November 15

Sprint and Palm have just announced that the Palm Pixi (the world’s second webOS smartphone) would be available in the US starting November 15.

The price of Palm Pixi will be a rather attractive one: $99.99 with a 2-yr contract agreement, after a $50 instant rebate and a $100 mail-in rebate.

Customers will be able to buy the Pixi online, in Sprint stores, via telesales (at 1-800-SPRINT1), or from Best Buy, Wal-Mart and RadioShack.

As you probably already know, the Pixi Source: Unwired View RSS Feed

Ekahau T301W Wristband

In this age, people normally use a cell phone to track their child.  Although this is sometimes a savvy decision, some parents are finding that their child is either losing their mobile phone or abusing the phone.  The Ekahau T301W wristband uses a Wi-Fi technology to pinpoint a child’s location information to a parent.  The Ekahau T301W wristband is small and waterproof which makes it even more attractive.

The Ekahau T301W wristband is not a GPS system, although it is similar.  Source: Gadgettastic RSS Feed

facial recognition tech helps tvs save power

This new technology from Hitachi automatically detects when you’re actually watching your television, then shuts the display off whenever you’re not looking.

By using advanced facial recognition technology, the monitor can tell when your eyes are on the TV screen, and keeps it turned on only when you’re actually watching. Jump to the 45 second mark on the video below to see an early prototype of the technology in action (or watch the whole thing to see some other cool HitachiSource: technabob RSS Feed

Muybridge Zoetrope papercraft

Grant Thomas, of Making Visual Narratives, pointed us to this free, printable papercraft Zoetrope, featuring the famous motion photos of Eadweard Muybridge.

Free Printable Papercraft Eadweard Muybridge Zoetrope

More:
Laser cut & animated Muybridge horses
Grotesque Menagerie

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This is no phone; it's an ultrasound machine

This is the GE VScan portable ultrasound machine. Yes, it looks almost exactly like a flip phone, but you can't make any calls on it.

Instead, it's designed to make giving ultrasounds cheaper and easier, reducing the number of referrals and improving diagnoses. Because more doctors will be able to have these things, they'll be able to use them instead of sending patients elsewhere. Also, they can carry one in their purse in case they really need to do an ultrasound on the go, whichSource: DVICE RSS Feed

Automatic image index-maker software

Our own Matt Mets put me onto this program called Montage from the open-source ImageMagick suite. Shown above is Matt's image "Things in my kitchen," and here is the command line to Montage that produced it:

montage +frame +shadow +label -tile 10x8 -borderwidth 1 -background white -bordercolor white -geometry 200x133 *.jpg stuff.jpg

As you can see, Montage takes all the work out of combining a bunch of individual images into an array of images, dealing automatically with allSource: MAKE: Blog RSS Feed

It’s not just Microsoft. Google and Twitter agreement reached.

We posted news earlier of Microsoft’s announcement to integrate Twitter search into its search engine Bing.

We, as many of you, were under the assumption this would be exclusively a Microsoft-Twitter agreement, giving the Redmond company a distinct advantage over its competitors, namely Google. We were all wrong and we’re back to square one…Google is in on the action too as Google’s Marissa Mayer announces:

“At Google, our goal is to create the most comprehensive,Source: The Next Web RSS Feed

Archos Archos 9 PC Tablet Gains Release [Archos 9 Intel Atom Z Powered PC Tablet Hits Stores at £449.99]

I am sure that by now you are more than familiar with Archos, a French computer maker that has launched quite a few of interesting Internet Tablets over the years. And since today is Microsoft’s Windows 7 day, the company took the opportunity to announce the Archos 9 PCTablet officially.
(more…)

See: Archos Archos 9 PC Tablet Gains Release [Archos 9 Intel Atom Z Powered PC Tablet Hits Stores at £449.99]

Posted in Computers, Devices, PCs & Notebooks on 2009/10/22 TFTS Source: Nexus404 RSS Feed

Harmonix calls for an encore in Gibson patent case

The patent suit brought by Gibson against Harmonix and other parties related to Guitar Hero and Rock Band was stayed due to the US Patent and Trademark Office deciding to reexamine the patent. According to Patent Arcade, Harmonix and a group of retailers have asked a Tennessee court to continue proceedings -- of the case against them.
Why is Harmonix engaging in this seemingly self-destructive (but not in the cool rock star way) behavior? When the USPTO looked into the patent again, it Source: Houstonist RSS Feed

Samsung Computers Gain Instant-On Technology in 2010 [jkOnTheRun]

Chalk up another win for the folks at Phoenix Technologies. The company known for its efforts in the BIOS arena inked a deal to use Phoenix Hyperspace on Samsung mobile computers starting in 2010. In the press release, Samsung’s PC division executives say:

“As the world’s fastest growing vendor in the ultra mobile computing market, Samsung is committed to bring to market innovative technology solutions that simplify consumers’ lives. Working with Phoenix, we plan to deliver to Source: GigaOM Network RSS Feed

Sakaguchi: unannounced Mistwalker project in 'finishing stage'

In late April, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi mentioned on his blog that he was working on a new project, while showing off the totally sweet Lego truck he made in his spare time. Now he's got an update on this mysterious game -- and an update on his Lego modeling.
In the latest blog post, Sakaguchi said, "I am working hard on a new project. Now we are being rushed into the 'finishing' stage. No matter what, I will make it really good...." And judging by the tiny surfingSource: Houstonist RSS Feed

Blue Screen of Death Belt Buckle

Ladies and Gentlegeeks, behold! Here is what could possibly be the ultimate in geek fashion: The BSOD belt!

Currently priced at $16.95 at Geek Gone Chic, you too can now sport your very own BSOD error message for all to see. The belt fabric is made out of a cotton/acrylic blend, and the clam style closure buckle is in metal, with the BSOD picture in front sealed under a gloss finish to protect it from abuse.

[BSOD Belt @ Geek Gone Chic]

:

1. BSOD: Blue Screen ofSource: Geeks are Sexy RSS Feed

Mysterious HTC Android phone spied, might lean the way of the Dragon

In an almost perfect world, this spy shot would be of the rumored HTC Dragon, reminiscent of the HD2 with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and packing the latest version of Android / Sense UI -- in a more perfect world, this would all have been confirmed last week and in our hands today delivered via unicorn express, but that's obviously not happening. Still, there's something new and exciting about this device, but we're grasping at straws beyond the handful of pics The Unlockr managed toSource: Engadget RSS Feed

QUE e-Reader with Large Touchscreen, Powered by B&N

It must be national e-book day and nobody told me. Early this morning we heard about the dual-screen reader from Spring Design and now the folks at Plastic Logic have outed the QUE proReader. And by “outed,” I mean pre-announced — the official debut of the QUE isn’t until the Consumer Electronics Show in January of 2010. That’s when we’ll get some hands-on time with the 8.5″ by 11″ e-book that’s only a third of an inch thick. The Barnes & Noble online store will provideSource: jkOnTheRun RSS Feed

The Realistic Digital Slot Car Raceway

The common slot cars are controlled by a single button that can variablly control the speed of the car dependend on how hard you press it. The aim is to get around the track repeatidly as fast as you can without being thrown off on a corner.

A new version of the classic slot cars have been made and it’s called The Realistic Digital Slot Car Raceway. The difference here is that you have to do more than just drive around the track repeatidly. In this version you have to drive aroundSource: Gadget Venue RSS Feed

‘Alex’, An Android-Powered, Dual Screen E-Book Reader

It used to be that “convergence” meant putting two different (but hopefully complementary) devices into the same case. Scratch that. This still happens today, as proved by the Alex, a long box with an e-book reader in one end and an Android-powered cellular device in the other. The dual-screen device, from a company called Spring Design, is like a Pop-Tart with jelly in one end and baloney in the other.

The Alex (we have no idea about that name) aims to strike a balance between theSource: Gadget Lab RSS Feed

1991 Alfa Romeo 164 L [Down On The Street]

Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. You don't see many 1990s Alfa Romeos on the island.

Actually, you don't see many Alfas on the island, period; our last one was this '65 Giulia SS, which we last winter. Before that, we had this 164 L- a '91, just like today's car. What are the odds?
Alfa Romeo stopped selling cars in North America in 1995, and it was pretty clear to Source: Jalopnik RSS Feed

Pretty Emblems And Engines From The Island That Rust Forgot [Car Shows]

While most of you know my city for its street-parked old cars, Alameda also boasts plenty of high-buck-type show cars. Once a year, they take over the island's main drag.

Organized by the refreshingly old-school gearheads at Lee Auto Supply, the Park Street Auto Show always brings in the usual crop of really cool shoebox Chevies, first-gen Camaros and Mustangs, and so on; while we all like those cars, we've seen enough of them in the context of car shows that I think a singleSource: Jalopnik RSS Feed

Open Web Awards for Social Media: 30,000+ Nominations and Counting

Mashable’s Open Web Awards: Social Media Edition, which aims to find the very best people and apps in social media, is off to a flying start. We’ve received over 30,000 nominations for more than 13,000 unique companies, apps and individuals.

Next week, we’ll begin highlighting interesting nominees here on Mashable, helping the social media leaders of 2009 get heard, regardless of whether you get through to the next round. In the meantime, be sure to submit your nominations atSource: Mashable RSS Feed

New Trailer for Acclaimed Claymation Film Mary and Max

When the claymation film Mary and Max premiered at Sundance in January, it was met with great acclaim. (It’s currently at 95% at Rottentomatoes.)  The film marks the feature debut of Adam Elliot, who won an Oscar with his short film Harvie Krumpet. It tells the story of an unlikely friendship. Mary is a young Australian girl with no friends. She becomes penpals with Max, an aging and obese man from New York who has a great number of neurosis and insecurities. The film’s style is a bitSource: SlashFilm RSS Feed

Wes Anderson Speaks About ‘Directing Via Email’ Controversy on Fantastic Mr Fox

It is unfortunate that the impending release of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox has been overshadowed to some extent by the controversy over his directing technique for the film. A few weeks ago, word came out that Tristan Oliver, the film’s director of photography, was less than impressed with Anderson’s choice to remain away from set much of the time. The initial storm was minor, but blew up more in the last few days after the LA Times ran an article featuring some incendiary quotes Source: SlashFilm RSS Feed

Let’s push not pull — Collecta turns to XMPP for real-time APIs

Real-time search engine Collecta is turning to XMPP, the instant messaging protocol also powering Google Wave, in its efforts to court outside developers into creating new applications for its results.

The company, which already bases its core architecture on XMPP, is releasing a second set of application programming interfaces using the protocol today. One of about a dozen startups racing to offer the best search results from what’s just been published on the web, Collecta pullsSource: Venture Beat RSS Feed

MOG Over Promises And Under Delivers With New Music Service

Here’s the next contestant in the never ending stream of music services, each of which, inevitably, slide into financial disaster at some point. Music service MOG says they’ll launch MOG All Access by Thanksgiving this year. It’s an on demand music streaming and Internet radio service that will cost $5 per month. The four major labels – Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music Group and EMI Music are on board, plus thousands of indie labels via IODA and BeggarsSource: TechCrunch.com RSS Feed

Opera Turns Your Computer Into a Server

Update:Opera has released the beta version of Opera Unite in Opera 10.10 beta.
Original Article:Today Opera has released a product (as promised), which it claims reinvents the web. That may seem like an exaggerated statement, but it's an interesting concept nonetheless.
The product is called Opera Unite, and it is available at labs.opera.com. What Opera Unite does, is basically turn your computer into both a client and a server. It eliminates the need for third-party servers.

Source: WebPro News RSS Feed

Eufloria (AKA Dyson) Comes Out Next Week, 25% Off Through Direct2Drive Preorder

Eufloria is a fascinating take on the RTS genre which gives you control over automated "mining robots" that you in turn use to colonize an asteroid belt. As the game itself is inspired by organic plant-like biological processes, your grow your units through tree-esque structures and direct them like seeds to progress from asteroid to asteroid. I am a huge fan of procedurally generated content and Eufloria features the concept heavily. Originally titled Dyson, the game has won numerous indie Source: GayGamer.net RSS Feed

Abrams' Star Trek Film on a Flash Drive

Abrams' version of Star Trek is credited as a wildly successful reboot of the sci-fi series, despite of some weird plot holes. Now that the film will be released on physical media (i.e. DVD and Blu-ray) on November 17th. At the same time, a limited quantity will also be made available for fans who would love to own a digital copy of the movie on a flash drive that resembles the signature Starfleet communicator badge.

The individually numbered flash badge has 4GB, but only 1GBSource: Everything USB RSS Feed

Inno3D GeForce GT220 and GeForce 210 released

Today is the launch date of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 and GeForce 210, two new 40nm GPUs with DirectX 10.1 support, these cards replace the GeForce 9500 GT and GeForce 8400 GS. The first company to inform us about their new graphics cards is Inno3D. Their GeForce GT 220 has 48 stream processors, 625MHz GPU, 1360MHz shaders, 128-bit memory bus and 1GB memory. The GeForce 210 on the other hand has just 16 stream processors, a 589MHz core, 1402MHz shaders, 64-bit memory bus and 512MB of DDR2 or Source: DV Hardware RSS Feed

Bi-Plane Pilot Does Best Maverick Impression Atop Blue Angel [Planelopnik]

Sean Tucker flying his Oracle Challenger bi-plane inverted over U.S. Marine Corps Major Nathan Miller, flying a F/A-18 Blue Angel, over this weekend's San Francisco Fleet Week. No word whether Tucker's attempt at "communicating" resulted in any birds being flipped.

Photo Credit: Ben Margot/AP Photo

Source: Jalopnik RSS Feed

New in the Maker Shed: Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction

In Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction toy designer John Austin provides detailed, step-by-step instructions for building 35 devices include catapults, slingshots, minibombs, darts, and combustion shooters. Once you've built your armory, the author provides plans for a Top Secret Concealing Book to hide your stash, as well as targets for shooting practice. Never let your personal space go undefended again!

We've come a long way from the Peashooter Era: with the advent of modernSource: MAKE: Blog RSS Feed

Garmin Forerunner 310XT Review

I’m an avid bike rider and attend the good old gym on a regular basis. One thing I’ve long failed to do is keep track of my workouts – I don’t even have a little black book to record my mileage or ’sets’ completed. Enter the Garmin Forerunner 310XT.

The Forerunner 310XT is Garmin’s first fully fledged GPS watch to offer not only a myriad of workout and tracking options, but is waterproof up to 50m. Aesthetically it’s a bit on the large side, but that lends itself to aSource: Gadget Review RSS Feed

Tweetmeme Adds Analytics To Make Sense Of Twitter Links

As Twitter grows, with an estimated 50 million+ live accounts, it is increasingly becoming an important source of traffic for many Websites. But getting a handle on how much traffic it is actually delivering, where it is coming from, and the viral nature of that traffic is a real challenge. Today, “social media experts” everywhere can rejoice because Tweetmeme is launching Tweetmeme Analytics, which offers a full dashboard showing how many times a link has been tweeted, retweeted, andSource: TechCrunch.com RSS Feed

Kohjinsha PA and PM series hands-on (video)

Dual-panel netbooks weren't the only takeaway from Kohjinsha's CEATEC booth, as the company also had on hand a pair of sleek MIDs. Both lightweight, Windows XP-powered touchscreen portables, the PA boasted a 4.8-inch swivel display with 1024 x 600 resolution, a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 with 512MB RAM, a 32GB SSD , and a sleek industrial design. The PM is actually a bit old hat now, living a double life as the mbook M1. Still, both had very responsive screens and decent front-mount cameras,Source: Engadget RSS Feed

QNX CAR showcased at Adobe MAX

Adobe’s on a roll, putting flash into all kinds of devices. Expect lots of announcements this week as the Adobe MAX Conference gets underway. For example, over the weekend, news reports said that Adobe would extend flash to just about every phone in the market – except iPhone. The message is that with Flash 10.1, content that had previously only been available to desktop browsers will now be accessible on handheld devices.

The less talked about impact of Adobe’s plans is thatSource: Alec Saunders RSS Feed

What's The Best Police Car? [Question Of The Day]

In honor of the debut of the new Chevy Caprice police car we're resurrecting a favorite question. With the new cars on patrol, what's the best police car?

Previously, we'd answered the BC3 Mustang police cruiser from the 1980s in Texas DPS highway patrol black/brown/white livery. But then we saw the Victoria Police Divisional Van, which is a Holden VE Omega ute with a custom bed that combines the best features of an El Camino with the necessary space requirements of a car. Throw in a Source: Jalopnik RSS Feed

Adobe Announces Upcoming Flash Player 10.1 for Mobile Devices and PCs

Adobe today unveiled Adobe Flash Player 10.1 software for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other Internet-connected devices. A public developer beta of the browser-based runtime is expected to be available for Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year. Public betas for Google Android and Symbian OS are expected to be available in early 2010. Flash Player 10.1 is the first consistent runtime release of the Open Source: SlashPhone RSS Feed

HTC Touch HD2 gets spec'd, rumored for T-Mobile UK

By all accounts, HTC's shooting to create the be-all, end-all king of the Windows Mobile dominion with its mighty Leo / HD2 / Touch HD2 / whatever it's called -- and a comprehensive list of specs published over on xda-developers would certainly back up that statement. Notable items on the list include the previously known 1GHz MSM8250 (that's a Snapdragon, by the bye), full HSPA with up to 7.2Mbps on the downlink, a stunning 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive display (allegedly with multitouch supportSource: Engadget RSS Feed

‘Power Loader’ exoskeleton suit

Engineers from Activelink, a Kyoto-based subsidiary of Panasonic, are hoping to turn science fiction into reality with a powerful robotic exoskeleton suit that gives its operator superhuman strength.

+ Video

The so-called “Power Loader” suit — which takes its name from the fictional hydraulic exoskeleton suit appearing in the sci-fi classic “Aliens” (1986) — is built on an aluminum-alloy frame and weighs 230 kilograms (500 lbs). Described as a “dual-arm powerSource: Remove The Labels RSS Feed

Softkinetic to launch Silhouette gesture-control game

Softkinetic makes software necessary to convert body gestures captured by cameras into controls for video game systems. That’s a nascent market whose surface has only been scratched by the Sony EyeToy and the Nintendo Wii. So Brussels, Belgium-based Softkinetic is now launching its own game to stimulate the market for gesture-controlled games

The strategy is a shift for Softkinetic, which previously focused on making the middleware software for gesture-control systems. It also hasSource: VentureBeat RSS Feed