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iPad? Nein Danke Says Boing Boing
interesting take on the iPad from Boing Boing
2nd Apr 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
iPad Review
Pretty thorough video review of the iPad up (via PCMag). The latest Apple gadget launches in the US in the next couple of days. Whispers say it'll be the end of the month for the UK launch.
1st Apr 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
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Mili iPhone Projector
mini iPhone projector from Mili on the way - £229 from IWOOT
17th Mar 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
IMDBPhone
It's been a long time coming, but IMDB finally have their own iPhone App. At last, you can recall what Mel Gibson is actually famous for from the comfort of your local pub (Mad Max, Lethal Weapon, Braveheart, surprisingly not much else).
It's a pretty thorough recreation of their comprehensive website - and in many ways is a lot more intuitive.
#CSF
#Film
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4th Mar 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
How To Catch An iPhone Thief
brilliant/slightly terrifying tale of revenge from some tech-savvy dude who had his iPhone nicked. good ad for mobile.me too
3rd Feb 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
Leak! iTablet details dripping through
not sure if it will be the game-changer that everyone wants it to be, but Apple's all-new iThing is coming later today - more pre-release details here
27th Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
iTablet Jan 27
just in case you're dying to have another nice flat Apple box of tricks, the iTablet (or whatever they're going to call it) is probably going to be announced on Jan 27
19th Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
WIDI
Forget WIFI, WIDI is one of the new tech developments that has emerged at this year's CES show in Vegas. Shipping soon, the technology allows the new Intel chipsets to push the display over WIFI to an HDMI-equiped TV.
Might be the shot in the arm that the watch-internet-content-on-TV movement needs.
11th Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
Lego iPhone
alright, it's not quite the Lego/iPhone hybrid we've all been waiting for (no? just me?) but this app does a good job of Legoising your pics
#chimp71
#IPhone
#Photography
#Tech
11th Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
New Polaroid!
Polaroid's dead? Long live ... Polaroid! here's the PIC 1000, in a nice wood-style box
11th Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet
A>W>E>S>O>M>E / P>O>I>N>T>L>E>S>S>! Parrot AR.Drone
an iPhone-controlled wifi helicopter?! ooh it's the first A>W>E>S>O>M>E / P>O>I>N>T>L>E>S>S> product of the new decade! think the shot of the dude bugging his girlfriend on the sofa who's sensibly reading a magazine is a little bit too accurate
7th Jan 2010 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
gPhone 2.1
Google seem to be stepping up their mobile phone business, with Google Voice finding its feet in the US and the company now releasing its own unlocked, network-free handset - allegedly in January 2010.
The company has unofficially confirmed that it has given out handsets to its employees - which are built by HTC and are running a pumped up, unreleased version of Google's own Android operating system.
Meanwhile, Apple seems to be lining up to by VOIP provider iCall, which would give them a Google Voice of their own.
14th Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Lou Zoom
Lou Reed has launched a music-unrelated iPhone app, which seems to be a little short-sghted.
14th Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Invasion of Privacy
It's not just you that's been compromised by Facebook's recent change in privacy settings. Chief Facebooker Mark Zuckerberg's wasted-in-Tahoe photoset popped up, and Valleywag spread the word....
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11th Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
This Year in Tech: 1999 - Napster
Ten whole years have passed since the record industry finally had enough of those Napster chaps, and started to sue. Where are we now?
VIA: Wired
7th Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Digital Harinezumi
another lo-fi digital camera with built-in super 8 stylings (and no sound!) - the Digital Harinezumi
26th Nov 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
The Darkweb
what's on the rest of the net? (response from the Freenet creator here)
26th Nov 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
The Babelfish is Nearly Here
WIRED has the story. Get the App here.
25th Nov 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
This Day In Tech: The Flux Capacitor
According to archival footage, Brown was standing on his toilet seat on the evening of Nov. 5, 1955, attempting to hang a clock in his bathroom, when he slipped and slammed his head on the side of the sink. Upon regaining consciousness Brown reported having “a revelation, a picture, a picture in my head.” A picture which he crudely scrawled down on a piece of paper and subsequently spent 30 years of his life and family fortune to build.
WIRED have the story
5th Nov 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
More New Tech: Apple and Sony
tuesday is a well known day for press releases, but they could have spread them out a bit. As well as the new Canon camera being announced, Apple have rolled out an all-new iMac line - with full HD or bigger screens, in a TV-friendly 16:9 format and a new 'magic mouse'. They also have an updated Macbook with a polycarbonate unibody and have updated the Mac Mini line with more power + storage - and have even debuted a server version, which could be perfect for that home media centre. Although so would the 27" iMac, which you could also use as a TV.
Meanwhile, Sony have rolled out a couple of new high-end HD video cameras.
New tech announcements also coming from Red Camera on the 30th.
20th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Canon 1D Mark IV
Canon has released another DSLR camera with HD video capabilities and up to 102,400 ISO film speed (!That's high!), this time it's from the top-of-the-range 1D line. Boring specs here. Great low-light film sample below....
20th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Spotify on 3
The 3 mobile network is bringing Spotify under it's wing, with their new Google Android phone including £240 worth of credit for a 24 month Spotify premium account. Quite an incentive.
19th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Sky On Freeview
looks like the online TV world is going to keep expanding - Sky are working on a Freeview box with the ability to show Sky over the internet
19th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Polaroid Is Dead - Long Live Polaroid?
looks like the rumours of Polaroid's death might be slightly premature - a group of fans got together as The Impossible Project and have revived the idea:
"The Impossible Project inspires Polaroid to re-launch Instant Cameras
We are pleased to herewith announce a history making cooperation between Polaroid and The Impossible Project:
As we have created quite some buzz about Analog Instant Photography over the past 12 months, the Polaroid licensee - The Summit Global Group - now can't resist any longer and announced at a press conference on October 13th in Hongkong that they will re-launch some of the most famous Polaroid Instant Cameras.
Therefore they are commissioning The Impossible Project to develop and produce a limited edition of Polaroid branded Instant Films in the middle of 2010.
The Impossible Project is proud and excited that its ambitions and all the relentless work that has already been invested are now becoming the foundation for Polaroid's comeback as a producer of Instant Cameras.
Large-scale production and worldwide sale of The Impossible Project's new integral film materials under its own brand will already start in the beginning of 2010 - with a brand new and astonishing black and white Instant Film and the first colour films to follow in the course of the year."
19th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Slash // sorry
Tim Berners Lee - the dude who decided on internet conventions has admitted he shouldn't have bothered with the double slashes // at the start of everything...
14th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Spotify: One year on
Some interesting thoughts from Spotify boss Daniel Ek.
I'm still using Spotify on my phone. Not quite the iTunes replacement I was hoping for, but I'm enjoying the legitimacy....
12th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Lunar Lander: Crash Mission
Nasa's latest mission: to crash the LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) spacecraft into the moon to see if there's any water up there
8th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Hitchcock App Up
the Hitchcock storyboard app we mentioned a while back is up and running - it lets you work out film storyboards using photos on your iPhone. Vimeo demos here
23rd Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Lego Iggy Pop
Need i say more? Coming to a playground Xbox Rockband console near you soon.
Follow the links and you end up at this interesting Times article/interview, where Iggy offers some explaination for that "fucking embarrassing" insurance campaign he's currently fronting.
22nd Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
The 4 Hour Work Week
I'm aiming for a new zen-like existence after reading Tim Ferris' excellent book The 4 Hour Work Week. In fact, I've been living such an existence for many months now, meaning I didn't get round to writing this up.
The basic concept of the book deals with streamlining your work life to make you more efficient, giving you time to pursue recreational ambitions and further yourself. Luckily, it just about stays on the right side of being a self-growth, believe-in-yourself type load of spiritual mumbo-jumbo and focuses on practical applications, many of which are easily done, most notably checking your emails only once or twice a day, turning down troublesome work and sub-contracting many tasks - even to the point of hiring an assistant in India.
A major focus is the 80/20 principal, where 80% of a lot of things is unnecessary waffle, while 20% is the useful core. I imagine it's applicable on chimpomatic too, with 20% of our readers being loyal followers, while 80% are just here for the early word on Torchwood.
Once you're on top of your game, the fun begins - letting you blow 80% of your time on more fun pursuits, with Ferris having become a kick-boxing champion, a speed swimmer and even built up 34lbs of muscle in 4 weeks. Check out his excellent website for occasional tips on speaking a new language in 1 hour, sleeping better, travelling the world with 10lbs of luggage, speed reading, never forgetting anything, holidaying by twitter, getting a good table at top restaurants and more.
Ferris has become something of an internet personality in the wake of the book's success, making maximum use of the likes of Twitter and Facebook to rustle up followers and crowd-source content for his next book - and even knock out a possible TV show, where he learns a new skill per episode. All that stuff can actually get a bit annoying, and he sometimes seems so obsessed with efficiency that the writing can be a bit dry ("Post reading time: 15 minutes" etc.), and his collaborations with Digg founder Kevin Rose tend to make one of the two seem strangely closed-minded...
17th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Augment Me
Some good-looking augmented reality apps on the slate from developer Across Air. They are listed as being available 'as soon as iPhone OS 3.1 launches', which happened last week. Apparently that update included some code-improvements that will enable all this future mapping technology to unfold...
17th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
PYO Books
Thanks to the Google Books service, which has digitized several million out-of-copyright books, you can now print your own editions. Throw in the $100,000 expresso printer and you can even pop into a book store and get a nicely bound version of an out-of-print rarity for around $10. Wired has the details.
17th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
3D Printing
Printable trainers may still be a way off, but 3D printing is finally starting to make a bit more sense. Bruce Wayne used a computer to re-assemble and remove a finger print from a bullet in The Dark Knight, but CSI were way more up to speed with their tech, using 3D printing to sculpt a bullet - and then remove the finger print themselves.
Prototyping seems to be the main application so far, where silicon is used to build-up or cut out a precise 3 dimensional object based on detailed computer specification, and I did hear about 3D animators starting to use the technique to produce perfectly adjusted models.
With tech like this getting cheaper and cheaper it was only a matter of time before it becomes available to all of us and as Wired report, companies like Ponoko and Shapeways will begin to popularise the service. If only we can think of something to do with it.
16th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Spotify For iPhone: Review
With a ton of never-played-CDs archived around my house, I've been looking for a reason to get rid of them and move forwards with technology. Spotify has been looking like a likely candidate to fill that gap for a while - although with little difference between their offering and the likes of Real Player or the current incarnation of Napster, I'm not sure why - as I would never have gone near them. I think their stand-alone app (and now iPhone/Android app) just came along at the right time, as the market matured to a suitable place.
At £10 a month it rivals the price of buying a new CD per month - with around 80% of the other music in the world thrown in as a bonus, although it is always disappointing when they don't have something - and as the Chimp iTunes is loaded with pre-release stuff it often seems a little behind. New releases generally become available as soon as you can buy them however, and a simple small auto-playlist from iTunes could fill the remaining gap.
I was a little unsure of the sound quality at first, though suspected my fading headphones to be the more guilty party - and Hot For Teacher sounded better and clearer than ever. While listening over 3G there were minor delays between tracks and it dropped out in a couple of notorious 3G black spots en route to work, but generally it's very acceptable. Changing the way you think about using the app can certainly improve things and offline syncing of playlists is a simple task - but it's the playlists themselves that highlight the main issue with both the desktop app and the phone version - the organisation of music. If you could sort and search within playlists like iTunes, you could easily build up favourite playlists, ratings and dynamic playlists too. Importing your owned music from iTunes would also be a major bonus.
With the desktop version of Spotify only at version 0.3.19 however, it's a very reasonable assumption that there's plenty more to come - and any success is bound to be met with a retaliatory offering from Apple, or at the very least Napster and Real Rhapsody - both of which allegedly have mobile versions under development. Exciting times.
P.S. Since launching the iPhone version, Spotify has reverted to an invite-only service in the UK. We have 2 invites for any struggling listeners in UK, Spain Sweden, Norway, Finland or France.
14th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Google Timeline
Nice timeline for the Google corporate history over here. Why am I not surprised that Larry and Sergey were off to Burning Man in 1998?
14th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Google Map Monopoly
Looks like Monopoly is coming to a Google Map near you, with a new online version of the game allowing you to play across the entire world and let you buy your own road.
The official site isn't isn't live yet, but there's a blog - and Wired have seen a demo.
UPDATE: It's now live, but overloaded...
11th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
New iPod Time (again)
the Nano now comes with video so you can film your awesome pals being totally awesome. looks like they're going after that Flip point/shoot/youtube market
10th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Spotify For iPhone Is Here
In the app store now. Test drive coming soon, on a day pass if possible.
UPDATE: Day pass is not possible, so I guess a more thorough test is coming soonish.
UPDATE: I'm up and running - just need to remember to use it now. I have two invites if any struggling citizens in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France or Spain are on the sniff.
7th Sep 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
More Hitler Outrage
This time he's mad about not being able to have the latest camera tech. I think this may well be the next Rick-roll.
3rd Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
HTML 5
You'll need a VERY up to date browser to get this high-tech website working, as it makes heavy use of the upcoming HTML 5 standard. Safari 4 / Firefox 3.1+ should do it.
3rd Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Tech: Just Good Enough
Interesting article up at Wired about how the bleeding edge is often giving way to cheap and cheerful - for video cameras, to combat aircraft to mp3s...
3rd Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Spotify For iPhone
Apple have said Spotify can come over and play. It's been accepted for the App store and will be available 'soon' for premium users.
Meanwhile, Sony have commented that Spotify brings in more income for them than the iTunes store...
iTunes 9 seems likely to arrive next week, with added social networking features. Let's see if Apple also come up with a service to compete with Spotify, which wouldn't be hard for them.
29th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
20 Years of Satellite TV
Interesting article up at Wired about the first direct-to-consumer satellite TV, launched by BSB in 1989.
28th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Crank It Up
Go green with Pearl Jam during festival season. The band have worked with Global Inheritance to provide hand-cranked audio players at a Bay Area festival, allowing you to flex your muscles and listen to four tracks from their new album.
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28th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Twitterfy
The media mash-up continues, with Spotify adding Twitter capabilities, to allow you to post a link to the playlist/song/artists that you are listening too. Handy, if not as well presented as the excellent blip.fm
27th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
How Many Roads?
yes, indeed, we'll finally be able to find out how many roads a man needs to walk down as a new Bob Dylan-voiced satnav is on the way
26th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Apple Tablet really happening?
is the long-mooted Apple Tablet really about to beam into our lives?
24th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans
WIRED have roped Brad Pitt into contributing to their guide to modern living - and by the brevity of his answers you can almost believe it's really him....
Here's some favourites:
- Fleece and company logos don't mix
- Kill your zombie brother. He's not your brother. He's a zombie.
- Keep music mixes for friends to 60 minutes or less.
- Back up your hard drive. Right now.
- Don't send out a follow-up email apologizing for a typo in a previous email
- For marital peace, keep separate Netflix queues
- Never post a picture of yourself shirtless in your dating profile (men only).
21st Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Ads With Video
yes, we've had ads with video for quite a while now - but not in magazines... perkily-named US company Americhip has been working on Video-In-Print tech, with a tiny screen that you can imbed straight into a mag, and even recharge it via USB if you want to watch their ads again...
20th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
CMX v Project Cocktail
report on the new CMX download format that's supposed to be coming packed w lyrics, artwork, mobile and video bits blah blah - will Apple's Project Cocktail beat it? Who comes up with these names?
19th Aug 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet