View original post found on Gizmodo authored by Jason Chen
August 7th, 2008 — iPhone
The Gadget: Brando’s Power Station, a portable battery pack for your iPhone that slides easily into your dock connection for charging away from a socket or a USB connection. The Power Station, in turn, is charged from ITS dock connection, so you can use the same charger for both devices. Comes in white and black.
The Price: $25
The Verdict: Works as advertised. In our tests, it charged our iPhone 3G from 10% to 60% in about an hour, after which charging stopped altogether because the pack was out of juice. We then used another pack to take our iPhone from 60% to 100% in about another hour. Great for emergency days when you’re low on power from a frantic 3G browsing session earlier that morning.
The only complaint we’d have is that unlike other chargers that wrap around the iPhone to secure itself in place, the Power Station only connects via the dock. This results in a flimsy connection that might snap off if you’re not careful. So be careful and don’t stick the phone in your pocket when this is docked.
At a price of $25, it’s the cheapest iPhone battery pack that we’ve seen. Despite its drawbacks (only charges about half the phone’s battery and is sort of flimsy when connected), we’d still recommend it as a backup battery for emergencies. [Brando]
Side note: The original unit Brando sent us was defective and would alternate between charging state and plugged-in state, eventually going to DRAINING state. If you get one of these, call them up and get a replacement as it’s obviously not supposed to drain your phone.
View original post found on Gizmodo authored by Jason Chen
July 30th, 2008 — gear
The Gadget: The ViDock Gfx, a box with an ATI 2600XT inside that allows you to add two DVI displays to your ExpressCard Laptop (e.g. MacBook Pro). It doesn’t affect your current display setup, which might already have an external monitor being driven by the on-board DVI port, which means you can have a total of three external displays plus your MacBook Pro’s going at the same time. Mac and Windows versions are available in both 128MB and 256MB flavors, running at up to 2560×1600 resolution.
The Price: Still TBD
The Verdict: Multitasking bliss. We were able to add two 19-inch, 1280×1024 monitors to our 15-inch MacBook Pro without breaking a sweat. The two extra monitors (we were already running a 30-inch Dell off the internal DVI port) had very little slowdown while being powered through our ExpressCard port, and handled HD video like the Watchmen trailer without any signs of tears or imminent exploding.
What we did notice was that the unit was LOUD. In our pre-production unit, the fan ran started quietly on boot, but ramped up to 100% after a minute or two. It was loud enough to give us AND our unborn children a migraine. The people at Villagetronic said their release units would be softer, but note that the ATI 2600XT throws out a lot of heat. To us this means that you probably shouldn’t expect this to be too much softer. Just something to watch out for if you need to use this in a quiet production environment. The other annoyance we’ve found is that the ExpressCard connection can’t be hot-plugged on OS X, so you have to shut down your machine every time you want to swap in or out of the multi-monitor setup or else you’ll get that curtain of death. Villagetronic tells us that it’s a bug that Apple will fix in the future.
Is this great for multitasking? Oh sweet jeebus yes. You can have all your applications open at the same time, spread eagled across your four displays like Stalin planning to push the Nazis back into Germany (apologies for that undoubtedly historically inaccurate statement). Is it worth the as-of-yet-undetermined cost? Hard to say. Something like this won’t be cheap, but if you’re like us and value every pixel of your screen as if it’s the last chopper out of Saigon (sorry again!), you’ll look long and hard at the ViDock Gfx. [Villagetronic]
View original post found on Gizmodo authored by Adam Frucci
July 14th, 2008 — music
The Radiohead video for “House of Cards” that used no cameras or lights, only fancy lasers, just hit the web, and it’s just as crazy and trippy as the screenshots suggested. Above, check out the video, while after the jump you’ll find another video that details just how it was made. Did I mention that because this video is pure data instead of images you can manipulate it in real time using a visualizer? Because you can.
Also be sure to check out the awesome visualizer, which lets you manipulate the data to adjust the image and rotate around the objects in real-time. The most fun time waster you’ll find all week, guaranteed. [Radiohead]
View original post found on Gizmodo authored by Jesus Diaz
July 10th, 2008 — iPhone
The new iPhone OS 2.0 software has been unlocked and jailbroken. It was released just hours ago and it has already been cracked by the iPhone Dev Team. The first one took a couple of months, but this one was actually unlocked before Apple released it to the public. And you have had the proof in front of you all morning.
If you were wondering how I was doing push email tests on iPhone OS 2.0 and Vodafone UK, this is the reason why. The code wizard commandos at the iPhone Dev Team have been working on this non-stop since the early days of beta testing. In fact, I had iPhone OS 2.0 running on my iPhone since last week. That was version 5A345, two below 5A347, but identical in functionality.
Now that the official iPhone OS 2.0 is out, the iPhone Dev Team will release their Pwnage tool for everyone to unlock and jailbreak their iPhones soon. It may not be as interesting as before—since most countries now have the iPhone and it will be impossible to buy without doing a contract first—but people looking to install unsigned applications and buy pay-as-you-go cards while traveling—instead of roaming—will find it very useful.
And besides, we don’t get tired of seeing the Death Star exploding again and again. [iPhone Dev Team Portal]
View original post found on Gizmodo authored by Mark Wilson
July 1st, 2008 — iPhone
Kudos to AT&T. They've assembled a very useful FAQ page and cut several videos to lay out all the necessities of picking up an iPhone 3G. It includes topics like what you should have on hand if you're transferring a phone number from another carrier (bring you current wireless bill, they suggest, along with your old account PIN or passwords), the costs of various plans (they start at $69, but expect to be jacked for text messaging), the unsubsidized price of an iPhone ($399 for 8GB, $499 for 16GB), and the unlocked, unsubsidized price of the iPhone ($599 for 8GB, $699 for16GB). So hit the links if ever wondered if hair will start growing in funny places once you buy your new iPhone (which it will). [iPhone FAQ and Helpful Videos]
For a shortcut to plan pricing, read on:
As for the subsidized iPhone pricing, AT&T has clarified that it's available for "new customers, current postpaid iPhone customers in good standing prior to July 11, and AT&T non-iPhone customers who are currently eligible for an upgrade discount" with a two-year agreement.
View original post found on Gizmodo authored by matt buchanan
June 2nd, 2008 — gear
The other toy Asus brought for us to look at is their upcoming Eee Box, which will launch mid-July in the US. Running on a 1.6GHz Atom processor, it comes in Windows XP and Linux versions, both of which are blissfully cheap: $269 for the base 1GB RAM, 80GB storage Linux model, $299 for XP. Memory and storage are configurable, running from 512MB to 2GB, and 80GB to 250GB, respectively. 802.11n is standard, and it has a pleasant number of ports—serious potential as a TV streamer box (as commenters have pointed out, lack of optical drive and HDMI out is definitely limiting here). We didn't get to see it in action, but it's definitely a cute, well-built package for the money. All the dirty details below.
Name and Model: Eee Box B202
OS: Linux System/ Hardware Compatible with Windows XP
Processor: Intel Atom N270 (1.6 GHz, FSB 533)
Memory: DDRII 512 MB / 1 GB / 2 GB (see US configs below)
Storage: 80 GB / 120 GB / 160 GB / 250 GB (see US configs below)
Chipset: 945GSE + ICH7M
VGA: On-board Intel GMA 950, 1600 x 1200 maximum resolution
Networking: 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN, 802.11n WLAN, Bluetooth optional
SD/MMC/MS slot: SD, SDHC, Mini SD, (Micro SD through adapter) ; MMC, MMC plus, MMC4.x, RS MMC, RSMMC4.x (MMC mobile through adapter);MS,MS PRO
Audio: Azalia ALC888 Audio Chip
Front Ports:
USB x 2
Card Reader x 1
Headphone-out jack (WO/SPDIF) x 1
MIC x 1
Rear Ports:
USB 2.0 x 2
Gigabit LAN x 1
DVI out x 1
Line-Out (L/R) with S/PDIF x 1
WiFi antenna
Accessories:
19Vdc, 4.74A, 65W power adaptor
Mouse (optional)
Keyboard (optional)
VESA mount (optional)
WiFi antenna
Stand
Dimensions: 8.5″ x 7″ x 1″
Net Weight: 2.2 lbs.
Gross Weight: 6.6 lbs.
US Configurations and MSRP:
$269 1GB memory + 80GB HDD Linux edition
$299 1GB memory + 80GB HDD XP edition
$299 2GB memory + 160GB HDD Linux edition
Availability: For the US, we’re expecting to hit the market Mid July. For French-speaking Canada, a French Linux version will be available the following month.
[Asus]
View original post found on Gizmodo authored by jesusdiaz
May 30th, 2008 — cool, iPhone
This has to be the coolest implementation of Pong ever: load the iPong application in two or three iPods touch units or iPhones, and start playing between them using your finger, with the ball actually passing from one screen to the other depending on the ball angle.
The software was made by Mr. Kondo—a colleague of Ryo Shimizu, CEO of Ubiquitous Entertainment—in an hour. We don't know if it will make its way to the iTunes store as a commercial product, but I hope it inspires other developers to use this kind of competitive—or collaborative—gameplay. [Asiajin via [Technabob]
View original post found on Gizmodo authored by Wilson Rothman
May 21st, 2008 — cool
This week is Gizmodo’s salute to CIA spy technology. What’s the occasion? The May 29th release of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to al-Qaeda, by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton (with Henry R. Schlesinger). While we don't typically review books, this one happens to be the best we've ever seen on the subject of old-school spyware, a book the CIA itself held up for many many months before just barely deeming it safe for public consumption, a book that pretty much proves that all the freaky spy gadgetry you've seen in movies—and some that you haven't—is ALL TOTALLY REAL.
Gear Crazy
No offense to Steve Carell, but I'm not talking about goofy Maxwell Smart crap—I'm talking about serious Bond-grade hardware: Inflatable getaway airplanes, remote-controlled spying insects, cigarettes that fire .22 rounds, hallucinogenic cigars, about 100 other tobacco-related instruments of deception and an ingeniously camouflaged speedboat or two, not to mention digital audio recorders and CCD-based digicams developed decades before their commercial appearance. They've all been built by CIA engineers and used successfully, at least in the test phase.
The extensively researched book chronicles the gear and the people behind the gear, operatives still shrouded in pseudonym (or even anonym) who went around Moscow on cold winter days planting listening devices in hotel rooms or dead-dropping microfiche in the middle of public parks. It’s about the nerds in the labs who were asked to make debris-free drills and didn’t balk, guys who were asked to mount blow-up sex dolls as pop-up in-car decoys and didn’t laugh. (OK, some probably laughed.) In short, it’s an incredible page turner, mostly because none of it was dreamed up by Sir Ian Fleming or any of his thousand copycats.
Whodunit
The book is so good because it’s written by two of the only guys who could write it. Bob Wallace was a CIA agent for 32 years and the director of the CIA’s Office of Technical Services (that is, “office of covert badass spy gear”) from 1998 to 2002. A guy who chose spy work over journalism after leaving the University of Kansas, he did his first 20 years the hard way, in field ops. He admits that many of his own early exploits can never be written down.
Keith Melton is an espionage historian, something of an international man of mystery if I ever met one, whose most authoritative claim on this project is that he has the largest collection of espionage devices the world has ever (not) seen. You know that Palm III that features heavily in the 2007 spy thriller Breach, about late Cold War Soviet turncoat Robert Hanssen? Yeah, Melton owns that Palm III—Hanssen's original, complete with stolen state secrets. I asked Melton how he got it, and he just said vaguely that he has his ways. "Let's leave it at that."
Too Many Secrets
I asked both of the authors how they were allowed to release a book filled with spy secrets, and they admitted it had not been easy. By Wallace’s account, the CIA tied it up for 18 months. Melton says it’s more like two years, and that at one point the CIA deemed the work “the most damaging book on espionage ever to be published,” and “a virtual primer on espionage.” As you can tell, the CIA eventually consented to the book’s publication, more or less intact.
“At one time, all this material would have been classified secret or higher,” Wallace says. “But given the change in technology that has occurred, the time that has passed and the fact that the primary target, the Soviet Union, no longer existed, these stories could be written down to fill a major void in American intelligence literature.”
In truth, the reason it can be declassified is that espionage involves totally different kinds of machines now, mainly laptops and BlackBerrys, and instead of needing microphones and cameras, agents need software to “listen” to chatter in the ether.
CIA’s Secret Gadget Rooms
I asked Wallace if there was a secret room at CIA headquarters where all the gadgets hung from the wall, his answer was even better: there are multiple rooms, one for each department: the guys who did disguises and forged documents had one, the guys who did secret listening devices had one. “It was like going on a Hollywood tour,” he says, only as OTS director, he was the guy giving the tours, to visiting congressmen and other senior Washington staff.
“I don’t know that I ever had a bad visit with a congressman. You would put things in their hands to touch and feel, to operate and manipulate, and then you’d tell them the operational story that went behind the object: what it was used for, and the product that came from it,” says Wallace, adding wistfully, “It was a dream job.”
End of Spy Gear?
Melton says that Wallace may be the last OTS director to give those tours, or to bring a briefcase of neat-o hardware to his closed congressional hearings. In the future, directors would be “more likely to come and show you a printout or algorithm, something that could do more than 1,000 spies.” Melton explains, “The gadgets are the spies, while the humans are support, now more than ever.” How’s that for making you feel sad and Matrix-y all at the same time?
If the age of the crazy cool spy gear has come to an end, all the more reason we should celebrate it. For the next several days, I will be posting spy hardware from Wallace and Melton’s book with a “CIA Spytech” tag, stuff that will make you laugh, cry or just hide under your dresser for a while. It’s amazing, chilling stuff and again, it’s ALL TOTALLY REAL. Stay tuned! [Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs from Communism to al-Qaeda]
View original post found on Gizmodo authored by Jesus Diaz
April 14th, 2008 — iPhone
We told you that the new Pwnage—the iPhone Dev Team tool to automatically hack legal Apple firmwares to free iPhone by making them fully customizable, open and unlocked—version was imminent and here it is. Gizmodo got early access to the software and it works great. But there is bad news brewing up: Apple is gearing up to battle the hackers big time.
Apart from the previous unlocking and jailbreaking, the new version has three main features:
• Easily customizable images for start and restore screens.
• You can use packages to customize your firmware and install software right away, on one single update.
• You can now pwn iPhone 1.2.0 beta 3.
We also got confirmation of what we already hinted last week: Apple is preparing up to battle the hackers, with more and more code running signed and secured inside the iPhone. This will make things more difficult for the iPhone Dev Team.
How much more difficult? Would this be a real challenge to the iPhone Dev Team’s current dominance in the hacking war? According to them, it may be. But it just makes things more interesting and fun, which is exactly what we wanted to hear.
Get your update now. [iPhone Dev Team via Pwnage in Gizmodo]
View original post found on Gizmodo authored by matt buchanan
April 8th, 2008 — cool
I actually want this Segway, it’s like a mini-tank version for cyber-gladiators to parade out to the arena on, with knobby knuckle wheels that look like they’re ripped off the Iron Monger. The RMP’s guts are basically the original Segway’s on steroids, jacked up to haul 400 lbs of fat cop. The bizarre wheels allow it to smoothly move in any direction, which actually looks kind of freaky in motion. Check out the video of its oddly seductive shimmying after the jump, since you can’t afford it: It “might” run $50,000.
