Thursday, March 13, 2008

Gibson Sues Over Guitar Hero


So it was only a matter of time. Activision is getting sued by Gibson under claims that the style used to create music violates their 1999 patent on utilizing technology to create music. It seems as if every good thing comes to an end.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Smallest USB Bluetooth


The world's smallest USB bluetooth is now out and it only costs $14.99

Features:
Bluetooth 2.0 compliant
USB 2.0 compliant
Plug-n-Play
LED Indicator when Plugged
Supports Bluetooth voice (A2DP) / data
Enables wireless Personal Area Network (PAN)
Connecting to your Cell phone, PDAs or PC for data transfer, networking or even dial up, fax…
Compatible with Windows XP and Vista

USB Skype Phone


Skype will be releasing a USB phone for use with its VOIP program. The specs are as follows:

Features:
Support Plug & Play and Hot-Plug features.
Compliant with USB 2.0 Full-Speed operation.
Powered by USB bus, no need for external power supply.
Full numeric keypad for speed-dial and SkypeOut callng.
Built-in audio speaker, microphone and ringing buzzer.
16 incoming ringings.
Supports Skype 3.0
Compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2000, ME.
Dimensions Approx. 96 x 51 x 19 mm
Weight : 80g

The Hanging Printer


Its always a pain to have a printer taking up a huge amount of space for no reason on your desk. This printer design eliminates just that by having the major components hanging off underneath the desk. No word on price or shipping date yet.

Solar Power Keychain


Brando has come out with a small portable keychain charger that utilizes solar panels. The device can hang with your keys and when needed plugged into your device via attachments that match it to the thing your plugging it into (cell phone, iPod, PDA, ect..) The keychain will retail for $22. The package will contain the following:

Package Content:
# One Mini Key Chain Solar Charger
# One USB cable
# One A/C adapter (110V~220V)
# One extended cable
# Five connector adapter (Sony Ericsson Fast Port, Samsung, Mini USB (for Motorola/HTC/Dopod/MP3/MP4) , Nokia (2mm), Nokia (3.5mm))

Mario Kart on the Wii


Nintendo has just announced Mario Kart for the Wii. Scheduled ship date is April 27th. The game will ship with the steering wheel so that everyone can pretend their actually throwing those annoying shells at each other.

Hackers Get into your Heart


Those with defibrillators beware, it seems as if hackers can gain control of that little thing inside your chest and use it to kill you from engadget:

...researchers are now warning about a possible vulnerability to an especially important bit of technology: medical devices that control the human heart. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the concerns are mostly centered around so-called "programmers," which are devices used to wirelessly communicate with the implanted defibrillator or pacemaker. Those devices are obviously only sold directly to physicians by a select group of companies but, as the researchers warn, it is at least conceivable that hackers could transmit the same radio signals using another device, allowing them to shut down the defibrillator or deliver a shock, or possibly even obtain a patient's medical information.

iPod Locker Dock


Disney has come out with an iPod dock that looks like an old high school locker. The dock is a product of their high school musical movies which aired on the Disney channel. (yes those are the movies with that chick who ended up having nude pictures of her circulating the internet).

F-117 to be Retired


The first (well what the Air Force said is the first) stealth fighter is to be retired. The aircraft will make its final flight to Tonopah Test Range Airfield in Nevada on April 21st. It seems as if the new F-22 Raptor got everyone so excited that there is no need for the F-117. Out of the 59 total produced 37 have already been retired prior to this announcement.

iPhone Firmware 2.0 Already Jailbroken


Apple should just give up. Firmware 2.0 isn't even out yet and the iPhone Dev Team has it already jailbroken. There should be no need to prevent people from installing things on a product the purchased. I honestly believe it is only a matter of time before Apple just makes the iPhone open to all. Apple probably wastes an huge amount of money paying their engineers to keep the thing locked down.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Wal*Mart Pulls Linux


Wal Mart pulls their line of low end linux PCs from their shelves due to "customer confusion". The retail giant says that most customers might get confused as to why their new PC can't run all the new windows programs they just bought as well. If i had a say in the matter, I would leave the computers on the shelf. If people cannot tell the difference then that's their loss.

TSA goes crazy over Macbook air


So some unlucky guy tried to go on a plane with his macbook air but not if the TSA had something to say about it. The unlucky gent had to answer questions as to why his "laptop" did not have an optical drive, any ports, and why it weighed less than the bag it was placed in. After hours of questioning and missing his flight the TSA did eventually allow the guy to make it through security.

New Intel Atom Processor


Intel has just announced a new line of dual core atom processors. The soon to be released atom 230 processor will boast a 1.87ghz, 533 Mhz bus, and 512kb level 2 cache. Price has not been release but in comparison to the current 1.6Ghz model it should not be too much seeing as to how the 1.6Ghz model costs a mere $29 when 1000 of them are purchased.

NES Game: American Gladiators


So remember that show from back in the day, American Gladiators, that is now airing again on TV. Will it seems that there is a long forgotten NES game. Now the geeks who lack the muscular strength needed to compete in real life can battle in their own realm, the computer world.

Ultra Powerful Laser


Wicked Lasers has made a laser so strong and so compact that it can fit in your pocket and be taken out to light your cigarette. The laser pointer will also cause a burning sensation if placed on skin (why would they sell this?) and can pop balloons from over 100 feet away. I can just imagine a bunch of bored teens at a theme park popping a little kids ballon from a concealed location.

Legos on the iPhone


Now you can relive your childhood by playing with legos right on your iPhone/iTouch. The application allows for building of things with legos. You can then send them to your friends or go browse around and look at what other people have made. Although very cool I would rather play with the real thing ( I was deprived of legos as a child ).

USB Power Strip


Now you wont need to connect to your computer anymore to charge things via USB. Belkin has come out with a power strip that has USB ports built in. Its such a simple idea I'm surprised no one has thought of it until now.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Late Night Shuttle Launch


You know how its cool to watch the space shuttle launch, well imagine that at night. The space shuttle endeavor will launch very early Tuesday morning at 2:28 a.m. The night launch is required for the shuttle to reach the station due to the orbit of the space station.

Mouse for Your Lefty Friends


Logitech has made a mouse for those who are left handed ( didn't know anyone cared about those people). So now for $60 they can buy a mouse that will probably suck like the rest of us. (it feels soo good to be included in things)

Lionsgate to give free ipod movies


With purchase of the DVD that is. Thats still better then nothing though. When you purchase select Lionsgate movies their will be a coupon inside for the buyer to redeem on iTunes. Guess this saves you time from having to rip the dvd with handbrake and then putting it on your iPod/iPhone. No one will say no to this freebie though.

Vatican Lists New Sins


The Vatican today released a short list of new sins that man can commit. Acts which damage the economy are now sinful. Polluting the environment is now a sin. Messing with God's perfectly designed human genes is now a sin and using drugs is also a sin (wasn't that always a sin). Guess now we all got new things to worry about if we don't wanna go to hell (ya lol, I'll be seeing all of you there).

Solar Powered Lawn Mower


As tech. grows it will make humans more lazy. This is clear with the new lawn mover out by Husqvarna. The solar powered lawn mower doesn't need gas and mows your lawn for you. So now you can finally sit back and watch as work is done for you, but I don't think most of you will still be happy after you get the $4000 bill in the mail for the thing.

Apple Pays Out Big Time


Apple reportedly agreed with Paul McCartney to pay a whopping $400 million for the license to put the Beatles music on iTunes. Seems way to expensive to me. Steve Jobs must be very obsessed with the Beatles.

Volvo Makes an Alarm Clock


So it looks like Volvo got a little bored and decided to make an alarm clock with super cool features. This alarm plays your favorite song and gradually gets louder if the built in motion sensors don't notice your lazy self getting out of bed. I think some of you should check it out.

See Through Touch Screen


Not only can this touch screen see what your doing in front of it, but it can also see what is going on behind it. LucidTouch has developed a mutli-touch screen that can read 10 inputs from the front AND the back of the screen. This thing truly has eyes behind its head.

Big Swimming Pool


Imagine a swimming pool that is over 100 football fields long, well thats exactly what the San Alfonso Del Mar resort in Chile has built. This enormous pool contains 660,000 gallons of water and spans over 18 acres. Thats the equivalent of over 5,000 traditional olympic sized pools. The pool took over 5 years to build and cost the resort nearly $2 billion to construct.

Apple Makes Fun of RIM


So it seems as if Apple is a bit happy with their iPhone's new enterprise plan. Seems as if Apple is pushing how the iPhone doesn't go threw all the red tape to finally get to your email. Guess now we won't get to point and laugh at those corporate execs when a mass email server crash happens.

NY Governor Likes to Play Pimp


New York's governor, Eliot Spitzer has just come out to admit he was involved in a prostitution ring. Seems like someone has been up to other things rather that running the state of NY. I think Spitzer has been hanging out for too long in certain areas of NYC and grew to much of a liking to 50 cent. Playa Pimp!

University says driving on phone is same as DUI


Carnegie Mellon University has just released a study which states driving while talking on your cell phone is the same as driving while drunk. The school had volunteers drive a simulator while attached to an MRI to compare their brain functions while driving. While the idea behind the theory is very clear I still think that a driver on a cell phone is a lot safer than a drunk one. Guess cops now have an even better reason to write you up that ticket.

16GB on the Tip of your Finger


Kingston is offering a 16GB SDHC card. The drive utilizes a the FAT 32 format with minimium transfer rates of 4mb/per second. So now u can spend over $200 put more useless stuff on all your little gadgets, because thats how much this card costs. Panasonic in an effort to one up Kingston is coming out with a 32 GB card, however be prepared to pay over $700 to be able to brag to all your geek friends about having the largest card.

Sprint Gets Rev. A and GPS Update


So for the few of you who are still stuck with Sprint (yes I know your waiting for the day your contract ends), Sprint has updated their EV-DO network to Rev. A and is now allowing GPS. So pretty much Sprint is just a few months behind that other CDMA provider (Verizon).

Super Tap Water


So it seems as if your drinking water has more than what you think in it. Recent studies have shown that there are hundreds of drugs present in tap water. Drugs such as ibuprofen (thats advil) and all these other things that I never heard of are in the water you use to drink and cook with everyday. What's even worse is that there is no federal regulation to monitor or have these drugs removed. I guess teens just found a new way to get high, drink tap water.

Retro Candy


Remember your favorite candy from back in the day, well Amazon.com has begun selling your favs from the 40's threw the 80's. No, the candy isn't actually years old but it is the same cool stuff from way back when. Now you and your friends can get together and try to act cool with those candy cigarrettes.

Link to Amazon's Retro Candy

LoJack for your iPhone



So someone decided that their big iPhone investment needed extra security. In installer.app a program by the name of LoJack (very original) appears to transmit a signal to twitter so you can know exactly where your precious iPhone is if it was to get stolen. The publisher iClarified however has instructed people to not yet download the app since it is still in a testing phase.

EEE pc to Get a Run for its Money


MSI is trying to hit ASUS hard by coming out with their own UMPC (that's ultra mobile pc for those who don't know). Heres a quick spec sheet from what is out so far, remember this thing isnt released yet.

-10 inch display
-1GB of RAM
-Comes in 3 colors (blue, silver and pink)
-can have a SSD as an option
-Speeds up to 1.6Ghz

All this and it should cost around $1000. Maybe some of you wish u hadn't bought that new EEE pc after all.

Motorola Execs Running Away Fast


So it seems that the higher ups at Motorola are calling it quits. Marketing officer, Kenneth Keller Jr. and Motorola's president of mobile devices Stu Reed have both said their goodbyes and left the company. The problems Motorola is facing are reflected in their sinking share value, (closed at $9.82 last Friday) and CEO Greg Brown's desperation in his statement in which he said he is looking for an outsider to raise Motorola's handset department from the grave. Looks as if Greg needs to start praying and quick.

Java is on its Way!


So Java might be coming to the iPhone. With the release of the iPhone SDK, Sun Microsystems has decided to release Java for the iPhone. It will run off of JME (Java micro edition). However, with the restrictions Apple is impossing on the SDK I am not too sure how well Java will run on the iPhone.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

iPhone SDK suddenly not so good


So we've all heard about the new iPhone SDK and just how cool it is. I got to admit, it is kind of cool. Its like having a legit installer.app that apple gives you. Some of the apps might even be FREE! However, Apple dropped the bomb with their limitations on the SDK. The following cannot be done by 3rd party iPhone apps:

-Apps cannot run in the background (say bye bye to AIM)
-Apps cannot launch other apps, or anything else
-No emulators (from what I heard its not emulators which are explicitly banned but they way they are run is not allowed)

Lets wait and see what other bombs Apple drops on their SDK. (its kind of sad, the SDK looked so cool up until this)

iPhone Goes Unlimited



Cheer up, now if you got an iPhone you can talk as much as you want, just like all your other friends. AT&T has added an unlimited talk time plan to their current offerings for the iPhone. So now you can chat away to your hearts desire. (not that any of you have anyone to talk to anyway lol)

Writers Needed


If you would like to write for the Sandman, I am currently accepting applications. If this thing gets going we might even start to make some money. Email all resumes.

$$$$$$$$$$

Sandman News


Sandman News is now up and running.

Check back soon for the latest on rumors, tech, social, and politics (maybe lol).
 
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