This beautiful, sharp video, captured with a Canon EOS 5D MarkII and a 15mm fisheye lens inside a protective canvas bag, really shows the mountain fun we’re missing here on the surprisingly-temperate East coast.
The video was shot at Powder Mountain, which certainly earns its name, out in Northern Utah. Makes me want to try out my patented “fall awkwardly down the mountain” ski technique again. [Vimeo]
Steam has the much-loved zombie shooter Left 4 Dead on sale this weekend only for $25 instead of the usual $50.
Did you guys know that Mike Patton (of Faith No More) does the voices for the “Infected” characters in the game? I’ve never played it, since scary games give me scary dreams, but since I found that out I’ve been singing ‘Epic’ in my head. Want to share my rock-rap pain? [Steam]
Why leave your car out in the cold while your smartphone gets all the app fun? Hughes Telematics is aiming to bring downloadable apps to car dashboards, and the possibilities are pretty crazy.
Hughes plans to start rolling out the new dashboard consoles in about 2010, and gives examples like an emissions monitor, web-connected security camera, and even Twitter integration as what might soon be appearing in your car. Think about it: on a cross-country trip, your car takes panoramic photos of your surroundings every half hour, or of that little punk that keyed your front door in the Wendy’s parking lot. You could lock and unlock your car with your iPhone, or control the stereo with it. What about updating your Facebook status with exactly where you are? That way your friends can have even more specific data about your personal life to not care about. This is the future, people. [NYTimes, photo by NYTimes]
Our brothers-from-another-mother at Consumerist helped catch the scoundrel who stole an innocent man’s iPhone by using the power of potential internet embarrassment. Even more impressive, the entire episode took under an hour.
Consumerist reader Dino’s 64-year-old father had set up a rule that every email sent from his iPhone would blind-CC his personal email address. After he lost the phone, he received a mess of pictures that the kid who “found” it was taking of himself. After the story was posted on the Consumerist, other do-gooders tracked the kid down on Facebook and Hi5 and managed to get him to actually respond. The kid requested that all the pictures be taken down, and in exchange he’d return the iPhone.
This whole series of events took place in 55 minutes, which we’re sure would be a record if a record existed for such a situation. Score: internet 1, photo-happy thief 0. [Consumerist]
A Cambridge laboratory has developed a special ink for tattoos that changes color based on glucose levels in the blood. On a related note, diabetes is now the hippest metabolic syndrome in town.
The ink is made up of a bunch of tiny spheres, about 120 nanometers across, that contain “the glucose detecting molecule, a color-changing dye, and another molecule that mimics glucose.” Those molecules are moving around in the spheres, and when they near the surface, they grab onto either glucose or the molecule that mimics glucose. If they mostly latch onto real glucose, the ink (and consequently the tattoo) will look yellow, but if they grab the fake glucose, the tatt will look purple, indicating a low level of glucose in the bloodstream.
Apparently the tattoo itself doesn’t need to be a full-sleeve naked pirate lady design or anything; it can be only a few millimeters across and get the job done. The tech is still a couple years off, but it’s a much more immediate and constant monitor of the blood than having to prick and swab a few times a day. [Crunchgear]
If you read Gizmodo, the odds are good you’re carrying one of these two pieces-they’re among our favorite 3G smartphones right now. Today let’s learn how to tether ‘em up to your laptop.
Note: while data tethering is possible on each phone without any additional tethering plan, you’ll want to be careful that you’re not accidentally seeding a bunch of torrents or something when you’re connected via your cellphone. While we’re pretty sure you’ll be OK doing standard surfing, we can’t guarantee you won’t get slapped with some charge, somehow.
So let’s get started.
What You’ll Need
• For G1: USB cable, Tetherbot App, Android SDK, Firefox
• For iPhone: iPhoneModem app, Jailbroken phone
G1 Tether
This guide is based on the instructions and Android app written by Graham Stewart. Many huzzahs to Graham for figuring out this easy tether setup. This one, however, is a SOCKS proxy instead of a true modem tether, so it’s limited to Firefox browsing-you won’t be able to use any other apps unless you can configure them to connect via a proxy yourself. We’ve tested with Firefox though, and it works great.
1. Go here on your G1′s browser and install the Tetherbot app. If unknown sources are not enabled on your phone (under Settings -> Applications -> Unknown Sources) do that first.
2. Turn on USB Debugging under Settings -> Applications -> Development and connect your phone via USB.
3. Get your Android SDK set up. If you’re on Windows, you’ll need to download and install a driver.
4. On your phone, fire up the Tetherbot app and tap the “Start Socks” button.
5. Now, the SDK incantation. In a terminal window on Mac or a run window on Windows, navigate to the “tools” folder within your SDK directory and then type the following:
Mac:
./adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080
Windows:
adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080
6. Now, in Firefox, go to Options -> Advanced -> Network, and click to configure how Firefox connects to the Internet. In the window that pops up, choose “Manual proxy configuration” and clear out everything that might be there. Under SOCKS host, type “localhost” and change the port to 1080. Hit OK, and you should be in business. Easy right?
iPhone Tether
For this, you’ll need to jailbreak your phone. All you need to know to do that can be found in this post on the iPhone Dev Blog. If you’re running OS X, I STRONGLY recomment using Pwnage Tool instead of QuickPwn to manually create a jailbroken software image and install it via iTunes-I have yet to get QuickPwn to work with my phone, and I have no idea why.
One caveat: there are two iPhoneModem apps-one, found at iPhoneModem.de is free, and comes with a utility that makes tethering on a Mac easy. That’s the tutorial we’re following here. They claim it’s possible to use on Windows, but there is no companion app and, unfortunately, no Windows instructions.
The other iPhoneModem is nagware ($10 to get rid of the nags), and does include a Windows config app, which we have not tested. If you’re running windows, try that one, and let us know how it goes in the comments. There is also another method using an app called 3proxy that requires lots of manual configuration, but that one may also be worth a try. Update: Commenters are also recommending PDANet for Windows tethering, which is in Cydia as well.
1. Once you’re jailbroken, open up Cydia and install the package called “iPhone Modem zsrelay” – you can find it by searching “modem.” Also install OpenSSH – find it by searching “SSH.” BossPrefs is also recommended, so you can make sure SSH is running.
2. Download the iPhoneModem.de helper app and run it, and go to “Settings…” under the little iPhone icon that just appeared in the status bar.
3. Fill in the following fields:
IP-Address of Mac: Leave the default value (192.168.100.1)
Password of Mac: Your admin password
WLAN Name: The name of the ad-hoc network that will be created – your choice
WLAN Password: It must be 13 characters-your choice as long as it’s 13
SOCKS Port: Leave default (9999)
iPhone root Password: alpine (as long as you’re running 2.x firmware)
iPhone Mac Address: Found under Settings – General – About – make sure you use the wi-fi MAC address.
4. Once your config is saved, go to “start connection” and follow the prompts. Your Mac will create an ad-hoc network, which you will then join with your iPhone (make sure you get an IP address on your iPhone before continuing). Everything should go smoothly, and voila, you’re tethered!
Hope you enjoyed our how-to. For more on iPhone jailbreak apps, see yesterday’s essentials list, and more how-to guides here. Enjoy the weekend!
The first post-beta version of Windows 7 is up on bit torrent sites everywhere, and actually includes a few benefits over Build 7000, the previous, beta version.
The most obvious new feature is the inclusion of Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate, a step up from the previous build’s beta edition. But it also includes a bunch of new icons and animations, and apparently the start menu’s search option is faster than before. Despite a few flaws, we’re pretty much in love with Windows 7 over here and it’s good to know that it’ll get even better before the final release. [Computer World] galleryPost(‘w7build7022′, 4,”);
This week on America’s Best Dance Crew, neither Mario Lopez’s blindingly white teeth nor JC Chasez’s continued existence was the most magical thing in the room, because Beat Freaks used ACTUAL MAGIC.
MTV’s comment boards are full of questionably-literate folks demanding to know how that silver ball flew around the stage, but nobody seems to have an answer yet. It probably isn’t CGI, since MTV blew their entire special effects budget on digital sparklies. That, and it’d be tricky to place a hat on top of an imaginary ball. Simple string work is probably out, too— the ball’s movements are way too smooth for any marionette action. It’s not a remote controlled vehicle, because that’s ridiculous. My guess is it’s a combination of strings for when they’re handling the ball, and CGI for when it’s swooping around the ceiling, but we may never know. Anybody have any guesses? [MTV, thanks Luke!]
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Hey girls! Don’t know what to wear for your special, geeky valentine? How about this sexy, handmade Star Trek-inspired corset that’s selling on Etsy for $200 in all different Star Trek colors! [Etsy via BBG] galleryPost(‘startrekcorset’, 3,”);
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While I was shopping for valentines at Target earlier this week, wedged between the technology and candy sections, there was a display that was stacked full of pink iPods… for under $1?!
Upon further inspection, it turned out it was just a box of six chocolates filled with nuts and caramel. When I called Target to check on the status of the chocolates, they informed me that all of their iPod chocolate boxes had sold out! Ohhh, you clever marketing monkeys, you!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
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