Archive for February 23rd, 2009

T-Mobile will apparently be launching their first 3G laptop card on March 25 for existing customers. It’s $60 a month and has a 5GB cap, plus T-Mo’s fantastically widespread 3G coverage. [EngadgetMobile]

You are familiar with drawing and crayons, but Christian Faur is taking a different approach to the medium. He uses hundreds of thousands of individual crayons to produce a single, pixelated image.

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The product is a series of photorealistic landscapes and figurative images that are formed at the surface of the thousands of tightly packed crayon tips. The imagery that makes up this new body tends to focus on isolated elements represented as children, barns, water towers, etc. withinin determinate landscapes, which are intended to reference the individual crayon whose solitary existence, like that of the individual element, is rendered obsolete in the amalgamate.

I have developed a mapping system that translates the English alphabet into twenty six discrete colors and I use these crayon “fonts” to add words and language to each of the pieces in the show… The direct representation of language in each piece further imbues the works with meaning and brings an aspect of color into each composition reminiscent of DNA coding. The alphabetic key at the lower left of each panel allows the viewer to interpret the individual words written throughout the various panels.

Uh huh. Dude…stare at it and you will go cross-eyed! [Christian Faur via PSFK]

The creators of iPoint 3D claim their technology lets you walk up to a 3D display, and without having to wear any special eyewear, interact with the screen just by gesturing in the air.

According to Electronista, Fraunhofer plans to show off the technology at next month’s CeBIT show, and say its uses could range from business purposes to gaming. iPoint 3D uses a device roughly the size of a keyboard and is placed either on the ceiling or on a table below the hands. There are two firewire cameras that monitor hand motions, which is then relayed back to the display.

There’s no word on pricing, release, or what 3D displays this will work with, but I’m sure more details will surface in the coming weeks. [Electronista]

By refreshing the video you’re currently watching on Hulu, the site will give you a choice to either watch normal ads or one long one before the program starts. Pick the long one.

By viewing Honda’s short film, you can eliminate interruptions, which means your video can buffer without having to cut off to view an ad and cut back to your show. It’s good for slower connections, and if you go and grab a sandwich or relieve yourself during the 2-minute show, you’ll never even know there was an ad in the first place.

I wish I knew about this trick last week when I was catching up on the last few Late Night with Conan shows when visiting my parents. Get faster internet please! [Lifehacker]

If you’ve sold your soul to Best Buy‘s Reward Zone program, you can knock $50 or even $100 off an iPhone 3G this week.

Unfortunately, Best Buy isn’t using the promotion to grab new members—you need to have been a Reward Zone member since at least Feb. 21. But if you’re a regular (free) Reward Zone member, it’s $50 off the iPhone 3G this week with a new two-year activation. If you’ve got a Premier Silver membership (I don’t know even wanna know what you have to do to earn that distinction), then it’s a whole $100 off.

The lesson, kids, is that if sign up this week for Reward Zonemaybe you’ll get $100 off the iPhone 4G when it comes out. [Best Buy - Thanks Brady]

Not that the iPhone really needs it, but it and the iTouch/iPod Nano are getting an external mini microphone that plugs directly into the headphone jack. And it’s only $15.

The accessory is also compatible with the 120GB iPod classic (claims its product page), and should be a decent way to conduct interviews or surreptitiously record your coworkers in the adjacent stall. What kind of person takes a dump while on the phone with the credit card company? [USB Fever via Get USB]

A horrible reminder about how you could get screwed by Circuit City‘s merciless liquidiation overlords: Two customers bought shattered LCD TVs—you’re not allowed to open the box to check ‘em—and are totally out $1100.

When you buy anything from Circuit City’s liquidators, it’s sold “as is” and can’t be returned for any reason. Fine, that’s how these things work. The screwjob happens because stores are telling people they can’t open anything till they pay for it, meaning you can’t check something out before you buy it to make sure it works—or isn’t totally busted into a million useless pieces. Consumerist says that they’re not optimistic about getting the credit card company to help out if you do get bamboozled, either.

They’ve got reports from Minnesota as well, where a family paid $1500 for a busted TV after not being allowed to open the box. Fox reporters there were apparently kicked out of the store for trying to investigate. And here’s another unreturnable piece of broken merchandise from Kotaku:

Odds are, if you do get a TV from Circuit City, it’ll be fine—just remember there’s just the very real possibility you could wind up losing a thousand bucks with no real recourse. And there won’t even be the dude from Let’s Make a Deal there to make you feel better. [Boston Channel via Consumerist, Image: Getty]

We’re always excited for unique proposal stories with gadgets involved, but this Proposal iPhone app is back-ass-wards.

Here’s the deal. People who do tech proposals are cool because they either program, hack or otherwise customize their proposal FOR the person they’re proposing to. They’re not cool just because it involves an iPhone. In this case, using someone else’s already rigged-up proposal app is the laziest kind of proposal you could give. Why not just text her “wanna get married or somethin’” if you’re going this route. [Apple]

Hello, we’re looking for another intern to work in New York City. Here’s what you need to know and what we want:

What You Need
• Gadget love and knowledge
• An alarm clock, ’cause you’ll be up eeeeeearly every morning
• Basic experience with HTML, Flickr—the internets, essentially
• An NYCish address (you need to be able to get to Manhattan in the morning with no problems)
• Dedication—the job’s fun, but it’s definitely work
• Writing experience is a definite plus, but not 100% mandatory
• The ability to listen and follow instructions – basically, you’re here to learn and build up your knowledge-base

What You’ll Be Doing
• Spotting amazing stories
• Helping us pull together stories
• Supporting editors in the field doing live reporting, SWAT-team style
• Writing, eventually, if you’re awesome

BTW, this is a springtime internship—we’ll be doing calls for a summer one in a few months, so if you’re currently a student, just hang tight for a little bit.

The pay is abysmal—you can get a fancy coffee or two everyday, but not much else other than a small stipend—but you’ll get top-notch experience with the well-oiled blog machine that is Giz, learn lots of dirty jokes, and yes, get to play with cool gadgets you couldn’t afford on your own. Send your resume—NO ATTACHMENTS, DEAR GOD, NO ATTACHMENTS—and tell us why you’re the best person on earth, or at least in NY, to tips@gizmodo.com, with NYC INTERN in the subject line, otherwise we might miss it. Good luck!

There’s a new rumor floating around about an upcoming PSP redesign. It predicts a complete aesthetic redesign, including a sliding screen, but no new hardware inside.

So you’ll have the same internal architecture as the current models, but the form factor will be more cellphone-like with the inclusion of a sliding screen. Interesting. What say you, would you be excited about a smaller, more pocketable PSP if it didn’t offer any updates hardware-wise?

Note: the above image is a fan mockup, not the next PSP. [VG247 via Kotaku]