The web is still inundated with Michael Jackson news, but just in case you haven’t had your fill, I highly recommend the site Billie Tweets. The concept is simple: Take Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and pull in tweets that sync words to the music.
The site was made by 9Astronauts, the development house that also made the Blame Drew’s Cancer site a few weeks back. Another solid creation by them.
We doubt the July 15 delivery date is set in stone, but UK residents itching to get a little Hero in their lives are now able to pre-order HTC’s latest for £429 ($708). That’s pretty much what we’d expect for an unlocked set, but Orange is planning to offer the Hero free on contract, so we’d be inclined to hang on just a teensy bit longer. Video after the break.
[Via Phandroid]
Continue reading HTC Hero up for pre-order on Amazon UK: £429, July 15 delivery
Filed under: Cellphones
HTC Hero up for pre-order on Amazon UK: £429, July 15 delivery originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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While it’s not being talked about too much, the $99 iPhone 3G is a very interesting play by Apple. It takes what was previously a just out-of-reach device for many, and puts it at a magical price-point. Sure, it still won’t sell everyone, like the people who only care about getting the phone that their carrier is offering for free, or those looking for the cheapest possible monthly plans. But just look at the iPhone compared to the other $99 phones out there.
That’s what we did. And originally we set out to compare the various specs. But looking them over, it’s really a joke. And you can basically see all you need to see simply by looking at the devices being offering by the major carriers in the U.S. at this price point.
So Microsoft France’s product manager for Windows Mobile, Audrey Zolghadr, is saying that the company’s upcoming Windows Marketplace launch will be accompanied by around 600 apps certified and available on day one. Depending on your perspective, that’s either ridiculously anemic — the iPhone’s App Store has a couple orders of magnitude more currently available, for example — or a veritable cornucopia. Though the Ovi Store has no shortage of “items” to buy, an overwhelming majority of those are currently wallpapers, ringtones, and the like, and Palm’s App Catalog launched with so few apps that many folks (we’re not naming names) literally had every app installed within a few minutes of buying the phone. At the end of the day, it’s all about signal-to-noise ratio; if Microsoft can deliver 600 apps and half of those are terrific, they’re on the right track — though at this point, we’re thinking the next battle in Smartphone Platform Wars doesn’t really kick off until WinMo 7 swings by anyway.
[Via PhoneArena and WMExperts]
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Windows Marketplace launching with 600 apps, or one bazillion times what the App Catalog has originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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People have always been inclined to join mobs – most people have at least one story to tell about a time that they got swept up in or had to face a crowd demanding justice for one thing or another (both of my experiences were in college). The Internet has proven to be a frighteningly efficient tool to create virtual mobs. But we note two trends that suggest a bleak future: the increase in non-anonymous mob participation and the evolution of online services towards ever more efficient and real time communication platforms that facilitate mob creation and growth like never before. Things are changing online way too fast for society and culture to adapt. Something will eventually break.
I’m going to pick on FriendFeed in this post because I believe it is the nearest thing to Shangri-La for mob justice enthusiasts. I explain why below. But first I want to compare FriendFeed to Syphilis, which may have been the “perfect” disease when it first hit Europe in the 15th century. Today Syphilis takes years to kill its victims and is easily treated with antibiotics. But back in the early 1500′s it led to certain death within months.
What’s creepier than automatically informing Twitter every time your unborn child kicks his mother’s womb? Giving all your Twitter followers a live feed of your heartbeat, including canned messages to announce your death in case you cease pumping Cheeto-infused blood through your goth-nerdy veins. This Japanese DIY project has open source schematics and is designed to bypass a PC and send the news of your heart hiccups directly the internet. Check out the appropriately dramatic video after the break.
Continue reading Device judges your pulse and Tweets its findings to your parents and Ashton Kutcher
Filed under: Household
Device judges your pulse and Tweets its findings to your parents and Ashton Kutcher originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It surely didn’t escape anyone’s attention Twitter is on track to becoming a mass phenomenon globally. The service is also growing nicely in Japan where it has been embraced by the geek community in particular (Japanese is the only alternative language Twitter is available in until today).
And today a small group of those Japanese geeks, members of the so-called Koress Project, have announced the development of the Akiduki Pulse box, a device that automatically posts your heart rate to Twitter [JP].
Video and more info after the break.
Some jerk in the UK went and bought an Olympus PEN E-P1 camera from a store and had to go home and tell the whole internet about it. They even bothered to shoot an unboxing of the little Micro Four Thirds wonder, like we would care.
Filed under: Digital Cameras
Olympus PEN E-P1 production unit unboxed, we shudder with jealousy originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Last month, Lance Walley left his position as co-founder and CEO of Ruby on Rails hosting company Engine Yard, after the VC-funded startup was forced to trim its workforce by 15% last January.
With nothing else on his hands immediately, Walley started building a Twitter application on his own dime (about $10,000) that would basically link your Twitter account to a brokerage account and enable you to trade stocks via the micro-sharing service. PollyTrade is the result of his work, and it’s currently available in public beta.
As recently as May Sony has itself stated that a PSP phone “could happen,” and now a report from Nikkei business daily states that Sony is planning on putting together a team as early as next month to build product that would act as a combination of a PSP and a Sony Ericsson handset. It makes plenty of sense, both as a differentiation from Nintendo and as a confrontation of the looming iPhone threat — and hey, it might also act as a decent salve over the lukewarm reception of the pricey PSPgo. Unfortunately, if Sony is just about to get started on this, we likely wouldn’t be looking at any resulting product for a while to come. Sony declined comment according to Reuters, which doesn’t mean a whole lot, but it’s worth keeping in mind that we’ve been hearing this sort of rumoring since back when the N-Gage (as a product) was still almost relevant.
[Via Mac Rumors]
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Handhelds
Sony investigating PSP phone? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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