Archive for August 1st, 2009

NSFW: Trust me on the sunscreen (and the future of journalism)

August 1, 2009

Day two of this ridiculous juice cleanse experiment and I feel like a new man. By which I mean, I feel like my insides aren’t fully developed, I have no strength in my arms or legs and the idea of eating solid food is just a distant dream.

It’s all Lacy’s fault, of course, she actually pays for this nonsense every month or so and claims it’s the reason why she no longer gets sick when she travels. Arrington and Heather apparently swear by it too.

The rest of TechCrunch, meanwhile, are beyond skeptical, bandying around words like “science” and “proof” in a pathetic attempt to disguise the fact that they’re in the pay of Big Cheeseburger. Whatever the truth, I’ve bet Lacy fifty dollars that the only thing the cleanse will achieve for me is crippling hunger and a loss of feeling in my extremities, so I’m in for the duration. At least as I lie on my deathbed, puking water and romaine-and-celery juice into a cardboard bowl, I can comfort myself with the fact that it was free – a promotion by the company to tempt California-based hacks into starving themselves to death. Journalistic freebies for the win (see my statement of ethics: here).

Speaking of ethics, I’m just back in San Francisco from an all expenses paid trip to the beach. Promoted as ‘Geeks At The Beach’, the trip came courtesy of J.R. Johnson who runs a new site aiming to bring people together based on things they agree on, to discuss things they don’t. According to the invitation, J.R. wanted to round up ‘influential’ social media types for a day of discussion about trends in the industry, and where it’s heading next. In Los Angeles. On a beach.

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Happy Hour? “Cocktail” Is All About The Benjamins

August 1, 2009

The existence of Apple’s new so-called “Cocktail” music experience being created with the major record labels seemed to create headlines last week more for the side-talk about the Apple tablet, than the music element itself. And for good reason, because just as we wrote last week, it’s starting to sound like this is mainly another ploy to pull more money out of consumers’ pockets.

And interestingly enough, it’s also starting to sound like the music industry may be taking a cue from the rise of mobile applications, to position this new format.

Reuters has a new report today about the Cocktail plan. After you wade through the usual PR speak from music execs about how this will change the digital music experience for consumers, you get to the real nugget of information:

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Sony Alpha 850 DSLR manual pops up on Hong Kong support site

August 1, 2009

Sony’s Alpha series DSLR cameras are almost notorious for how often they leak, and as is custom with an introductory assertion like that, we’ve got another one to show you. The company’s Hong Kong support site has an instruction manual available to download for an as-of-then unknown iteration, the α850. The gang at Dyxum forums have gone through it more thoroughly than we have so far, and the Initial reaction is that it’s similar to the α900 but with only three FPS, a smaller viewfinder, and still no video (unlike its competition). We’ve assembled some highlights from the guide, including full specs, in the gallery below. Hit up the read link to grab the full manual for yourself, but just a word of caution, even though the PDF’s only 3.54MB in size, the download has proven to be rather painfully slow.

[Via Dyxum forums; thanks, Doug]

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Sony Alpha 850 DSLR manual pops up on Hong Kong support site originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Urban Mole robot could deliver your mail via insane network of underground tubes

August 1, 2009

Designer Phillip Hermes has come up with a new system to transport packages which, if ever instituted, could probably be much faster than any of today’s available options (trucks, mailmen, airplanes, ponies). The Urban Mole — which recently placed second in the Vision Works contest — enables the use of “existing networks” of underground pipes (yes, sewer pipes) to transport packages up to about the size of a shoebox, which are put in capsules to fully protect the contents from the surrounding sewer water. The packages would be moved via a system of electric rails within the pipes, creating a robotic underground highway for transporting goods to drop off points, or “Mole Stations” where people can pick up their goods. Hermes estimates that an average cross-town trip could take less than ten minutes. Sounds a lot more eco-friendly and way faster than the grumpy mailman, right? It doesn’t sound like there are any plans to bring this project to fruition, but we sure will keep hoping.

[Via Wired]

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Urban Mole robot could deliver your mail via insane network of underground tubes originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget’s recession antidote: win a 16GB iPhone 3G from Rapid Repair!

August 1, 2009

This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn’t want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back — so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We’ll be handing out a new gadget every day to lucky readers until we run out of stuff or companies stop sending things. Today we’ve got a 16GB iPhone 3G on offer, courtesy of Rapid Repair! Read the rules below (no skimming — we’re omniscient and can tell when you’ve skimmed) and get commenting! Hooray for free stuff!

Big thanks to Rapid Repair for providing the gear!


The rules:

  • Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for “fixing” the world economy, that’d be sweet too.
  • You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
  • If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.
  • Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
  • Winner will be chosen randomly. Winner will receive one (1) 16GB iPhone 3G.
  • If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.
  • Entries can be submitted until Saturday, August 1, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
  • Full rules can be found here.

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Engadget’s recession antidote: win a 16GB iPhone 3G from Rapid Repair! originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pizza Hut’s Delicious iPhone App Tops 100,000 Downloads In Two Weeks

August 1, 2009

Two weeks ago, restaurant chain Pizza Hut launched an iPhone application (iTunes link) with a bunch of bells and whistles, and apparently users were hungry for it. Downloads of the app for iPhone and iPod Touch have exceeded 100,000 downloads just before the weekend, the company informs us.

Good for them, because Pizza Hut really made an effort with the software program, which they amusingly dubbed a “killer app for your appetite”. Aside from the ability to order food, the app boasts a bit of entertainment to spice things up.

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iJoyPad demoed on iPhone 3GS, full screen PSX games looking rather sweet

August 1, 2009

The iJoyPad has been floating around for a bit now, but we’ve never seen a full demo of the add-on gamepad. Well, it’s back in a video demoing its performance on an iPhone 3GS, using the psx4iphone emulator in full screen glory. The demo shows off Wipeout XL and Ridge Racer performing quite quickly and smoothly, and the iJoyPad itself seems totally functional — and while it’s a tiny bit clunky looking as far as we’re concerned, we’d still like to swipe one for ourselves. Hit the read link for the video.

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iJoyPad demoed on iPhone 3GS, full screen PSX games looking rather sweet originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why The FCC Wants To Smash Open The iPhone

August 1, 2009

Right about now, Apple probably wishes it had never rejected Google Voice and related apps from the iPhone. Or maybe it was AT&T who rejected the apps. Nobody really knows. But the FCC launched an investigation last night to find out, sending letters to all three companies (Apple, AT&T, and Google) asking them to explain exactly what happened.

On its face, it might seem odd to some people that the FCC is investigating the rejection of a single iPhone app. After all, iPhone apps are rejected every day. But the Google Voice rejection caused an unusual amount of uproar, and there is nothing like a high-profile case to make an example out of in pursuit of pushing a bigger policy agenda. The FCC investigation is not just about the arbitrary rejection of a single app. It is the FCC’s way of putting a stake in the ground for making the wireless networks controlled by cell phone carriers as open as the Internet.

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10 Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases

August 1, 2009

Ever since I’ve started blogging about technology a couple of years ago, I’ve been consistently growing an immense feeling of hate towards press releases, and it’s not getting any better.

It’s not that I dislike the PR industry in general, although I often wonder how so many of these firms continue to be in business when the large majority of them have been doing it exactly the same way for the past few decades, instead of evolving.

When media distribution and usage was less fragmented than it is now, I guess it made sense for PR firms or consultants to write press releases using a given ‘best practice’ and pushing it out to a list of contacts in the publishing industry, hoping for as much coverage as possible. Regular TechCrunch readers know how we think about the PR industry – and some of its proponents – in today’s world, and in particular our stance towards embargoes.

I’d like to tackle a different problem in this post, one that reporters from around the world, whatever field they cover, will no doubt recognize. The issue I have with press releases, and the reason I think they are a thing from a distant past in its current form, is that they basically all look alike.

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First broadband over power lines working spec released

August 1, 2009

It’s been a long slow go for broadband over power lines, but it looks like things are finally picking up steam — an IEEE working group has completed main development of the standard and released the first draft of technical specs. Of course, there’s still the arduous finalization process to go through, but now that BPL is an actual functioning standard we’re hoping to see a new class of 100Mbps internet providers pop up and bring some much-needed competition to cable and DSL.

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First broadband over power lines working spec released originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Aug 2009 08:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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