Gadget Lab Podcast: Robots, Machetes and Other Shiny Objects

                      runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience934394693001', 'anId');brightcove.createExperiences(); In this week’s Gadget Lab podcast, the crew toys around with phones, knives and robots. Senior editor Dylan Tweney gives us shares his experience visiting SRI, where he saw an awesome wall-climbing robot.  Watch out, Spider-Man. Then we recap the latest iOS software update for [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/05/gadget-lab-podcast-114/

Luca Liebe Finja Kerkhoff Sascha Dörr Kristin Gehrmann

Best Bluetooth iPad Keyboard

Choosing the best iPad keyboard can be tricky, so it’s important to remember why exactly you wanted one in the first place. For most, this comes back to the numerous issues they suffer with the touchscreen keyboard. Now, I’m not bashing the touchscreen’s quality since it is just about perfect for the majority of the [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ipadbuzzblog/~3/b-qZj36d24M/

Monika Kley Heidemarie Frick Maike Beetz Fiona Henschel

Sony misses promised PlayStation Network and Qriocity restoration date, begs for more patience

Whoops. If you'll recall, Sony held what can only be described as an emergency press event in Japan a week ago in order to issue a number of assurances about the resumption of service as it relates to the PlayStation Network and Qriocity. Seven days later, things are still as dead as they were pre-Cinco de Mayo. This evening, the company's Senior Director of Corporate Communications Patrick Seybold punched out a quick update to let the world know that they could actually leave the house and find something else to entertain 'em -- like it or not, PSN isn't coming back online today. The reason? On May 1st, Sony was apparently "unaware of the extent of the attack on Sony Online Entertainment servers," and now, it's spinning its wheels in order to restore security on the network and "ensure" that user data is safe. Mr. Seybold seems to understand that you're overly anxious about getting back into the swing of things, and he's even going so far as to ask your trust that Sony's doing "everything [it] can" to get the lights blinking once more. Oh, and if you were planning on visiting that source link just to find the new ETA... don't. Sony's planning to update you "as soon as it can."

[Thanks, Alex]

Sony misses promised PlayStation Network and Qriocity restoration date, begs for more patience originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 May 2011 03:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  sourcePlayStation Blog  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/07/sony-misses-promised-playstation-network-and-qriocity-restoratio/

Joshua Heinlein Markus Wigger Alexander Berner Oliver Büdenbender

A 3-Year Old Boy Armed With a Blowtorch Burnt Down His Neighborhood [Children]

Yesterday, a 3-year-old boy and his dog decided to go for a morning stroll through the neighborhood. Only this walk involved a blowtorch and some $5,000 in property damage. Kids today really know how to have fun. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/nhMYppG70j0/a-boy-and-his-dog-go-on-arson-adventure

Marion Dallmeyer Hanna Wohlrab Henrik Brenner Karla Reusch

Disqus Brings @Mentions To Comment Threads

Popular commenting platform Disqus, which recently raised $10 million from North Bridge Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures, is adding support for a feature that's both nifty and familiar: mentions within comments. It may not sound particularly sexy, but it could actually help foster better discussions in comment threads (more on that in a bit). If you've ever mentioned someone on Twitter you'll be right at home with Disqus's implementation. Start typing a comment, then type the '@' symbol whenever you'd like to tag someone ? this could be a user who has left another message in the comment thread, or a user who hasn't participated. The convention is very similar to the '@reply' system popularized by Twitter, and a small overlay will pop up with autocompleted names drawn from both Twitter and Disqus. Tagged names appear with a gray box around them in the published comment, which looks nice.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/HvBY4hluSv0/

Michael Vollmar Robin Jones Ingeburg Otte Moritz Beller

Smithsonian announces titles for Art of Video Games exhibit, snubs Mario Paint

GoldenEye 007 is certainly a fun way to waste your childhood...but is it art? According to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, yes. The game was one of 80 selected for an upcoming exhibit, The Art of Video Games, and the the venerable museum drew on fan expertise, using online voting to winnow the field of 240 nominees. The selections span the last four decades (!) of gaming, from the days of the Atari VCS and ColecoVision all the way to today's modern time-sinks like Portal and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The exhibit won't open until next spring, but in the meantime check out the source link to argue about who got left out.

Smithsonian announces titles for Art of Video Games exhibit, snubs Mario Paint originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 May 2011 08:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Kotaku  |  sourceSmithsonian American Art Museum  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/v9989AdDw1o/

Christa Eymann Ingrid Schur Emily Trautmann Charlotte Kadelbach

Tiny Touchscreen-Controlled Drone Makes Spying on Bad Guys a Cinch [Video]

Predator Drones are nifty, but all that hassle of private contractors and CIA control room is kind of a hassle! The Aeryon Scout Quadrotor makes aerial surveillance a breeze—snap it together, let it fly, and start peeking. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/n6EbMmDHiro/touchscreen+controlled-drone-makes-spying-on-bad-guys-a-cinch

Elsa Alexander Furtmann Siegrid Holstein Michael Vollmar Robin Jones

Firefox 4 rockets to 5% global usage share, IE9 wallows at 1.5%

Firefox 4 usage share graph
Using some early numbers from both StatCounter and Net Applications, Mozilla's noisiest hominid, Asa Dotzler, has illustrated Firefox 4's meteoric rise to around 5% of Web browser global usage share. Internet Explorer 9, which launched two weeks ago, seems to be enjoying a much more casual stroll in the park with just 1.5% of the global Web usage share.

Interestingly, we can see IE9 dipping between March 20 and 21, just before the 'Important' Windows Update rolled out. It's hard to say whether IE9 is only growing because of the installed-by-default Windows Update, but that small dip definitely sticks out -- did excitement peter out? Did people download IE9, try it out, and summarily uninstall it? Perhaps, given their close proximity, the stats show an attention shift from Microsoft to Mozilla?

Numbers-wise, if the bottom left corner of the graph shows 2.3 million downloads for IE9, we can guesstimate that that it has now been downloaded 5 million times. Firefox is clocking in at 37 million downloads after five days of public availability.

We wonder whether Microsoft knew its release schedule would coincide so closely with Firefox 4. Internet Explorer 9 -- a great browser by almost every metric -- was never going to do well against anything emanating from the maws of Mozilla. The main thing, though, is that Microsoft has now shown that it's serious when it comes to the Open Web. If Internet Explorer 10 is good, and 11 and 12, then we might finally see it compete with the zealous Mozillan horde.

Firefox 4 rockets to 5% global usage share, IE9 wallows at 1.5% originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 05:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/28/firefox-4-rockets-to-5-global-usage-share-ie9-wallows-at-1-5/

Kevin Fickenscher Amelie Schweizer Elfriede Oltmanns Janine Hillenbrand