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Apr 24

Obama to Get Back BlackBerry at Last, Toughened by NSA

The presidential CrackBerry is undergoing final testing before being handed back. The NSA is hammering on the SecurVoice software which has been loaded onto the Obama-phone and is in the last stages of testing just how secure it might be.

The BlackBerry is an 8830, the standard business handset, but the added software encrypts both calls and messages. Cellphone calls are encrypted anyway, but there are some back doors if you know where to find them (and of course, the NSA knows exactly where they are).

The company behind the SecurVoice software is Genesis Key, which is handily based in Washington DC. Be careful not to confuse this with spam-alike secure-voice.com, whose site reads, rather unconvincingly, thus: “The development of the Secure Voice lasts from 2001 and we have now a wide range of devices as well as Landline version of the solution.”

Since winning the election, President Obama has been limping along with two devices — a standard BlackBerry and a secured handset called the Sectera Edge, an unwieldy device that not only offers encrypted communications but is also so ugly that nobody would ever want to steal it. Both machines need to be tethered to each other to work, making every presidential e-mail look something like a game of Wii Boxing.

If the NSA tests come up clean, he could have his customised BlackBerry in his hands soon, which in governmental terms means a couple of months. And of course, secure communications aren’t much good if the person you are talking to is an open and easy target. To this end, Mrs. O should be getting one, too.

The odd fact is that the NSA usually likes everybody else to be locked out but itself. Giving the SecurVoice such a big endorsement will either mean that the encryption is indeed unbreakable (and therefore fit for the president) or that it wants everybody to think that it is unbreakable, therefore giving the NSA back-door access to every single SecurVoice customer. Paranoid conspiracy theory? Hell yes. Accurate speculation? Maybe.

Inside the Ring: Obama’s BlackBerry [Washington Post]

Photo: BohPhoto/Flickr

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Apr 24

The five most pointless Sony products ever

Posted in: Today's Chili

If you thought the hayfever hat–a hat with a built-in toilet roll dispenser–was the definitive example of humanity’s passion for the pointless, a glance in the direction of Sony’s decades-old portfolio of products may interest you.

Now, we’re huge fans of much of Sony’s work. …

Apr 24

Artificial Muscle makes touchy devices burlier

Posted in: Today's Chili, touchpad, touchscreen

In the future we envision artificial muscle driving our cybernetic soldiers and helping to repair our fleshier ones. In the present, though, it seems the tech is starting a little smaller, at least it is in the case of Artificial Muscle (the company), which has developed tech enabling a silicon film to expand or contract when a voltage is applied to it. It’s currently being used to create small pumps and linear actuators and the like, and is now is being pitched as a solution for feedback in touch-sensitive devices. The silicon film is thin enough to be inserted beneath a touchpad or touchscreen, moving the surface appropriately depending on what you’re stroking on-screen as shown in a video demonstration below. Impressively this tech will only cost “a couple dollars” to add to any given device, meaning even cheap netbooks could start coming with fidgity touchpads soon. Now that is progress.

Continue reading Artificial Muscle makes touchy devices burlier

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Artificial Muscle makes touchy devices burlier originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 24

Voigtländer Adapter Puts Leica Lenses on Micro Four Thirds Cameras

Posted in: Today's Chili

Cosina, the maker of my first ever 35mm SLR and current owner of the prestigious Voigtländer brand, has announced a rather exciting accessory. It’s an adapter to attach M-mount lenses onto Micro Four Thirds cameras.

What does that actually mean? It means that you can buy one of the burgeoning range of modern m4/3 digicams and slip on a lens from Leica, Voigtländer or Carl Zeiss. Essentially this means you can use some of the best lenses ever made on some pretty cheap and full featured bodies (the Panasonic G1, for instance).

There are some limits. The adapter is mechanical only, which means that there will be no communication between the camera and lens. This could mess with some advanced metering features, and also leave gaps in your photo’s metadata, but for older, non-chipped lenses this won’t matter anyway.

This product alone actually makes the Micro Four Thirds system much more enticing, and until Leica comes out with a proper digital M-series camera, why not save some money and use this instead? ¥19,800 or around $200.

Product page [Cosina via DP Review]

Apr 24

Samsung is back in the money, but a whole lot less than last year

Posted in: business, industry, recession, sales, samsung, Today's Chili

Hot on the heels of Apple announcing it’s officially ripping this recession a new one and making more money than ever (hooray!), Samsung has released its financials for the first quarter and things are a little more, erm, glum. (Boo?) The company has at least partially recovered from its first ever loss in the fourth quarter of last year, making a tidy $459 million so far in 2009. That’s the good news. The bad news, however, is that $459 million is 72 percent less than the company pocketed in the same quarter in 2008. But, profit is profit, and a 36 percent increase in revenue from the company’s cellphone division is also promising — especially given Nokia’s recent bad news. Must be thanks to all those Omnia fanboys and girls.

Filed under: Cellphones, Displays, Misc. Gadgets

Samsung is back in the money, but a whole lot less than last year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 24

Get a free digital converter box and HDMI cable

Posted in: Today's Chili

You supply the government coupon; Meritline serves up the converter box and a free HDMI cable to boot.

(Credit: Airlink101)

Still haven’t picked up a converter box for your old non-digital TV? Meritline has a deal that’s hard to beat: if you’ve got your coupon from Uncle Sam, …

Originally posted at The Cheapskate

Apr 24

Nikon’s D5000 DSLR (and its articulating display) shipping April 27th

Posted in: 720p, amazon, available, camera, digital camera, DigitalCamera, dslr, nikon, now available, NowAvailable, on sale, OnSale, Release Date, Today's Chili

Oh, goodie goodie! Merely ten days after the D5000 was formally introduced to the world — and just hours after Amazon’s pre-order page went live — we’re now being told that Nikon’s first DSLR with an articulating display will be shipping in three short days. Starting on April 27th, the cam will begin making its way out to those who pulled the trigger early on… at least in kit form. We don’t expect the body-only configuration to leave the docks for at least a week or so later, but you can rest assured we’ll be giving one a go and letting you know if it’s worth the cheddar.

[Thanks, Jonathon]

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Nikon’s D5000 DSLR (and its articulating display) shipping April 27th originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 24

Orange Vegas: Cheapest, Smallest Touch Screen Phone

Posted in: Phones, Today's Chili

Orange has released a tiny, cheap touch-screen cellphone in the UK. Curiously, given that it is everything that its namesake city is not — small, tasteful and understated — the handset is called Vegas.

The £50 ($73) phone doesn’t pack too many features, but it has the essentials — a 1.3MP camera, an FM radio, an MP3 player, a paltry 64MB internal memory (expandable to 4GB) and Bluetooth. That £50 is not a contract price, either — that’s the full whack for a pay-as-you-go tariff.

This got us thinking. Once you have a touch screen, is it easier and cheaper to add features? After all, once you have the internal in place, its just software, right? You can churn out all manner of handsets at different prices and differentiate them with functions. A smartphone no longer needs to be made with a keyboard, just a better OS inside.

Orange has made one concession to the Vegas name, however. The phone is not only available in black. It also comes in pink, which we like to imagine is really neon flamingo pink.

Product page [Orange via the Reg]

Apr 24

Cruzin’ or Abusin? The BodycruZer Male Body-Shaver

Posted in: household, Today's Chili

Is trimming body-hair an acceptable enterprise for the male? Sure, hairy backs are gross, and my old high-school art teacher had fur jostling twixt the buttons of his shirt and crowding over the collar — not sexy. But is the alternative — smooth, oiled bodies free of frolicking follicles — how to say this, a little too feminine?

If you really must go this way, you need a manly named gadget with which to trim. Sadly, the Braun bodycruZer isn’t it. Where I come from, “cruising” has a very different meaning, and simply adding a capital “z” won’t change that. Even the ad is suspect: Check the Web site and see for yourself. Our “hero”, now hair-free, is also testosterone-free. Witness the women around him aggressively growling, taking the male role. Hell, one even turns into peacock to attract him. That’s peacock, not peahen.

From a gadget point of view, the bodycruZer is notable in that it departs from the “razor blade model”, wherein you get the handle almost free and then pay a fortune for the blades. It does this not by eschewing replaceable blades like the usual electric razor (those will cost you around $6 apiece) but by selling blades and charging a fortune for the handle — $70 in this case.

For the excessive hirsute male (or female, we guess) this may be something you’d like — if only as an alternative to the horribly named waxing procedure, the “back, crack and sack”. Available May 5th.

Product page [Braun via Uncrate]