Hasta La Gadget!

Apple and HTC might each be trying to patent a fancy capacitive stylus, but it looks like the good people of South Korea have stumbled on a decidedly more low-tech (and delicious) solution to using their phones in the winter: sausages. Apparently snack sausages from the CJ Corporation are electrostatically compatible with the iPhone’s capacitive touchscreen, leading many to use them as a “meat stylus” in the cold weather, rather than remove a glove. And it’s not just a joke; apparently South Korean snack sausage sales are soaring. We don’t know if anyone’s managed to combine this bit of amazing hackery with the bacon iPod sleeve yet, but we do know that we just registered meatstylus.com — anyone care to send in some local sausage test results?

South Korean iPhone users turn to sausages as a cold weather ‘meat stylus’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look, we’ve all had rough days. Ones that we wish never even happened, in fact. But we’ve yet to be pushed to the brink where the only logical solution to blow off steam would be to take an aluminum baseball bat to nearly three dozen TVs that weren’t ours. For whatever reason (the accused is pleading the Fifth), Westley Strellis waltzed into a Walmart just outside of Atlanta yesterday, where he proceeded to lift a bat from the sporting goods section and then demolish the screens of 29 televisions in the electronics department. Shortly after, he submitted to a pair of handcuffs and 29 counts of criminal damage to property in the second degree, and if the initial tallies are correct, he somehow managed to mar over $22,000 worth of goods. Chin up, Mr. Strellis — maybe you’ll end up in a cell next to this brainiac.

P.S. – Store footage of the rampage is after the break.

Continue reading Walmart shopper takes a bat to 29 TVs, lobbies to join Braves’ spring training squad

Walmart shopper takes a bat to 29 TVs, lobbies to join Braves’ spring training squad originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer’s 3D, home automation-ready S5200 projector now available originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Incontrovertibly, This American Life is one of the most popular radio programs in the United States. And its iPhone app, which delivers unlimited access to the show’s entire archive, is sure to please fans.

The $3 app can stream every This American Life episode all the way back to 1995. That’s a sweet deal, because each archived episode normally costs a buck apiece to download through iTunes. And if you do wish to store an episode in your audio library, you can still choose to buy it for a dollar through the app.

Ira Glass has churned out a heck of a lot of content in his 15 years hosting the show, so the main challenge is going to be remembering and finding the episode you’re in the mood for. Fortunately the app includes the ability to search not just by keyword, but also by contributor. So if you’re looking for that episode where John Hodgman speaks, for example, you can look up his name to find the episode easily.

The iPhone app also offers the option to listen to a free live stream of the latest episode as it’s being aired by WBEZ. You can even enable push notifications to remind you when an episode is about to air.

As for the This American Life TV show, you can’t watch entire episodes, but you can view sample clips. (We’re sure most people are going to want the app for the audio anyway.)

The biggest drag about the app is it can’t run in the background, because Apple won’t allow background processing for third-party apps. That means you must close the This American Life app and interrupt listening whenever you need to do something else with your iPhone like check your e-mail. This app actually inspired me to download the free “Backgrounder” app for jailbroken (i.e. hacked) iPhones through the underground Cydia app store. That allows apps to run in the background — but it’s worth noting that if you leave background processing on, you kill your battery pretty fast.

The This American Life iPhone app is available for download through the iTunes App Store.

A hat tip to Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica, whose review of this app brought it to my attention.

This American Life Download Link [iTunes]

See Also:

• iPhone App Enables Dogs to Be Emo on Twitter
• Wired’s 20 Favorite iPhone Apps of 2009
• The Top iPhone Apps of 2009: Apple’s Picks and Yours