Hasta La Gadget!

You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too many microfiber cloths. They’re great for cleaning camera lenses as well as sunglasses, laptop screens, and scanner glass. You don’t want to use your LCD-display-cleaning microfiber cloth as your lens-cleaning microfiber cloth because of all the dust it picked up, so have multiples on hand. Most cloths come with a quickly lost clear vinyl envelope. That won’t be the case if you get a Spudz microfiber cloth with an attached pouch, $5 to $10, depending on the size of the cloth.

An iPad for zilch on contract? Yessir… but only if you pack up and move to the Land of the Rising Sun. Softbank Mobile has just announced a new pricing plan that makes Apple’s 16GB iPad WiFi + 3G model totally free with a two-year data agreement in Japan, and for those who recall it being “free” before, this situation is a bit different. You see, there’s no built-in monthly surcharge for this one; rather than paying off your iPad over 24 months, you’re actually getting it for nothing as long as you’re kosher with forking out ¥4,725 ($56) per month for that 3G goodness. The deal starts on December 3rd, and we’ve got a strange, strange feeling that it’ll do quite well if marketed correctly. And by “correctly,” we mean “at all.”

[Thanks, Ken]

Softbank makes 16GB iPad WiFi + 3G free with two-year contract originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Softbank Mobile (translated)  | Email this | Comments

Director Irvin Kershner died this Saturday in Los Angeles. Kershner, 87, was probably best known for directing the second–and darkest–film in the original Star Wars trilogy.

Kershner was already a fairly well-known name before taking the Star Wars directing mantle from George Lucas. After graduating from the University of Southern California film school in the 50s, Kershner broke into director via government serials in the Middle East.

In 1958, he directed the pulpy Stakeout on Dope Street for Roger Corman, going on to shoot films starting the likes of George C. Scott, Sean Connery, and Faye Dunaway, and receiving an Emmy nod for a 1976 TV movie.

Post-Empire, Kershner directed a number of other big budget films, including Robocop 2 and the 1983 bond movie, Never Say Never Again.

The Incas and the Aztecs worshiped it. Ancient Europeans erected megaliths to it. Several civilizations based their calendars around it. Until now, however, no one has ever owned the sun.

Back in September, one Angeles Duran of Galicia, Spain took bold steps to change that. Following in the footsteps of an American man who claims to now own the moon, the 49-year-old Salvaterra do Mino resident registered ownership of the life-giving star at a notary public in her area.

The notarized document states that Duran is now the “owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometers.”

Duran plans to charge for use of the sun. She won’t take all of the money herself, though. According to AFP, half of the money will go to Spain’s government, 20 percent will go to the country’s pension fund, 10 percent to research, 10 percent to world hunger. The other 10 she’ll keep for herself. 

A lady’s gotta make a living, after all.

Apple last week rolled out a major update for its mobile operating system iOS 4, and among the new features is a nifty free tool: Find My iPhone.

As its name suggests, Find My iPhone is a tracking feature to locate a missing iPhone 4, iPad or fourth-generation iPod Touch. (Only the latest models get the free feature.) If you’ve dropped your iDevice in a cab, or if someone’s stolen it, you can hop on a computer to follow the GPS coordinates of the iPhone on a Google map (see above).

Or, if you’re just absent-minded like me and you misplace your iPhone as often as you lose your keys, you can use your computer to trigger a beeping sound to help you find it. It should be loud enough to hear from under a couch cushion. (You’ll never have to bug a friend to call your phone again.)

If you do indeed think your iPhone is in the hands of a thief, you can use Find My iPhone to remotely lock the device or wipe the data. Do note, however, that if you wipe the device, you won’t be able to track it anymore (hap tip to @shacker for catching that). Also,  a clever thief could just remove the SIM card, and you wouldn’t be able to track or wipe the phone.

Of the many new features in iOS 4.2.1, I found this one to be one of the sweetest bonuses. Find My iPhone originally was only available as part of a MobileMe subscription, which costs $100 per year. Making it free was a nice move on Apple’s part: An iPhone can potentially contain a treasure trove of personal information, so losing one is a big deal.

You need to activate Find My iPhone before you lose your phone, so do it now. Since the steps to turn this useful feature on aren’t immediately obvious, here’s how to do it:

1. Make sure you have the latest iOS update (iOS 4.2.1) installed. Plug in your iPhone and click “Check for updates” in iTunes to get the software.

2. With iOS 4.2.1 installed, tap the Settings app on your iPhone. Then tap “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” and “Add Account.” Then choose MobileMe.

3. In the MobileMe account menu, enter your iTunes or Apple ID and password (i.e., the login you use to buy iTunes media on the iPhone).

4. The “Find My iPhone” option should appear. Slide it to “ON” to activate it.”

And you’re done! From here on, you can hop on a computer and enter www.me.com in a web browser. Then enter the same login credentials you used to register for Find My iPhone, and you’ll immediately get a GPS reading of the phone, along with a simple menu of buttons allowing you to lock, wipe, or send a message or sound to the iPhone.

Update: Corrected an error that stated MobileMe costs $10 per month. In actuality, it costs $100 per year.

See Also:

• Apple iOS 4.2 Arrives, Makes Find My iPhone Free
• Apple’s ‘Find my iPhone’ App Almost Impossible to Use
• IPhone and iPad Lost in the Trash, Found With MobileMe
• Geek and Thief Come Face to Face Thanks to ‘Find My iPhone …