Hasta La Gadget!

Palm has never shied away from odd, short names for its devices — take the Zire, for instance — so when you hear that Palm’s new owner has filed for trademarks on “Gyst,” “Myte,” and “Veer” in the category that covers smartphones, it doesn’t take a very big leap of logic to believe that they’re intended for future Palm models. HP’s filings were all made on the 10th of this month, so they’re very fresh; of course, companies of all types regularly file trademarks that they don’t use either to throw off the Engadgets of the world or just in case they end up needing it down the road, so we wouldn’t take these to mean there’ll definitely be Veers on your carrier’s shelf in 2011. Our vote? We think Myte’s a great name for a tiny phone and we’ve heard rumors that they’ll be releasing a small model — possibly a Pixi successor — in the next few months, so that lines up rather nicely.

Hewlett Packard files trademarks for Gyst, Myte, and Veer: new Palm models? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Donning a pair of reflective sunglasses and a mask that obscured the bottom half of his face, Baas, a spokesman for WikiLeaks hacking group Anonymous, appeared on screen for the first time this week. The hacktivist used the opportunity to layout some of the method to the group’s perceived cyberattacking madness.

“Our pool of targets is actually very limited,” Baas told  British news agency Sky News. “We are going after the agencies that were directly involved in the censorship of WikiLeaks. They include PayPal who cut off services and withheld funds. The same with Visa and MasterCard, then Amazon who cut off their service support.”

There are some agencies the group won’t attack however, no matter what they might say about WikiLeaks and its supporters. “We don’t attack the media, that is a big no no,” said Baas from behind his lo-res video feed. “Even the media that has been critical of us, we don’t attack any of the news. Facebook, Twitter and social network sites–even though they have done some things against us, we’re not going to go after them.”

According to the spokesman, the group pulled together 9,000 WikiLeaks supporters for its most recent attack. The software Anonymous uses has apparently been downloaded more than 300,000 times.

This gorgeous old-style radio is actually a DIY kit, made from cardboard. The faux-wood case hides a hybrid of the modern and the ancient. The radio stage uses vacuum tubes to receive and produce the sound, whereupon it is sent to an IC, or Integrated Circuit.

The Franzis Tube Radio kit comes with all the parts, knobs and dials you’ll need to build it (although the PDF instructions are only in Dutch or German), and the product page says that this is a world tuner, suitable for cruising the long-bouncing airwaves at night, ham-radio-style.

Even if you don’t want it, take a look at the instructions (the PDFs can be had from the product page). You’ll be treated to an incredibly in-depth manual full of black and white photos and even circuit diagrams. If nothing else, it would make a great gift for any tinkering nerd in your life.

The Franzis Tube Radio kit costs €50, or $66, plus shipping from Germany. I like it so much I just ordered one. Happy Christmas to me!

Franzis Tube Radio kit [Conrad Electronics via Retro Thing]

See Also:

• The 'Sickest Tube Amp You've Ever Seen'
• Vacuum Tube Chess Set Flickers and Glows
• Build a Vacuum Tube iPod Amplifier

Apple will be kicking off the new year in style, with the launch of its much anticipated Mac App Store, a desktop-based counterpart to its ultra-successful iPhone and iPad stores. The new storefront will be available in 90 countries and will feature applications from a wide variety of categories, including Games, Productivity, Utilities, Education, Design, and Lifestyle.

Said CEO Steve Jobs in an announcement that went out this morning, “The App Store revolutionized mobile apps. We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can’t wait to get started on January 6.”

Note the use of the word “PC.” Aw, how the times have changed.

The Mac store will offer most of the familiar features, including download charts, ratings and reviews, and one-click purchasing. Once downloaded, apps can be run on multiple Macs when signed into your account. The store is available as a free update to Mac owners with Snow Leopard installed.

Apple is offering up 70 percent of download revenue to developers.

If ever a post needed a sunglasses warning this one is it. Check out that paint job. It’s a pretty hot hue for a pretty hot car, the E-Cell, a Mercedes SLS AMG that has had its internal combustion assets stripped and replaced with not one, not two, but four electric motors. That’s one per wheel, naturally, and if you add them all up you get the equivalent of 528hp, a little short of the production car’s 563hp, but torque is up to 649ft/lbs from the stock car’s 479 — and being electric that’s all available from the start. Sadly, though, twisting force isn’t the only thing that’s swelled, with this car adding a whopping 880lbs to an already heft 3,571. According to Auto Express that’s had a decidedly negative effect on handling, but it does at least offer a quite respectable 125 mile range. No information yet on cost or when exactly Mercedes might put this thing into production, but earlier word was we won’t see it on the streets anytime before 2013. You’d better prepare yourself now by staring at the sun for a few minutes a day, and do yourself a favor: start squinting before you click “play” on the video below.

Continue reading Mercedes electric SLS AMG E-Cell previewed: neck-snapping and retina-searing (video)

Mercedes electric SLS AMG E-Cell previewed: neck-snapping and retina-searing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 10:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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