Hasta La Gadget!

Looking for a New Year’s resolution to break? Look elsewhere. If you commit to banging out three solid miles on a Trailrunner 4.0 treadmill each day, there’s a better-than-average chance you’ll actually be able to do just that throughout 2011. In a presumed effort to keep nerds and internet junkies “in shape,” ProForm has slapped a 10-inch Android tablet (non-removable, sadly) up top, offering users the ability to check the news, browse their email and surf the web so long as a WiFi network is within range. Once you’re done with that, you can scroll through workout stats and options including speed, time, distance, calories burned, pulse, incline and pace. Moreover, it’s integrated with iFit Live in order to give users the ability to map their progress, and the inbuilt speaker system and auxiliary input lets you jam to your heart’s content, too. At $2,999, it’s hardly an impulse buy, but considering that you were already budgeting $500 for a new Android device… actually, nah, it’s still no bargain.

[Thanks, Justin]

ProForm Trailrunner 4.0 treadmill tricks you into exercising with 10-inch Android tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 15:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  ProForm  | Email this | Comments

This article was written on March 07, 2007 by CyberNet.

Anybody can call themselves a doctor, but only a handful have done the work and can prove it. Really, you could call yourself anything you’d like so that you sound distinguished. That’s exactly what one of Wikipedia’s contributor’s did. Ryan Jordan claimed to be a professor of theology to give himself some credibility, yet he was a 24 year-old college dropout.

Now Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales is saying that they’re going to implement a plan where those who cite professional expertise on the site will have to have their credentials verified. Jordan ended up in a position with Wikia where he was an arbitrator.  This meant that he was in a trusted position where he had a lot of control over the content, and what stayed, and what didn’t. He had the power to override any edits made by other people.

What makes Wikipedia unique is that there’s anonymity to it, and there’s a huge variety of topics that are covered. While all of the information may not be reliable, Wikipedia does work to make them credible by hiring people like Jordan to cite the information.

 Because it’s popular, it becomes a target for vandalism. Back in January, they took new steps to prevent vandalism ‘so that immature people can’t go and destroy a page and fill it with nonsense.

This next step to require proof of credentials will only help Wikipedia become a better source of information, and hopefully that will help them keep their presence in schools and other higher education institutions where Wikipedia is currently being banned. One example of this is Middlebury College where they decided Wikipedia does have value, but it’s not an appropriate source.

While I agree it’s not an appropriate source for research, it does have a lot of important information that you could always verify the validity of on your own.

If you claim you know your stuff on Wikipedia, prove it!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Purchasing Vista and Office at Discounted PricesPretec’s New iDisk:A Bullet Proof USB Drive?Helpful Tip: Wikipedia RSS FeedsWikipedia Publishes Its Millionth Article…WOW!Which is More Accurate: Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica?

Some of you, dear Gizmodo readers, have lovely families who celebrate the holidays with Hallmarkian rigor. Others…don’t you realize that duct tape wasn’t meant for lips? More »

Apple’s loose-lipped overseas partners are exchanging whispers about the next-generation iPad, claiming it will come in three different versions, one of which would work with Verizon’s network.

The iPad 2 will support three different wireless configurations: UMTS, CDMA and Wi-Fi only, according to “industry sources quoted by DigiTimes” citing component makers. That’s up from the two versions Apple currently offers: UMTS plus Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi only.

To explicate the alphabet soup, UMTS is the standard used by major 3G carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile, while CDMA is compatible with Verizon and Sprint networks.

Currently the 3G iPad ships with a MicroSIM card slot, and in the United States, the only carrier that uses MicroSIM is AT&T. Customers who want to connect to non-AT&T 3G networks must either buy an external wireless hotspot device such as the Verizon MiFi (Verizon already sells a MiFi plus iPad package) or trim a standard SIM card down to MicroSIM size, like Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel.

The current 3G model of the iPad is not tied to a contract: Customers pay a flat monthly rate for data and can opt out whenever they please.

So if this rumor is true, it means that when the iPad 2 ships, you’ll have to pick a 3G model based on your carrier preference. If you don’t plan to be on the road a lot, there’s still the Wi-Fi option.

Support for both major wireless standards in the United States will make the iPad 2 available to a much larger potential audience, whereas before it was only available in the states from AT&T.

Whether Apple hammers out sales agreements with Verizon or Sprint remains to be seen.

Recent rumors suggestion that the iPad 2 will hit stores April 2011, one year after the original iPad’s release. Some third-party protective cases for a purported “iPad 2″ have been cropping up in Asia, hinting at the possibility of a bigger speaker and a rear-facing camera.

Persistent rumors — so far unsubstantiated — have also pointed to a Verizon-compatible iPhone to be released in early 2011. If Verizon gets the iPhone and the iPad, it would greatly expand Apple’s potential market, and would also likely deal a severe blow to AT&T, which has been roundly criticized for the inability of its 3G network to keep up with iPhone-induced demand.

See Also:

• Verizon to Sell Apple’s iPad, But Is iPhone Next?
• With iPad, Apple Still Has a Fatal Attraction for AT&T
• AT&T Sees iPad as Wi-Fi Driven, Not a 3G Hog

Photo: Current iPad
Jon Snyder/Wired.com

One of my favorite activities around the holidays is visiting my ever-growing collection of discontinued (and often hilariously outdated) mobile hardware that I keep in storage. It’s an annual tradition for me — an opportunity to pull stuff out of the box, make sure all the devices, accessories, and documentation are insect- and vermin-free, clean the battery contacts, blow off a years’ worth of dust, and generally check that everything’s in good working order. Let me tell you, I feel like a kid in a candy store each and every time I pull out and open those bins. I’ll know that when I stop feeling that way, it’s time to sell off the collection — but for now, it’s still every bit as exciting as when I started buying random gadgets from my childhood a decade ago.

On the surface, you might assume that electronics are timeless. They’re made of materials that are designed for daily use and abuse, after all, and it’d be easy to think that a gadget left in storage — unused — would remain in exactly the same condition as the day you left it. I’ve learned the hard way, though, that the reality is a little more unpleasant: plastics seem to dry out and become brittle as the years go by, and things start cracking and shattering. Boxes and packaging degrade, almost as if they’re recycling themselves whether you like it or not. And batteries — particularly alkalines — will leak all over the place, eating through circuitry and oxidizing contacts beyond repair.

Continue reading Editorial: rechargeable batteries are a vintage gadget’s Achilles’ heel

Editorial: rechargeable batteries are a vintage gadget’s Achilles’ heel originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments