‘Text-Only,’ a Text-Only Browser for Android

Make like it’s 1992 with the Text-Only browser

Back in the swirling mists of the last century, men were men, browsers were text-based and pictures were ASCII. Now you can relive those wild, Deadwood years of the Internet with Text-Only, a — you guessed it — text-only browser.

The free app is built for Android, but there’s a web-based version so you can access it from any browser. And because the web today isn’t really accessible by a text-only browser, it pulls some tricks.

Enter a URL and the app will return a list of articles on that page, without any adds, pop-ups, pictures or other cruft. Think of it as being like Instapaper, only in live browser form.

If the article list doesn’t load, you can give the app the page’s RSS feed address and take things from there. As this involves firing up another browser in order to copy the RSS link, it’s not ideal.

What it is good for is low-bandwidth browsing. And I mean low-bandwidth in two ways: You can pull down the relevant parts of a site when abroad, or when approaching the limit of your monthly data allowance, or just on a slow connection. And you reduce the clutter on a typical page, offering much less distraction.

If bandwidth isn’t a problem, try Readability in your regular browser. Otherwise, Text-Only is nicely old-school. If only it rendered graphics as ASCII art.

Text-Only product page [Android Market. Thanks, Shan!]

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Verizon Wireless gives birth to first LTE COW in Florida, we’re still waiting for a celebratory cigar

They’re not keen on providing milk, and we’ve never found evidence to suggest that Verizon’s COWs are indeed happy COWs, but Big Red has welcomed a new arrival to its family: the company’s first LTE-equipped cell-on-wheels. Measuring in at 1,080 inches tall and weighing a stunning 24,000 pounds, the self-powered transmitter will begin rolling across Florida to handle demand spikes during major events and to serve as a backup communications solution for emergency response scenarios. Although just an infant, it’s capable of handling hundreds of simultaneous calls and data transmissions. Spoken like a thrilled papa, Verizon gushed, “We’re very proud of this new baby, and glowing about our 4G LTE services around the state.” You’ll find all the carrier’s cheers in the PR after the break.

Continue reading Verizon Wireless gives birth to first LTE COW in Florida, we’re still waiting for a celebratory cigar

Verizon Wireless gives birth to first LTE COW in Florida, we’re still waiting for a celebratory cigar originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NTT DoCoMo bad breath, body fat and food analyzers hands-on (video)

It’s been a busy year for NTT DoCoMo’s research and development division, with the company presenting a goldmine of future accessories at its CEATEC booth. We’re not seeing anything terribly exciting in the smartphone department, beyond a wider adoption of Android, but from the battery with a 10-minute charge time that we saw yesterday to the bad breath, hunger, body fat and food analyzers that you’ll find below, there are certainly quite a few gadgets worth checking out. We’re bundling a few of them here, so jump past the break for our hands-ons with three different health accessories (including a bad breath analyzer!) and a clever food analyzing app.

Continue reading NTT DoCoMo bad breath, body fat and food analyzers hands-on (video)

NTT DoCoMo bad breath, body fat and food analyzers hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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eBeam Edge Whiteboard records text and illustrations in real-time as you write and draw

Remember back in high school and college when you used to race to copy down all the things on the board your teacher was writing before it got erased? It was a rather stressful way to spend class, but times are changing. Educational tools are improving greatly with advancements in technology. It wasn’t until recently […]

Camera Concept With Dials. Lots and Lots of Dials

I can fit more dials on here, dammit. Just you see if I can’t. Picture: Charlie Nghiem

If something is good, then more is surely better, right? That seems to be the thinking behind Charlie Nghiem’s Rotor Digital Camera.

Taking the popular (and excellent) resurgence of manual dials as his cue, Nghiem’s concept stacks eight (8!) dials on top of each other, nestled into a cylinder of control underneath the regular mode dial up top.

When you turn a dial, a strip appears on-screen right next to it, showing the results if your efforts. It thus combines the vagueness of a menu-driven interface — which requires you to always watch what you are doing — and the awkwardness of finding an individual button to do it.

I don’t see how this is any better than the button-and-dial method on most digicams, especially as those dials look almost impossible to turn (apart from the top one, and the one with the red nubbin).

I’m all for extra, dedicated manual controls. It just seems that, in this case at least, less might be more. Now, why do I suddenly feel like eating a Polo?

Charlie Nghiem: Rotor Digital Camera [Design Boom via Andrew Liszewski]

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Luxury Vertu Constellation T smartphone now packs post-feudal technology

Rich people in poor countries have had to make some terrible sacrifices when choosing a gem-encrusted handset. They’ve generally shopped at Vertu, the Nokia-owned go-to company for such ostentatious purchases, but its range of models has lacked even the most basic smartphone functionality. Now though, a Vertu Constellation T has cropped up at the Bluetooth SIG with distinctly forward-looking specs: a 3.5-inch 640 x 360 AMOLED touchscreen, eight megapixel shooter with twin LED flash, 32GB of onboard storage and an HSPA+ modem. You’ll find some low-res pics after the break, but we fear they might not look expensive enough — bear in mind that Vertu devices fetch an average of $7,000, rising to $27,000 for the ultimate provocation of the masses.

Continue reading Luxury Vertu Constellation T smartphone now packs post-feudal technology

Luxury Vertu Constellation T smartphone now packs post-feudal technology originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 07:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Self-Cleaning Fabric Reacts to Light

Boring laundry could be obsolete, with new tech from UC Davis researchers. Photo Paolo/Flickr

Forget washing your clothes. In the future, you may be able to clean your shirt just by taking a walk in the sun.

Students at UC Davis have worked out a way to mix cotton with a compound that reacts to light. When hit by photons, the compound — 2-anthraquinone carboxylic acid — reacts and produces hydroxyl radicals and hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide, you will remember, is used to bleach hair and propel rockets. The released chemical will also kill bacteria and “break down organic compounds such as pesticides and other toxins.” Perhaps you wouldn’t want to actually be wearing this when the light hits it.

Self-cleaning clothes would be great. Imagine a hiking trip. Instead of having to wash and dry your clothes, you could just leave them out on a rock to clean them. Ning Liu, who worked on bonding the chemicals to the cellulose in the cotton, says that the fabric “has potential applications in biological and chemical protective clothing for health care, food processing and farmworkers, as well as military personnel.” Whatever. I’ll settle for claiming back the space the washing machine takes up in my tiny kitchen.

Self-cleaning cotton breaks down pesticides, bacteria [UC Davis via CNET]

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E-Bike Cruiser With Trunk, Stereo, Style

Retro looks and modern gizmos won Tony Pereira the Oregon Manifest constructors prize for the second year running

Yeah, yeah, that idiot Charlie Sorrel is writing about yet another electric bike. But wait a second: this one is actually super-cool.

Not only does Tony Pereira’s bike look like something Pee-wee Herman would ride, it also won the Best in Show prize at this year’s Oregon Manifest Constructor’s Design Challenge.

Tony works out of Portland, OR (of course), and although he styles the bike after a fifties cruiser, it is totally modern. The “gas tank” is in fact a battery pack hooked up to a 350 watt Bionx electric hub in the rear wheel, and the carbon-fiber trunk up front is lockable and houses a sound system, perfect for annoying everyone on your next critical mass. The battery is good for 60 miles.

That trunk also has a small recess for a cellphone and cycle computer, and has USB ports for charging anything else.

The final touch is a U-lock integrated into the frame. From the key (which is inserted into the head-tube), it looks like he used a Kryptonite lock. This is the same integrated lock design that won Tony the prize last year.

You won’t be able to buy the bike (yet), but if you ask nicely, and have the right money, Pereira might just build you one.

Oregon Manifest 2011 Winners [Core77 via Bicycle Design]

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CyberWare: Advanced Process Explorer For Windows

This article was written on September 30, 2006 by CyberNet.

CyberNet's CyberWare
Tracking Down Great Software For You!

Windows has a built-in process explorer that isn’t exactly targeted for power users. It only shows you the basic information that you need and nothing else. If you are want to know more about what’s going on in your computer then you should download the free Process Explorer by Sysinternals.

Process Explorer

You can find out just about everything that you wanted to know. I can even find out the maximum amount of memory that a process has used since it started running. One of the other features that I find really useful is the process’ right-click shortcut that is labeled “Google”. When you click on that option it will open your browser and do a Google Search for the filename of the process. That helps tremendously for identifying any unknown process.

Process Explorer is completely free and best of all it doesn’t make you install it. Just download the file, extract it, and run it! The simplicity of using it makes it an excellent debugging tool when your trying to figure out what’s slowing down your computer.

Operating System Requirements: Windows 9x/Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Server 2003, 64-bit versions of Windows for x64 processors, and Windows Vista.

Download Process Explorer (all are 1.47MB):

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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KDDI shows off sensory enhancements for smartphone users, throws a free-viewpoint virtual concert

KDDI shows off sensory enhancements for smartphone users, throws a free-viewpoint virtual concert

Japanese carrier KDDI’s never been shy about showing off its latest and greatest from its lab, and here at CEATEC 2011 we got to lay our fingers on a couple of its in-development smartphone sensory enhancements, along with a free-viewpoint concert concept that’s being researched on. The first demo we saw was actually the same haptic smartphone prototype that was unveiled back in May, but we thought it’d be nice to give it a go with our very own hands — read on to find out how well it performed.

Continue reading KDDI shows off sensory enhancements for smartphone users, throws a free-viewpoint virtual concert

KDDI shows off sensory enhancements for smartphone users, throws a free-viewpoint virtual concert originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 06:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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