Hasta La Gadget!

Google has been significantly expanding its Maps offerings for a long time. When the service first started one of the only things you could do was get directions to places you wanted to go. Over time, Google expanded offerings with Street View showing you exactly what the roads in the area you were looking at were like.

Google also started venturing inside businesses along the routes to give you interior views of shops and restaurants. Google has announced the launch of its first ever underwater views thanks to a partnership with The Caitlin Seaview Survey.

Google is now offering images of underwater beauty in spots including Hawaii, The Great Barrier Reef, and the Philippines.

Imagery is limited right now and rather difficult to spot. Areas where you can view underwater sights are marked with an orange circle on Google’s normal maps. That orange circle shows up when you’re almost fully zoomed in. But if you want to dive right in without looking for a needle in a haystack, head on over to maps.google.com/ocean.

I think this is a really cool update and I hope Google expands the available underwater views.

[via TechCrunch]

October 8th. That’s the final launch date for fearless Felix Baumgartner, the daredevil that is going to jump from the edge of space. The 42-year-old Baumgartner is eager to attempt the record-breaking super-sonic parachute jump. He says that he feels like wild animal in a cage right now. More »

Texas Instruments has made the startling announcement that it’s going to wind down its wildly successful smartphone and tablet business in favor of embedded systems. VP Greg Delagi told investors that the switch would create a more “stable” and “long-term business” than the cutthroat battles it’s faced in mobile. While, currently the world’s third biggest semiconductor company, it’s concerned about losing ground to players like Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple — despite its latest OMAP CPUs powering tablets like the Nook HD and Kindle Fire. We’re scratching our heads as to why a major player would drop such a strong position like this, but perhaps they know something that we don’t.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Transportation, Mobile

Texas Instruments wants to ditch smartphones, switch focus to embedded processors originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Peer into the drawers of the average gadget addict and you’re sure to find a tangled mess of unused chargers gathering dust. Mobile phones are a prime offender in creating redundant gadget junk, with new models released every few months to drive upgrades. Indeed, U.K. carrier O2 calculates there are now more than 100 million unused phone chargers languishing in Brits’ drawers — which is why it says it’s decided to sell a smartphone without a charger in the box.

“The environmental cost of multiple and redundant chargers is enormous and I believe that, as the mobile phone has become more prevalent, we as retailers and manufacturers have an ever-greater responsibility to be a more sustainable industry,” said O2 UK CEO Ronan Dunne in a statement.

O2 reckons the time is right to introduce a charger-less phone because the majority of phone sales are upgrades — rather than people buying their very first mobile phone.

It also notes that wide adoption of USB within phones means most chargers are interchangeable. Even Sony has stopped making crazy proprietary chargers. (Apple, of course, has not.) The European Commission’s push to create a universal phone charger standard has been the underlying driving force behind charger compatibility over the past few years. The rise of Google’s Android platform has also helped push Micro USB ports into more and more handsets.

The charger-less phone heading for O2′s shelves will be made by HTC. It will include a Micro USB port and will also come with a Micro-USB to USB cable in the box — presumably to ensure the select few phone buyers who don’t actually have a compatible charger lying around at home could still juice it up by plugging the cable into their computer.

There are no further details on the specs of the phone as yet — O2 says it will be releasing more details over the coming weeks.

The carrier added it wants to sell “more and more” phones without chargers in future, and said it’s also hopeful other mobile companies will follow its (charger-less) lead.

Nowadays, kids are into violence.  Guns, explosions, fist fights – you can’t deny that these have all become an integral part of the gaming experience.  Borderlands 2?  Violent.  Halo 4?  Violent.  All 50 million versions of the same game?  (CoD.)  Violent.

Portal is one of the more docile games in terms of getting injured, but we’ve taken one small part of that experience and focused on it in all kinds of different creations. Which part is that, you ask?  The part that shoots things, of couse – the turret from Portal!  One minute it’s your friend, the next it’s stabbing you in the back.  With bullets.  Still recovering emotionally from Wheatley’s betrayal.

A guy by the name of TwoHornsUnited, who understands the concept of two objects being stronger than a single object, has created this awesome tribute to Portal.  No, I don’t think it will actually protect you from noxious gas, but it sure as heck will make the neighbors pee their pants when I crawl in through the window holding my Portal gun replica.

Here’s what the mask looks like from the view of the fifty foot woman.  You know – did anyone ever try to reason with that lumbering creature of a woman?  “Are you talking about my wife again?”  HAHA – I’m going to tell on you like I used to in grade school when you’d flick boogers at Jenny.  “So you weren’t talking about my wife?”  No – we already came to the consensus that she looks like that bear Matthew Inman drew.

If you like the Portal Turret Gas Mask, then you’ll definitely want to check out the Portal Webcam.  ”Not really, actually.”  I’m not a mind-reader, you intellectual potato.  Go take a look at the LEGO Portal set while I wallow in my self-pity, which gives off an odd stench.

Jack Kieffer owns Cool Gizmo Toys, a site that has a bunch of geeky stuff on it.