Hasta La Gadget!

When we first read about Deep Shot, we were admittedly dumbfounded, but equally impressed. The “technology” allows you to “capture” the current state of a website on your desktop and transfer it to a mobile device — taking a picture of a Google Map on your desktop with your smartphone camera will open the site in the same state on your phone, for example. Sounds like a pretty neat magic trick, huh? Well, it’s not. In order to use Deep Shot, you need to install an app on your mobile, computer, and any other device you plan to use it with — thus making it even less practical than Chrome to Phone.

It currently works with Google Maps and Yelp, but could theoretically be used with any site that uses URIs, or those lengthy URLs that contain search details, such as the origin and destination addresses you sent to Google Maps. You could also “transfer” a site in its “current state” by emailing the URI, or by using an app to seamlessly share it over WiFi or Bluetooth with a “send to mobile” button — which is likely what Deep Shot is doing here anyway, just with an extra step thrown into the mix. Care to visit a land where you can swim with the Loch Ness Monster and ride a pink unicorn? Head past the break for Deep Shot’s coming out video, which curiously makes no mention of the required desktop software.

Continue reading Deep Shot transfers open websites from desktop to mobile, sans wizardry

Deep Shot transfers open websites from desktop to mobile, sans wizardry originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ll be forgiven for not being intimately familiar with Californian ISP Sonic.net, though we get the feeling you’ll also wish it operated a little closer to your abode by the time you’ve finished reading this. You see, Sonic has always dabbled in the business of high-speed, low-price internet connectivity, and now it’s going for the jugular with a new fiber-to-the-home service, which costs just $69.95 a month, reaches speeds up to 1Gbps, and bundles in two phone lines and unlimited long distance calling. Just for reference, Comcast’s “Extreme” 105Mbps connection costs $105 a pop when taken as part of a bundle, whereas Sonic’s budget menu option will net you a 100Mbps line for $39.95 (plus a phone line with unlimited calls). Understandably, Sonic’s grand plan is starting out small, with a trial in Sebastopol spanning 700 households, but provided the company doesn’t go bust by giving people so much for so little, expansion to bigger cities will follow, with San Francisco and Santa Rosa being the prime candidates. And just in case you’re questioning Sonic’s credentials, Google’s chosen the ISP to manage its gigabit fiber network at Stanford University, and who knows ultrafast broadband better than Google?

[Thanks, Roland]

Sonic.net starts trial of 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home internet in California, asks just $70 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Jun 2011 02:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whether a repressive government, a buggy DNS server or a little old lady is behind your internet outage, it can’t be much fun, but the US government sympathizes with your plight if you’re dealing with reason number one. The New York Times reports that the US State Department will have spent upwards of $70 million on “shadow networks” which would allow protesters to communicate even if powers that be pull the traditional plug — so far, it’s spent at least $50 million on a independent cell phone network for Afghanistan, and given a $2 million grant to members of the New America Foundation creating the “internet in a suitcase” pictured above. It’s a batch of mesh networking equipment designed to be spirited into a country to set up a private network. Last we’d heard, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had pledged $25 million for just this sort of internet freedom, and the New America Foundation had applied for some of those bucks — see our more coverage links below — but it sounds like the money is flowing fast, and in multiple directions now.

US funds shadow networks, builds ‘internet in a suitcase’ for repressed protesters originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Jun 2011 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A lot of writers like to see readers react to their work—it’s gratifying. But as Tweetage Wasteland’s Dave Pell explains, sometimes what happens on the Internet needs to stay on the Internet. More »

Uh oh, Skype’s experiencing its second big outage in the space of just a couple of weeks, as we’re hearing reports from the UK, Netherlands, and yes, even Bulgaria, claiming the online communications service is down. Our own Skype clients are currently unable to move past the “Connecting…” status note, both on Mac OS X and Windows 7. While we’ve confirmed it in Europe, the issue seems to be affecting people all over the world. Nonetheless, Skype believes only “a small number” of us have been hampered by whatever’s ailing it, and further details should be available soon.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Our comments indicate issues are also being encountered in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Brazil, Belarus, and Croatia, among other places. Notably, we’ve also heard reports of Skype functioning in the UK, so it’s not down universally — that supposedly small number of affected users must simply be spread out very sparsely across the globe.

Update 2: Skype is now saying that the “situation is improving,” and we have also confirmed that the service is back up in at least some places where it was down before.

Skype goes down globally again, Microsoft starts wondering if it bought wisely originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Jun 2011 07:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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