Hasta La Gadget!

The Android world’s been a-buzz this last week over a few new Android Market URLS, including http://market.android.com/music/ and http://market.android.com/movies/. In case you thought there was nothing to this tip, guess again: the third member of this trifecta (http://market.android.com/books/) has gone live. That’s right, visitors to the Android Market can pick up Glenn Beck’s mile-a-minute thrill ride The Overton Window for a mere $9. We hope that takes some of the sting out of the fact that a Google Music launch wasn’t part of this month’s Honeycomb event — although if we had to wager a guess, we’d say that the company will have Music and Movie offerings soon enough.

Android Market adds e-books; movies and music soon to come? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The FCC of the Obama administration has been very keen to highlight the fact that many Americans today still aren’t riding the information superhighway, a mission of awareness-spreading that was advanced a little more yesterday with the introduction of the National Broadband Map. Mostly the work of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, this $200 million project provides broadband data for thousands of providers with over 25 million searchable records — all of which can be visualized in map form, categorized by connectivity type, or downloaded in full to your computer. APIs have been made available for anyone interested in remixing / using the NBM elsewhere, while information updates are promised every six months. In terms of the maps’ content, we’re still seeing unsatisfactorily wide swathes of broadband-free countryside, but we suppose the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one.

United States gets a National Broadband Map, finds much of its nation doesn’t have broadband originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier this month, a man, who describes himself as a random dude from Massachusetts and not a mountain, tweeted “@mayordavebing Philadelphia has a statue of Rocky & Robocop would kick Rocky’s butt. He’s a GREAT ambassador for Detroit.” The Detroit Mayor promptly responded with “@MT There are not any plans to erect a statue to Robocop. Thank you for the suggestion.”

Just when it looked like all hopes for a glorious Robocop statue were dashed, the Internet took the matter into their own hands. A Kickstarter page, Detroit Needs a Statue of Robocop, quickly popped up, in attempt to raise the necessary money for the statue. And it succeeded! It gathered $55,583 from 1,848 Internet users. To help entice donations, they offered different prizes for the different levels of pledges, ranging from a Robocop Detroit Pin, to free drinks (in Detroit), to a RoboCop Detroit t-shirt. Score!

“Part Man, Part Machine, All Crow Funded!” Now to build the perfect monument to Robocop and find the ideal location (particularly in a area with heavy crime?). Thanks, Internet!

While many of us are focused on the latest and greatest consumer tech, there are many parts of the globe still waiting for utilities we take for granted — like electricity, running water, and access to the internet. Developing nations do have access to cellphones, however. Vodafone is keenly aware of this fact, and its latest product, the Webbox, will bring the internet to anyone with a TV and access to 2.5G or EDGE networks. The Webbox is essentially a QWERTY keyboard — with the data hardware from a phone stuffed inside — that connects to a TV through basic RCA cables and allows for a relatively speedy internet experience by compressing data by around 90 percent. It’s dead simple to set up, as you simply plug in the RCA’s and switch on the device — an Opera Mini browser pops up on screen and allows users to start surfing the world wide web immediately. An app store, some games, and a text editor are baked into the portal, and the ability to send email and SMS messages is included is well. Vodafone is selling the device — which comes with a 2GB SD card and 100MB of data — in South Africa for 749 Rand ($102), with other markets and a two year contract plan to be added later this year. Check out the Webbox, and all its elegant simplicity, in the video after the break.

Continue reading Vodafone announces Webbox, gives internet access to the developing world

Vodafone announces Webbox, gives internet access to the developing world originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 03:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The New York Times has run an incredibly detailed piece about a feat of Google search engine gaming which seems to have been done by or for JC Penney. We won’t bore you with SEO basics — we’re pretty sure you’ve got those down already — but suffice to say that The Times noticed that the retailer was at the top of Google’s search results for many more terms than seemed possible or natural, so they started to do some digging. What they found was that thousands of links had been placed on what were essentially spam sites all over the web, resulting in the retailer ruling the Google juice for terms such as “little black dress,” and even super generic ones like “rugs” and “bedding.” This is one of the dreaded kinds of ‘black hat’ optimization that Google frowns upon, because it’s so obviously cheating, and it’s punishable by a massive sinking of the offending site’s ranking in results (which is, of course, not the desired effect).

JC Penney unsurprisingly denies knowing anything about it, and no evidence exists to suggest it was directly involved, so on Wednesday, Google began ‘corrective action’ to bring Penney’s results back to planet earth. One example — before the action was taken, JC Penney held the number one spot for the search term ‘living room furniture,’ and after it stood at number 68 — is enough to show the awesome power Google holds over the results it delivers, but the story also serves to show how truly broken search is, as well as Google’s seeming nonchalance about the issue. Hit up the source link for the full story.

NYT uncovers the tawdry, seedy tale of the SEO games of J.C. Penney originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Feb 2011 15:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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