Hasta La Gadget!

Sharing your main number with unwanted parties can often be touchy, but carrying around a second phone just for a disposable number is also a pain. Burner is a new app that hopes to solve the problem, allowing users to create disposable phone numbers that can briefly be used for calls and texts. Users pay a small amount of money to buy credits from the company and are then able to buy numbers for different lengths of time, all accessible from the iPhone app while keeping their real phone number private.

The app itself costs $1.99, with credits starting at the same price, although buying in bulk will reduce the price dramatically. After users have installed the app and acquired credits, they can create a temporary number that they can use for a wide variety of uses. After that, a simple tap of the “Burn” button will permanently erase the number. Anyone trying to call it at that point will get an “out of service” message, and text messages won’t make it through either.

You can have more than one burner number at a time as well, with the app allowing you to manage all your numbers and interactions. You don’t get a large amount of minutes or texts for your money – 20 and 60 respectively for a “Mini Burner” – but they’re not designed to be used as primary numbers.

Burner does have a strict policy, however, which means you won’t be able to use the service for anything extremely shady or illegal. The company does keep backups of the data too for a short period of time, and if the Feds request any information via a warrant, the company will hand it over. Still, it’s a good solution for those wanting to limit the spread of their phone number.

[via Ars Technica]

Burner gives your iPhone disposable numbers is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’re one of the gamers that still enjoys playing EverQuest II (there have to be a few of you out there) the game has received an interesting new feature this week. The new feature is called SOEmote and is designed to transmit the player’s facial expressions to their in game avatar. The technology uses software that runs on the computer and a normal webcam.

SOEmote takes the players facial expression that is grabbed using what Sony Online Entertainment calls the Live Driver. This is a proprietary piece of software from a company called Image Metrics that performs real-time facial analysis and expression tracking. Using a normal web cam the software is able to analyze thousands of expression measurements per second and transfer that data the online game character in real time.

That means if you raise your eyebrow quizzically, so does your game character. SOEmote also has technology to change the player’s voice into the voice that their character uses in the game world. The text can also use a different voice of the player’s choice.

Peter Jackson and Warner Brothers took test footage of The Hobbit to CinemaCon this year, showing off the 48fps clip to attendees in the hope that they would be bowled over by the higher frame rate. The footage was instead met with mixed reactions, with viewers believing the higher frame rate only served to make things look cheap as well as shining a light on production quality issues. According to a source at Warner speaking to Variety, the studio is planning a very limited rollout of the 48fps version of the Hobbit, so much so that it might not even hit all the major cities in the United States.

According to the source, the final version of the film looks “vastly better” than what was shown off at CinemaCon, which apparently hadn’t yet undergone post-production tweaks. Warner and Jackson may be enthusiastic about the format, but the studio is reportedly limiting the rollout of the 48fps to gauge audience reaction.

The bigger issue is that theaters aren’t quite ready for 48fps movies just yet, although a software upgrade is reportedly due to be applied in September that will enable most theaters to project the higher frame rate version of the movie. Other equipment found in cinemas, however, may need replacing entirely. Digital cinema projectors and servers are categorized into two sections: Series 1 and Series 2. Series 2 equipment will be able to apply a simple software update, while Series 1 can’t display 48fps 3D at all.

Ultimately the audience will be the deciding factor in the rollout of the 48fps version for the second and third installments of The Hobbit, but it’s still curious that Warner would limit higher frame rate showings of the first movie. Still, official details haven’t been released yet, and we’re a long way off from the film’s December 14th release date.

[via Slashfilm]

Warner mulling limited Hobbit 48fps showings is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google’s self-driving cars have gained regulatory approval for testing in several states across America, and new information indicates just how much the company has been testing the vehicles. Google’s fleet of self-driving cars have reportedly amassed more than 300,000 miles under a myriad of different traffic conditions, and better yet, not a single accident has occurred since the company began testing the cars.

There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done on the cars, however. The next steps for Google involves testing the cars on snowy roads, trying to detect temporary signs, and using cars with a single member of staff onboard. States currently require that two people ride in the cars, but naturally Google is trying to push ahead and reach the single passenger milestone.

Google’s success with the project so far, along with the work of several other companies across the world, could mean that self-driving cars arrive sooner rather than later. According to a study performed by KPMG that polled 25 automotive experts, the industry is “on the cusp of revolutionary change,” with imminent changes occurring in both the competitive landscape and how drivers interact with their cars.

Experts believe that vehicle-to-vehicle and sensor-based technologies are rapidly progressing thanks to the research being undertaken on self-driving cars. They detail how self-driving vehicles won’t be the norm, and the costs will probably be high at the beginning, but over time infrastructures could subtly change to give the cars their own driving lanes. The increased safety could lead to fewer crashes too, reducing the impact on emergency services and saving money. A wide range of topics are covered in the 30-page study, which can be found right here.

Self-driving cars accelerating as Google builds fleet is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

I’m sure you have a thousand and one flash drives by now, but as far as gimmicks go, you don’t see USB hubs with matching flash drives that often. Too bad this toaster USB hub doesn’t pop the flash drives out when they’re ejected.

The flash drives come in four variants, including one that seems to have been burnt to a crisp already:

The toaster also has an SD Card reader built-in. You can of course use the USB hub with any flash drive (and the toast drives with any USB hub), but, well:

Unfortunately, this delicious combo costs a lot of bread. ThinkGeek is selling the goodies separately, $28 (USD) for the hub and $25 for each of the 4GB drives, so for a fully-loaded four-slice toaster, you’re looking at $128.