When it’s not enough to let your iPhone control your life, you can have it control a robot.
An enterprising tinkerer in Japan has turned an iPhone 3GS into a humanoid robot by wiring it to a mechanical body.
Meet “Robochan.”
Check out the video. Robochan is perhaps disturbing,
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Originally posted at Far-flung Tech
Today, we’re joined by two ladies: Ace Reporter Caroline McCarthy again and “Allie” of Heavy & Flo fame. This makes the two remaining boys of The 404 very happy. On today’s show, we’ve got sex offenders, speakeasies, 1920s Prohibition, and Ashton Kutcher. Excited? We are.
(Credit: "Allie" of Heavy & Flo/CNET)So what does “spifflicated” mean? It means we all got wasted. According to 404 historian Caroline McCarthy, most of the terms we use today to mean inebriated come from the 1920s era of Prohibition. “Spifflicated” happens to be our favorite.
While Justin Yu was out, we found a way to track him using this new iPhone app, which will tell you where the closest sex offenders live near you. With the help of the girls, we come up with some more useful apps like an “Is she underage?” app, or a “Please, just cut to the chase. How much money do you make?” app. We wish there was an app to tell when you’re about to make a mistake late one night at a bar. Apple? Anyone?
We chat a bit about the Microsoft and Yahoo deal, but we think it’s funnier to ask the eternal question, “Why Ashton Kutcher?” We have no idea why nearly 3 million people are following him on Twitter. I mean, give us a break. We know you lucked out, and you get to wake up to Demi Moore every morning, Ashton. You don’t have to rub it in our faces.
Finally, a woman gets sued for $50,000 because she Twitters out, “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks it’s okay.” Of course, we think this a whole load of bull, but we are perplexed as to why this company, Horizon Realty, has decided to unleash the Internet because of its fairly asinine move to “[s]ue first, then ask questions later.” So far, we’ve collected these tweets about our new favorite company we love to hate:
Send in your favorite “Horizon Realty” tweet to The 404 at the usual: the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. Also, leave a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET (2638). Peace!
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Originally posted at The 404
After the Voodoo rug we featured last time, here comes the huge Band Aid rug to accessorize your home or office. More pictures can be seen here. The Band Aid rug is designed by Mexican designer Ricardo Garza Marcos.
Today JVC announced a number of new headphones: two new in-ear models, the HA-EBX85 and HA-FX20 All Star, and the new Black Series foldable headphones, the HA-M750 and HA-S650.
The HA-EBX85 in-ear headset is splash-proof and feature a rubber ear hook to keep the phones in place during a workout. It has a 0.43-inch neodymium driver with a 3.94-foot friction-noise-reduction cord. It will be available in August for $19.95 in white, pink, and purple.
The App Store approval process has always been mysterious, slightly ridiculous and mildly infuriating. But with the summary execution of Google Latitude as well as every Google Voice app, it’s finally gone too far.
Until this past week, Google’s been the most privileged developer for the iPhone outside of Apple itself. I mean, Google Maps and YouTube come baked into the phone. Hell, Google even gave the iPhone voice search—a more powerful version, no less—before it delivered the feature to its own OS, very obviously using private APIs that would’ve likely resulted in a swift kick in the ass for any other developer.
Yet here we are, Apple has rejected not one, but two Google apps that would deliver major new features to the iPhone, for reasons that are so obviously tripe it’s insulting to even our non-exceptional intelligence. A Google Latitude app would confuse us? Really? Because it would “use Google to serve maps tiles”? Wait. Isn’t one of iPhone 3.0‘s major new features that it can use Google Maps inside of other applications? So like every app can use Google to serve maps tiles. I admit, though, Latitude is a really big word. What does it even mean? That is pretty confusing. Maybe they should call it, like, Google Stalker.
What happened with Google Voice is worse. Google didn’t elaborate on the reason Apple gave for rejecting its official Google Voice app six weeks ago—and presumably, Google had more success wringing it out of Apple than most developers. Hours before Google broke the news, the developer of GV Mobile—a solid third-party app for Google Voice—said that it was being pulled from the App Store for “duplicating iPhone features.” Then every other Google Voice application was silently killed too. Even though, reportedly, Apple’s Phil Schiller personally apologized when GV Mobile initially ran into problems getting approved months ago, and it’d been sitting pretty in the store since then. Oh, and there are tons of other apps that duplicate the functions of dialing and sending text messages.
John Gruber at Daring Fireball says Google Voice was nuked by AT&T, “it’s that simple.” It’s not the first time AT&T’s put a hit on apps: NetShare, the tethering app was yanked (though it clearly never should’ve been approved in the first place), and Skype and SlingPlayer streaming were crippled so that they only worked over Wi-Fi. The difference between those situations and this one is that in those cases, there was, at least nominally, a greater good for users: Limiting those apps protected people from the possibility of AT&T’s fragile, already busted-ass network completely collapsing under the weight of millions of phones streaming tons of data. And, you can still actually use Skype and Sling apps, albeit in a slightly constrained manner.
Google Voice, on the other hand, poses no such mortal danger to the network. It only uses a tiny bit of data at the very beginning of a call to set it up, and text messages sent through the service would be infinitesimally small scraps of data (not to mention, there are other immensely popular apps that already send text messages as data). You still use your AT&T voice minutes when you’re on a call using Google Voice. And, for whatever reason, AT&T’s fear is about Google Voice on the iPhone, since the app is available for BlackBerry on their network.
The situation crystallizes our worst fears about Apple’s dictatorial App Store. Users aren’t being protected from bad things or from themselves here. Even though it seemed ridiculous to us, when apps with objectionable content were blocked or booted before the ratings system was in place, it was in the interest of some paradoxically lazy but over-protective parent somewhere out there. But the only thing being guarded is some ephemeral long-term interest of AT&T against the devaluation of phone numbers and the ability to easily use any phone at will. (FWIW, AT&T says “AT&T is not involved in the approval process, so we can’t speak to this issue.”) Not only is Apple hurting users in the service of AT&T by denying them innovative new features, they won’t even bother to come up with a good excuse. If they’re going to lie about it, they could at least make the rationale believable.
To truly get a sense of the chickenshittniess on Apple’s part, Just read this account of the conversation VoiceCentral’s developer had with Apple when they were told their app was going to be pulled from the store. It’d be hilarious if it didn’t mean a developer got screwed.
It’s obvious Google’s not happy about it either—and not just because Google exec Marissa Mayer’s deleted tweet pointing to a satire piece about Google deleting Apple from its search results, since it “duplicates a lot of the functionality of other sites.” If everything was copacetic Google wouldn’t tell the world Apple shut down their applications. (And if the alternative web apps were all that great, Google wouldn’t make native apps to begin with.) Whatever the causes, there is now definitely a rift between Apple and Google.
It’s a sobering reminder of what Apple’s total control over the iPhone platform really means. For the first time, it’s denying people exciting new features and possibilities, without even a semblance of benefit or concern for users. Maybe it’s a catfight with Google. Maybe AT&T finally found a clause in its contract that didn’t make them Apple’s bitch. Either way, it’s just depressing.
A year after we said we still need the iPhone app black market, nothing’s changed. To wit, GV Mobile’s available on Cydia right now. We know the App Store is Apple’s exclusive domain, and playing in their space has its tradeoffs, but the implicit trust is that whatever Apple does that might seem ridiculous or weird, it’s ultimately trying to create a better experience for users. That’s just not the case here, taking the App Store approval process beyond cryptic and infuriating into something that’s actually toxic for users. Since it’s crossed that line, our App Disapproval Watch starts now—it ends when Apple finally cuts this crap out.
This is about as early and unofficial as it gets, but DigiTimes is reporting that HP has contracted Quanta to begin production of an apparently all new 11.6-inch netbook in August, and another new 10.1-inch before the end of the year, which SlashGear rightly speculates could well be CULV ultralights rather than standard “netbooks.” That’s further bolstered by the fact that HP has separately contracted Inventec to build a revision to its current 10.1-inch netbook at the end of September. It’s not all netbooks and ultralights for HP, however, as Quanta has also landed a deal to produce some new 15.6- and 17.3-inch laptops, while Compal will be handling HP’s new 13.3- and 14-inch enterprise notebooks.
[Via SlashGear]
Filed under: Laptops
HP reportedly beginning production of new 10.1-inch, 11.6-inch netbooks / ultralights originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Do you regularly video-chat? Neither do I. There’s something nice about not having to comb your hair before sending an e-mail. But for those of you who have just had a baby and want to show the little one to the grandparents, Logitech has announced seven updated webcams.
Logitech is tying the mass release to its recently introduced Vid videochatting software, which is free for Logitech users. As I said when I covered the release last month, I think Logitech is making a mistake in not offering Vid free to everyone. People already perceive videochatting as too complicated.
All seven new models will be available in the U.S. and Europe in August.
TrendCentral: We think a good hand washing would probably suffice, but Spanish company Cyclean has created adjustable handlebar covers – kind of like a condom for your bike – for would-be cyclists whose fear of coming into contact with flesh-eating bacteria has rendered them petrified of bike sharing.
Like music? Like free music? You may remember my previous post about the mammoth library of free MP3s at Amazon (which is now nearing 1,000 tracks).
Don’t stop there. Music-marketing and -discovery site ReverbNation is offering 1,000 free song downloads. No strings, no software to install, just …
Originally posted at The Cheapskate
While ASUS is busy stuffing DVD burners into Eee PCs, Pioneer and others are working hard to make the integrated optical drive a thing of the past. The freshly announced XD09 measures in at 5.24 x 0.58 x 5.24-inches and 8 ounces, or slightly beefier than your average CD case. Pioneer claims that it’s the most compact drive design yet. Essentially this means if you can carry your optical media around with you, then you can carry the player for it too. Power comes via the USB 2.0 connection, and all the usual DVD plus, minus, reading, writing, dual-layer mumbo jumbo is retained with top writing speeds of 8x on single-layer and 6x on double-layer media. This inspired minimalism can be yours for $79.99 in August.
[Via Hot Hardware]
Filed under: Peripherals, Storage
Pioneer’s ultraslim DVR-XD09 burner is more jewel case than drive originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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