By Evan Ackerman In order to get smooth and stable video, the pros use several thousand dollar Steadicams. After watching this video, I think a chicken might be more effective. While Steadicams rely on high inertial mass to keep them from jiggling around, the chicken possesses better technology in the form of a gyroscope (probably its […]
By Evan Ackerman
In order to get smooth and stable video, the pros use several thousand dollar Steadicams. After watching this video, I think a chicken might be more effective. While Steadicams rely on high inertial mass to keep them from jiggling around, the chicken possesses superior technology in the form of a gyroscope (probably its inner ear) and compensating motors (the muscles in its neck). It’s able to instantaneously compensate for any movements of its body to keep its head just about perfectly stable. So all you really need to vastly improve your spastic videography is a willing chicken, a tiny helmet with a camera mount, and something to keep the chicken looking where you want it to look. Something like, I dunno, a girl chicken in a bikini or something. Brilliant.
By Andrew Liszewski Wu Yulu, a 46 year old Chinese farmer, doesn’t have a fancy University degree or much book learnin’, but over the past 30 years he’s managed to build himself an impressive army of 26 different robots. As time went on, Wu’s skills at designing robots improved, and while his first model, affectionately dubbed […]
By Andrew Liszewski
Wu Yulu, a 46 year old Chinese farmer, doesn’t have a fancy University degree or much book learnin’, but over the past 30 years he’s managed to build himself an impressive army of 26 different robots. As time went on, Wu’s skills at designing robots improved, and while his first model, affectionately dubbed Wu No. 1 (he sees all his robots as his sons who must bear his surname) could barely shuffle along with small steps, Wu No. 25 is actually capable of pulling Wu around in a rickshaw for up to 6 hours on a single charge.
Sure it’s impressive and all, but I’ll be frank here. If I had managed to build myself an army of 26 robots they wouldn’t be sitting around writing calligraphy, serving drinks or playing musical instruments. Instead I’d be taking the Victor von Doom approach and would use them in a fiendish plot for world domination. That or cleaning toilets, either way it’s win win for Andrew!
By Andrew Liszewski Sure it’s cool to see someone literally mow-down a target with one of those helicopter mini-guns in the movies, but it just doesn’t have the same charm as watching someone clear a saloon with a classic wild west revolver. And I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that your office […]
By Andrew Liszewski
Sure it’s cool to see someone literally mow-down a target with one of those helicopter mini-guns in the movies, but it just doesn’t have the same charm as watching someone clear a saloon with a classic wild west revolver. And I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that your office wouldn’t be too keen with you recreating a scene from Unforgiven with a real piece, so if you’ve got an itchy trigger finger and a few minutes to kill at work, you might want to opt for this Wild West Gun Slinger shooting gallery instead.
The gun uses an infrared beam which has considerably less kick than real ammunition, but it compensates with electronic gun and target ricochet sounds which I’m sure sound exactly like the real thing. And it comes with a faux wood log where you can set up the included cans and bottles that actually scatter and shatter when hit.
YAY! The long awaited, much promised, never delivered Delicious 2.0 will launch in the next few minutes, just like they promised again last week. The new Delicious is just like the old Delicious, except for the way it looks. They’re also promising that it will be “faster, easier to learn,” and “hopefully more desirable.” Speed: We’ve […]
The new Delicious is just like the old Delicious, except for the way it looks. They’re also promising that it will be “faster, easier to learn,” and “hopefully more desirable.”
Speed: We’ve moved to a new infrastructure that makes each page faster. This new platform will enable us to keep up with traffic growth while ensuring Delicious is responsive and reliable. You might not have noticed, but the old backend was getting creaky under the load of five million users.
Search: We’ve completely overhauled our search engine to make it faster and more powerful. Searches used to take ages to return results; now they’re very swift. The new search engine is also smarter, and more social: you can search within one of your tags, another public user’s bookmarks, or your social network. Now it’s easier to take advantage of the expertise and interests of your friends, not to mention the Delicious community at huge.
Design: Finally, we’ve updated the user interface to improve usability and add a few often-requested features (such as selectable detail levels and alphabetical sorting of bookmarks). Our goal has been to keep the new design similar in spirit to the old one, so all of you veterans should be able to jump in without any confusion. At the same time, we’re hoping that newcomers to Delicious will find it easier to learn.
Users will need to log into their accounts and get a new browser cookie. Honestly, I rarely visit Delicious any more, the Firefox plugin is so good that actually visiting the site isn’t necessary. So all I’m really hoping for here’s a stable service. If there are glitches, I hope they fix them quickly.
As I said in our previous posts, it’s too bad Delicious 2.0 couldn’t launch before founder Joshua Schachter left the company in frustration. I called Schachter to ask him what he has to state about the new launch. His response - “Good luck. I hope it goes well.”
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
By Andrew Liszewski I’ve seen these types of mini projector flashlights before, but a) they weren’t shaped like a miniature Wiimote and b) they didn’t project characters from one of the greatest video game racing franchises of all time. So if you happen to be as big a fan of Mario Kart as I am, and […]
By Andrew Liszewski
I’ve seen these types of mini projector flashlights before, but a) they weren’t shaped like a miniature Wiimote and b) they didn’t project characters from one of the greatest video game racing franchises of all time. So if you happen to be as large a fan of Mario Kart as I’m, and don’t need a pocket-friendly flashlight that’s particularly bright or useful in any way, head on over to ThinkGeek who are selling these mini projectors which are actually fully licensed by Nintendo. It seems you don’t get to choose which of the 6 characters they’ll send you (Mario, Princess, Luigi, Yoshi, Wario & Baby Mario) but at just $5.99 I don’t see how you can go wrong.
I took some shots of 2.2 in action. The walking directions would have been great for the past two weeks - I’ve had so much trouble using car-based GPS in walking/biking cities. Streetview is also great for cities like New York but it’s very limited right now - there was no information for Paris, for example. The podcast download is also really nice to have. An impressively end-user-oriented update by Apple this time around. I took some shots of 2.2 in action. The walking directions would have been great for the past two weeks - I’ve had so much trouble using car-based GPS in walking/biking cities. Streetview is also great for cities like New York but it’s very limited right now - there was no information for Paris, for example. The podcast download is also really nice to have. An impressively end-user-oriented update by Apple this time around.
By Andrew Liszewski I’m going to file this one under ‘things I wish I’d thought of when I was in high school.’ I can’t tell you how often I relied on a graphing calculator to get me through a boring class, whether it was high school french, or even university-level script writing. But Mark Bowers has […]
By Andrew Liszewski
I’m going to file this one under ‘things I wish I’d thought of when I was in high school.’ I can’t tell you how often I relied on a graphing calculator to get me through a boring class, whether it was high school french, or even university-level script writing. But Mark Bowers has taken things one step further by sticking an old Game Boy Color into a broken Texas Instruments TI-83 calculator. (Even though that’s actually a TI-84 in the photo.)
What’s particularly cool is that he actually mapped the TI-83’s 4-way directional pad and various other keys to the directional pad and A, B, Start & Choose buttons on the Game Boy Color. While the screen on the final product suffers from a bit of letterboxing on the sides because of the smaller GB display, and the underside features an unfortunate bulge because of the batteries, from the top I doubt of any of Mark’s teachers would discover his clever ruse.
Earlier this year we watched as Redlasso, a very popular video service that allowed bloggers to clip portions of television content, got beaten into submission (at least temporarily) by a flurry of lawsuits. The company’s platform gave bloggers access to content spanning popular channels including CNN and ESPN nearly immediately after it aired, and was a favorite across blogs like The Huffington Post and others. Unfortunately, Redlasso didn’t secure any rights to the content it was distributing, and it wasn’t long before the networks started to crack down. 1Cast, a new startup launching today in private beta, is looking to fill the void left by Red Lasso by offering similar clips of recent TV footage with one key distinction: it has all been fully licensed. TechCrunch readers can grab one of 1000 invites here.
Earlier this year we watched as Redlasso, a very popular video service that allowed bloggers to clip portions of TV content, got beaten into submission (at least temporarily) by a flurry of lawsuits. The company’s platform gave bloggers access to content spanning popular channels including CNN and ESPN nearly immediately after it aired, and was a favorite across blogs like The Huffington Post and others. Unfortunately, Redlasso didn’t secure any rights to the content it was distributing, and it wasn’t long before the networks started to crack down. Now 1Cast, a new startup launching today in private beta, is looking to fill the void left by Redlasso by offering similar clips of recent television footage with one key distinction: it has all been fully licensed. TechCrunch readers can grab one of 1000 invites here.
At launch the site is offering content from Reuters, CNBC, CBC, AP and the AFP, and plans to have more content partners by the end of the year. Footage is sorted into categories including Sports and Headlines, as well as by individual network. Unlike Redlasso, which used its own recording system, 1Cast receives its content directly from its partners. At this point it sounds like some of the networks are slower than others in getting their content distributed (quick turn around was one of the things that made Redlasso so appealing), but they’re expected to speed up over time.
Instead of appealing exclusively to bloggers, 1Cast is trying to serve a more general market by allowing users to create frequently updated video ‘channels’ on topics they’re interested in, which can be embedded on blogs and are also viewable on the iPhone/iPod Touch (it’s sort of like your own personal news network).
In practice the service seems to work adequately well, though I’ve some problems with it. For one, searching for a specific clip is difficult - videos are all broken into ‘channels’ and grouped with other videos on the same topic, but it’s hard to tell what each clip is actually about without watching it. And it seems that every time you want to watch a clip you need to sit through the ads attached, which gets really annoying when you weren’t interested in it in the first place.
1Cast might catch on with the general public, who might be more interested in the ‘personal news channel’ aspect of the site rather than being able to embed a breaking news clip on their blog. But until the site has a bigger collection of content and a better way to search through it, it probably won’t appeal to the same blogger audience that Redlasso did.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Philippines-based media company ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation has paid $5 million for a 5% stake in Multiply, the media-centric social network with a userbase primarily composed of adults. The investment pegs Multiply’s valuation at $100 million, which is within range (though on the lower end) of our social network valuations based on past deals. ABS-CBN also has the right to purchase up to 10% of Multiply within the next two years. Multiply has a significant presence in the Philippines, with around 3 million users. ABS-CBN plans to capitalize on its investment through advertising, and by eventually offering a mobile version of the site for users in the Philippines. For more, read the ABS-CBN announcement here.
Philippines-based media company ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation has paid $5 million for a 5% stake in Multiply, the media-centric social network with a userbase primarily composed of adults. The investment pegs Multiply’s valuation at $100 million, which is within range (though on the lower end) of our social network valuations based on past deals. ABS-CBN also has the right to buy up to 10% of Multiply within the next two years.
Multiply has a significant presence in the Philippines, with around 3 million users. ABS-CBN plans to capitalize on its investment through advertising, and by eventually offering a mobile version of the site for users in the Philippines. For more, read the ABS-CBN announcement here.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
By Evan Ackerman It’s not sexy, but here it is: a real live commercially produced laser cannon. The FIRESTRIKE system, by Northrop Grumman, is a 15 kW electric laser capable of firing continuously as long as it gets power and coolant. It’s even got en Ethernet connection, so you can zap people and surf the internet […]
By Evan Ackerman
It’s not sexy, but here it is: a real live commercially produced laser cannon. The FIRESTRIKE system, by Northrop Grumman, is a 15 kW electric laser capable of firing continuously as long as it gets power and coolant. It’s even got en Ethernet connection, so you can zap people and surf the web at the same time! If you’re really ambitious, you can couple up to seven of them together to make a 100 kW laser, which is just about the minimum you’d need for an effective combat system.
The downside is that each module is about 400 pounds, which unfortunately puts it well out of the handheld class. And I assume you can’t just pop a couple Duracells in there, nor does it appear to have a wall plug. But the worst part is that it’s just not evil looking. I mean, it’s a mostly featureless absolutely boring gray box. It really should be put inside a case that looks like something from Star Wars (the third one, with the stupidly high SFX budget), with some skull and crossbones decals on it and an absurdly gigantic barrel with lots of blinky LED lights and smoke machines and sound effects.
Oh well, I can’t find a price, and if I were Northrop Grumman, I definitely wouldn’t sell a tactical laser system to someone like me.
Users will need to log into their accounts and get a new browser cookie. Honestly, I rarely visit Delicious any more, the Firefox plugin is so good that actually visiting the site isn’t necessary. So all I’m really hoping for here’s a stable service. If there are glitches, I hope they fix them quickly.
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