By Andrew Liszewski I can’t say I’ve ever had the need to use a hose when the temperature outside was below the freezing mark, but I’m sure someone, somewhere has. Otherwise this heated hose from PIRIT probably wouldn’t exist. As you can see in the pic, it looks like your garden-variety water hose, but with the […]
By Andrew Liszewski
I can’t state I’ve ever had the need to use a hose when the temperature outside was below the freezing mark, but I’m sure someone, somewhere has. Otherwise this heated hose from PIRIT probably wouldn’t exist. As you can see in the pic, it looks like your garden-variety water hose, but with the addition of a grounded plug that’s connected to a copper wire heating element that runs its entire length.
When plugged in, a built-in thermostat activates the heating element when the ambient temperature outside the hose is below 95° F, and automatically shuts it off when the temperature rises above 105° F. The heating element can also be used to thaw the hose if it’s filled with ice, or even just as a radiant heat source to keep a greenhouse warm or to melt snow. All-in-all I guess it’s not a bad idea, though 50 feet of it will set you back $189.
In his book Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling imagines a future where objects are tagged, tracked, and all tell their own stories. He calls these objects “spimes.” I read the book years ago, but it was the first thing I thought of when I visited SendMeHome. The site is wacky but brilliant. It lets you register any object with a unique code, which is printed out on a small sticker that you place on the object. The object can be anything from your wallet or iPhone to a beloved frying pan. Ostensibly, the purpose of doing this is that if you should ever lose the object, anyone who finds it can contact you through SendMeHome. By entering the code on the sticker, they can learn anything you’ve decided to share about yourself or the object, and can contact you anonymously. SendMeHome offers this service for free, but charges $3.99 for a pack of stickers. (It doesn’t get involved in actually getting your item back to you). The lost-and-found feature is the only practical reason you would use the service. But once you’ve attached a sticker to a favorite object and registered it on the site, there are other things you can do with it. You can tell a story about the object, pass it around, or put it on a mission. It is on its way to becoming a spime,. These spimes are “always associated with a story. . . . they are protagonists of a documented process,” as Sterling once described it.
In his book Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling imagines a future where objects are tagged, tracked, and all tell their own stories. He calls these objects “spimes.” I read the book years ago, but it was the first thing I thought of when I visited SendMeHome.
The site is wacky but brilliant. It lets you register any object with a unique code, which is printed out on a small sticker that you place on the object. The object can be anything from your wallet or iPhone to a beloved frying pan. Ostensibly, the purpose of doing this is that if you should ever lose the object, anyone who finds it can contact you through SendMeHome. By entering the code on the sticker, they have the ability to learn anything you’ve decided to share about yourself or the object, and can contact you anonymously. SendMeHome offers this service for free, but charges $3.99 for a pack of stickers. (It doesn’t get involved in actually getting your item back to you).
The lost-and-found feature is the only practical reason you would use the service. But once you’ve attached a sticker to a favorite object and registered it on the site, there are other things you can do with it. You can tell a story about the object, pass it around, or put it on a mission. It is on its way to becoming a spime,. These spimes are “always associated with a story. . . . they are protagonists of a documented process,” as Sterling once described it.
SendMeHome lets people create a very rudimentary version of a spime. Anyone who enters the code found on the SendMeHome sticker can add to the object’s story in a blog-like format which incorporates Google Maps, YouTube videos, and uploaded pics. For instance, here’s the story of a disposable camera that was left on a bench in LA with instructions for passersby to take photo with it. (They did). And here’s another one of a bacon frying pan, which instructs people to cook their favorite bacon recipe in the pan, document it with pics, and pass it along to another bacon lover. Every object has a story which SendMeHome lets you unlock.
There are flavors of the social game Akoha here, with its bar-coded cards and playful missions set in the real world. SendMeHome should be getting more social itself now that it has a Facebook app and has integrated its site with Facebook Connect. To encourage people to use its new Facebook app, it is putting up prizes worth $1,000 for whoever can create the SendMeHome stories on Facebook with the most followers by Might 4.
The company has been bootsrrapped with $50,000 from founders Andrew Lee and James Tamplin.
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Here’s a juicy rumor (if you’re a geek, this is good stuff): A source tells us that Google AppEngine, a platform for building and hosting web applications in the cloud, will begin letting developers write applications in Java in the near future. Until now only Python applications were supported. The announcement should come at the Google I/O conference in late Might. Java applications are extremely popular, particularly for business applications, and it is one of the internally supported languages at Google. In fact, late last year a startup called Stax Networks launched that billed itself as an “AppEngine for Java.” Don’t feel too bad for the startup, however, they’ve stated from the beginning that they expected Google to enter the Java market sooner rather than later. Java continues to be one of the most popular programming languages, and is a natural next step for Google. And AppEngine has been a highly successful product, at least from a press standpoint - the Obama Administration has embraced it along with all things Google.
Here’s a juicy rumor (if you’re a geek, this is good stuff): A source tells us that Google AppEngine, a platform for building and hosting web applications in the cloud, will begin letting developers write applications in Java in the near future. Until now only Python applications were supported. The announcement should come at the Google I/O conference in late May.
Java applications are extremely popular, particularly for business applications, and it is one of the internally supported languages at Google. In fact, late last year a startup called Stax Networks launched that billed itself as an “AppEngine for Java.” Don’t feel too bad for the startup, however, they’ve said from the beginning that they expected Google to enter the Java market sooner rather than later.
Java continues to be one of the most popular programming languages, and is a natural next step for Google. And AppEngine has been a highly successful product, at least from a press standpoint - the Obama Administration has embraced it along with all things Google.
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By Andrew Liszewski Their site’s a little vague on details at the moment, particularly when it comes to the all-important pricing info, but PhotoFast has announced their new G-Monster series of PCIe SSD drives that will be available in 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities. While SSD technology is still lacking in some areas compared to traditional […]
By Andrew Liszewski
Their site’s a little vague on details at the moment, particularly when it comes to the all-important pricing info, but PhotoFast has announced their new G-Monster series of PCIe SSD drives that will be available in 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities. While SSD technology is still lacking in some areas compared to traditional hard drives, they seem to make up for it when it comes to speed, and the G-Monster series promise a read speed of 750MB/s with a comparable write speed of 700MB/s.
If you have ever wanted a cheesy, media-sponsored wedding like those on reality Television shows or on the Today Show, perhaps you should look to your social network. MySpace is now accepting submissions for “Married on MySpace,” an on the internet reality Television series that will let couples receive the “wedding of their dreams” planned by and shared with the entire social network . Engaged couples can enter their video submissions here. MySpace is partnering with The Knot to provide editorial content and wedding planning expertise and the contest is co-sponsored by Disney, who is releasing “The Proposal” soon with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. And MySpace is partnering with Endemol, a European reality television production company that has created classy reality tv shows like FearFactor, Extreme Makeover and Large Brother. After submissions have ended, MySpace members can chose their favorite couples from a group of finalists. Once a finalist has been selected, members will continue to vote on elements of the wedding, including what the bride and groom will wear, where the couple will celebrate their bachelor and bachelorette parties, the wedding location, and more. The series will debut on MySpace in Might with the announcement of the chosen couple and conclude in early August with the wedding ceremony. “Married on MySpace” will consist of 13 webisodes that document the wedding planning process the same way that wedding reality shows like “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway” profile weddings.
If you’ve ever wanted a cheesy, media-sponsored wedding like those on reality TV shows or on the Today Show, perhaps you should look to your social network. MySpace is now accepting submissions for “Married on MySpace,” an on the internet reality TV series that’ll let couples receive the “wedding of their dreams” planned by and shared with the entire social network . Engaged couples can enter their video submissions here. MySpace is partnering with The Knot to provide editorial content and wedding planning expertise and the contest is co-sponsored by Disney, who is releasing “The Proposal” soon with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. And MySpace is partnering with Endemol, a European reality TV production company that has created classy reality tv shows like FearFactor, Extreme Makeover and Huge Brother.
After submissions have ended, MySpace members can chose their favorite couples from a group of finalists. Once a finalist has been selected, members will continue to vote on elements of the wedding, including what the bride and groom will wear, where the couple will celebrate their bachelor and bachelorette celebrations, the wedding location, and more. The series will debut on MySpace in May with the announcement of the chosen couple and conclude in early August with the wedding ceremony. “Married on MySpace” will consist of 13 webisodes that document the wedding planning process the same way that wedding reality shows like “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway” profile weddings.
I’ve no doubt that MySpace will be able to enlist plenty of attention-hungry couples who want their few moments of reality web TV fame. And it certainly doesn’t injured that News Corp. will foot the bill for your wedding. I’m just curious as to how many MySpace executives would grant the social network’s millions of members to plan their dream weddings.
Here’s the publicity video for the series:
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By Evan Ackerman This unassuming tiny box could possibly be the future of Personal computer gaming as we know it. If you’re much of a gamer, you know what the problem is: a couple days after you spend a grand or two on a decent gaming personal, the next generation of hardware comes out and your system […]
By Evan Ackerman
This unassuming tiny box could possibly be the future of Personal computer gaming as we know it. If you’re much of a gamer, you know what the problem is: a couple days after you spend a grand or two on a decent gaming computer, the next generation of hardware comes out and your system is outdated and slow. The solution offered by OnLive could be a great one, if it works… Just outsource all your gaming hardware over the internet, and you’ll never have to worry about upgrades again.
It’s a great concept: why dump a bunch of money into a personal gaming personal when you can run your games on a beastly server that someone else pays for? Of course, it all depends on you being able to play your game on the aforementioned beastly server, which necessarily has to happen over the internet… You just have to transmit your control inputs, and then you receive compressed video of the gameplay while OnLive’s servers do all of the graphics heavy lifting. OnLive says that a 1.5 MBPS connection will let you play games at standard definition with a lag of 2 milliseconds, including video decompression. A 5 MBPS connection can get you 720p at up to 60fps, which again is absolutely independent of the hardware stipulations of the game you’re playing and entirely independent on your internet connection.
It’s not just that you don’t great hardware, you can also use the OnLive system on absolutely crappy hardware. Or no hardware; it’ll happily hook up to your Television with the aid of a cheap little peripheral that you can plug controllers into. The whole system will be probably set up as a subscription model kinda like XBox Live, and it’s currently undergoing beta testing with a launch sometime later this year.
by Shane McGlaun Data is the lifeblood of any business and if data is lost it can mean all sorts of bad things for a company from lost money to lawsuits. The ideal way to prevent data from being lost is to back the data up to an external NAS storage solution designed for businesses. The […]
by Shane McGlaun
Data is the lifeblood of any business and if data is lost it can mean all sorts of bad things for a company from lost money to lawsuits. The ideal way to prevent data from being lost is to back the data up to an external NAS storage solution designed for businesses. The catch for smaller companies is that NAS solutions tend to be very pricey.
Seagate has announced two new NAS devices in its BlackArmor line that are affordable for small businesses and even home users looking to protect important data. The new products are the BlackArmor NAS 420 and NAS 440. Both the solutions are four bay network attached storage arrays. The NAS 420 ships with two hard drives installed and the NAS 440 ships with four hard drives.
The systems have an integrated LCD screen that displays settings and status information for the device. Both versions can provide continuous and automatic backups of up to 50 personal attached to a network. Security can be applied at the file or folder level and encryption is supported as well. The NAS 420 with 2TB of storage will retail for $799.99 and offers two empty bays for adding more storage later. The NAS 440 is available with 4TB of storage for $1,199.99, 6TB for $1,699.99, and in May an 8TB version will debut for $1,999.99.
YouTube can now be widely accessedthrough an application on most Window Mobile and Nokia S60 devices. You can visit m.youtube.com from your phone to download the app. YouTube says that the devices will have a faster application start-up, searching capabilities, and video loading and will grants users to easily access YouTube via an icon on the device’s screen. YouTube has also improved the quality of the videos on mobile devices by providing the highest available stream quality and improved buffering (which will help videos play in weak coverage areas). Once the app is installed on the mobile device, no configuration is required outside of the application. A year ago, Google Mobile started offering all YouTube videos on m.youtube.com, so any mobile device could access an assortment of YouTube videos via their devices’ browser. Google Mobile also added a YouTube application for some Sony and Nokia cell phones. And there’s been a custom app for the iPhone and Android for a while now.
YouTube can now be widely accessedthrough an application on most Window Mobile and Nokia S60 devices. You can visit m.youtube.com from your phone to download the app. YouTube states that the devices will have a faster application start-up, searching abilities, and video loading and will allows users to easily access YouTube via an icon on the device’s screen. YouTube has also improved the quality of the videos on mobile devices by providing the highest available stream quality and improved buffering (which will help videos play in weak coverage areas). Once the app is installed on the mobile device, no configuration is required outside of the application.
A year ago, Google Mobile started offering all YouTube videos on m.youtube.com, so any mobile device could access an assortment of YouTube videos via their devices’ browser. Google Mobile also added a YouTube application for some Sony and Nokia cell phones. And there’s been a custom app for the iPhone and Android for a while now.
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By Chris Scott Barr Back when Apple announced the iPhone 3G last year, it was said that we would be able to purchase the phone without having to sign a 2-year contract. What wasn’t mentioned is just when we would be allowed to do so. Rumors started swirling around in the last couple of days […]
By Chris Scott Barr
Back when Apple announced the iPhone 3G last year, it was said that we would be able to purchase the phone without having to sign a 2-year contract. What wasn’t mentioned is just when we would be granted to do so. Rumors started swirling around in the last couple of days that claimed next week AT&T would be offering the phones sans contract.
In this particular instance, the rumors were true. AT&T confirmed that starting next Thursday anyone can walk into one of their stores and purchase an iPhone without inking a 2-year deal. Of course there’s that one little catch. The phone will set you back $599 or $699 depending on which model you choose, and you’re going to still be tied down to the AT&T network. Honestly, I figured that I’d be using mine for 2 years anyway, so renewing my contract wasn’t that big of a deal.
By Andrew Liszewski Given that I usually fall asleep every night with some random episode of The Simpsons playng on the telly, it seems only fitting that I should wake up to The Simpsons as well. But convincing Dan Castellaneta to come and quote Homer and Barney lines to me each morning hasn’t been easy, so […]
By Andrew Liszewski
Given that I usually fall asleep every night with some random episode of The Simpsons playng on the telly, it seems only fitting that I should wake up to The Simpsons as well. But convincing Dan Castellaneta to come and quote Homer and Barney lines to me each morning hasn’t been simple, so I’ll just have to settle for this 3D talking alarm clock I guess. It comes with 4 Simpsons characters, which you can move to the ‘master position’ depending on who you want to hear, and every morning you’ll be awoken to one of 12 authentic phrases including;
Homer: “To alcohol, the cause and solution to all of life’s problems.” Moe: “Is there an I P Freely here? Hey everybody, I P Freely!!” Barney: “Hey can I throw up in your water closet? I’ll purchase something…” Duffman: “Duffman wants to party down with the man who sent in 10,000 duff labels!”
You’ll need to add 4 x AA batteries to the cost, but you can order the Moe’s Tavern speaking alarm clock from Play.com for about $18.
In his book 
Here’s a juicy rumor (if you’re a geek, this is good stuff): A source tells us that 
Here’s a juicy rumor (if you’re a geek, this is good stuff): A source tells us that 
If you have ever wanted a cheesy, media-sponsored wedding like those on reality Television shows or on the Today Show, perhaps you should look to your social network. 
YouTube can now be 
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