Archive for: July 18, 2009

Two months worth of Twilight talk has resulted in this homage that we lovingly refer to as “goth-lite.” Take a walk on the dark side with the Gadgettes and special guest Natali Del Conte. Listen now: Download today’s podcast Subscribe now: iTunes (audio) | iTunes (video) | RSS (audio) | RSS (video) … Originally posted at Gadgettes, the blog

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Gadgettes 146: The Hot Topic Episode

Opera 10 continues to chug along, and the beta build of the browser has updated for Windows , Mac , and Linux . The publisher has declined to put its proprietary Web server service, Unite, in the build, indicating that it’s not yet ready for beta consideration. Still, the enormous number of fixes to the Opera 10 beta should make many fans happy. Several of the visual tweaks include an icon for when Opera Turbo is activated, a “Synchronize Opera” button on the Speed Dial page, and inverted tab icons for panels viewed as tabs. The Opera Wand has been renamed Password Manager, Transfers have been renamed Downloads, and hitting enter to select an item in a dropdown box will no longer submit a form. There are other bug- and stability-fixes, as well. Changelogs are available separately for Windows , Mac , and Linux . Opera 10 beta 2 with Unite can be downloaded for Windows , Mac , and Linux , too. Originally posted at The Download Blog

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Opera updates beta, but Unite still separate

We’re trying something a little different this time around on Top 5. Since our monthly Most Popular countdown is so dominated by phones, we figured we could give a little love to some other product categories. We’ll start with laptops and see how you like it. If all … Originally posted at CNET TV

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Top 5 Best Laptops

Motorola H790 and T215 (Credit: Motorola) Motorola has just introduced two new Bluetooth accessories, the Motorola H790 Bluetooth headset and the Motorola T215 Bluetooth speakerphone. Both are equipped with Motorola’s CrystalTalk technology that promises to suppress background noise. The H790 has a thin and sleek design with dual microphones …

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Motorola rolls out a couple new Bluetooth accessories

Wikipedia users will be getting new tools for uploading, editing, and viewing video very soon. According to a Beet.TV interview with Erik Moller, who is the deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, we’ll see all of these things shortly. However, what’s more interesting is the Web encyclopedia’s choice of video formats and how it fits into a fracas in the browser world. Wikipedia has been working on video support for years , and is putting considerable effort into making it easier for users to upload video–specifically, to bridge a video format divide. Moller says that while Wikipedia is still planning to use Ogg Theora (an open-source video codec that can be played back natively inside the latest version of Firefox, and soon Chrome and Opera) there may be tools that will convert video shot in alternate formats so that no special software, or user effort is required. In the meantime, Wikipedia’s solution is for users to do that conversion on their end. Moller says that one solution is FireOgg , a Firefox-only browser plug-in which can transcode user videos to Ogg Theora on the user’s hardware. One issue that still lingers with Wikipedia’s slow move to video is its choice of codec. Codecs are the software modules that encode and decode audio and video, shrinking it down into sizes that can be more easily transmitted through the Web. Wikipedia’s a large and very popular site, meaning whatever video format it’s using will have a big impact on the Web and its standards. Wikipedia’s choice to go with Ogg Theora puts further stress on where browsers and site creators alike stand on HTML 5 video, which is emerging as a hotly-contended Web standard. Unlike the H.264 codec, which has been promoted in both Google and Apple’s products and services, Ogg ...

The story this week is that the wacky LG Watch Phone from CES has cleared the Federal Communications Commission. That’s right, the feds have given their approval to one of this year’s conversation piece products. Of course, the conversation we have is, “Why would you buy this?” Also in FCC land, the Nokia E55 and E72 passed the test and we discovered an Alcatel phone called the Miss Sixty A. No, we don’t get it either. Because the FCC has to certify every phone sold in the United States, not to mention test its SAR rating , the agency’s online database offers a lot of sneak peeks to those who dig. And to save you the trouble, Crave has combed through the database for you. Here are a selection of filings from the past week on new and upcoming cell phones. Click through to read the full report. …

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LG Watch Phone clears FCC

Random news bits in abundance, including interactive eye candy, where the rubber meets the road map, and a tale of dead D5000s. Plus, your version of town and country. Listen now: Download today’s podcast Episode 55 … Originally posted at Indecent Exposure Podcast

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Indecent Exposure 55: Intramural expeditions

Deals like this were few and far between in my neighborhood. (Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET) On Friday, MasterCard jumped into the iPhone fray with its first corporate iPhone app. Expanding on the theme of its well-known “Priceless” campaign , the free application, Priceless Picks , pairs GPS and 3D maps to show you local deals, dining, and other points of interest in your immediate vicinity. How, other than the branding, does it differ from Google Maps, Yelp, and the squads of similar user-rated map apps? Not by much. You soar around the map in quasi-street view or bird’s-eye view, identifying locations as the color-coordinated bubble pops up. Red for dining, blue for shopping, orange for “Priceless” items, and so on. Sadly, Vino Venue is actually closed. (Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt) MasterCard hopes that local vendors will post constantly updating deals in the few words contained within each bubble, and that users will post their local tips–best spot for a sunset, for example. The biggest problem is that they don’t say much. Tap the bubble and you don’t get a phone number, Web site, or star rating. You see options to e-mail the selection to a friend, flag as improper, or explore more details. The last is instructs you to call the merchant to verify a deal or pinch and zoom to work out the vendor’s exact street location. Priceless Picks isn’t terrible. It looks pretty good and loads fairly quickly. It lets you filter categories. And it did point to an interesting source for wine sampling via vending machine –that has since closed. Spinning around the map can get dizzying–we’d like to see a compass and a list mode to complement the map mode, not to mention a hearty infusion of real information that will help bridge ...

Nintendo Wii exclusive gaming rundown–screenshots View the full gallery We already showed you what exclusive titles you can expect for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 , now let’s wrap things up with the Nintendo Wii. Historically, the Wii has benefited from a large amount of solid first-party titles like Super Mario Galaxy and The Legend of Zelda . …

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Nintendo Wii exclusive gaming rundown

In our current roundup of retail-specific laptops , we’ve divided our 30-plus systems into four different price categories, from sub-$500 entry level models to high-end ones that cost more than $1,000. In that entry level category, covering laptops up to $499, we looked at laptops from Toshiba, HP, Dell, and Asus. Diving below the $500 mark is always risky when buying anything other than a Netbook, and we found systems that ranged from brick-like to not-so-bad. The biggest difference was in the processors, where you could find anything from a painfully slow Intel Celeron 900 to a reasonably usable Intel Pentium Dual Core T4200. We ended up with a near-tie between the $429 Dell i1545-012B, with an Intel dual-core CPU, and the similar Asus K50IJ-RX05, which won us over by offering a nicer design, more RAM, and a bigger hard drive for only $70 more. Check out details of each system below:…

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Back-to-school 2009 retail laptop roundup: Asus’ K50IJ-RX05 is our favorite entry level model

The New York Times'David Pogue reports that Amazon has decided to pull certain copies of electronic books from its shelves.

In doing so, however, Amazon has also pulled them off of Kindles its customers own, and who had already purchased the books in question. Pogue notes a complaints page where Amazon users have begun posting confused messages, trying to figure out why their e-books have disappeared.

The publisher apparently decided to remove the books from its electronic catalog and Amazon followed suit.

The irony, of course, is which author was pulled from Amazon's electronic shelves: George Orwell, whose 1984 and Animal Farm basically defined institutional paranoia. And, the fact that Amazon rarely comments on its decisions makes the action even more sinister.

If your Facebook account has been hacked, Facebook will institute a new log-on procedure to alert you before your friends start sending you messages asking why you've sent them ads for herbal Viagra.

If Facebook detects suspicious activity, the message above will be sent to the user, according to a blog post the site posted on Friday. At that point, the user will be asked to go through a verification process, after which he or she will be prompted to pick a new, more secure password.

" This new change will help us not only fight spam, but also spread the word about security on Facebook," the site said. "In the coming months, we'll be rolling out similar processes to address the different threats people may face. Our teams are working hard to make sure you never experience a security issue on Facebook, and in the rare case that you do, we're committed to making the process of regaining control of your account easy and informative."

Facebook was also criticized by Canada's privacy commissioner on Friday, a charge that the company has not apparently refuted at press time.