Archive for: November 7, 2009

By Andrew Liszewski I have to be honest again here. When I first came across the SoundRacer I thought it was another ridiculous accessory for wannabe gearheads who can only ever dream of owning a V10 powered supercar. But after watching the video I’ve included below, I don’t see how anyone who’s ever revved the family sedan at a red light wouldn’t want one! The SoundRacer plugs into your car’s cigarette lighter and uses an FM transmitter to play real V8 or V10 engine sound effects through your vehicle’s stereo. And it’s not random effects either, according to the SoundRacer website the sounds actually correspond to the RPMs of your car’s engine. SoundRacer has a developed a special technology to sense and calculate the car engine rpm and produce the sounds of a powerful Super Sports Car engine. The sound changes as you drive and SoundRacer even increases the speed of the engine sound so that you can drive at a normal speed and still get a very exciting engine sound. If you’re skeptical as to how well it could work (as I was) please take a few minutes to watch the following clip, which totally sold me on the device. And it’s just $39.99, for either a V8 or V10 model, from SafeWireless . Guess who just finished half of his Christmas shopping? [ SoundRacer ]

Read more here:
SoundRacer – Make The Family Sedan Sound Like A Supercar

By Andrew Liszewski I have to be honest again here. When I first came across the SoundRacer I thought it was another ridiculous accessory for wannabe gearheads who can only ever dream of owning a V10 powered supercar. But after watching the video I’ve included below, I don’t see how anyone who’s ever revved the family sedan at a red light wouldn’t want one! The SoundRacer plugs into your car’s cigarette lighter and uses an FM transmitter to play real V8 or V10 engine sound effects through your vehicle’s stereo. And it’s not random effects either, according to the SoundRacer website the sounds actually correspond to the RPMs of your car’s engine. SoundRacer has a developed a special technology to sense and calculate the car engine rpm and produce the sounds of a powerful Super Sports Car engine. The sound changes as you drive and SoundRacer even increases the speed of the engine sound so that you can drive at a normal speed and still get a very exciting engine sound. If you’re skeptical as to how well it could work (as I was) please take a few minutes to watch the following clip, which totally sold me on the device. And it’s just $39.99, for either a V8 or V10 model, from SafeWireless . Guess who just finished half of his Christmas shopping? [ SoundRacer ]

See original here:
SoundRacer – Make The Family Sedan Sound Like A Supercar

The dawn of the 21st century brought us a problem: we had lots of data, but no real way to bring that data into the real world. We could feasibly lug laptops and phones around, but did they ever do exactly what we needed them to do? Don’t answer that. Manufacturers, in their wisdom, decided to do something about it and so devices like the Peek - for email - and the CueCat - for nothing - were born. Here’s a look at ten “avatar” gadgets, gadgets that brought a web service into the real world, for better or worse. Twitterpeek - We should be nicer to the Twitterpeek . This standalone device, designed specifically for Twittering, mirroring our own obsession with the microblogging service and, if anything, we willed it into existence with our collective desires for always on Twitter. Does it work? Eh. Is it a good idea? Eh. Is it for us? Probably not, but what do I know?

More here:
Services Made Flesh: 10 Weird – and Not So Weird – “Avatar” Gadgets

While the US goes DROID crazy after Friday’s launch of the Android 2.0 smartphone, O2 Germany are not far behind when it comes to the GSM version.  The Motorola MILESTONE – as the DROID will be known outside the US – was spotted on the carrier’s site last week and officially announced on Monday; it’s now being listed on the O2 Germany site, priced at €549.99 ($816). Interestingly, the MILESTONE comes with an 8GB microSD card, whereas the DROID on Verizon comes with a 16GB card; however we found that the class 2 microSD supplied with the CDMA handset proved too slow for judder-free high-resolution video playback.  In the MILESTONE’s case, that 8GB card is preloaded with Western Europe mapping data for use with Motorola’s own MOTONAV turn-by-turn directions app, since Google Maps Navigation is currently US-only . From what we can tell from the German-language site, the MILESTONE is available to order now; we’re not sure when it will ship, but earlier rumors suggested it would be on sale imminently.  As for whether the DROID is any good, check out our full review here . [ via Twitter] Relevant Entries on SlashGear Motorola MILESTONE official: DROID for Europe Motorola MILESTONE (aka GSM DROID) adds multitouch [Video] Motorola MILESTONE (aka GSM Verizon DROID) confirmed for O2 Germany GSM Motorola MILESTONE lacks turn-by-turn in Android 2.0 Maps [Update: Confirmed] Rumor – T-Mobile to be exclusive iPhone carrier in Germany

See the original post:
Motorola MILESTONE gets O2 Germany listing for €550

Being a blogger, I often find design elements on the web for my posts or my blog in general. It’s becoming a very common experience for bloggers to know a thing or two about web design. I’m guessing it is the web that taught us to be quasi-designers by offering us lots of easy-to-use tools that help us create just about everything we need: photo-editing, widgets, logos, buttons, and yes, fonts as well. Fonts are a big focus of the Web2.0 era —they are now bigger, cleaner and smoother, especially when it comes to logos. Can you imagine Techcrunch’s logo looking like this? It’s all dependent on font choice. (in case you were wondering BTW, Twitter’s font is mostly Pico created by Maniackers Design ) Regardless of the fact that the web makes it easy for everyone to be more creative (i.e., logo above ), it becomes a paradise for designers themselves who seek new tools & inspiration. So whether you’re a professional graphic designer, or an amateur web publisher this list of font tools might come in handy (eventually). myFontbook is an online font viewer and manager based on the font available on your computer. It allows you to organize your font collection and gives you all the tools you need to do so. Once you open the demo, myFontbook will render all the fonts in your computer, and display them together in an easy to view mode. While all the files are actually open, it makes it easier to browse through them and see the fonts in several sizes. You can also make lists of fonts, tag & favorite the fonts that you like best. The font viewer renders your entire font library super fast. Just compare the rendering time to other font management tools. And there’s ...

Now that they got what they wanted – a renewed stake and board representation in the Skype that will be spun off eBay soon – the Scandinavian duo Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis can divert more of their attention again to the latest Internet venture they’re putting their weight behind: Rdio . The yet-to-launch digital music startup was first talked about publicly a couple of weeks ago when the New York Times unveiled plans for its imminent online music subscription service but it’s been pretty quiet ever since. I’ve been keeping busy this weekend doing some very basic research – I love you, Internet – about Rdio and discovered a couple of interesting details that have emerged on the Web since the stealth startup got its first dose of media attention. First of all, a search on LinkedIn used to surface only Malthe Sigurdsson , a London-based designer who used to be Creative Director at Skype, as one of the people hired by Rdio – as VP of Design. He can stop hiding that now. Today, that same search on the business social network yields more results: – Carter Adamson (COO, Rdio) – former General Manager of Desktop Products at Skype and prior to that Director, Product Strategy/Business Developement at AOL and before that Senior Program Manager at ICQ. His recruitment seems to suggest that the Rdio service will not be exclusively browser-based. – Todd Berman (VP of Engineering, Rdio) – first hired as Software Engineer at imeem in 2005, Berman served as VP of Technology at the venture-backed social music startup until switching to Rdio back in August 2008. During his tenure at imeem, Berman undoubtedly learned a lot about what it takes to distribute music on the web and scale the service for a large user base. ...

I’m in India this weekend with fellow TechCrunch/BusinessWeek writer Sarah Lacy. After we’re done with the elephant rides in Jaipur, we’re going to be meeting local tech startups. Then we head back to New Delhi to meet more aspiring entrepreneurs. Sarah is writing a book on how startup culture has gone global and I’m researching how R&D has globalized. It never ceases to amaze me how you can find brilliant entrepreneurs everywhere—whether in the middle of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan or Santiago Chile (where local entrepreneurs showed me life-sized holographic images projected through some hardware connected to their laptops, and software which can help monitor the operational efficiencies of department stores in California). The promise of these early ventures is always amazing and their enthusiasm infectious. Which brings me to Global Entrepreneurship Week . And Snoop Dogg. You are probably asking yourself, what the heck does the controversial and highly successful rapper have to do with entrepreneurship? Snoop has graciously agreed to serve on a Nov. 16 mentoring panel that features high-powered entrepreneurs handing out sage advice on how they launched and grew their businesses and brands. No doubt, Snoop has built one of the most durable brands in the notoriously volatile world of hip-hop. In fact, I’d wager that Snoop could give some solid lessons to some of the top decision makers and brand masters on a global basis. The panel is but one of a huge slate of events arranged by the Kauffman Foundation (full disclosure — they have underwritten some of my research ) for Global Entrepreneurship Week. Those events span the globe, running in 85 countries and hundreds of venues all with a singular goal—to spur innovative thinkers to do innovative things. The emphasis of many of the events, not surprisingly, is technology. The ...

Remember Earthrace , the awesome carbon-fibre and Kevlar trimaran that was designed to take on powerboat speed-trials for round-the-world sailing?  In the few years since it debuted the $2.5m bio-diesel boat has been whipping around cracking world records; now it’s going into its next job, acting as a stealthed support vessel for the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling organisation. Now, mentioning Sea Shepherd usually kicks up all manner of argument about whether the organisation – which you could precis as a more aggressive version of Greenpeace – does more harm than good, but we’re going to try to avoid that.  Instead let’s all marvel at Earthrace’s new paint-job, the trimaran having switched from silver to some seriously Batman-esque matte black. Matte black is already passé in cars, but we reckon kick-ass speedboats can still get away with it.  Life have a few more pictures – including of the cabin, which has some new lime-green racing seats – but the really clever stuff is the paint, which apparently helps the Earthrace to not show up on radar. [ via BoingBoing] Relevant Entries on SlashGear Biofuel wave-harpooning speedboat Onboard Earthrace O2 XDA Stealth photos The Infamous Plumbers Have Apparently Changed Careers Nissan’s Paramagnetic paint

Original post:
Earthrace super-trimaran gets stealth paint job

The Litl Webbook met with confusion when it officially launched earlier this week .  While the 12-inch notebook may resemble a netbook for kids, its $699 price tag slots it in among grown-up laptops, begging the questions of who exactly is the target audience and why should they bother?  CrunchGear’s Doug Aamoth caught up with the Boston company to find out some more details plus get a hands-on play with the Webbook itself. Video demo and interview after the cut While we’ve grown used to the idea of netbooks as simply cheap computers – rather than “straightforward” notebooks for those who don’t want to learn to deal with an OS’ complexities – the Litl team seem determined to take pretty much every hump out of ownership.  Data is primarily kept server-side and they even offer a remote control for TV-style access. Meanwhile the company themselves are also responding to pricing criticism on their blog.  Their stance is that by looking at the Webbook as solely a hardware proposition, you’re undervaluing the server-side complexity that goes into it as well as your own time in managing patches, virus-checks and other mundane housekeeping we pretty much do without thinking about it. “So, take your run of the mill netbook, add whatever expense/time you spend doing virus, updating, upgrades, patches, plug-ins, synching, back-up, tech support, and file transfers for the life of the machine. Add in a one year service plan then add some more because we give you an unconditional money back guarantee not an extended warranty. Add in a killer screen. Then add in the stuff I haven’t talked about such as plug-and-play HDMI, awesome channels, and sweet UI. What’s that worth? Depends on your situation. But for most home computer needs, $350 netbooks are probably too cheap and $1000 ...

The ads are destroying YouTube. At least this one is. It is a video ad for sustainable energy company from Spain called Acciona . Yeah, I had never heard of them either. The video starts with this Euro-dude in a suit starting to blow up and crack apart like he’s made from plaster. Halfway through, the actual video player crack in half, and all of the surrounding parts of the site shake and fall away, while an annoying voiceover is saying something about rebirth. I don’t know, maybe it makes more sense in Spanish. The visual effect is interesting, but feels like a gimmick since it’s already been done before to much better effect by Nintendo. A year ago, they used the same collapsing webpage motif in a video ad for Wario Land: Shake It . At least that made sense. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Continued here:
YouTube Is Falling Apart Again

Windows 7 has been out for a couple of weeks now, and it's both received largely glowing reviews and sold up a storm compared to its predecessor, Vista. But we've been hearing some rumblings about the 64-bit version of the OS not being compatible with some devices. PCMag.com's editor-in-chief, Lance Ulanoff, reported that it didn't recognize a Sony DCR-TRV140 camcorder he tried to plug in. It's been common knowledge for a while now that 64-bit versions of Windows require digitally signed drivers, so mismatches aren't unheard of, but given the traction 64-bit gained during the Vista years, it's kind of surprising.

We'd like to find out the scope of this, and you can help us out. If you've had trouble getting any of your hardware to work with 64-bit Windows 7, leave a comment on this post and tell us what sort of device you tried to connect and what happened when it didn't work.

Netflix on Thursday shipped instant streaming discs for the PlayStation 3 to the 100,000 members who requested them.

"After we tune a few more details, we expect to ship to everyone else within a couple of weeks," Jessie Becker, vice president of marketing at Netflix, wrote in a blog post. "We'll send you an email as soon as we ship your instant streaming disc."

Late last month, Netflix announced that it will stream video to PS3 users who are also Netflix members starting in November, but users will need a special Blu-ray disc to access the content. Netflix already streams its Watch Instantly collection to the Microsoft Xbox 360, the TiVo platform, and Sony Bravia TVs, among others.