Monthly Archives: December 2011

Drunk RIM execs chewed through restraints on the plane

CBC:

New details are emerging about the rowdy behaviour of two Research In Motion executives who were fired for disrupting an intercontinental flight — including that they managed to chew their way out of restraints after being handcuffed by crew members.

Clearly these two worked on the PlayBook. What else could possibly account for such frustration.

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HP to contribute webOS to open source

HP today announced it will contribute the webOS software to the open source community. HP plans to continue to be active in the development and support of webOS. By combining the innovative webOS platform with the development power of the … Continued

Jawbone offers Up customers a refund

Mat Smith for Engadget: While Jawbone attempts to fix the handful of substantial issues plaguing its new Up fitness band, it’s now announced that it will begin giving free refunds to dissatisfied customers — and you can even keep hold … Continued

Justice asks judge to postpone AT&T/T-Mobile case

Brent Kendall for the Wall Street Journal: In a setback for AT&T Inc., a Justice Department lawyer told a federal judge Friday the agency wants to postpone its antitrust case seeking to block the acquisition of T-Mobile USA. The request, … Continued

You know it’s time to redesign when…

Smashing magazine: Redesign. The word itself can send shudders down the spines of any Web designer and developer. For many designers and website owners, the imminent onslaught of endless review cycles, coupled with an infinite number of “stakeholders” and their … Continued

Why QR codes aren’t catching on

Amy Gahran for CNN: Archrival, a research group that focuses on youth marketing, surveyed 500 students at 24 colleges and universities across the United States. They found that although about 80% of students owned a smartphone and had previously seen … Continued

Worms Crazy Golf

Worms Crazy Golf is a hilarious mixture of the explosive action of Worms and the puzzle-based challenges of crazy golf! All of the trademark Worms humour, comic violence, and cartoon visuals are present, combined with addictive yet accessible golf gameplay. … Continued

Apple lists top apps, music, movies of 2011

Apple on Thursday posted iTunes Rewind 2011 and App Store Rewind 2011, which lists the best and top downloaded music, apps, TV shows, books, movies and podcasts of 2011. Apple’s top iPhone app of the year goes to Instagram, with … Continued

Xbox Live app comes to iOS

M.H. Williams, for IndustryGamers: In an interesting move, Microsoft has released its My Xbox Live app on Apple’s App Store for iOS devices. The free app will allow players to access their Xbox Live profile on-the-go, much like the Xbox … Continued

BlackBerry, Android users want an iPad

Elizabeth Woyke for Forbes: This was particularly true of BlackBerry users. More than half (53%) of survey respondents who identified themselves as BlackBerry users said they would like an iPad if they were to buy a tablet. A much smaller … Continued

Lumio Mac wallpaper utility debuts

Chronos Inc. has released Lumio, a new wallpaper utility for Mac OS X. It costs $4.99 (an introductory price), and a free version is available for download. The new app includes more than 250 professional-quality wallpapers in various popular screen … Continued

BAMM.tv helps musicians monetize videos

Billboard:

They work with artists to create quality High Definition live videos of band performing in the company’s state of the art San Francisco studio, which includes a sound stage, engineer, set designers, lighting engineers, a full-recording studio and videographers. The final videos I saw of bands like the Stone Foxes, Kill Rock Star’s Thao and Mirah and the rapper Wallpaper looked and sounded great.The best part: BAMM.tv doesn’t charge the artist a single penny for the videos or the production — It’s completely free.

This is an article I did for Billboard after visiting with BAMM.tv in October. I expect these guys are going to change the way musicians think about videos.

Six major Android problems

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes takes a look at six glaring problems with the Andorid ecosystem in a new ZDNet article entitled Six Android issues that Google doesn’t want to address. Among the problems he lists are how most Android handsets now in … Continued

Apple loses iPad trademark in China

FT:

Apple could face disruption to its iPad sales in China after a court rejected its claim to own the iPad trademark in the country and a rival sought to halt sales of the tablet device in two Chinese cities.

The developments are the latest in a long-running dispute between Apple and Proview Technology (Shenzhen), a struggling Taiwanese-owned company that registered trademarks for the name IPAD in many countries long before Apple conceived its smash hit tablet computer.

Uh oh.

Eight Ferraris Crash

Bloomberg:

Eight Ferraris and a Lamborghini were part of a 14-car crash in Japan yesterday that wrecked more than $1 million of vehicles.“The accident occurred when the driver of a red Ferrari was switching from the right lane to the left and skidded,” said Mitsuyoshi Isejima, executive officer for Yamaguchi Prefecture’s Expressway Traffic Police unit. “It was a gathering of narcissists.” The drivers were aged between 37 and 60 years old, he said.

When Shawn King showed me this, I almost cried. There is also a video of the aftermath.

New iPod dock sports 10,000 watts of power

It sounds – and looks – like a joke, but audio equipment maker Behringer is serious about its iNuke Boom, a 10,000 watt speaker system for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Yes, that tiny little dot on the top of … Continued

Apple’s new campus to have largest solar roof in the US

Seth Weintraub:

Today’s updated Apple Headquarters Spaceship campus plans include a roof made almost entirely out of solar cells, according to plans released today. With a building as large as Apple’s, that puts it in the top corporate solar installations in the world and the biggest in the US. The current title holder is the 4.26 MW system in Edison New Jersey.

This is pretty incredible. Seems like one of those details that is totally Apple.