Uncategorized

A look at new 1080p video from the iTunes Store suggests that Apple is doing some interesting things with compression and with the hardware on the new Apple TV and iPad.

Young Audri Clemmons built a Rube Goldberg machine, and it is awesome.

Scott Bourne corrects some incorrect assumptions about the new Lytro Field Camera.

Most of the tech press sucks, and MG Siegler calls it like he sees it.

Acer’s MacBook Air competitor may be priced lower, but it’s making the company absolutely no money.

The Guardian:

A whole new world of magic animals, brave young princes and evil witches has come to light with the discovery of 500 new fairytales, which were locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany for over 150 years.While sifting through the local historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth work, cultural curator Erika Eichenseer found 500 fairytales, many of which do not appear in other European fairytale collections. For example, there is the tale of a maiden who escapes a witch by transforming herself into a pond. The witch then lies on her stomach and drinks all the water, swallowing the young girl, who uses a knife to cut her way out of the witch.

I’ve always been a fan of reading the fairy tales we think we know in their “original form”. I hope these will be published soon.

The U.S. government says it has the right to seize computer domains that end in .com.

Mat Honan offers an unvarnished look at tomorrow’s Apple event through the eye of an experienced tech journalist.

Verizon has announced a home broadband service based on its 4G LTE technology.

Venture capitalist Seth Levine is getting sick of overhype in the startup community, and wants people to get back to building actual businesses.

Wired’s Gadget Lab:

Too big to be a wieldy smartphone, too small to be a generously sized tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note hasn’t received a warm critical reception. Wired’s review ended with a 4 out of 10 verdict, Gizmodo gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars. Analysts have also been Galaxy Note skeptics.So critics and analysts have not been kind to the Galaxy Note — making recent news of strong Samsung sales figures all the more curious. Samsung is on pace to sell 10 million more before the year’s end.So why is a handset that’s being critically panned selling so well?

As an iPhone user, most of us couldn’t imagine using a slab like the Samsung Galaxy Note but it looks like it has found its niche.

Architecture firm Ideabox has partnered with Ikea to create a fully furnished prefab house big enough for one or two people.

All brogrammers must die.

Square now offers Register, a new iPad-based point of sale system for retail merchants who use its card reader.

A parent at a girl’s hockey game in Massachusetts was ejected when he was caught flashing a laser pointer into the eyes of the opposing team’s goalie.

Peter offers tech journos advice for what to write about in the absence of real news.

ThisIsWhyImBroke:

A site run by a few geeky ladies and gentlemen who partake in way too much internet window shopping. As such, our staff has a wide array of cool, fun, useful, and unique products that we showcase on our website.

This web site has way too many things that make you go, “Oh! I’d love to have one of those!” Check out the transparent Pool Table! Thanks to @Chiron1 for the heads up.

Wired:

When it comes to computer security, Jeremiah Grossman, Chief Technology Officer at security consultancy White Hat Security, is paranoid — and for good reason. He’s seen what the bad guys can do. But when he met with Wired at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week, he said something surprising: He doesn’t use antivirus software.As it turns out, many of his security-minded peers don’t use it either. The reason: If someone is going to try and attack them, they’re likely to use a new technique, one that most antivirus products will miss. “If you asked the average security expert whether they use antivirus or not,” Grossman says “a significant proportion of them do not.”

Mat Honan for Gizmodo: The Windows 8 consumer preview is utterly delightful. But I have a huge suspicion that by the time it ships, it could completely suck. And that’s because the people who make the machines on which it … Continued

It is far too easy to emotionally default to negativity on the Internet. Whether it’s fueled by anti-social behavior, a perceived intrusion upon one’s curated garden of content and opinion, or some sort of basic personal distaste, we are all too frequently treated to a stinging assault on a person or corporate entity on Twitter and the like.

I’ve been guilty of this from time to time.

Square’s payment services are going to be tested out in a small pilot program in New York City taxicabs.

Dave Eisenberg for BostInno: Terrafugia, based in Woburn [MA] and founded in 2006 by MIT trained aeronautical engineers will debut the Transition® Roadable Aircraft (that’s a street legal airplane to my plebeian friends) at the 2012 New York International Auto … Continued

A new Macworld.com feature will have you taking better pictures of your food.

The Verge:

The self-titled Lytro camera, a digital camera that neither looks nor operates like any camera you’ve ever seen: it measures megarays instead of megapixels, captures light fields instead of light, and lets you focus your pictures after you’ve taken them.We’ve been following the Lytro since its inception, and there’s absolutely no doubt that the camera represents a huge technological achievement, but will you be ditching your DSLR for a Lytro, or even your point-and-shoot? Read the full review to find out.

Interesting stuff from Jason Kottke.