Archive for November, 2009
We don't really have much use for radio over the airwaves -- hell, the closest we ever get to the halcyon days of rock'n'roll radio is the Flaming Groovies station on Pandora. But something as convenient (and as cute) as this next item just might get us back in the habit. A proof-of-concept by a small handful of designers (Wu Kun-chia, Wang Shih-ju, Chen Ming-daw & Liou Chang-ho), Flexio is a a portable, printed, solar powered, paper-thin FM receiver that fits in a book -- or a pocketbook. Each radio is tuned to a specific frequency, so the...Read More »
Xbox 360 controller ingeniously hacked for NES use
Hey, it's just what you've always wanted: to use your Xbox 360 controller on your old NES. Using a Cortex M3 processor left over from a school robotics project, Francois Gervais managed to rig his wireless pad to control something decidedly less advanced than a game of Modern Warfare 2. There's a video of the controller in action after the break, and you can grab some of the code being used in the Google link below -- perhaps one of you brainiacs will finally hack the Wiimote to control a Jaguar. A tech writer can dream...Continue reading Xbox...Read More »
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands set for 2010
Iconic gaming franchise Prince of Persia will return to our consoles in 2010, just in time for its arrival on the big screen next May.
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands will hit games consoles and handheld devices around the same time as the movie adaption The Sands of Time, which will star Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dartan alongside Britain's own Ben Kingsley.
- 20 Games that changed it all
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 review
The new console adventure, which has just been announced by publishers Ubisoft, will see a return to the Sands of Time storylines...Read More »
Nook ship date slips to January 11th, supply chain managers weep
Hardware construction is a funny thing. Sometimes, regardless of the money you throw at something, you just can't get products to come together any quicker. Evidently that's the case with Barnes & Noble's Nook, which has seen its estimated ship date slip from today to sometime after the holidays, and now to January 11th. There's still a sliver of hope that you'll be able to snag one from a high-traffic retail location on December 7th, but unless you're planning on abandoning ship and helping the Kindle have its new best month ever, the...Read More »
Editorial: The Engadget style guide reaches a MILESTONE
So last week the New York Times Magazine published a piece called "Against Camel Case" which argues that intercapped product names like iPhone and TiVo are "medieval," because they harken back to a time in which people mostly read aloud, slowly sounding out each word as they tried to understand them. Proper word spacing, says the Times, "eventually made possible phenomena like irony, pornography and freedom of conscience."
That's sort of a crazy coincidence -- while we're not so sure word spacing and porn have anything to do with each other, we did just re-do our style...Read More »
Cisco and Juniper ‘clientless’ VPNs expose netizens
Not cure for authentication bypass
Virtual private networking software from Cisco Systems, Juniper, and other manufacturers can make users susceptible to a variety of web-based attacks, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned on Monday.…The power of collaboration within unified communications
Full published article at: Read More »
Sun VirtualBox gets live migration
EU grudge list candidate
The clever techies behind Sun Microsystems' VirtualBox hypervisor just keep plugging away on improving the product, as if the $7.4bn Oracle acquisition had not happened and as if Oracle will have anything useful to do with VirtualBox other than sit on it and keep it out of a rival's hands when the deal gets approved by the European Union's antitrust regulators.…
Full published article at: Read More »
ClearPlay introduces first content filtering 1080p upscaling DVD player
ClearPlay -- remember those guys? You know, the outfit who garnered all sorts of attention years ago by having their content filtering DVD players yanked from store shelves, only to be vindicated by Congress itself? Amazingly enough, these cats are still hanging around, and they've just pushed out their first filtering DVD player to upscale content to 1080p over HDMI. As expected, the $99.95 deck still sports the same filtering technology that gives dutiful parents the ability to block objectionable content based on customizable settings, but now you can rest easy knowing that any slip-up in...Read More »
ASUS Maximus III Extreme mobo lets Bluetooth cellphones tweak settings
ASUS has been giving its motherboard owners ways to tinker with their wares for years now, but it sounds like things are about to get seriously amped up with the Maximus III Extreme. The P55-based board, which falls into the growing Republic of Gamers lineup, adds a new feature to the existing ROG Connect overclocking system: Bluetooth control. You heard right -- ASUS claims that this mainboard actually "enables users to tweak system settings wirelessly over Bluetooth via a mobile phone." More specifically, RC Bluetooth allows users to "review the status of their systems' hardware and...Read More »
Pocket Tool X’s Piranha looks like it’s a multipurpose animal
How many uses can one tool have? If you think the answer is "never enough," the Piranha by Pocket Tool X might just be for you. A multipurpose job (which kinda reminds us of a dinosaur's head), the Piranha boasts a double-ended bit holder, both open and box wrenches, a bottle opener, a nail puller, a scraper, and pry ends -- and it's made of heat-treated S30V Stainless Steel -- which means it should be sturdy enough to make it through a few family camping trips. The tool is available for pre-order now, with shipments heading out sometime in...Read More »


