News

Toyota Tacoma now calling Texas home

Big news for Texas and Toyota yesterday. OK, the news actually came out a while back that the automaker would shift midsize pickup production to their full-size truck plant in San Antonio but it was guns blazing Friday as Governor Rick Perry helped kick off the official celebration.


Random Cool Video: Every Star Wars Lightsaber On/Off!

I remember reading something several years ago about the reasoning behind the different sounds made by various lightsabers in the original Star Wars movies. It seemed pretty cool that Luke had Anakin’s old lightsaber and based on crystals and power sources it was blue and made one sound, whereas when he constructed his own it was a different color and made a different sound. Of course, back then there was no YouTube (or DVD), and for the majority of years the movies were not available outside of theaters or TV re-runs … so you rarely got to dig into such…


Fable III PC Version Delayed, Silly Open Cinematic Released!

Fable III is the upcoming entry in the action-RPG series by Lionhead Studios (part of Microsoft Game Studios), headed up by Peter Molyneux, the designer who is famous for spouting off pie-in-the-sky features about his next ‘best game ever’ that are eventually cut way back … only to repeat the process for the next game! The original Fable was released in 2004 for XBOX360 first, followed up by an extended version for PC called ‘Fable: The Lost Chapters’. The game was originally going to be the ‘all-RPG’, taking you from birth to death in a ever-growing world in which you…


Graffiti for Android Gets Updated but Has a Bug

I sang the praises of Graffiti for Android when it first came out. It was solid and easy for quick text entry. Now Access has released an updated with the following improvements: Autocorrect Auto-capitalization Word prediction Input word learning Japanese input Effectively it goes from being a simple text entry system to a very full-featured one. It works great…except for one bug. Most text entry programs recognize if your device has a hard keyboard, and they don’t “pop up” if the keyboard is engaged. Graffiti, unfortunately, does appear even if the keyboard is extended. It makes for a difficult typing…


Rolling Stone and Zinio Launch Interactive New Issue and Subscription Bundle Deal

Thanks to the iPad I have moved further than ever away from using paper. When I want a new book I buy it to read with my Kindle app. When I want to take notes in a meeting I use one of a few different iPad apps. When I am doing serious writing I use the app Notebooks and then sync it to my MobileMe account so that it is available everywhere. When I need to create a voice note I do it in Evernote. That way it is available to me everywhere and, thanks to new integration with the…


Experience the Newport Jazz Festival Live Via Webcast

The Newport Jazz Festival at gorgeous Fort Adams state park in Newport, RI is the granddaddy of music festivals – the one that kicked off the trend of having jazz music in festivals, which of course can then be linked to the development of festivals such as Woodstock and Lollapalooza and so on. On Saturday you’ll be able to access all of the music live as it plays at NPR’s Newport Jazz Site! They will do more than just dump the music – there will be historical news, sounds, videos and more available for the whole weekend. Here are some…


Just In Case You Missed It: Sprint & HTC Bring Froyo to the EVO 4G

If you’ve got a Sprint HTC EVO 4G, then today you have yet another reason to feel vastly superior to all other Android Device users … Today HTC marked yet another “first” in its long history of bringing innovation to the mobile arena. Ahead of the pack, Sprint has started to make available the latest version of the Android platform, version 2.2, otherwise known as Froyo, for HTC EVO 4G. Not only is HTC EVO 4G the first Froyo device with HTC’s Sense user experience, it’s also the first mass-market Froyo handset period. In addition to bringing a number of…


MTV Celebrates 29 Years Since Lift-Off … Older Fans Wonder When Music Videos Were Sent to Space

On August 1st 1981 MTV launched, creating a major new outlet for music as a visual art form as well as a new place for artists to get their material promoted. In commemoration of this milestone one YouTube user has pieced together then entire first 24 hours of the station. While we did have cable at that time, but I was too busy between school, job, friends, music, whatever else to care about the launch of the station. Of course, over the next several years leaving MTV on in the fraternity house was as common as leaving on the radio,…


Home Tech Review: Setting Up the Cisco Valet… How Simple is It?

Cisco recently released a new family of Valet routers. The new routers are stylish and, more importantly, they offer easy setup via their “Easy Setup Key” and Cisco Connect software”. The Valet has an MSRP of $99.99, the Valet Plus an MSRP of $149.99 and the Valet Connector, a wireless adapter, has an MSRP of $69.99. Cisco sent on of the Valet routers for review and I decided to see just how easy it is to set up. How did I do that? I gave the unit to my college-age neighbor Chase. Chase knows almost nothing about computers so I…


The WowWee Roboscooper Wants Wall-E’s Job

Show me a person who could watch the Pixar movie Wall-E without getting a little bit misty, and I’ll show you a person with a heart of stone. The premise was that Earth, long inhabited by wasteful humans was eventually rendered unusable, and there was a mass exodus to a fleet of spaceships provided for by the Buy N Large corporation, which the company that had sold the products which helped contribute to all of the waste on Earth in the first place. Are you with me? So Buy N Large tells the Earthlings that they will only be on the…


UpStand iPad Stand Looks OutStanding

The iPad is a runaway hit. We all know that. We use it at our desks. We use it in the kitchen. We use it in the living room. We use it everywhere. And it’s lack of a built-in stand is, at times, a pain. Let’s face it, you don’t want, or can’t, always hold the 1 1/2 pound device. Fortunately there are a growing number of excellent options out there. And those ranks just grew by one with the announcement of the UpStand from Just Mobile. As The Company Explains- The UpStand™ will float your iPad at just the…


Cisco’s Valet Makes Wireless Network Setup Easy, New Survey Shows Just How Important That Is

A survey just out shows that 73 percent of adults plan to use a computer or Wi-Fi-connected device while traveling this summer. No surprise there. It goes on to note that nearly half of those vacationers plan to access the Internet through their host’s home network! This according to a consumer survey conducted by Opinion Research for Cisco’s Consumer Products group. Here are the survey results… * 59 percent of adults plan to use a computer or Wi-Fi device while visiting family and friends this summer, and 37 percent said they will tap into their host’s wireless network to access…


Photographer Uses Soda Can Camera to Capture 6 Month Long Exposure

Just check out that image, called ‘Solargraph’. It is from the UK, taken of Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge. The lines are the travel of the sun over time, showing the motion of the earth relative to the sun, as well as periods where no sun at all was visible. According to Wired, photographer Justin Quinnell made the images: from the simplest of cameras: a soda-can with a 2.5mm hole punched into the metal and a sheet of photographic paper hidden inside. Because photo-paper is so much less sensitive to light (in the darkroom you’d typically expose for 10-seconds or more),…


Caddyshack Celebrates 30 Years as the Best Golf Movie Ever

… and also the most hated by golfers! I remember when it came out my Uncle who was an avid golfer saw it right away, as did my cousin who was visiting with family from Georgia. Two very different opinions, one from a middle-aged golfer who thought it was stupid and one from a guy a couple years older than my brother and I who thought it was hilarious. Pretty soon we saw it (remember back in those days you didn’t need to rush to the theater on opening weekend!) … and it has remained one of my all-time favorite…


The End of Free Soda Refills?

Last Friday night my family went to a nice downtown Corning pub, and noticed printed signs all around stating that a new policy would permit only one free soda refill, after which guests would have to pay for another full-priced drink. I really didn’t think anything of it until I saw this post on Consumerist: According to the article: This dire message at a Tucson Italian beef joint claims the restaurant’s dissolution of its free refill policy has to do with outside forces conspiring to make soda syrup too pricey. Have you seen anything like this in your town, or…


Apple Launches the Magic Trackpad

At long last Apple has released a standalone trackpad that brings the MacBook Pro controller to your iMac, Mac Mini and Mac Pro but goes one better by almost doubling the size of the trackpad. As the Apple store notes- Magic Trackpad gives you a whole new way to control what’s on your Mac desktop computer. When you perform gestures, you actually interact with what’s on your screen. You feel closer to your content, and moving around feels completely natural. Swiping through pages on screen is just like flipping through pages in a magazine, and inertial scrolling senses the momentum…


Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ice Ice Baby’ Celebrates 20-Years of Poser ‘Gangsta’ Pretense

While it might seem incredible to some that it has been 20 years since the release of the hit hip-hop single Ice Ice Baby by rapper Rob Van Winkle (Vanilla Ice), look at that outfit … I … I really just don’t even know what to say. To celebrate the anniversary, here is the version I have always preferred: Jim Carrey before he hit it big doing a parody for the Wayan’s Brothers variety show In Living Color: It is interesting looking back and realizing that late the prior year when Vanilla Ice was unsigned, he had released it as…


Gadget Review – The Joby Gorillatorch Flare

The other day I needed to make some adjustments behind my television. I needed both hands but I also need a light illuminating the right spot where the cable connections we. So I grabbed a small flashlight, stuck it between my teeth, and did what I needed to do. It dropped on the ground three times and… well you know what they say about the “right tool for the right job”?? This wasn’t it. Obviously there’s a better, more dentally-respectful way to do this and that comes in the form of… the Joby Gorillatorch Flare. I’ve been evaluating one of…


2011 Ford Explorer: Back from the drawing board

Welcome to July 26, 2010, or what the folks in Dearborn, Michigan are calling “Ford Explorer Day.” Ford Motor Company has become known for segment-defining vehicles in its rich history. The Model T, the Model A, F-series pickup, the OG pony car Ford Mustang and a vehicle that began a new revolution when introduced in 1990, the Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle. In recent years, Explorer (and nearly all SUVs) have fallen from their lofty perches in manufacturers lineups. SUV buyers were pulled into the segment due to attributes of these utilitarian workhorses. Haul the family, haul a trailer and…


Wolfgang’s Vault and Sonos Get Close…

Although I don’t own a Sonos system, it’s something that I’ve considered purchasing several times in the past. Sonos’ wireless, multi-room music system keeps getting more tempting, too, by adding new features, including streaming services and an iPhone app. Wolfgang’s Vault, on the other hand, I’ve been using for a while.  (In fact, you can find a couple of Gear Diary posts about it here and here.)  Drawing from the archives of the late Bill Graham, Wolfgang’s Vault contains decades of concert recordings from artists including Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, James Taylor, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Elton John, Led Zeppelin,…


Random Cool Video: Blue Man Group Uses Giant iPhone-Like Devices On Regis & Kelly

If you have ever seen the Blue Man Group live, you know how amazing their performances are. If not, you are missing out on some wonderful live entertainment and should make every effort to check them out. They are always interesting and always changing things up. Recently Playbill noted that the Blue Man Group would be bringing out a new performance piece called ‘Screenhopping’ July 21st on the Regis & Kelly show. In a very timely fashion the so-called ‘video pillars’ look very much like over-sized iPhones, with app buttons and all. Once it gets started it is all classic…