Gadgets and New Technologies

       Photo: shane o mac/Flickr Starting today, the Apple Store online is offering several new deals on refurbished Macs, and the price difference is good enough that it could force off your mind even the nastiest image of their previous life. Refurbished items are usually those that are returned for any number of reasons (hmm . . .), are tested by the manufacturer, and work like new, but often have an aesthetic dink or two. Among the deals are the newest aluminum iMac 24" PC for $1,900 (17% of regular price), and a $1,450 MacBook Pro 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (almost 30% off), both with 24-hour free shipping and the Leopard OS. Check out the rest of the deals on their refurbished item page right here. (Read the full post about ‘Refurbished Apple Gear is Cheaper and Ripe For the Taking’…)

Share This

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The Peed/Storm Trojan dominated the top of the list at 16.88 percent of total detections, a strong resurgence given its absence from the January Top 10 Malware List. The “popularity” of the Windows WMF vulnerability decreased as viruses using its signature only accounted for 5.33 percent of total detections.

1. Packer.Malware.NSAnti.K 37.07%
2. Trojan.Peed.Gen 16.88%
3. Exploit.Win32.WMF-PFV 5.33%
4. BehavesLike:Trojan.Downloader 5.21%
5. Win32.Netsky.P@mm 3.36%
6. Win32.Parite.B 2.93%
7. Win32.NetSky.D@mm 0.92%
8. Win32.Netsky.AA@mm 0.88%
9. Win32.Nyxem.E@mm 0.69%
10.

(Read the full post about ‘Top 10 Malware List for February 2008′…)

Share This

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition first came out on the Xbox 360 back in January 2007. In October of last year, Geek.com learned the title would be released on PlayStation 3. The third-person shooter sold about 1.5 million units on the 360, and it received generally favorable reviews. Read on to find out whether it’s worth buying again or for the first time on the PS3. The first thing to address is Capcom’s continued exploitation of the PS3 hard drive. As was reported a few weeks ago, Capcom is forcing 20-minute hard drive installs on its latest titles. It certainly did not hurt the outstanding Devil May Cry 4, and knowing about it in advance, most people should be able to find something to do while the game installs. (Read the full post about ‘Review: Lost Planet: Extreme Condition for PS3′…)

Share This

The Bike Cuffs that you see here are no ordinary cuffs or lock that helps being a theft deterrent - they’re harder to crack than a complicated Sudoku puzzle. The heavy-duty cuffs attach around the fork and disc rotor so would-be thieves can’t make off with your bike unless they’re armed with some kind of Fort Knox-busting wonder weapon. This nifty arrangement means you won’t have to faff around taking off your wheel for full lockdown. You don’t even need to use the keys to secure your bike, just click the cuffs using the integrated buttons. Of course no locking system is completely impenetrable but Bike Cuffs are highly-rated by crime prevention bods. (Read the full post about ‘Bike Cuffs to prevent theft’…)

Share This

Posted Feb 29th 2008 11:48AM by Darren MurphFiled under: Storage Yeah, companies have been trumpeting their ability to crank out discs that will last long after Martians come and evaporate our minds here on Earth for some time, but for archive junkies out there, more is always better. On deck today is Mitsubishi’s ARLEDIA DVD-Rs, which reportedly feature corrosion-resistant coatings made from gold and silver. ‘Course, you can only write to these at 8x, but they are expected to last about twice as long as traditional recordable discs. Not like you’ll be around to prove ‘em wrong, though. (Read the full post about ‘Mitsubishi develops corrosion-resistant DVD-Rs for the long haul’…)

Share This

The proposed LINC phone is an intriguing concept to parse, as it makes claims to both technological and ecological superiority. Basic idea is that you lease your phone instead of owning it. After a year, you send your current handset back to LINC, which builds the phones for easy, automated disassembly to simplify component recycling. You get a sparkly new phone with the latest features and your account settings already transferred. The anti-obsolescence insurance will no doubt be reassuring to geeks, and the built-for-recycling aspect is certainly laudable. (Read the full post about ‘LINC Concept Phone Built to Evolve’…)

Share This

Check out this cool Nintendo DS Bento box from Alafista. It always surprises me when strange food mixes with electronics. Who loves their Nintendo DS so much that they want to eat it in effigy? Via: Craftzine.com blog: Nintendo DS Bento (Read the full post about ‘Nintendo DS Bento’…)

Share This

This little case-mod is so sweet it almost seems that the parts were made for each other. Mark Irwin took a Dremel to an old 35mm slide viewer, adding two speakers into the capacious case to make a standalone, slot-in media center for an iPod Nano. A quick Google reveals that this was indeed a match made in retro-heaven:

ipod Nano – Width: 2.06 inches

35mm Slide Mount – Width 2 inches

With 1970’s manufacturing tolerances taken into account, that amounts to exactly the same size.

At the risk of gushing, this is probably one of the neatest, smartest little DIY projects I’ve seen.

(Read the full post about ‘Tiny, Slot-In Retro Media Center For IPod Nano’…)

Share This

Microsoft has decided to cut the price of its Ultimate and Premium editions of Windows Vista so that they will be able to move more copies. This comes after Vista Service Pack 1 failed to see folks rush to computer stores for an upgrade, sticking to the good old Windows XP at this point in time. Microsoft hopes that such a price cut will be able to stimulate sluggish sales figures. The following will be the revised price. Windows Vista Ultimate - $319 (from $399) Windows Vista Upgrade - $219 (from $259) Windows Vista Premium Upgrade - $129 (from $159)Will these price cuts make you rethink your decision? (Read the full post about ‘Microsoft Slashes Vista Prices’…)

Share This

Posted Feb 29th 2008 7:12AM by Ryan BlockFiled under: cellphones, WirelessAssuming Sprint can make it — and that’s starting to seem like kind of a big if these days — CEO Dan Hesse made some comments about the coming 4G revolution, including one auspicious hint about dual-mode CDMA / WiMAX devices this later year for XOHM. It’s almost an exciting enough concept for us to forget that even if these devices were forthcoming in 2008, they’d still only be for one of the soft launch markets, and would probably start as a data cards — not phones. (Read the full post about ‘Sprint to launch dual-mode CDMA / WiMAX devices this year?’…)

Share This