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iphone

Apple Acknowledges Huge iPhone Security Flaw, Calls It "Minor", Announces Fix

Apple has acknowledged the huge iPhone security flaw we tested and reported on two days ago, promising an update for September that will fix the hole that can expose all your private emails, text messages and contacts. But instead of calling a spade a spade and acting as soon as possible, they have decided to minimize the problem: More »

5:55 PM on Thu Aug 28 2008
By Jesus Diaz
4,408 views, 45 comments

Latest by mruler360: @mruler360: Which reminds me- If it's broke already, don't break it even more Apple! more »

olpc secret origins

OLPC Origin: Bittersweet Success and Future of the XO Laptop

When I met with Nicholas Negroponte not long ago, he laughed at the coverage he'd received through the past few years, including our own portrayal of Intel chairman Craig Barrett and him as Beavis and Butthead. Far more hurtful have been the admonitions of his own former staffers who feel he has mismanaged the OLPC project. Nearly every one of the original staff had abandoned the project by 2008, often in disgust. But Negroponte remains stalwart: "My elephant skin is the thickness of steel," he told me. Perhaps his resistance to criticism has been one of the project’s fatal flaws.

Although the project seemed threatened in early 2006 from all sides these were minor compared to the problems to come. The biggest concern at the time was lack of an LCD panel manufacturer, but Negroponte and CTO Mary Lou Jepsen managed to charm another eccentric Taiwanese billionaire. Wen-Long Hsu—founder of southern Taiwan’s Chi-Mei conglomerate—is the owner of the world's largest collection of Stradivarius violins, and he played one for them when they visited to sign contracts.

By the fall, everything was working great in prototype form. Quanta agreed to run its first batch, and even agreed to run a suspend-resume hibernation test cycle 1000 times on each test machine. Normally, test units were give this cycle four times, so it was a particularly unusual request. Then, at 3am on the first day of mass production, Jepsen got a call. Everything was shut down; the laptops were going to sleep and not waking up.

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2:40 PM on Thu Aug 28 2008
By Wilson Rothman
3,821 views, 21 comments

Latest by jrghoull: it's times like this that i love regulated sites like gizmodo. good, decent, intelligent posts. not at all like the more »

blackberry bold review

BlackBerry Bold Review

If you were feverishly anticipating a cellphone this year, it was one of two phones: the iPhone 3G or this phone. The BlackBerry Bold is RIM's most powerful, polished handset ever. With 3G, a glossy new UI, a real web browser, serious hardware and an almost beautiful body, the Bold doesn't redefine the BlackBerry experience, but it does elevate to the highest point its ever been. More »

2:15 PM on Thu Aug 28 2008
By matt buchanan
17,235 views, 58 comments

Latest by Collins1: The iPhone really isn't a business phone so I can't see why these are getting compared. The iPhone is a normal more »

oops

Bloomberg News Accidentally Publishes Draft of Steve Jobs's Obituary

Note to Bloomberg News employees: when you're in the system updating your draft of Steve Jobs's obituary, do NOT press publish. That, though, is exactly what happened late last night, as sleuthed by our buddies over at Gawker. Now, pre-writing obits for prominent figures such as the Steve, in good health and in bad, is totally S.O.P. in the media—so this should not be viewed as yet another non-statement on Jobs's personal health. But unfortunately, we're all going to die (but not all of us will come back more powerful than you can possibly imagine), so reading this and imagining a world without Steve is more an entertaining mind fuck than anything else. And that's just for us—imagine what it must be like to read your own obituary. Read on for an excerpt, with more over at Gawker. More »

10:07 AM on Thu Aug 28 2008
By John Mahoney
13,416 views, 58 comments

Latest by Con Seannery: I really had my hopes up... more »

Sony ZX1 Ultra-Thin TV Hands-On

Sony ZX1 9.9mm-Thick TV Gives Me a Large Hadron Collider Right in My Pants

I just had a hands-on and ears-on and pants-in with the Sony KDL-40ZX1, which I declare as the first official superdupercool product to come out at IFA 2008. The 9.9mm screen picture quality is really amazing, crisp, and ultra-light. The design, while it's not OLED thin, is the best I've seen on any TV so far, sleek, simple, and absolutely lickable. The best thing, however, is that this is not a prototype but a real product. The lighting technology is smart and surprisingly effective. Updated with expected price. More »

8:00 AM on Thu Aug 28 2008
By Jesus Diaz
11,034 views, 23 comments

Latest by smeee: It gives you a giant donut? ouch. more »

New Cool Sony TVs at IFA

Live from the Sony Press Conference at IFA

Hookai. I'm lining up to get into Sony's press conference. They have some things under wraps, including a mega-TV with super-smooth video action and what could be some Walkmen. Hmmm, I love the smell of new plastic in the morning. More info and photos following up shortly. Keep watching this space. More »

5:52 AM on Thu Aug 28 2008
By Jesus Diaz
5,390 views, 4 comments

Latest by n/a: @budabellyx: I'd be more upset about the 9 series as a 6 series owner but it has that shape of more »

hdtvs

Sony's KDL-40ZX1, a 40-inch LCD HDTV Only 9.9mm Thin

Sony Japan's ZX1 series 40-inch display is only 9.9mm thick at its narrowest, and 26 pounds. The display itself has only 1 HDMI port, while a wireless box can send the 120Hz, 1080p display up to 1080i images over a 5GHz channel many suspect is WHDM. That external port box will have 3 HDMI, 2 component, s-video, VGA, and even USB, mouse, and LAN port. All menus will be driven through an XMB Playstation-style crossmedia interface. Check out our hands-on of the skinny TV at IFA here. [Sony JP via Sony Insider]

2:16 AM on Thu Aug 28 2008
By Brian Lam
8,190 views, 21 comments

Latest by n/a: Also, if you look at the Japanese page, they do have wall mounting available. more »

giz explains

Giz Explains: Batteries, Tech's Choke Point

The biggest chokepoint in technology is a single roadblock: batteries. Amidst all of the amazing advances in the last 50 years, battery tech has remained fundamentally unchanged, engineers incrementally squeezing out a few extra drops of power from old tech each year. With better batteries, you wouldn't just be able to make it through the day with your iPhone 3G on a single charge, but laptops and phones could run faster, electric cars would rule the highways—it'd be like a brand new world. There are like a million different kinds, but here's a rundown of the most common ones we're stuck with in gadgets for now, and their strengths and weaknesses.

More »

2:00 PM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By matt buchanan
18,792 views, 75 comments

Latest by Suijin: EEStor has a ultracapacitor that approaches bateries in terms of energy density, but until they actually produce it to show more »

olpc

OLPC Origins: US and Taiwan's Hardware Lovechild

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12:30 PM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Wilson Rothman
5,060 views, 16 comments

Treo Pro Review

Palm Treo Pro Review

The Gadget: The Treo Pro is a 3G-equipped, Windows Mobile 6.1-running, touchscreen smartphone that's just a sliver bigger than the iPhone 3G. Completely redesigned, it's Palm's best looking phone in years.

More »

11:30 AM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Adrian Covert
16,283 views, 51 comments

Latest by alex5389: @dennitzio: as a treo fanboy, owner of a 700wx and now the 800w i could not disagree with you more more »

iphone

Huge iPhone Security Flaw Puts All Private Information at Risk

There's a huge security problem in the latest iPhone 2.0.2: if you have your JesusPhone password protected, using a very simple trick gives anyone full access to your cellphone private information in Mail, SMS, Contacts, and even Safari. The two-step trick is even simpler to the one used in the past to gain access to the phone to install unlocking cards or jailbreak. Fortunately, there's a way to avoid this obvious security breach until Apple fixes it. More »

4:51 AM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By Jesus Diaz
117,645 views, 161 comments

nikon d90

Nikon D90 Official: First DSLR Ever With HD Video Recording

As rumored, Nikon's D90 is the first-ever DSLR with HD video recording, but maybe more importantly for actual photographers, Nikon is promising much of the same low-noise performance of their higher end DSLRs. The brand new 12.3-megapixel image sensor was developed in-house like the D3 and D700's (the D300 uses a Sony sensor) and you can crank the ISO up to 6400, so we're hopeful. It's a mutant DSLR (not in a bad way) bringing down features from the higher-end cameras at the same time it cribs more hold-your-hand consumer stuff from the point-and-shoots. Now about that HD video. More »

12:01 AM on Wed Aug 27 2008
By matt buchanan
19,308 views, 45 comments

Latest by OneObuyan: @cburakb: I'm kinda wishing right now that your an employee at Apple, and that your leaking this future release to more »

helicopter

Draganfly X6 UAV: UFO Thingy Packed With Carbon Fiber, HD/Night Cameras and GPS

The Draganfly series of heli cams have been impressive, but the just announced X6 is freaking amazing. The triple-tipped carbon fiber body has two carbon rotors on each end. The design allows it to move in all directions rapidly, provide enough control to zip around indoors yet resist up to 18 miles per hour of wind. More »

10:09 PM on Tue Aug 26 2008
By Brian Lam
24,420 views, 40 comments

Latest by n/a: @dale3h: = not a toy, sigh more »

Massive Display

Video of Greenpix LED Wall Makes Us See Life in Technicolor

Alexandra Lerman has sent us her short documentary on the GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall, the mahoosive 24,000-square-foot fully (2,200m2) solar powered LED-panel wall at the Xicui entertainment complex. Like everything that has been happening in China these days, it's the first time that something of this scale—the LED panels are huge, as you can see after the jump—and features has been done. The results are as stunning as the rest of the Olympic Games. More »

5:50 PM on Tue Aug 26 2008
By Jesus Diaz
5,741 views, 12 comments

Latest by thecrimsonalchemist2: @Jesus Diaz: Awesome song and album man. Never thought I'd see a Coldplay reference on Giz :D more »

photoshop contest

135 Ways to Ruin the Olympics Using Technology

I received a downright insane number of entries for this week's Photoshop Contest. Apparently, you folks really had an itching to bastardize the precious Olympic Games. Nearly every event got its due, and we have some pretty amazing images. Hit the jump for your top three winners and then marvel at the humungous Gallery of Champions. More »

2:00 PM on Tue Aug 26 2008
By Adam Frucci
82,220 views, 50 comments

Latest by homerjay: @mockidol: @entropyman:Maybe you could try resubmitting them when Giz does their Special Olympics photoshop contest. Then you'll ALL be winners! more »

olpc secret origins

Secret Origin of the OLPC: Genius, Hubris and the Birth of the Netbook

From the moment Nicholas Negroponte showed off his $100 laptop concept at the Davos world economic summit in January 2005, it was as if the tech world's supermoguls were glowering down on him in judgment. Over the course of the year, Craig Barrett, Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs weighed in, privately declining support and in some cases publicly disparaging the idea.

The naysayers had a point. The mockup Negroponte was toting around that winter was one ugly baby. It aimed to reach the $100 price tag by having a slower processor, a skinnier internal drive, a smaller body and let's not forget that tent-like rear-projection screen that made it look like the conceptual heir to the pop-top VW Vanagon camper. But after three and a half years, Negroponte's crazy idea hasn't only produced the XO, a real laptop co-developed and manufactured by the world's largest notebook maker, it's also become a product most of Negroponte's opponents are now copying.

After interviewing Negroponte himself, along with his original CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, designer Yves Behar, advanced technologies VP Michail Bletsas and others, we can explain how this proposed global humanitarian effort may in fact be more successful as a revolution in hardware design, and how OLPC will continue to influence the hardware you buy, even if you never score an actual XO.

More »

12:00 PM on Tue Aug 26 2008
By Wilson Rothman
8,000 views, 18 comments

Latest by jrghoull: @Aaron Martin-Colby: eventually things like the eeepc would have come out, yeah. but that's like saying that computers would have gotten more »

On-Demand Star Trek Replicator

Shapeways Allows You to Materialize Any 3D Object, Star Trek Style

While visiting the Philips research lab here in Amsterdam I came across a company that is getting the Star Trek replicator closer to everyday life. Imagine being able to create any 3D object you want—a World of Warcraft avatar, a chess set, a lamp, a Lego piece you are missing, a house for a train model, or a fully articulated astromech droid—print it remotely, and have it delivered to your house in just 10 days, even without knowing any 3D software. This is exactly what Shapeways does. Not next century, but right now, today. More »

9:00 AM on Tue Aug 26 2008
By Jesus Diaz
48,647 views, 42 comments

Latest by n/a: While I think this is 100% awesome, the audience in the first flick doesn't sound too convinced =D more »

burning man 2008

Burning Man 2008 Preview: Hippies, Robots, Crazy Cars and Flaming Fine Art

Once again, the week before Labor day brings offbeat art lovers from around the world to Black Rock City, Nevada, for a seven-day event that immerses the senses in radical artistic self-expression. Actually, its pretty hard to describe Burning Man unless you have actually been to one, but it is certainly a far cry from the stuffy art museum atmosphere most of us are familiar with. Plus, there are enough flaming gadgets to keep any nerd entertained. Hit the jump to see some of the unique projects on display this year.

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4:00 PM on Mon Aug 25 2008
By Sean Fallon
18,576 views, 61 comments

Latest by kumuasata: I see the Dominican Republic and Italian Flag. Hi Five for Representing :D more »

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