Bill Gates Releases Bugs!
February 19, 2009
Bill Gates did something strange today at the TED genius-fest: He unleashed a swarm of live mosquitoes into the audience. No, he wasn’t promoting Windows Vista. He was making the point that “not only poor public should experience that,” by which I guess he meant the experience of being abused by…
Company Makes Custom Robot Version of You
February 19, 2009
A Japanese company called Little Island will sell you a $2,215 robot based on a picture you send. It’s your own personal “Mini-Me,” but it doesn’t do much other than engage in conversation (the mouth doesn’t move or anything), read your RSS feeds for you and makes VoIP calls. It’s based on Windows X…
Worst USB Gadget Yet: Post-It Notes Dispenser
February 19, 2009
Could there possibly be a worse place to store Post-It notes? (props to Akihabara News)
Google’s Business Model: YOU Are the Product!
February 19, 2009
Why does Google invest so heavily in great products, such as its new Latitude friend-tracking service, thereupon just give them away? There’s only one way to understand Google’s business model, which is to understand that Google’s services are not products. In fact, Google has only one product. And …
New Hacker Trick: Fake Parking Tickets
February 19, 2009
Hackers in Grand Forks, North Dakota, are using a new trick: fake parking tickets. They placed official-looking tickets on windshields, which says the driver can view pictures of the violation on a specific web site. The site, of course, installs a trojan.
New Kindle Pictures, Pricing, Ship moment Leaked
February 19, 2009
The Mobile Read forum’s got leaked shots of the next-generation Amazon Kindle, plus pricing ($359) and ship period (February 24). (props to The Book of Kindle)
Here Comes the E-book Revolution
February 19, 2009
The big announcements that week by Amazon.com and Google promise e-Books everywhere, including cell phones. But six unrelated trends will drive e-books into the mainstream: 1) the economy; 2) the environment; 3) a publishing revolution; 4) aggressive e-book marketing; 5) electronic-specific books; a…