Cloud Engines Unveils Second Generation Pogoplug

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Pogoplug is a multimedia sharing device designed to allow users to sync up information from multiple computers and automatically share it across the Internet. This allows small businesses and extremely mobile individuals to have access to documents, music, and media files wherever they go. Today, Cloud Engines sent out a press release announcing the release of the Pogoplug 2.

This device sports 4 USB ports in order to let it connect to up to four drives. It also has a bunch of new features, and an improved drag-and-drop interface. The Pogoplug 2 can now be set to automatically synchronize with a PC or Mac and import specific types of content off of them. This way you can continue to add content to your computer(s) without needing to worry about putting it on your Pogoplug. The device does that automatically, which ensures your content is always available online.

Posted on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:09:53 CST | by Robert Evans

HomeAway Super Bowl 2010 Ad Will Feature Chevy Chase And National Lampoon's

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HomeAway Inc. has announced their Super Bowl 2010 commercial. The online vacation rental marketplace is going to feature actors Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo in a National Lampoon's Vacation themed Super Bowl ad. The HomeAway Super Bowl ad could be one of the funniest Super Bowl Ads 2010 based on this setup.

"The Griswolds have always been America’s first family of travel, and the broad popularity of the Vacation movie series still continues today," says Brian Sharples, founder and chief executive officer of HomeAway. "We intend to have a lot of fun with the ad campaign, highlighting the travel mishaps that always seem to follow the Griswold family, while also promoting the value and benefits of vacation rentals as an alternative to hotels."
Read more

Posted on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:00:00 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Condé Nast Creating Digital Wired For iTablet

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Talk about jumping the gun just a little. Condé Nast, publishers of Wired and seventeen other magazines, are working on porting their nerdiest title to the iTablet. All Things Digital reports that the company intends to have this new version of Wired ready by the middle of next year.

No, before you ask, Condé Nast hasn't been privy to any insider meetings with Apple that have given them proof of the iTablet's existence. They admit openly that the company will not even admit that it has plans for such a device. Despite this, they're chugging along and working with Adobe to create a publishing tool for the new magazine reader format.

Posted on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:28:34 CST | by Robert Evans

Walmart Value Of The Day: Creative Zen 2GB For Only $49

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The Walmart Value Of The Day is featuring the Creative Zen 2GB For only $49.
On Amazon the same player sells for $80.

The Creative Zen 2GB MP3 Video Player features a 2.5" color screen and 2GB storage.

Other features of this Creative Zen mp3 player include: FM Radio, voice recorder, SD memory card slot, photo viewer, video player (MPEG1/2, MPEG4-SP, DivX 4/5 and XviD formats). The Creative Zen 2GB supports MP3, WMA, WAV, unprotected AAC music formats Read more

Posted on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:50:44 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

AMD ATI HD 5970 Becomes Official

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AMD has announced that the ATI HD 5970 is now official. The video card is being hailed as the fastest video card in the world. It is DirectX 11 compliant and supports ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology. The video card can drive up to three displays at once with a maximum resolution of 7680 x 1600.

EA claims that the card delivers nearly five teraflops of processing power. The dual GPUs are built on a 40nm process and have 3,200 stream processors. When the power of both GPUs isn't needed, the card powers down unused resources allowing it to use as little as 42W of power in idle mode. Read more

Posted on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:49:39 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Sony PS3 Firmware 3.10 Features Facebook Integration

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Sony is going to release the new firmware 3.10 for the Sony PS3 soon. On their official blog Sony is giving a preview of the new Sony PS3 firmware 3.10.
With firmware 3.10 you will be able to link your PSN account with your Facebook account. By linking your PlayStation Network account to your Facebook account, you will have the option for the Sony PS3 to automatically update your Facebook News Feed with Trophy and PlayStation Store activity.

Read more

Posted on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:36:41 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

JVC Wins CES 2010 Innovations Award

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Alright, so this announcement sounds a little lame compared to LG's seventeen freaking awards. JVC just gets one award this year, but it's for something cool; the DLA-HD990 home theater projector. If you have a giant chunk of disposable income and a big living room, you too might be a good candidate for the joys of projector ownership.

Posted on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:29:55 CST | by Robert Evans

Popular Science 100 Best Innovations of The Year 2009 Unveiled

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The Popular Science (POPSCI) magazine has published their 100 Best Innovations of The Year list. This is their 22nd annual edition.
POPSCI lists 10 great innovations of 2009 in 10 categories with one getting the honors of the Grand Award.
In the gadget category the Canon EOS 5D Mark II wins the Grand Award. Other gadgets listed include the Panasonic GF1, Sony HDR-XR520V and the Android OS.
Read more

Posted on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:42:36 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

GPS Navigation Comes to iPod touch

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The iPhone 3G and 3GS both offer GPS navigation capability thanks to built-in GPS receivers. The iPod touch on the other hand lacks a GPS receiver, which meant that it could not be used for navigation. GeoLife and PosiMotion have announced a new hardware and software solution for the iPod touch that brings GPS navigation to the device for the first time.

The system, called G-Fi, provides a mobile network/GPS router, and provides turn-by-turn navigation for the iPod touch line. The G-Fi is a onetime cost item with no additional monthly costs and it supports the entire iPod touch and iPhone range. Read more

Posted on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Hillcrest Labs Loop Pointer Made CES 2010 Innovations Honoree

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We covered the Loop Pointer back when it first launched. Basically, this device from Hillcrest labs is a mouse that's designed to be held in the air and used to control a media box set-up from the comfort of your couch or lounge chair. It's a marriage between remote control and wireless mouse that, quite frankly, is one of the better product ideas I've heard of in months.

Tons of people these days have media boxes set up with their televisions. If you're going to spend thousands of dollars on a nice, giant LCD TV, you want it to have the optimum functionality it can have. By hooking it up to a computer you gain access to all of your movies, TV shows, and games without needing to switch out DVDs or plug in a console. The only bother with a media box is that the mouse and keyboard usually end up getting stuck somewhere to the side, forcing you to actually get up and move to use them.

Posted on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:12:14 CST | by Robert Evans

Envive Ships TheaterStation Multi-zone Digital Media System

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Envive has announced that it is now shipping the new TheaterStation Multi-zone digital media management system. The system uses Centralized Networked storage for storing the media. The content can be viewed on connected TVs in different rooms.

The media system is compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux computers and allows the computer to drag and drop files onto the central media server for viewing in different rooms. The system can be had in capacities of 4TB to 14TB and there is no need for a TheaterStation server. Read more

Posted on Mon, 9 Nov 2009 08:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Verizon To Charge $350 Cancellation Fee

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As you've probably heard, Verizon is about to start a huge BlackBerry sale. This sale will include some exceptional deals which, Verizon fears, are ripe for exploitation. In order to prevent customers from cancelling their line and selling their new phone on ebay for a profit, Big Red is about to hike their cancellation fee. Boy Genius has come across proof that Verizon will soon up their cancellation fee for 'advanced devices' from $175 to $350.

Posted on Wed, 4 Nov 2009 05:25:15 CST | by Robert Evans

Pics of ATI 5970 Dual-GPU video card leak

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Some information and pics of an upcoming video card from ATI have been leaked, it's called the 5970 with dual GPUs on one card. The card in the leaked images has an 8-pin and a 6-pin power connector to give it enough juice.

The card is a whopping 13.5-inches long, which means that many cases won’t be able to fit the card inside thanks to its length. Apparently, AMD already forced the site to remove the performance specs listed. Read more

Posted on Mon, 2 Nov 2009 12:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Creative Throws Their Hat Into The E-Book Ring: Zii MediaBook

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All the tech news sites (including this one) have dedicated an enormous amount of time, effort, and words discussing the Apple iTablet. Despite the fact that such a product may not and may never exist, every rumor and analyst speculation about it has been picked apart and discussed to death. While we were busy geeking out over this mythical gadget, Creative was busy actually building the damn thing.

That's right; Epizenter reports that, at their Annual General Meeting, Creative made a surprise announcement. They unveiled a working prototype of their very first e-reader, tentatively named the Zii MediaBook. This MediaBook isn't your standard black-and-white e-ink reader either. It's got a touchscreen, text-to-speech functionality, and an SD slot. Creative also says it will be 'Internet-enabled', but didn't elaborate if that meant 3G functionality or WiFi (or both).

Posted on Sun, 1 Nov 2009 02:39:25 CST | by Robert Evans

ICANN Approves Non-Latin Characters In Domain Names

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The Internet took a big step forward today with an announcement from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers that they would soon start accepting non-latin domain names. (via CNET) Currently all IP addresses and other web extensions must be written using latin characters. This isn't an issue for most of the developed world, but it's something that will need to change before the Internet can become truly international.

Starting November 16th, ICANN will start taking applications from various nations for new top-level domain names based on their country's character set. These Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs, will only apply to local country codes at first. ICANN hopes to extend them to top-level domains like .com and .net sometime in the near future.

Posted on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:09:08 CDT | by Robert Evans

New ASUS P7P55D-E And P7P55D Feature Native USB 3.0

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Asus announced a range of enhanced motherboards that deliver true USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s data throughput performance.
The ASUS Xtreme Design P7P55D-E Series motherboard has onboard support while the ASUS Xtreme Design P7P55D Series utilizes the ASUS U3S6 PCIe x4 expansion card to deliver the latest USB and SATA data transfer capabilities.

Equipped with the Intel P55 Express chipset, the P7P55D-E / P7P55D Series supports the latest LGA 1156 socket for Intel Core i7/Core i5 Processors. Additionally, they also feature exclusive Hybrid Technology—Hybrid Processor, Hybrid Phase, and Hybrid OS—to give users intelligent performance enhancement, active cooling, and rapid online access. Read more

Posted on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:31:22 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

New Google Maps Navigation For iPhone Is Possible

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Google unveiled a great new navigation service called Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 devices like the upcoming Droid.

Google Maps Navigation, which is currently in beta, will feature turn-by-turn voice directions.
And, like all Google products, it's going to be 100% free. This means that, in the very near future, you'll be able to get turn-by-turn navigation on your smartphone at no extra cost. The software will also feature 3D views, automatic routing, and voice direction input.
Read more

Posted on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Google Maps Navigation: Doom For GPS Manufacturers?

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Can you think of any product you'd be happy to pay hundreds of dollars AND a monthly fee for if an equally good version was available for free? No? Then you can understand why the announcement of Google Maps Navigation is a bad thing for GPS makers like TomTom and Garmin. GMN, which is currently in beta, will feature turn-by-turn voice directions.

And, like all Google products, it's going to be 100% free. This means that, in the very near future, you'll be able to get turn-by-turn navigation on your smartphone at no extra cost. The software will also feature 3D views, automatic routing, and voice direction input. This means that, on the fly, you'll be able to ask your phone to, say, direct you to a gas station that's along the route you're already taking.

Posted on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:50:58 CDT | by Robert Evans

ATI HD 5770 and HD 5750 Crossfire Review

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Motherboards published an ATI HD 5770 and HD 5750 Crossfire review.
Quote from the review: "Two HD 5770 cards perform better than a single HD5850 card and two HD 5850 cards perform much better than a single HD 5770 card. Considering the price of the two HD 5770s is nearly the same as a HD 5870 card I would suggest buying a single HD 5870 or HD 5850 depending on which price range. Read more

Posted on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Walmart Set to Offer Installation Services

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Walmart is one of the largest electronics retailers in the country and the world for that matter. The company fights Best Buy as the location that many consumers go to when they want something electronic. Best Buy has had its Geek Squad for a long time now and Walmart is now set to move into the installation services business as well.

Walmart has started a partnership with N.E.W. Customer Service Companies that will allow the retailer to offer in-home setup services for items purchased from Walmart stores. The new install services should be coming soon. Read more

Posted on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Shure Unveils Sound Isolating Headphones for iPod/iPhone

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Shure has unveiled a new set of headphones that are designed specifically to work with Apple products like the iPod and iPhone. The headphones are called the Shure SE115m+ and feature an inline mic for making phone calls.

The mic housing on the right earpiece cable also has three buttons for controlling volume, music, and video playback. The headphones use Shure's Dynamic Micro Speaker II drivers for enhanced bass and sound quality. The earphone sleeves are interchangeable and block outside noise by forming a tight seal with the ear. Read more

Posted on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun