Sweating The Small Stuff: Sotheby’s Selling Original Steve Jobs Note About Atari Circuit Improvements
Sat, 26 May 2012 04:55:21 +0000

The auction house Sotheby's is selling an official memo from Steve Jobs to Atari about improving the World Cup Football game. The pages - stamped and signed by Jobs himself - describe circuit diagrams and paddle layouts. Delightfully, the stamp says "All-One Farm Design" and features a Buddhist mantra, "gate gate paragate parasangate bodhi svahdl." As you do.

Gadget Of The Week: The Parrot AR.Drone 2.0
Fri, 25 May 2012 19:04:33 +0000

There are plenty of ways to get your flight school kicks with your smartphone or tablet — this missile shooting Griffin chopper comes to mind — but few manage to ooze as much style (or cost as much money) as Parrot’s AR.Drone 2.0. Getting the thing ready to fly is surprisingly simple. Once you’ve popped the battery into place, and turned the thing on, the Drone creates its own Wi-Fi network that the control device connects to. From there, just fire up the FreeFlight app on your iOS or Android device and you’re off to the races.

Talking (And Rocking) With gTar Creator Incident
Fri, 25 May 2012 17:34:12 +0000

Sure, UberConference took home the Disrupt Cup and its accompanying $50,000 (giant) check. But it could be argued that Incident, makers of the gTar, had already won. The company's Kickstarter project skyrocketed from $10,000 in funding before stepping on the Disrupt stage, to a current $220,000. This is big, considering that Disrupt is a web/software conference and a hardware startup went all the way to the very end. Even Michael Arrington was impressed, which says quite a bit. But none were more impressed or intrigued than myself, which is why I wrangled the Incident guys together backstage and begged and pleaded to play the gTar. Kindly, they obliged.

Up Close With The Xetum Stinson
Fri, 25 May 2012 13:53:12 +0000

You no doubt are familiar with the Xetum brand, based out of California.  If not, just have a look over at to the side of the page. In the past, we've reviewed their Tyndall model; today, we'll be taking a look at the Stinson. The Stinson presents as a very minimalistic three-hander, and it does it with style.  I say that for two reasons - first, it's an extremely clean dial.  Second, the lugless design (well, to be honest, they're hidden in the case) helps for a cleaner appearance.

Backstage At Disrupt NYC 2012 With MakerBot’s Bre Pettis
Wed, 23 May 2012 19:11:23 +0000

Bre Pettis of MakerBot stopped by our little show today and spent some time on the stage with John Biggs and other notables in the manufacturing space. But afterwards Pettis, co-founder and CEO of MakerBot, joined me on the TCTV couch to geek out a bit over the fantastic MakerBot Replicator. The company also has two MakerBot Replicators printing out random doodads and toys in our first ever Hardware Alley.

New York Hardware Buffs Weigh In On China, Embracing Niches, And How To Start Making Things
Wed, 23 May 2012 15:58:13 +0000

Earlier this morning, our own John Biggs was joined on stage by a handful of New York-based makers who have made a name for themselves by building physical things (or in one case, building something that builds other things). Biggs kicked off the panel with a simple question: — can we bring manufacturing back? Bre Pettis, CEO of Makerbot Industries, has two shifts of workers putting together all of his Makerbots in Brooklyn, and had a bit of advice for hardware creators looking to shift production to China. He recommended that until makers need to produce runs of 50,000-100,000 units, they’re much better off keeping the production process in the United States. It helps to keep makers intimate with their tech, not to mention makes it easier for them to handle any unexpected issues faster.

Re-live 1993 With ThinkGeek’s New Super Famicom-Inspired Wii Controller
Tue, 22 May 2012 15:17:38 +0000

A Wiimote turned on its side makes for a perfectly serviceable controller when plowing through retro games from the Wii Shop Channel, and the Classic Controller isn't bad either, but I wouldn't call either of them an ideal solution. On the other hand, ThinkGeek's new Super Famicom controller for the Wii manages to come pretty damned close, especially if you're a gamer who spends your time steeped in the past.

Incident’s gTar Tops $120,000 On Kickstarter (That’s $110K In Less Than 24 Hours)
Tue, 22 May 2012 13:32:42 +0000

Kickstarter is a great place to launch a product. Remember the Pebble smart watch, which saw over $1 million in funding in its first 28 hours on the site, and surpassing $3 million well over a month before their stated goal? Disrupt, which just so happens to be underway as I type these very words, is also an excellent place to launch your product. We've seen countless companies rise to almost instantaneous success after stepping off of our stage, like Soluto, Mint.com, Redbeacon, and GroupMe. So it should be no surprise that Incident's now-famous gTar, which was launched both on the Disrupt Battlefield stage and on Kickstarter, has made upwards of $120,000 on Kickstarter since launching on our stage yesterday.

Larry Page Spotted Wearing Google Glasses In England!
Tue, 22 May 2012 13:08:09 +0000

There hasn't been a whole lot of news coming out of the Google Zeitgeist event taking place in a posh hotel on the outskirts of London this week, but Google's making some other news in England: its CEO Larry Page has been spotted wearing Google Glasses. The pictures of Page wearing the super-funky augmented reality eyewear are possibly the first -- although his Google co-founder Sergey Brin has also been seen wearing them in the wild. Today's pictures come courtesy of a Google employee, who posted them -- where else? -- on Google+.

Sonos Launches The Sonos Sub (Woofer, Not Sandwich)
Tue, 22 May 2012 13:00:53 +0000

Sonos has just gotten really deep (get it?) with their new Sonos Sub, a wireless subwoofer that connects to any Sonos system and adds just a bit more oomph to the musical proceedings. The sub costs $699 and offers (according to the press release) "thick layers of bottomless sound that let you hear and feel the weight of every chord, kick, splash and roll."

Sprint’s EVO 4G LTE Has Cleared U.S. Customs, Pre-Orders To Be Filled As Early As May 24
Mon, 21 May 2012 22:19:05 +0000

Sprint's launch plans for the HTC EVO 4G LTE were ruined last week when shipments of their shiny new Android handset were held up by United States Customs, but we're hearing that they may been hitting doorsteps and store shelves sooner than expected. According to Sprint, the devices are now currently sitting safely in Sprint's warehouses and are expected to start trickling out into the world "on or around May 24."

The Power Of Disrupt: gTar Raises $30,000 On Kickstarter In Two Hours
Mon, 21 May 2012 21:20:48 +0000

Incident took the stage this afternoon at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC and debuted the gTar. It's safe to say that they are already a major contender for the Disrupt Cup. The startup wowed the crowd with their iPhone-powered teaching guitar. The judges loved it. The crowd loved. And most importantly, fans turned to the startup's Kickstarter campaign where funding took off like a rocket. Prior to hitting the stage, the gTar had raised just a touch above $10,000. Now, almost exactly two hours after their Disrupt debut, their Kickstarter funding (a.k.a. pre-orders) is north of $42,000 and rising fast.

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, And Others Will Share Wi-Fi Hot Spots
Mon, 21 May 2012 20:19:51 +0000

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting in your front yard in a lawn chair, sipping lemonade while attempting to read the latest news on your WiFi-only iPad. You're just out of range of your WiFi signal. Your neighbor's signal is super strong, but that selfish hooligan didn't leave it wide open for you to leach onto. Wouldn't you love to be able to use a portion of his spectrum anyway while away from your own? Well, you still can't, however...

Incident Launches The gTar at Disrupt, An iPhone-Powered Electronic Teaching Guitar
Mon, 21 May 2012 19:25:35 +0000

The gTar by Incident is disruption defined. It takes the guitar, an instrument with a steep learning curve, and adds a bit of digital wizardry in the form of an embedded iPhone to make learning dramatically easier. The company brags that their modern take on the guitar allows for three levels of difficulty, rather than the traditional single really difficult one. But thanks to the iPhone and a clever app, this $450 electronic guitar essentially teaches users the ins and outs of the instrument. The startup recently turned to Kickstarter to raise $100,000. However today they gave the crowd at Disrupt a musical treat -- a demonstration at Startup Alley. And the device seemed to work as advertised.

Apple Wants Immediate Ban On Galaxy Tab 10.1 In The USA
Mon, 21 May 2012 18:41:47 +0000

On Friday May 18th, Apple filed a motion for a U.S. preliminary injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1. This follows a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Northern District of California), siding with Apple on the question of whether Samsung is in violation of an iPad-related design patent (U.S. Patent No. D504,889). According to Foss Patents, the source of this story, the request could be valid and is likely to be upheld. Samsung has until May 25th at high noon to respond. (OK not really...about the high noon thing). What does it mean though? Will the Galaxy Tab 10.1 disappear from U.S. shores if Apple emerges victoriously with their injunction?

Comcast Is Finally Rolling Out The X1, Its Set-top Box In The Cloud
Mon, 21 May 2012 13:58:33 +0000

Comcast announced Monday that it will make its newest set-top box available in Boston over the coming weeks, with a rollout planned across the entire country later this year. It's also introducing a mobile app to control the set-top box from the iPhone or iPad. The new set-top box comes after several years of development. Comcast has been working hard to develop a new set-top box that would take all of the smarts out of the box and put it in the network, essentially allowing the cable provider to launch new services and update the new features without having to totally rewrite applications or push out new firmware.

TC/Gadgets Webcast: Live From Disrupt NYC
Sun, 20 May 2012 22:14:57 +0000

This week we recorded live from the show floor at Disrupt NYC. We sat through 24 hours straight of hot-rod hacking at the Hackathon and now we're preparing for the main show and, most important, the brand new Hardware Alley where we'll have loads of great hardware start-ups for you guys to check out.

New Project, Roominate, Offers A Fully-Wired Dollhouse For Kids
Sun, 20 May 2012 17:29:20 +0000

Teaching kids - especially little girls - about electronics is a hard job. First, there's the electricity. Then there's the sense that soldering, wiring, and lining up LEDs is considerably less fun than watching Tangled. This project, called Roominate, aims to change the way girls think about electricity. The kit consists of a set of tiny furniture with built-in wires and switches. You can wire up your dollhouse however you like, adding lamps and switches. $49 gets you one regular room and $95 gets you a "duplex."

SpaceX To Attempt A Second Launch On Tuesday, May 22
Sun, 20 May 2012 16:13:49 +0000

SpaceX and Elon Musk will not be held from the history books. Last night the company announced that engineers were currently replacing a faulty valve on engine #5, and if successful pending a data review today, the company would attempt a second launch on Tuesday, May 22nd. This comes as SpaceX's maiden voyage to the International Space Station was cut a half second short by an automated safety function built into the rocket.

Kickstarter: Meet CordLite, The Light-Up iPhone Cable For Night Owls
Sat, 19 May 2012 16:36:53 +0000

My set ritual before going to bed each night is as follows -- turn out the lights, plug in my iPhone, take off my glasses and attempt vainly to nod off. Step two in that process can be a bit of a crapshoot in the dark, but the folks at Scrap Pile Labs have recently kicked off a new Kickstarter campaign for a product called the CordLite that just may come in handy. As the name sort of implies, the CordLite is a dock connector cable for iDevices that, well, lights up thanks to a pair of forward-facing LEDs. It's a very simple concept, but the thoughtful execution is what make this project worth keeping an eye on.