ESPN.com's New Beta Site Is Tighter, Has More FeaturesFor more than a decade, ESPN has been on the cutting edge in terms of experimenting with Web site layouts, integration of JavaScript, Flash, and video. While not every iteration to the valuable Web property has been met with excitement from its fans, the worldwide sports leader is looking to again make change, in an effort to declutter its front page, while continuing to add more features, and in an interesting move that speaks volumes, they have done away with banner ads on the home page - likely ceding that the run...
Yeah, we know, the Time Capsule is a router and backup device. Not that exciting, right? Well, not all gifts are meant to spur excitement - this one is practical and functional. If you know someone who owns a Mac, and doesn’t take advantage of Time Machine, then they need a Time Capsule - especially if they use a MacBook or MacBook Pro. The Time Machine sports either a 500GB or 1TB hard drive, and is a combination wired/wireless network attached storage device. Even better, it doubles as an 802.11n/g router as well. The 500GB Time Capsule sells for...
Whether it's with your family, your co-workers or your clients - many of us like to share the excitement we have about the new, social web with others. What do you show other people to demonstrate how powerful, and yet easy to use, this new world of technology really is? We asked our staff and a number of other advanced social web users what the one thing is that they like most to show people who are less experienced with the web than they are. Some of our favorite responses are below, maybe they'll give you some fresh ideas about...
It's a piece of promotional material, but it raises memories: your first, imprecise mousings; excitement at the earliest wireless mouse, and subsequent realization that it was uselessly jittery. The timeline, meant to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the mouse, highlights of Logitech's odd diversions too. The extremely literal Kidz Mouse never really caught on with children whose hands weren't proportioned like feet, and the TrackMan Marble became a symbol for misguided pointing device contrarians. In any case, the numbers are impressive: just a year after the world's PC install base passed 1,000,000,000, Logitech's mouse deployment did too. [BLogitech]...
You don’t have to convince me of Digital Media’s power - I’m already a huge believer. While I am happy to see more and more organizations grow in their awareness for their need to take advantage of its many benefits, I am frequently amused/frustrated by the Field of Dreams mentality that seems to be so prevalent in their current approaches. Digital Media is not a magic baseball field. People are not going to come just because you build Social Media applications. Creating a Facebook group for your issue or organization is not going to create a torrent of enthusiasm where...
For the past year I have been developing furniture with a factory named Liana Cane in Georgetown, Guyana. As I write this, a chair I designed there a year ago is sitting in a container on a dock in New Jersey waiting to get through customs. I have been waiting a long time to see this chair and for this project to be completed. My excitement is combined with the anticipation of returning to Guyana in January to work on a new project in the rainforest, and is checked by the long road ahead to get the products I...
Filed under: Cables, Other hardware, Ports Wait just a second there, vaquero. We know you're invigorated, but you should probably attempt to digest the price tag here before blowing a gasket in excitement. Bel Canto -- not known for trickling out low-end gear -- has just introduced the $495 USB Link 24/96, which presumably does an impeccable job at converting high quality USB audio (up to 24-bits and 96kHz) to S/PDIF via a single 75-ohm BNC cable. The unit works natively in both Windows and OS X, comes bundled with a Stereovox XV2 BNC / BNC S/PDIF cable (with RCA...
With winter well on its way and snow flurries sweeping the nation, we couldn’t contain our excitement for this sleek bio-fueled Concept Ice Vehicle. Designed and developed by Kieron Bradley and polar guide Jason de Carteret, the custom-made vehicle runs on renewable fuel and is intended to assist the Moon-Regan Trans Antarctic Expedition to scout for hidden crevasses and rough terrain. The brave explorers see the CIV as an opportunity to educate the world about the benefits of greener fuels, even in the face of sub-zero temperatures! (more…)...
The latest installment in our always popular Autopia WTF? Photo Caption Contest garnered an impressive 112 entries, and it was a blowout. A reader who goes by the nom de guerreMMC walked away with first place for (drumroll please) ... "Original '64 Mario Kart (comes with complimentary bananas and red shells)." MMC's caption garnered 74 votes, easily besting the 47 cast for "Who the hell washed my GTO in hot water?" and the 42 that went to our favorite, "Hey Segway - kiss my ass!" We've gotta say our readers are a funny bunch. You had us laughing with...
Wired's Joshua A Davis has a great profile of my pal Dan Kaminsky's work on discovering and then helping to fix a net-crashing DNS bug earlier this year. Davis really captures the excitement of discovering a major security flaw and the complex web of personal, professional and technical complications that come to bear when you're trying to disclose the research in a way that minimizes harm to the net. Dan does a lot of fun security-related stuff that doesn't get talked about in public. There's this one thing he does -- But that would be telling. The next morning, Kaminsky...
With December breathing down our necks, one question is on our mind more than any other: "Why was November's television so boring?" November is a sweeps month, after all, and traditionally, that means stunt-casting, unlikely plots centered around an image or concept that will easily slot into 30-second trailers and all other types of excitement that you just can't find during the rest of the year (Well, except for February, May and July, of course)... but this year, it was as if everyone forgot about sweeps altogether. What happened? One possibility is that television didn't change, but we did. Fringe...
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Retail, Rumors, Apple I'm not exactly sure why there's so much excitement centered around the upcoming Greensboro Apple Store (my guess is it's because our friend Ged of the Iconfactory can't wait for it to open), but the excitement is there, and Ed Cone has some insight into how the store's deal got put together. Apparently Greensboro won't see the story by December 25th, as there's apparently some argument with the property's owners over whether Apple is "just another computer store" or deserves a better place in the location. You know our answer on that...
The alarm clock in my phone plays it’s strange jingle at 4:30 AM and I’m awake and in my parents’ house. I feel like I just got to sleep though. The grogginess and stiffness slowly give way to excitement as the adrenaline kicks in. It’s Black Friday and it’s still dark outside. Time to buy some DVDs. Oh, and some gifts and stuff too. Monica and I head out around 4:45. We make the following video on the way. We arrive in Middletown just after 5. Most of the stores have just opened including our first stop, Circuit City. There’s...
Every time I feel as though L.A. is finally on the cusp on improving its (woefully) underfunded public transit system, something comes along to scuttle my excitement. The latest controversy surrounds the Expo Line, an $862 million light rail project that will connect downtown Los Angeles to Culver City and which is slated for completion in mid-2010. (That will be the first phase; the second phase will eventually extend the line from Culver City to Santa Monica -- see the "subway to the sea.") The plan could be delayed, however,......
The top two major review sites have some Thanksgiving gifts for avid camera review readers! First up, dpreview has posted the first of five camera group-tests. This is something that a number of dpreview regulars have been asking for years, so it is generating some excitement in anticipation. The first set of group-tests feature budget compact digital cameras and it includes the A590-IS ($110 now), and a compact each from most of the other major manufacturers. Other models of interest include the L18, W120, Z20fd, LZ8, etc, etc. A total of nine cameras participated. This is no slouch, it's a...
