You can try figuring out how to turn 5 disks into this must-have desktop accessory, or plop down at least $3 and buy the holder from Etsy. Shipping also possible to UK and Canada, at significantly higher prices, and payments accepted via PayPal and credit card.

(image by Geek Gear)

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Now if only someone came up with a way to do that for a laptop…

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And this is spooky…

But, how sexy is this?

Probably not as hot as the LG Booth Babes!

(Images from I Believe in Advertising)

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Introducing the Carbon Fiber iPhone 3G Case, a good buy in a world where spending $85 for a phone protector sounds sensible.

To be fair though, DRO Concepts promises that their product is made out of genuine carbon fiber, which of course implies strength and lightness. And like any well-designed case that somewhat justifies the price tag, the carbon fiber case is designed in such a way that still permits full access to the iPhone’s controls.

You can check out the product here. (image courtesy of DRO Concepts)

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Once again, so hypocritical Apple! You’ve given Justin Long a job smugly listing the nigh omnipotence your computers, and now you’re encouraging:

…the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult

Good thing PC Pro reported on the story quickly; the support forum where Apple’s recommendation came out was down as of this writing.

As a friend (and not FARK) first said, “Where’s your Steve Jobs now?”

Update: Yes, we know the message came out in 2007, but again, why did Apple take it down?

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N96 buyers, consider yourselves screwed. Nokia’s just announced the N97, continuing the kitchen-sink tradition of the N9x series.

Perhaps taking a cue from the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, Nokia has made their new flagship a side-slider, which reveals a QWERTY keyboard underneath. Standard high-end features like WiFi, Bluetooth, HSDPA, and a 5 megapixel camera are on-board, as well as the welcome integration of the standard 3.5mm headphone jack. More info, specs, pics, and a video for those who keep reading.

You can expect the N97 to offer the usual Symbian S60 5th edition experience (to be found on the 5800 XpressMusic), but let’s see how it works with the 3.5” widescreen (640 x 360 pixel touchscreen) and 32GB of integrated memory (a microSD slot will accept up to 16GB of additional memory, according to the press release). Check out the company video for a virtual N97 in action:

And see this iPhone-N97 comparison via Robert Scoble (take care of your phone man!):

Perhaps the most important info—aside from the projected price of 550 euros and Q2 2009 release—is the battery capacity. A phone with so much functionality needs juice to run properly after all, and it’s probable Nokia will equip the N97 with the 5800’s 1320 mAh battery (here’s to hoping they’ll shoot for 1500 mAh). Expect updates on this as they become available.

(N97 product pics courtesy of Nokia)

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The brainchild of Doncaster designer Carl Smith, the flower wilts as more electricity passes through the main, going from a bright an optimistic blue to a sad-looking violet, as the mechanical petals close up and the stem bends. Apparently, the product concept’s objective is to provide an easy-to-understand indicator of electronic consumption, and is projected to cost £60 if and when it makes it to the mass-production line.

Personally though, nothing still beats a clear numerical readout, since it makes measuring even small conservation gains so much easier.

(Image from the Daily Mail)

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Over in the Philippines, a tech-startup named Inovent recently unveiled a prototype of the Ilumina, an “LCD interactive TV” that promises web browsing, video and music playback, and recording capability.

Here’s some background: from a tech point-of-view, the Philippines is known more for its very active mobile market and outsourced services. Companies like Texas Instruments and Accenture rely on the country to produce gadgets and provide customer support on the cheap.

In short, there is no home-grown base for consumer electronics, which is why foreign brands like Nokia and Samsung dominate the market. This is obvious for a company like Inovent, whose competitors have years of experience and very established brands.

So it’s gone all nationalistic, doing the launch on a holiday in honor of a national hero (Andres Bonifacio) and trying to make Filipinos proud that there’s a “truly Filipino” alternative. But in a country that has a proven track record of preferring foreign-made consumer electronics—mostly because there is a lack of truly locally-made alternatives—does Inovent’s first effort stand a chance? The Ilumina doesn’t enjoy any special “hook” that makes it distinctive off the bat. You know, like the sub-$2300 Tata Nano?

Save of course, the fact that it was developed by a local team, and made with local parts and expertise. But in today’s cliched “global economy”, is this focus on nationalism enough?

(image from Technograph)

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Him: “Would you know how well retailers did during Black Friday?”

Me: “Not yet, I think it’s too early to tell. I’m sure a report will come out soon.”

Him: “Well, all I’m saying is that if people don’t buy this year, even with the low prices, things must be really bad.”

Me: “From what I’ve seen, things look good. Did you read about that Wal-Mart temp employee killed in a buyer stampede?”

Him: “Oh yeah… so there were lots of buyers right?”

Me: “Well if that case is any indicator, yes. You need lots of people to trample someone to death.”

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Turns out that in the original book, vampire-loving lead Bella relied on a desktop computer to gain more information about Edward the pasty pretty boy—and she didn’t own a cellphone. That changed in the movie when she did her research on a black Macbook, and kept in touch through her Nokia phone.

Personally, it really doesn’t matter. Commenter “bowwowza” does have a point (”ya gotta keep up with the times for the movie or it looks old”). But in the greater scheme of things, I’d rather watch a movie that presents a well-developed cast of characters and a compelling story. It’s really more about the narrative, rather than what gadgets our heroes are using.

Story- and character-wise, Twilight quite honestly fails to provide. At least it’s a great way to show a lady-friend how much you care about her interests—though she’ll be the first to admit the franchise is only good for romantic thrills. Now she’ll return the favor come Star Trek.

(image from Wikipedia)

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Having a hard time looking for an iPhone or iPod touch app that suits your category and price-point needs? Stored Apps attempts to catalog all the apps in the iTunes Store and make available as a searchable and filterable database. Search results provide a direct link to each app’s iTunes Store page.

Looking for free apps? Games? Just click on the filter tabs on top. Problem is, the site isn’t working properly; some features are not quite 100%. So here’s to hoping that the people behind the site, from somewhere in the Philippines, get their act together soon. And of course, I wonder how Apple will react to this.

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First off, over at a Toys R Us in Palm Desert, bad blood between two groups of shoppers led to a gunfight that left 2 dead. Now it isn’t clear if these events are tied to Black Friday (in fact Toys R Us came out with a statement implying such to cover their ass), but the timing of the shooting isn’t just a mere coincidence, no? (source and image: latimes.com)

Next, an employee of the Wal-Mart Valley Stream outlet died during the 5am Black Friday store-opening stampede. The ugly mob smashed through windows, injuring four other people (including a woman 8 months pregnant) and “sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde.” The poor fellow’s fellow employees had to fight their way through to rescue their doomed colleague from the crush. Worse, the crowd even stepped over some cops arriving on the scene trying to give the temp worker some CPR. Oh well, at least you can expect the Damours—family of said victim—to win a healthy settlement from Wal-Mart, especially after the grief caused by people screaming “I’ve been on line since Friday Morning” while the area was being cleared. (source and image: nydailynews.com)

Based on these new accounts, maybe stores should start providing personnel with guns. After all, guns are intimidating enough to keep the discount-starved wolves in line. It really was a Black Friday, folks.

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Makes sense actually:

the last couple of months have seen lower growth than expected.

That news means there will be many bargains in current Digital Camera models over this holiday season. Year-end is always a time of bargains, but they are usually last year’s models. This year you will likely see sale prices on the latest and greatest. That’s good news if you’re in the market for a new digital camera this year.

There are also bargains galore on low-end point-and-shoot digital cameras. As prices have fallen on DSLR cameras it has pushed the P&S prices even lower. For the first time we’ve found a couple of point-and-shoot cameras we can easily recommend that are selling for around $100.

Check the whole guide here. From full-fledged dSLRs to point-and-shoots, this guide offers so much content (7 web pages worth!). So I’m cutting this post short to give you more reading time.

(image from AnandTech)

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Yahoo was right on the money when it said “companies like Apple and Microsoft (with the Xbox 360’s new Community Games channel) have begun to provide bedroom developers easy, low-cost ways to develop on hardware that was once closed off to all but the biggest games makers.” At the same time however, let’s hope these fledging online app stores do a good job of filtering out all the trash that they’ll no doubt have to deal with. Remember the $1000 iPhone App?

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Need a flower vase and support for Wi-Fi, wired DSL, and VoIP? Then the STC Wireless Router is absolutely perfect! Coming straight at you from Saudi Telecom.

Yes, you can fill it up with water and place actual flowers in it. And from the looks of it, this router doesn’t have that large a footprint. Now if it could only hide the DSL and power cables really well…

(images from dezeen.com)

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Source: Mac Rumors

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For all the courts’ poor rep of lawyers getting clients off on technicalities and the possibility of corruption affecting the process, an open record of evaluation is still the best way to resolve an issue. Both sides get to present their case, and hopefully the public record will at least serve as a lesson for society in general.

The lesson from Megan Meier’s suicide and Lori Drew’s trial is clear: online harassment can be very dangerous, because it can affect a target on a very deep level, even if that wasn’t the intended result—and even if good intentions paved the road. That has a lot to do with the unparalleled anonymity enjoyed by the average netizen.

More here.

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How knowing someone’s location will help curb the spread of AIDs isn’t clear, unless you use that information to maintain constant surveillance, in which is very wrong. It’s easy to understand Manangsang’s reasons for pushing this program, but before we know it people could be implanted with RFID chips simply because they suffer from the common cold.

In other words, once the Indonesian province of Papua gets its way, what’s to stop the rest of the country implementing this program? With an increasingly generic set of criteria at that? And of course, who will watch the watchers and prevent abuse? Since this controversial issue has a lot to do with technology, let’s seek the advice of techie-deity Jean Luc Picard:

True isn’t it? Once the ball gets rolling…

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Overall the Google interviews were pure fun for me. The interview questions were technical but not very challenging or difficult.

Thanks for the opportunity Google!

Looks like Mr. Krumins didn’t get the job, being told that he needed more experience for such a “mission-critical” position. But his straightforward and clear narration is very worth the read for any Google fans out there, as it provides a sneak peek into a small facet of the company’s operations. At the very least, we know Google’s willing to pay for the Latvian’s round-trip, lodging and food while he was on-site! Also, the comments, divided between haters, encouragers, and neutral opiners, is also worth some attention

(image from catonmat.net)

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Bear with me folks: if you know anything about 3D modeling, then you know how complicated that process can be, especially when it involves unorthodox shapes that aren’t easily understood by the spatial mind.

You then probably know how hard it is to get a 3D printer to produce these kind of shapes. 3D printers are basically a quick way to fabricate objects; you just provide it with a 3D model, and it gets to work, usually creating a real object based on the specs by packing power into the desired shape. It’s a quick way to produce an actual model, most probably to help determine if a product concept works.

Simply put, the sheer intricacy of the objects featured at MAKE Magazine illustrate just how far the 3D prototyping process has come. Could we conceivably see models of intricately articulated gadgets by next year? A helix-shaped Bluetooth headset anyone?

(Image by MAKE Magazine; more intricate shapes found there)

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