Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Recently, we reported on how the OpenTable Beta version has made it possible to set up a reservation at your nearest restaurant, however it would appear that restaurant reservations aren’t the only thing that have been updated for mobile technology.

Police departments in Boston, Cincinnati, and 100 other communities have adopted a text message tip-line. So if someone sees a crime being committed, all it would take is a dropped line to alert the authorities. 

So far, this new department system has produced “great drug information, specific times, dates, names of suspects, locations, pick-up times, and license plate numbers”. 

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Google is getting ready to launch their Street View technology in the UK, and it isn’t being met with open arms. Although the mapping tool is already in place in some major US cities, folks in the UK are protesting the implementation on their turf.  Street View works by taking photos of, logically enough, streets to match maps. However the photos also include any people on those streets. This is where the problems come in for the UK folk. They feel this is a blatant disregard for privacy; and that permission should be granted by any individual photographed since the pictures are being used in a commercial regard. 

Personally, I don’t see how Google is getting away with this. As a freelance photographer myself, I know that any photographs that I take (even in a public setting) must have release forms signed by each recognizable person in the photo, if I am to be using them in any way for profit. (They even consider a person to be “recognizable” if the photo only shows the back of them for the record.) Apparently, Privacy International, a UK rights group, agrees. They believe the technology clearly breaks data protection laws. 

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A Japanese accessory manufacturer has added a unique twist on an ordinary household gadget, the flashlight. They have added a 300,000 pixel CMOS camera and microphone. Carrot Systems created this so-called AD-1500 flashlight to enable security personnel and crime fighters to record the actual events as they happen.

All activities are recorded in MP4 format and it automatically switches to infra-red mode when used at night or in dark areas. The AD-1500 can only cover a distance of up to 4 meters but I think this is enough to capture evidence and actual events in real time. However, internal memory is limited to only 128MB.

This innovative approach to ordinary gadget makes sense. It would be nice though if this could automatically stream the footage online for archiving purposes. Well, that’s looking forward I guess.

Unfortunately, its price of approximately $800 limits its potential, at least for the everyday consumer.

Via [CrunchGear]

Mozilla is growing, and it seems that in addition to the recent world record, which was set for the software downloads in a 24 hour time period, they have also risen to 19.03% of the market share. Mozilla saw an increase from 18.41% up to 19.03% from the end of May to the end of June.

Of course, Firefox may be seeing an increase, which is at least partially due to the recent release of Firefox 3, but Internet Explorer still remains on top with a whopping 73.01%.

On the other hand, some are saying that because of the auto-update features within Firefox, that those users are amongst the most users with up to date versions of their browser installed. Firefox was noted as having 83% of their users with an up to date software version, as compared to just 63.3% of Safari users, 56.1% of Opera users and IE having just 47.6% of users with the latest and most stable version.

Read [Yahoo! News]

Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week?  Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!

• Slimbus: The future of public transportation
  “ With the absurd increase in gasoline prices almost every week, more and more people will be forced to use buses and other modes of public transportation. Now, here is a very interesting futuristic concept – the Slimbus.  Intended for…” MORE »
• The touchscreen Motorola Blaze for Verizon shows its face
  “ The touchscreen based devices just keep coming, and seem to be getting more and more interesting. The latest to hit the open, or at least leaked status is the Motorola Blaze, which seems to be a mix-match…” MORE »
• Asus to introduce the Eee PC 904, 905?
  “ Asus has yet to even get the Eee PC 901 or the 1000H into the US market, however the latest rumor has them working on getting an Eee PC 904 and 905 ready. The new 904 and…” MORE »
• BlackBerry Bold for Rogers gets a release date
  “ The BlackBerry Bold is having it’s trouble with a US release date, AT&T has been rumored to have pushed it’s launch into August, but it is right on track with…” MORE »
• Creative’s Wi-Fi enabled Zen X-Fi PMP revealed?
  “ Still missing is the official announcement from Creative, however epiZENter is claiming the above picture of the Creative ZEN X-Fi is the real deal. Based on the image, all we can do is hope that it really is true,…” MORE »

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Keeping in mind that there are just some things that you should not do. Take “throwing a baby” for example, but assuming you felt the need to do such a crazy thing, then why would you feel the need to not only record it, but also post the video to a popular site as YouTube. Its almost like asking to get in trouble, isn’t it?

The latest teen did just that, he had his friend film himself throwing a baby, well not actually throwing, but sort of launching it. The 16-year old placed the baby on a large inflatable pillow and then jumped on it to send the baby flying across the room. The teens then posted the video online and it was later found by one of the students teachers, who promptly called the police. The 16-year old has since been charged with felony cruelty to a child, and according to Sheriff Harold Breeden;

“It’s not going to be funny when the judge gets through with him.”

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Those that have seen the Harry Potter movies may remember his magic cloak that enabled him to be invisible from those around him. Sounds a bit fantastical and far-fetched doesn’t it? Well, the future may be closer than you think.

The ability to hide something from sight, is usually accomplished by using what is known as a superlens. This type of lens contains a negative refraction index, the “refraction” part obviously meaning bending. In this case it allows it to bend electromagnetic waves back upon themselves. So, as a result, the object appears “invisible.” Voila! No bulky cloak even needed.

Although superlensing isn’t exactly yet feasible for making something huge like a military warship invisible, there is still promise for more standard large objects. This is being done using copper-based meta-materials to create a type of cloaking cylinder.  Work is also being done on the lenses by Graeme Millton, of the University of Utah, who is currently working in mathematical models for the superlenses. 

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With the deal closed on the Dictionary.com purchase, Ask.com has now become, at least according to comScore, the ninth-largest web property. The all-cash deal originally began back in mid-May and had Ask.com purchasing Lexico Publishing Group LLC. The web properties that were included were Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com.

Ask.com is reporting that this will give them an increase of around 15 million additional users on a month basis, which would put them up to a monthly audience of around 145 million. Terms of the acquisition, such as how much was paid were not disclosed.

Read [Reuters]

FROM APPLETELL - Maverick Software has announced its line of iPhone and iPod Touch games that will be available through Apple’s App Store. All these games are built from the ground up and are fully native to the iPod Touch and iPhone. With four new games, this company really wants to make an… MORE »

Some more information has been leaking about in regards to the upcoming BlackBerry Kickstart and thankfully this time it was not another set of blurry images. Instead its some speculation based on just how much RIM is planning to charge for this little clamshell BlackBerry.

We have already heard that it was headed to T-Mobile and it looks like it will land there in September, but the latest information is calling for this to be a very affordable handset. Coming in at just $49.99 with a two-year agreement. Which assuming this is accurate would have it even less expensive than the popular and low-cost Palm Centro. At that price I think that RIM could have a winner on their hands.

Via [CrackBerry] Image [http://blog.berryshack.com/blog/content/new-leaked-blackberry-kickstart-pictures]