Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

I think I can give you one thing most people like and one thing most people hate.  Beer and waiting (in that order of course!).  There are been novelty gadgets for beer ever since novelty gadgets have been invented, but this is something new, innovative and something you could see in bars and stadiums before long.  I give you, the TRUfil from Scotsman Beverages Systems: the gadget to provide beer without the waiting.
Let me give you important information first: this machine can give you 10 pints in 10 seconds.  That’s right, a pint in one second.  Keep reading for more details.

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We all know the iPhone has become quite popular.  Just look around next time you’re in a place with a lot of people—whether it be a subway, train station, airport, city street or college campus, chances are you’ll see at least one person with an iPhone walking around.  They almost seem to mock those of us who are stuck with Verizon or other carriers that aren’t AT&T (well, until the Storm, that is).  There are actual numbers to prove that the iPhone is popular: mobile ad traffic.

According to AdMob, an ad network for mobile websites and apps, the iPhone is the leader in ad traffic for mobile devices.  It holds 4.1 percent of ad requests for October.  That doesn’t sound like much, but it comes out to 236 million requests in one month.  In July, it was only 28 million requests.  Of those 236 million requests, 62.8 percent were from the U.S.  That’s pretty impressive considering the iPhone is still the number 2 phone in the U.S., behind the Motorola RAZR.  5 percent of the requests came from the UK, with another 8 percent coming from all of Asia.  Continued after the break.

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Sections: Apple, Communications, Cellphones, Mobile, Web

Verizon Wireless has suspended several employees it says accessed call records belonging to a now inactive phone owned by President-Elect Barack Obama.  The employees will not be paid during their suspension and are under investigation.

“We apologize to President-elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day,“ according to a statement attributed to Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam. “Those who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action.“

Sources say the phone in question has been inactive for several months.  More after the break.

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This is where we call out the tech moves that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin’ crack.  This week sees posturing, positioning and flat out insanity. 

This close to the holidays, everyone is hoping what is bolted down to the table withstands the storm.  (No, not that Storm). Here is what caught my eye this week:

Crazy texts from AT&T Marketing
Music sold on media
Apple’s lacking 2.2 update
BB Storms underwhelming intro
Touch on HP’s laptop

Follow me into the madness.

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RIM has just announced that the recently released MySpace app for the BlackBerry has been a record breaking success.  The app was originally made available just one week ago on November 13, and since then it has seen more than 400,000 downloads.

According to Jim Balsillie, Co-Chief Executive Officer at Research In Motion;

“This rapid adoption is a reflection of an evolving consumer lifestyle where social connectivity and information access are more important than ever.”

And how true that statement is, it seems that those 400,000 downloads allowed users to send and receive more than 15 million messages and also update their mood and status a whopping two million times.  I guess despite the previous availability of a Facebook app, there were still plenty of users itching to get on MySpace.

Read [Business Wire]

• iPhone is number 1 in mobile ads
• Who’s On Crack in tech: 11.21.08 edition
• Verizon employees suspended for accessing Obama’s call records

Sections: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile, Web, Websites

YouTube has always been the scourge of those of us who like to watch really good looking video.  Not just the quality of the content, but the actual video quality.  It first started out with high quality videos that were a pretty big step up from the normal quality.  Now, the site is taking the quality up in two ways.  First with video and also with sound.

Possibly the biggest improvement to those who care most about the poor video quality is the availability of HD video.  To be more precise, 720p HD video.  It might not look much different than the high quality in the standard YouTube video screen, but put it in fullscreen and there is a definite improvement.  It looks just about as good as the 720p trailers from Apple. 

Find out how YouTube has improved its sound quality after the break.

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Sections: Web, Websites, Online Music/Video, Google

BlackBerry Storm (front)

Executive Editor Adam Berger got his hands on the BlackBerry Storm.  So here are some real, in the wild, shots of the BlackBerry Storm.  We’re testing out the phone and will be back with some first impressions of the long delayed BlackBerry Storm.  Plenty of pictures after the break.

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BJ’s, the land of bulk buys, is looking good for Black Friday this year according to a flyer I just got handed.  The deals range from in-store deals to online deals at bjs.com (how there were able to secure that domain name I’ll never know).  Here is a look at the deals

In-store deals (requires coupon from flier)

TVs

• Sharp Aquos 52” 1080p LCD HDTV.  Save $300 now just $1399.00
• Samsung 32” LCD $100 off, now just $499.99
• Samsung 46” 1080p $200 off, now just $1099.99
• Sylvania 37” LCD HDTV $80 off, now just $599.99

Computers

• Sony 16.4 Notebook, Hi-Def LCD, Centrino Dual Core processor, 4GB RAM, 250GB HD.  $200 off, now just $799.99.
• HP 15.4 Notebook, Dual Core processor, 3GB RAM, 250GB HD, $150 off, now just $549.99

Keep reading for all the complete list.

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Sections: Video, HDTV, Computers, Web, Websites

Being a CEO of a major brand on the net isn’t easy.  Getting the job is even harder, that is where Gadgetell comes in.  By entering our contest, you’ll earn our public recommendation to Yahoo!‘s board for the open CEO position.  Warm up those golf clubs, here is what we think Yahoo! needs:

To be the next CEO at Yahoo!, we believe the company needs a big personality.  Google has the rollerblading wonder twins, MS now has almost larger-than-life Ballmer and Apple’s got a guy with a closet full of black mock turtlenecks.  While we don’t believe having rollerblades, being nutty or sticking to one outfit is a prerequisite, here is what we do think is. . .

Follow to find out more and to apply to Gadgetell’s Be the next Jerry Yang contest.

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Sections: Web, Web 2.0, Websites, Features, Contests

There are a lot of add-ons for Firefox out there.  Over 5,000 of them to be more precise.  But, its a bit hard to actually find the most useful ones unless you’re searching for them specifically.  Mozilla is trying to help us all out with that.  It recently opened a page called “Fashion Your Firefox,“ an easier way to find the add-ons that you might find useful.

Obviously, Fashion Your Firefox doesn’t list every add-on, only about 40 of those available at the moment.  It’s broken up into categories ranging from “News Junkie” to “Shutterbug,“ “Digital Pack Rat,“ and a few other categories for how people use their internet browser.  According to the FAQ, there are a few points the add-ons needed to meet.  They had to be popular, compatible with Mac and PC (I suppose Linux doesn’t count?), easy to use (oh, right, linux is supposedly hard to use), and “ffer a well-rounded set of functionality.“  Sounds a bit reasonable to me.

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Sections: Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Downloads, Web Browsers