Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Welcome back to InterrupTech.  Catch up on the week’s most important tech stories in a hurry.  We cover Amazon’s new delivery service, a brand new PS3, an offline version of Wikipedia, the great Sidekick meltdown, and Snow Leopard eats your data. Continue Reading »

There’s a good chance this scenario has happened to you before: you just hear about something or are asked about something that you’re not sure about.  You don’t have Internet access, but you know once you have it, Wikipedia will most likely be able to answer your question.  Now you… Continue Reading »

Wikipedia, the first stop of research on the Internet for many, has long been both praised and jeered because of its open-source nature.  Many love the fact that it allows for anyone to change articles fro the most up-to-date information.  Meanwhile, others (notably those in the teaching profession), essentially hate… Continue Reading »

It was hidden for seven months—almost unheard of in the news world.  A kidnapping by the Taliban of a reporter to the NY Times was hidden and covered up by both the print and online press.  The thing is, in this case, it was done for his safety. David Rohde,… Continue Reading »

Wikipedia editors have found themselves overwhelmed as scores of users log on to make edits to Michael Jackson’s Wikipedia page.  His death was quickly reported on the site, but users continuously tried to delete the references and made comments, such as “He’s Not Dead” and “Unverified.”  The references came soon… Continue Reading »

The reference software for Encyclopedia Britannica is a popular option to download on Pirate Bay.  Looking for reliable information is a noble idea, but there’s no need to become a criminal by illegally downloading a copy.  Although you can find a slew of online reference materials, you may feel leery… Continue Reading »

In what has to be the worst name ever for any app, not just Android, Wikitude by Mobilizy offers something extremely unique: augmented reality.  In addition to being a POI (point of interest) search companion, the tool makes use of all the on-board hardware on the G1: GPS, accelerometer, data… Continue Reading »

Google seems to be aiming its crosshairs directly towards the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, with the official launch of Knol. Knol, the names comes from the short version of the word knowledge, is a different type of user-generated encyclopedia because every writer is identified with their photo and profile. After 7… Continue Reading »

In an apparent attempt to boost it’s rather floundering search presence on the Net, Microsoft announced its plan to purchase the relatively unknown company Powerset.  This startup company has developed semantic search technology based upon natural language processing. What this type of software does is use specific linguistic algorithms to… Continue Reading »

As the ads for the drug Cymbalta say, “Depression hurts.”  A new study out of the University of Bristol suggests that doing a web search for information about a certain permanent solution is not a good idea.  The search engines that were used were Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.  For… Continue Reading »