The $2 Billion Dark-Matter-Hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer [Monster Machines]

Whenever NASA launches its next-to-last space shuttle, the Endeavour—hopefully two days from now—it'll be hauling an appropriately epic payload: the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. More »

army wives

Chocomize personalized chocolate: giveaway and discount code

Okay, I know what you're thinking: chocolate on Download Squad? That's right! That's because Chocomize is one of the nerdiest ways to get chocolate online: it's a website where you customize your own bar using a multi-step process.

We've covered Chocomize before in our holiday gift guide, so when they reached out to us offering to do a giveaway, we really couldn't resist.

Chocomize is giving away ten gift certificates, each worth $50, for you to create your own customized chocolate. They sent us some pictures of their recent creations, which you can find in the gallery below.

Regardless of the giveaway, you can use the discount code switched to get 10% off any Chocomize order. The code is valid through April 20th - just in time for Easter!

To participate, simply leave a comment. Fine print is after the jump.

Gallery: Chocomize personalized chocolate

Continue reading Chocomize personalized chocolate: giveaway and discount code

Chocomize personalized chocolate: giveaway and discount code originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

baltimore orioles best western southwest airlines

Speaking of? sex toys with Ethan Imboden from Jimmyjane [TCTV]

Vibrating sex toys have been around for over a century, starting out as crude�steam powered devices and now resembling something very cool that you might pick up at an Apple store. Sex toys have been the source of giggles, controversy, pleasure and up until the last 5 years, were not a mainstream product. They were devices you bought and had shipped in unmarked brown packaging or slipped into a toy store late at night to buy, but were not something you'd ever imagine picking up at Nordstrom or your local Wal-Mart. Millions of men and women use them every day and yet, it isn't something we talk about much. Considering there's a lot of tech that go into these devices these days, I think it is a topic worth exploring and definitely something we should no longer be ashamed of.

westlaw army wives

Create Digital Photo Albums On Your iPad with New Album App

Creating custom digital photo albums on your iPad just got a lot easier with the new Album app by Dreamix Studio. Keep your pictures organized in digital albums for quick and easy access. This newly released iPad app comes bundled with many cool features. For starters, without even having to sync your iPad, you can [...]

justin josh hamilton jp morgan

Audyssey Audio Dock Challenge

Audio company Audyssey has laid down the gauntlet to other makers of iPod/iPhone speaker docks with ?The Audyssey Audio Dock Challenge,? a sweepstakes where potential customers can compare the Audyssey South of Market Audio Dock speaker to any speaker of their choice for the chance to win an Audyssey Audio Dock of their own. More [...]

katie couric milwaukee brewers weather radar

New Firefox Nightly and Aurora logos unearthed, and how to enable channel switching

Later today, Firefox will undergo its biggest developmental upheaval ever. Mozilla-central, the source of nightly builds, will be renumbered to version 5 -- and at long last, after years of wallowing around version 1, Mozilla's rendering and layout engine, Gecko, will also have its version number updated to match Firefox.

Shortly thereafter, Firefox's new channel system will be implemented. Firefox 5a2 will be introduced as the first Aurora build, and we should also see a Firefox 6 Nightly build. While we we're not sure where they came from, one Sören Hentzschel seems to have unearthed the new Nightly and Aurora logos (see above), along with new About Firefox dialogs (after the break).

In other news, if you want to take a sneak peek at the new 'channel changing' technology that will be introduced in upcoming Firefox builds, head to about:config and create a new string called app.update.desiredChannel -- the value doesn't matter. Then open Help > About Firefox and you'll be able to switch channel, but it doesn't do anything just yet (image after the break). Here's hoping that Firefox channel switching is smoother than Chrome.

Continue reading New Firefox Nightly and Aurora logos unearthed, and how to enable channel switching

New Firefox Nightly and Aurora logos unearthed, and how to enable channel switching originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

tmobile kansas city star sarah lane

Intel touts 50Gbps interconnect by 2015, will make it work with tablets and smartphones too

Woah there, Mr. Speedy. We've barely caught up with the 10Gbps Thunderbolt interconnect, debuted in the new Macbook Pro, and now Intel's hyperactive researchers are already chattering away about something five times faster. They're promising a new interconnect, ready in four years, that will combine silicon and optical components (a technology called silicon photonics) to pump 50Gbps over distances of up to 100m. That's the sort of speed Intel predicts will be necessary to handle, say, ultra-HD 4k video being streamed between smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes and TVs. Intel insists that poor old Mr. Thunderbolt won't be forced into early retirement, but if we were him we'd be speaking to an employment lawyer right about now.

Intel touts 50Gbps interconnect by 2015, will make it work with tablets and smartphones too originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TG Daily  |  IDG News (PC World)  | Email this | Comments

mg cougar town brian regan

Konstruct for iOS creates generative augmented reality art with your voice

If you have an artistic temperament, but you weren't blessed with steady hands or an eye for color, Konstruct might be the app for you. Not only does the iPhone app let you produce generative art using words, warbles and whistles, but it also uses augmented reality to bring your artistic creation to life.

To get started, you first need to print out the Konstruct marker and place it wherever you'd like to create your AR sculpture -- it could be on your living room wall, or on the floor of your bathroom, it doesn't matter. Open the app, point your iPhone at the marker, and start making some noises! Once you're done, you can save your creation, or simply wipe the slate clean and start again.

The volume of your voice affects the size of the shapes that are drawn on the screen, and you can move your head around to alter the path of your 'brush' -- but to change the shape of your brush or modify the color palette you have to use a menu. Without knowledge of the app's internal workings, it's hard to say what the actual difference between whistling, talking and singing is -- and judging by the developer's affinity for whistling in the demo video (after the break), the app probably doesn't perform that much analysis on your input.

Still, Konstruct is just a prototype! A later version could do away with menus and rely entirely on the location, tonality, quality and amplitude of your voice -- and judging by the the words of the developer, James Alliban, there is definitely more in store for Konstruct: "The idea of transforming entire cities into user generated virtual art galleries really appeals to me. I see Konstruct as an early prototype that will hopefully be realised in this form in the future."

Download Konstruct for free from the App Store (iPhone 3GS and 4 only)

[Thanks to Richard for the tip!]

Gallery: Konstruct for iOS: create generative augmented art with your voice

Continue reading Konstruct for iOS creates generative augmented reality art with your voice

Konstruct for iOS creates generative augmented reality art with your voice originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

mg cougar town brian regan

LCD-equipped Cisco REN301 Residential Gateway stops by FCC, reveals all its dirty secrets

Ah, the all too familiar WiFi troubleshooting dance: the network goes down, you dig through the closet for an Ethernet cable, saunter over to the router, jack yourself in, type in the IP address, and start poking around at your settings. Cisco's REN301 Residential Gateway (a fancy way of saying "router"), which just passed through the FCC, could make things at least a little bit easier thanks to its built-in LCD screen and capacitive touch controls. Wave your hand over the display to bring it to life and you can check the status of your connections, modify some basic settings, and peruse a log of calls that have come in over the SIP VoIP phone jacks. The REN301, which has a single band 802.11b/g/n radio, can also turn USB drives and SD cards into NAS storage -- the company even throws in a 32GB card to get you started. We don't have a price or release date, but since it's been splayed open for federal regulators we probably won't have to wait long. There's a couple of pics of the router's UI after the break.

Continue reading LCD-equipped Cisco REN301 Residential Gateway stops by FCC, reveals all its dirty secrets

LCD-equipped Cisco REN301 Residential Gateway stops by FCC, reveals all its dirty secrets originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Wireless Goodness  |  FCC  | Email this | Comments

mg cougar town brian regan

Zoho Docs 2.0 adds iPad support

Zoho has offered an iOS app for a while now -- at least for the iPhone and iPod touch. Those of you who have been wanting to use the Zoho app on your iPad were out of luck, but that's no longer the case.

Zoho Docs 2.0 has landed in the App Store, and the most notable change is that it's now a universal app. Now you're able to take advantage of the app's mobile productivity powers on your larger iOS device. Retina display support has also been added, as have document sharing options -- which you can utilize in both the viewer and collaboration modes.

Just like the basic Zoho service, the app is available totally free of charge. Paid subscriptions get you additional storage space and start at $3 per month for professional use.

Zoho Docs 2.0 adds iPad support originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

faa steve nash molycorp

Daily Crunch: Space Trip Edition

NASA Will Start Flying Coach With ?Commercial Crews? Limited Edition Camera From Japan: TOWER RECORDS�PENTAX RAINBOW K-r Review: Antec Rockus 2.1 Speakers Fujitsu Develops World?s Smallest And Thinnest Palm Vein Sensor Video: GameTrailers Reviews Portal 2

cougar town brian regan mubarak

Zen Coding high-speed HTML shorthand plug-in updated

Zen Coding made quite a splash when we first covered it almost a year ago. For those who aren't familiar, Zen is a fantastic form of shorthand for quickly hand-coding HTML. And today, a new version is out!

Here are some of the goodies version 0.7 brings to the party:

• Text nodes: Writing something like a[href=/]{Click here} now works, and puts "Click here" within the link.
• New actions added: Increment/decrement number under cursor, evaluate math expressions, and more.
• Wrap with Abbreviation was upgraded.

There are several other improvements but they're all rather technical. If you use Zen Coding (or are intrigued by the concept) go ahead and read the release notes for this new version.

Zen Coding has official implementations for a ton of editors, including TextMate, Apatana, Coda, E2, Komodo, Notepad++, PSPad, and more. It also has unofficial builds for Vim, UltraEdit, Visual Studio and more.

If you want to play with Zen Coding without installing it, you can use the online demo to see some of its magic in action.

Zen Coding high-speed HTML shorthand plug-in updated originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

aurora borealis hayden panettiere ducati monster

Google Sued Over Android Phone Tracking [Google]

It's not just iPhone customers who are going to court over the recent tracking scandal—two Android owners are suing Google for the very same reason. Like the two iPhone users, they're hoping to represent other Android owners in a class-action suit. More »

tornado united budget

Security firm RSA attacked using Excel-Flash one-two sucker punch

It has emerged that the underlying cause of RSA's SecurID gaffe was the recently-reported zero-day vulnerability found in Adobe's Flash Player.

The exploit, which used specially-crafted Flash embedding in Excel spreadsheets, was first reported on March 15 and has since been fixed. RSA was hacked sometime in the first half of March when an employee was successfully spear phished and opened an infected spreadsheet. As soon as the spreadsheet was opened, an advanced persistent threat (APT) -- a backdoor Trojan -- called Poison Ivy was installed. From there, the attackers basically had free reign of RSA's internal network, which led to the eventual dissemination of data pertaining to RSA's two-factor authenticators.

The attack is reminiscent of the APTs used in the China vs. Google attacks from last year -- and indeed, Uri Rivner, the head of new technologies at RSA is quick to point out that that other big companies are being attacked, too: "The number of enterprises hit by APTs grows by the month; and the range of APT targets includes just about every industry. Unofficial tallies number dozens of mega corporations attacked [...] These companies deploy any imaginable combination of state-of-the-art perimeter and end-point security controls, and use all imaginable combinations of security operations and security controls. Yet still the determined attackers find their way in."

What we'd like to know, though, is whether the attack on RSA was caused by Adobe's lackadaisical approach to patching Flash -- or was it the other way around? Was it the RSA attack that first brought the zero-day vulnerability to Adobe's attention?

Security firm RSA attacked using Excel-Flash one-two sucker punch originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 06:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

mubarak quebec christina hendricks