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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 4th 2008 at 10:43AMAMD’s on a roll at Computex, and it’s keeping the stream alive with two more decently important announcements. First off, the company is making the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 official, which is said to “triple top-of-the-line graphics performance in comparison to the previous generation ATI Mobility Radeon GPUs.” The unit also enables laptop makers to include CrossFireX technology for the first time, so yeah, there’s that. (Read the full post about ‘AMD gets official with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 and PowerXpress’…)

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I have to admit that I’m not that into pampering. I know I might get my girl card taken away for mentioning this, but I’d rather have a quick shower then lie down and read a book than spend an hour flipping through a magazine in the bathtub with some kind of herbal mask (or worse, masque) covering my face.

But I know not everyone is like me. Most of my friends find a long soak in a hot bath relaxing rather than boring, and I know they would freak out (in a good way) at the idea of owning this blinging bathtub:

Engadget reports that the Water Games Technologies Red Diamond bathtub is worth a jaw-dropping $47,000.

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 4th 2008 at 4:01PM
Verizon has certainly courted Alltel before, but this time, the two could finally be rounding third base. According to a breaking report at CNBC, Verizon is “in deep in talks to acquire Alltel,” which of course is America’s fifth largest wireless carrier. It’s no secret that Alltel has been riding fairly high of late, and unless your memory is totally shot, you’ll likely recall that it was just recently “taken private by TPG and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners in a $27.5 billion deal.” Not surprisingly, officials at both outfits refused to comment on the rumblings, but if this does indeed go down, analysts are expecting Verizon to pay around 8x Alltel’s current EBITDA, whereas TPG / Goldman Sachs paid 9.2x. (Read the full post about ‘Verizon “in talks” to buy Alltel for $27 billion’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 4th 2008 at 8:46AM
Look out, Bluetooth — Ozmo Devices has its eyes set squarely on you. Okay, so maybe this whole thing isn’t as adversarial as advertised, but there’s no denying that the aforesaid company’s latest initiative will target the exact same devices that BT is embedded within now. Ozmo has announced a partnership with Intel at Computex that will extend the latter company’s Cliffside WiFi Personal Area Network (PAN) technology to “low-power devices.” Essentially, WiFi radios that suck less juice nowadays would take on dual roles — accessing WLAN networks and doing the duties typically reserved for Bluetooth — which would enable devices to have one less component stuffed within bulking things up. (Read the full post about ‘Ozmo / Intel trumpet WiFi PAN for low-power devices, Bluetooth says “what?”’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 4th 2008 at 9:25AM With just about every other US city shutting down any Muni-Fi project that managed to get off of the ground, we can’t help but have mixed feelings about this one. Oklahoma City is boasting of having the world’s largest municipal WiFi mesh network, but for whatever reason, it’s being reserved exclusively for “public safety and other City operations.” In other words, it’s not there to provide wireless internet access to the general public — yet, at least. (Read the full post about ‘Oklahoma City claims world’s largest municipal WiFi mesh network, leaves public out’…)

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by Nilay Patel, posted Jun 4th 2008 at 2:37PM Putting cameras in billboards to measure how many people look at them isn’t a new idea, but it’s starting to get a little more creepily-high-tech, with several advertisers now using facial-recognition software to record things like age and gender. A company called Quividi has supplied camera-equipped ads to McDonald’s in Singapore and Ikea in Europe, and it’s now bringing the tech to the States, where it’s been deployed in New York in ads for A&E’s The Andromeda Strain mini-series and in Philadelphia in train station ads for the Philadelphia Soul. (Read the full post about ‘Billboards with facial-recognition software trickling out’…)

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by Paul Miller, posted Jun 4th 2008 at 12:15PM
With another steaming pile of cryptic sayings, Archer Quinn is officially bidding his all-too-entertaining free energy project farewell. From what we can gather, he’s decided that the problem of free energy is really too simple to warrant his time and effort — we’re all “monkeys” who let The Man keep us down with Newton’s outdated laws of physics. “You look but you do not see, you hear but you do not listen. Your planet is crap because you are all monkeys.” Can’t argue with that logic. Farewell Archer, our time spent attempting to decipher your cryptic sayings was cut all too short. (Read the full post about ‘Archer Quinn calls it quits: “You may have been able to prevent the straw from falling, maybe not.”’…)

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by Donald Melanson, posted Jun 4th 2008 at 1:09PMAs if we needed any more evidence that the 16:9 laptop bandwagon is already roaring right along, DigiTimes is now reporting that LG and AU Optronics are each readying some 17.3-inch panels boasting the increasingly common aspect ratio. If the usual unnamed “industry sources” are to be believed, those panels will supposedly be finding their way into laptops from Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba, and Asustek, among others, although it’s not clear when those will actually be showing up. (Read the full post about ‘LG, AU Optronics said to be prepping 17.3-inch 16:9 LCD panels’…)

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by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jun 4th 2008 at 9:41AM
Yo, portable rockers: Toys ‘R’ Us has let the Guitar Hero: On Tour DS Bundle details out of its proverbial bag. For $179.99, you’ll get a limited-edition silver and black Nintendo DS, the Guitar Hero: On Tour game, and the Guitar Grip. The DS in question has a flaming Guitar Hero logo on its silver cover and hits stores on June 29, a week after the game comes out on its own. As far as the $179.99 price goes, don’t flip out just yet: this is a fair deal given the DS runs $129.99 and the game will be $49.99 on its own. (Read the full post about ‘Guitar Hero: On Tour DS bundle revealed, pocket rockers go “\m/”’…)

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Starbucks is taking advantage of their relationship with AT&T to help bump up sales at U.S. Starbucks locations. The company has begun a program where it will be offering complimentary access to the AT&T WiFi in its stores. Previously, the wi-fi was only available for a charge or if you were already a AT&T WiFi or broadband subscriber.

Now you will be able to gain up to two hours free per day at Starbucks locations simply by doing something you may already be doing. You will need to have a Starbuck card that you have used in the last 30 days. You also must also agree to receive up to four emails per month from AT&T.

(Read the full post about ‘Starbucks to offer 2 hours of WiFi a day for free’…)

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