• It's that time of year again. Yes, the Urlies are finally here, so head on over to Urlesque and vote for the best of the Web. Keyboard cat vs. slap chop remix: Fight! [From: Urlesque]
• Scroll bars, a mainstay of modern day desktop operating systems, are typically attached only to the edges of windows. Here, small bars compose a larger digital clock. [From: Toki-woki]
• Vanity Fair goes goes in-depth into the making of Wes Anderson's new stop-motion-animated 'Fantastic Mr. Fox.' [From: VanityFair]

Best of the Rest: Scroll-Bar Clock, Urlesque Launches 2009 Urlies originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• CBS (1080i) has 'The New Adventures of Old Christine' at 8 p.m., 'Gary Unmarried' at 8:30 p.m., 'Criminal Minds' at 9 p.m. and 'CSI: NY' at 10 p.m.
• NBC (1080i) has 'Mercy' at 8 p.m. and 'Law & Order SVU' at 9 p.m.
• Fox (720p) has 'Glee' at 9 p.m.
• ABC (720p) airs 'The Middle' at 8:30 p.m., 'Modern Family' at 9 p.m. and 'Cougar Town' at 9:30 p.m.
• Discovery (1080i) has 'Mythbusters' at 9 p.m. and 'Time Warp' at 10 p.m.
• Syfy (1080i) has 'Ghost Hunters' at 9 p.m. and the premiere of' Ghost Hunters Academy' at 10 p.m.
• FX (720p) has 'Nip/Tuck' at 10 p.m.
• Spike (1080i) has 'The Ultimate Fighter' at 10 p.m.
• DirecTV (1080i) has 'Friday Night Lights' at 9 p.m.
• Comedy Central (1080i) brings the season finale of 'South Park' at 10 p.m.
• History (720p) has 'WWII in HD' at 9 & 10 p.m.
• TBS (1080i) has 'House of Payne' at 9 & 9:30 p.m. and 'Meet the Browns' at 10 & 10:30 p.m
• TLC (1080i) has 'Flowers Uncut' at 10 & 10:30 p.m.
• ESPN (720p) has an NBA doubleheader with Cavs/Wizards at 7 p.m. and Spurs/Mavericks at 9:30 p.m.
• EPSN2 (720p) has Central Michigan/Ball State college football at 8 p.m.

HDTV Listings for November 18, 2009 originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Stairs have proven a formidable opponent for robots (and their makers), but both creator and created keep trying to climb. Core77 rounds up (with videos) a number of robots unhappy with just one floor. [From: Core77].
• What do Arpanet, Unix, e-mail, and CYCLADES have to do with each other? They're all part of the history of the Internet (in a nutshell). [From: Six Revisions]
• Our friends over at TUAW recently interviewed Fake Steve Jobs (aka Dan Lyons). [From: TUAW]
• Yesterday's Atlantis launch set us off into a Google wormhole as we searched for high-def launch footage. Fortunately, NASA provides incredible HD videos of the recent Ares 1-X rocket launch and still more. [From: NASA]
• If you're still running Mac OS 7 on an old-school Performa 600 (and who could blame you?), then you'll be thrilled to know there's now a Twitter client just for you. [From: Retards.org, via: TUAW]

Best of the Rest: Stair-Climbing Robots, a Brief History of the Web originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Remember how printers and scanners of the late '80s would make grinding sounds as they repositioned their insides? Well, the geniuses down at the Hacklab hacked the 'Super Mario' theme song with that repositioning action. Nerd heaven. [From: BoingBoing]
• Fortune shows off a selection of rarely-seen Steve Jobs photos, dating all the way back from the early '70s. [From: Fortune]
• The crew over at Snarkmarket found that the electronic artist Four Tet's song "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth" syncs up perfectly with a clip from 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed,' one of the first animated films. The result is a gorgeous mashup of 21st century music and early 20th century animation. [From: Snarkmarket]
• Another Onion headline gem: 'CNBC Cameraman Can't Believe He's Filming Another Blog Off A Computer Monitor' [From: The Onion]
• Only Disconnect: a story of going without the Web for several months, stealing Wi-Fi while parked near a library, and searching for the signal in the woods. [From: New York Times]

Best of the Rest: Laser-Cutter Plays Mario Theme Song, Cross-Century Mashups originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• A badly timed or ill-advised Facebook comment will get screencapped and sent around the Web faster than you can hit 'poke.' Urlesque has analyzed the five most common types of Facebook fails. [From: Urlesque]
• Similarly, Yahoo! Answers is a veritable gold mine of ridiculous comments, made even crazier by user anonymity. [From: Huffington Post]
• Google recently enhanced its movie listings with even more information about the flick, including trailers, photos, where it's playing, and more. [From: Google]
• As the weather gets cooler, keep both your feet and your feline warm with these bizarre, USB-powered paw-shaped warmers. [From: New Launches]
• Anyone who is mad for plaid would certainly dig Griffin's collaboration with Chilewich, resulting in lovely, cloth-made iPhone sleeves. [From: Design Fetish]

Best of the Rest: Common Facebook FAILs, Google's Sweet Movie Listings originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• The onward march of technology is making once common things, like blind dates, getting lost, and mix tapes, increasingly obsolete. [From: Kottke]
• The Web has made it easier than ever to become a pro at something... like disarming a knife-wielding psycho. [From: Asylum]
• We've seen cats and dogs riding Roomba vacuums before, but these hacked vacuumbots playing 'Pac-Man' bring the arcade classic to the real world. [From: Urlesque]
• iPhone giving you connectivity issues? TUAW suggests a network settings reset to get that data flowing again. [From: TUAW]

Best of the Rest: Death of Mixtapes, Roomba Vacuum Bots Play 'Pac-Man' originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• New DROID photo enthusiasts can breathe a sigh of relief: Adobe just released a Photoshop.com mobile app for cropping, basic color filters, and zooming. [From: DownloadSquad]
• Get your meme fix for the day over at Urlesque, where our friends have compiled a hilarious gallery of old people playing 'Guitar Hero.' [From: Urlesque]
• Grooveshark just got a makeover, making the excellent music-streaming service much easier to use. [From: Lifehacker]
• For its fifth birthday, Mozilla's upcoming mobile Firefox browser gets a precious new logo. [From: DownloadSquad]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Photoshop Comes to Android, Elderly Shred on 'Guitar Hero' originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• If you've got our luck, you'll strike out for a holiday shopping extravaganza, get to the mall, and then realize you forgot to bring the coupons from the weekend paper. Fear not, good shoppers. Fortunately, there's a Black Friday app for your iPhone. [From: geeksugar]
• Design changes at Facebook usually rile up users, who, without fail, protest by creating groups on the site. Fortunately, some of those protesters are actually productive, creating solutions like 'Facebook Facelift,' a project re-imagining the ubiquitous social networking site's interface. [From: Likecool.com]
• Our friends over at Asylum rounded up the best video game trailers of all time. Some of our favorites. [From: Asylum]
• When compared to the stock velvet paintings of Hendrix and Pink Floyd that fill college dorms nationwide, these velvet images of sci-fi icons are modern-day masterpieces. [From: io9]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Black Friday iPhone App, Rethinking Facebook originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• There's an inverse relationship between robots and the creep factor. The more life-like they get, the more they make our skin crawl. [From: HuffingtonPost]
• Today Apple opened the doors to its first store in France, smack in the Carrousel du Louvre, nestled between Mona Lisa and fresh baguettes. [From: 9to5Mac.com]
• Our friends at StreetLevel list off the 10 most outdated tech references. Jay-Z may be back, but Hova's 'Motorola two-way page me' line still makes geeks cringe. [From: StreetLevel]
• Animated GIFs have come a long way since the glory days of the '90s when they were plastered all over the Web, exclaiming "Under Construction." Urlesque rounds up eight blogs dedicated to the art of silent animation. [From: Urlesque]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: World's Creepiest Robots, Apple Opens Louvre Store originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Our friends over at TUAW visited the New York offices of Freeverse, creators of popular Mac games like 'Skee-ball' and 'Burning Monkey Solitaire,' to talk about gaming development on the iPhone and iPod touch. [From: TUAW]
• You save the cash, do the research, drive over to the store and are stumped by the perennial, "Do you want to buy the extended warranty?" Here are some things to consider before throwing down an extra hundred (or more) on something you might not even need. [From: CNN]
• Facebook might be great for sharing images and video, but it's nearly impossible to download movies your friends have uploaded. Here's how to rip those videos (so you can auto-tune your friend's new cat, right?) in just a few easy steps. [From: Zeropaid]
• Forget rockets. NASA's latest race beyond the Earth's atmosphere finds competitors building Space Elevators. [From: ABC News]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: TUAW Talks iPhone Gaming, Ripping Facebook Video originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Our galaxy's first space hotel, spearheaded by a Barcelona company, is slated for launch in 2012. Better start saving now; a three-day stay (complete with two-month training course) will run you $4.4 million. [From: Gadling]
• In need of some Google trivia? Like who the first company was, or how many servers the search behemoth has? This list should keep you busy. [From: Neatorama]
• While using multiple browsers would seem to introduce even more clutter to your daily work flow, some site-specific browsers, such as Fluid, are extremely useful. DownloadSquad highlights 10 Web apps you should be running independently of your usual browser of choice. [From: DownloadSquad]
• Last weekend, the European Space Agency successfully put a flood-predicting satellite into orbit around the Earth. [From: Engadget]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Space Hotel in 2012, Google Trivia originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Animal-Inspired Tech, Know Your GPS Device's Limits originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Google hopped on the 'Fail Whale' bandwagon with its animated 'down for maintenance' page (seen above). [From: Google Wave]
• In case you just can't get enough animated gifs and terribly designed pages, someone backed up 600,00 GeoCities sites before this week's shutdown. [From: DownloadSquad]
• Create a stop-motion movie with your iPhone with the new Timelapser app. [From: CNET]
• The Internet is getting its grubby hands in everything, so it's no surprise that it's changing Halloween. [From: The Telegraph]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Google's 'Fail Whale,' Saving Geocities originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Legendary film director Martin Scorsese recaps his top 11 favorite scary movies of all time. Find out if 'Psycho' makes the list. [From: The Daily Beast]
• Google offers up some Gmail security tips on the Official Gmail blog. Even though malware attacks are reaching new heights, a few simple tips can keep you safe. [From: The Official Gmail Blog]
• The Growl alert utility (Mac only) is essential for keeping track of the flood of e-mails, downloads, and countless things that flood our computers every day. DownloadSquad recaps 10 Growl styles for a makeover. [From: DownloadSquad]
• Keeping calendars synced is harder than ever with events strewn across Google, iCal, Exchange, Facebook, and more. Mark two off the list with this guide to syncing your Facebook events with Google calendar. [From: Unplggd]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Scorsese's Favorite Horror Films, Gmail Safety originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• The city of Toulouse, France is installing street lamps activated by human body heat in order to cut power consumption and light pollution. [From: PSFK]
• Bob Dylan GPS voice quotes: "Don't think twice, bear right." More at McSweeney's. [From: McSweeney's]
• Take a break from filling out spreadsheets with 'Small Worlds,' an elegant flash game that finds you exploring an unknown terrain. The game begins zoomed in on your avatar, and expands out as you jump around, revealing the places you've been. [From: JayIsGames]
• Get some extra juice for your iPhone/iPod with the Monoprice battery backup, priced $14.50. [From: TUAW]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Bob Dylan GPS Directions, Body Heat Streetlamps originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• An Excelsior Dawes military hovercraft, perfect for transporting hundreds of your friends, is on the market from Portland Yacht Sales. The price? A smooth $65 million. [From: DVICE]
• Feeding the need for even more ways of communicating, Mozilla today released Raindrop, a new messaging service residing in the blurry area between instant messaging and e-mail. [From: Raindrop via: DownloadSquad]
• Tim Berners-Lee, so-called "Father of the Web," has finally joined Twitter, but he doesn't seem to be getting any respect -- he only has 5,000 followers [From: Twitter via: Mashable]
• This collection of images will help you end nerd debates like, "Is Godzilla Larger than Mr. Stay Puft?" or "How many TIE Fighters would fit in the space station from '2001.'" [From: io9]
• Need to free up some room on your Mac but don't know what could be taking up all that space? Find those long lost MP3s and videos you've been squirreling away with OmniDiskSweeper. [From: TUAW]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Mozilla's 'Raindrop' Messaging, $65M Hovercraft Sale originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Today is International Caps lock day, SO IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO SEND A COUPLE INFORMATIVE EMAILS TO FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND COWORKERS. [From: BuzzFeed]
• Here's what is believed to be the first video filmed from an airplane, way back in 1909. [From: Europa Film Treasures via: Kottke]
• The latest 'Tetris' mashup making rounds sees a modernist building created from 'Tetris'-style apartments. [From: Likecool]
• XKCD, a wildly popular (and nerdy) Web comic, gets animated in this lovingly crafted tribute video. [From: BuzzFeed]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: International Caps Lock Day, First Film from a Plane originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Laptops seem to get old faster than ever these days, but you can extend their lives into three, four, or even five productive years. Keep your hardware clean, upgrade the memory, and, if all hope is lost, prep your data for transferring to a new computer. [NY Times]
• A new study from Scientific American suggests getting the answer to something wrong is better, mentally, than answering correctly. Think twice about Googling during class. [From: Lifehacker]
• Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently told the AP, "Let's face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone." You can hear Mac fans worldwide building themselves into a rage. [From: BusinessInsider]
• Literature and video games may be more similar than you think. 10 Similarities between 'Grand Theft Auto' and Thomas Pynchon's 'Inherent Vice.' [From: Time]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Extend Your Laptop's Life, Is Googling Always Wise? originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Although most people hit by the recent Sidekick data loss debacle were able to recover their contacts, you may be a bit less trusting of the cloud. Wired writes on how to backup your Gmail account. [From: Wired]
• Slate examines how Shazam, the music identification app, can listen to a tune and spit out the song that is playing. [From: Slate]
• The iPhone and iPod touch now sync with the latest version DoubleTwist, a cross-platform media player that's an alternative to iTunes. [From: DownloadSquad]
• The original Carl Sagan autotune has been on repeat here for the past few weeks, and the follow up, featuring science legends Bill Nye and Richard Feynman, confirms that this is one of the best Web series of 2009. [From: Gizmodo]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Backup Your Gmail Account, How Shazam Works originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• The Telegraph rounds up the 50 most annoying things on the Internet. Smart enough to include the inescapable list itself, this, uh, list nails all those things we love to hate, including social media gurus, fake viral videos, and videos that automatically begin playing. [From: Telegraph]
• Watching the rush of "good morning" tweets flooding into Twitter gets old after a minute or two. Fortunately, someone has mapped all those tweets onto an animated globe, letting you watch the world wake up and start tweeting. [From: Vimeo]
• McSweeney's Internet Tendency asks you to identify: YouTube comment or e.e. cummings. Good luck. [From: McSweeney's Internet Tendency]
• You've seen Ben Heck's PS3 Slim laptop, the one-handed Xbox 360 controller, and portable Nintendo 64. Now, watch as Heck repurposes and hacks together old game systems on the latest episode of The Engadget Show. [From: Engadget]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Web's Most Annoying Things, Twitter Good Mornings originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Apple gets a lot of credit for its iconic white earbud, but the Cupertino company wasn't first. White buds started popping up with transistor radios over four decades ago. [From: Wired]
• Retro Nintendo Entertainment System mods keep coming. This time, it's a NES Guitar. [From: walyou]
• Jay-Z's 'Empire State of Mind' has been playing nonstop around the Switched offices lately, so you can imagine our joy when we stumbled on a Google Maps mashup of the song. [From: Google Maps]
• This huge compilation of Nokia phones since 1982 reinforces just how far phone design has come in the past three decades. [From: Geekster]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Origin of White Earbuds, Retro NES Guitar originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Be the envy of your neighborhood by making your own glowing LED skeleton flamingo for Halloween. [From: Unplggd]
• Is the much-heralded death of e-mail and accompanying rise of always-on social networks leading to "the eternal conference call?" [From: Nicholas Carr's Rough Type]
• Dezeen takes a photo tour of Facebook's new southern California headquarters, designed by Studio O+A. [From: dezeen]
• If you're in New York on October 22nd, grab a ticket to the second Engadget Show taping, featuring special guest Steve Ballmer. [From: Engadget]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: LED Skeleton Flamingo, Facebook's New HQ originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• With Voyager, Pioneer, Cassini, Galileo and countless other Earth-launched satellites, we've explored quite a bit of our own solar system and beyond. Here's a giant poster-like image that helps to visualize where we've gone. [From: Stevey]
• Way back in the early '90s, we spent countless hours in front of our Macs playing the classic puzzle game, 'Lemmings.' Here's a complete history of the game, complete with a photo of the original disk the game was saved on. [From: The DMA History Site]
• Remember how Sonic the Hedgehog eventually started tapping his foot if you left the Genesis controller alone for too long? Designer Freddie Yauner took a similar idea and applied it to the emergency exit sign -- the man comes to life if nobody is in the room (detected by a motion sensor). [From: Dezeen]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Visualizing Space Exploration, 'History of Lemmings' originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Today, Adobe announced a free iPhone app version of Photoshop, capable of cropping, editing, and filtering images. Search for "Photoshop mobile" and you'll find it in the App Store. [From: CNET]
• Yes, coffee lovers revel in the art of brewing their caffeinated fix, but some mornings are tougher than others. Fortunately, someone has built a voice-activated coffee maker. [From: Gizmodo]
• Pump up your productivity with TUAW's guide to Mac power tools. Outfit yourself with the best in e-mail, task management, password, and writing applications. [From: TUAW]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Photoshop on iPhone, Voice-Activated Coffee Pot originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• MapQuest today announced a new GPS navigation app for iPhone users, and $0.99 gets you a 14-day trial. [From: TUAW]
  
• Mac-to-PC file sharing still isn't as easy as it should be, and it's 2009. Fortunately, Unplggd has a detailed tutorial on setting up sharing between OS X and Windows. [From: Unplggd]
• Whether you're on vacation or business, keep your camera nearby as twilight rolls around in the big city. Gadling has a must-read guide to capturing gorgeous silhouettes, panoramas, and more in urban areas after sunset. [From: Gadling]
• Telecommuters, especially of the blogging type, are a special breed. You'll often spot them chugging coffee and obsessing over the gadgets versatile enough to make it into the laptop bag. Trendhunter lists 50 essential portable peripherals. [From: Trendhunter]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Mapquest Launches GPS iPhone App, Mac-to-PC Sharing originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• All those camera flashes popping off at giant sports events might look cool in the heat of the sporting moment, but there's almost no chance any of those pictures will actually turn out. Gizmodo takes an in-depth look on when you should use flash and when you're best served turning it off. [From: Gizmodo]
• CEATEC 2009 (check out our coverage here) is in full swing and the exhibition halls are full of robots. Check out the best, including the creepy HRP-4C singing robot and the ALSOK Guard bot, over at Huffington Post. [From: HuffingtonPost]
• Stateside fans of British television have it pretty tough with their British counterparts having access to BBC's iPlayer, which features a huge selection of content. We've been locked out of iPlayer access here in the U.S., but PaidContent writes that 'The Beeb' is working on launching a global version of the software. [From: PaidContent Via: DownloadSquad]
• Single-serving blogs take one extremely specific topic -- , for example -- and cover it obsessively. Our newest favorite is 'Awesome YouTube Comments,' which is exactly [From: Awesome YouTube Comments]
  

Filed under: Columns

Best of the Rest: When to Use Camera Flash, CEATEC's Best Robots originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• The Huffington Post asked tech moguls like Craigslist's Craig Newmark, Twitter's Biz Stone, and Yelp's Jeremy Stoppelman how they unplug. Turns out there's a lot of old school reading going on. [From: HuffingtonPost]
• Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will be taking the stage as special guest at the second Engadget Show taping, on October 22nd. [From: Engadget]
• There's one thing cell phone users constantly worry about: battery life. Whether you've got an iPhone, Palm Pre, BlackBerry, Android phone or Windows Mobile device, Lifehacker's got you covered with a comprehensive guide to keeping your smartphone battery running long [From: Lifehacker].
• Our friends at TUAW have a very special unboxing: an Apple job offer. [From: TUAW]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: How Craig Newmark Unplugs, Unboxing an Apple Job originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• An high definition TV standard was already around in France way back in the late '40s, but the format never took off. Fortunately, the early HDTVs still exist (albeit without HDMI inputs), and a Teleavia type P111 recently sold for over $3800 in an auction. [From: Gizmodo]
• Odds are high that you'll find some pretty bizarre stuff after spending a few hours on Craigslist in search of an apartment. LovelyListing highlights the weirdest finds on the Web's real estate listings. [From: LovelyListing]
• Apple's track record lately has been pretty good lately with the iPhone, iPod, and MacBook lines, but a glance backwards reveals some of the company's epic failures. There's probably a reason you don't remember the Pippin game system or Apple iii. [oobject]
• Our friends at StreetLevel take a look at 'Beaterator,' the new video game project from Rockstar Games and Timbaland. Read on to see if this portable production studio, out now on PSP and the PlayStation network (an iPhone app is coming by the end of the year), holds up. [From: StreetLevel]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: HDTVs from the '50s, Weird Web Classified Finds originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• National Geographic photographers rigged up a crazy multi-camera contraption to capture the scale and sheer size of a 300-foot tall redwood tree for the October issue. Don't miss the 'how-to' video. [From: Engadget]
• BlackBerry Desktop Software is finally available for download on the Mac (10.5.5 or better). The RIM-developed software brings calendar, contact, and music syncing to your Mac. [From: TUAW]
• Google's rollout of 100,000 Wave accounts yesterday pushed hype for the do-everything service higher than ever, but most people still have no idea exactly what it does. This two minute video will get you much closer to understanding it than an hour of reading Wave invite requests on Twitter. [From: Lifehacker]
• Classics majors just lucked out. Facebook now supports Latin, so if you're accused of wasting time on the 'book, you can now say you were studying. [From: Mashable]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: Shooting Redwood Trees, BlackBerry Desktop for Mac originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Turns out IBM's ThinkPad wasn't just a dorky name thought up by a marketing team. The popular laptop line was named after a leather-bound pad of paper embossed with 'THINK.' [From: A Continuous Lean]
• Bookseller Borders is teaming up with Verizon to offer free Wi-Fi at stores nationwide. [From: Borders]
• 'Using the Internet to Get Off the Internet' may seem a bit counterproductive, but after a 50+ hours a week in front of the Web, anything can seem like a good idea. In our experience, a quick search at event listings, Google Maps, or Yelp! is usually enough to send us down a four hour time-sucking Web wormhole. [From: Mediaite]
• Two glorious days of high definition sporting are less than 48 hours away. EngadgetHD has the must-watch HD sports for the week. [From: EngadgetHD]

Filed under: Editor's Picks

Best of the Rest: History of the 'ThinkPad', Borders Offers Free Wi-Fi originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• The Web can give you a legal trip. Check out the Neave Strobe, the craziest, vision-altering optical illusion we've seen in months. [From: Neave Strobe]
  
• Life Magazine dives into its archives to find 30 of the dumbest inventions of the past century. Highlights included a curved barrel machine gun, portable sauna, baby cage, and motorized surfboard. Illuminated tires, on the other hand, should be on the list of 30 inventions that should have been popular. [From: Life]
• Resigned to the fact that you probably won't be part of the initial 100,000 invites Google is sending out to its latest Wave service, which combines everything from IM and e-mail to photo-sharing and everything else? Tend those wounds with Engadget's in-depth hands on. [From: Engadget]
• Seeing "Rube Goldberg" is usually enough to get us clicking, and this video of a breakfast machine invention,

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Best of the Rest: Trippy Optical Illusion, Century of Dumb Inventions originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Turns out someone has built a robot that can sort pancakes. The pogo-stick-like 'bot can sort over 400 per minute. [From: Kottke]
• Monocopters are flying machines with single rotating airfoils that function much like spinning seed pods. Lockheed Martin has created a remote control monocopter as part of its SAMARAI project. Don't miss the video. [From: Geekologie]
• Google is finally opening up its Wave service to a wider test group tomorrow. If you signed up months ago, keep your fingers crossed to be one of the 100,000 lucky users given access. [From: Google Wave]
• Night photography doesn't have to mean blurry, underexposed pics. Improve your snaps with these six simple tips. [From: Digital Photography Blog]

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Best of the Rest: Pancake-Sorting Robot, Google Opens Up Wave originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Gadget teardowns are all the rage these days, as geeks expose the guts of everything from the iPhone 3GS to the PSP Go. Pictured above are the innards of a classic Nintendo Gameboy. [From: BoingBoing Gadgets]
• Making the jump to Linux usually requires a certain level of geekdom, so most users tend not to try out the open source system. Here's 10 ways to check out the OS without ever having to leave Windows. [From: DownloadSquad]
• The lush green hills of the Windows default desktop and the galaxy background of Mac OS X can get stale after a while. Brighten up your daily computing with these awesome Super Mario desktop wallpapers. [From: Sherenator]
• "Man's Facebook Status Given Book Deal." [From: The Onion]

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Best of the Rest: Gameboy Guts, Worry-Free Linux Trials originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Streetwear company Ecko Unlimited just released a Master Chief hoodie for all you 'Halo' fans out there. With a shoulder patch that reads, "NOOBS GET PWN3D," it'll be a cinch to go stealth. [From: StreetLevel]
• Our friends over at Joystiq interviewed Trent Reznor, the force behind Nine Inch Nails. The industrial rocker talks about his love of classic arcade games, his back and forth relationship with 'Rock Band,' and Mario -- yes, that Mario -- being "too bourgeois." [From: Joystiq]
• Get some workspace inspiration from the workplaces of nine famous workers. Tina Fey opts for the cluttered route, while former VP Al Gore uses three Apple Cinema Displays to get things done. [From: Lifehacker]

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Best of the Rest: Ecko's 'Halo' Hoodie, Trent Reznor Talks Video Games originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Sure, auto-tune mixes are flooding the tubes these days (and are hardly worth a tweet), but this hypnotic auto-tune remix of astronomer Carl Sagan (feat. Stephen Hawking) and his historic 'Cosmos' series will keep you entertained for hours. [From: BuzzFeed]
• Take a break from the hyper-fast paced world of the Web with this online guide to origami folding. [From: GeekSugar]
• Over wonder how those giant LED screens in Times Square work? Our friends at Engadget investigate the industrial-strength tech behind the massive animated displays. [From: Engadget]
• The groundbreaking computer graphics featured in 'Star Wars: A New Hope' were created at the Electronic Visualization Lab back in the '70s. Creator Larry Cuba explains in this vintage vid how the 3-D Death Star, X-Wing trench graphics, and more were created. [From: YouTube]

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Best of the Rest: Auto-tuned 'Cosmos,' Online Guide to Origami originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• 3-D is inexplicably the rage again in movies, and if the Hollywood Reporter is right, we'll be seeing 'Titanic,' 'Terminator,' and 'Star Wars' in theaters in the coming years. [From: Hollywood Reporter/Reuters]
• The leaders in the Twitter community gathered this week in Los Angeles for the 140: Twitter Conference. Co-founder Biz Stone said the micro-blogging site will stay ad-free until at least 2010. [From: Reuters]
• Last year, Google launched the Life Photo Archive, bringing some of the past century's most iconic images to the Web. Now, Google Books is featuring over 1,800 full (and searchable) issues of Life Magazine. Read about everything from the Apollo 11 team to The Beatles. [From: paidContent]
• Although Microsoft has been in the mobile space for years with its Windows Mobile OS, the Redmond-based company hasn't done much with hardware. Gizmodo recently posted what appears to be a new Microsoft phone, rumored to be part of the company's 'Project Pink' plan to create a cell phone for "regular people." [From: Gizmodo, via Engadget]
• Remember the hype over Facebook vanity URLs from several months ago? Now, you can use your vanity url name to log in to the 'book, saving you from the strenuous task of typing in your full e-mail address and getting you to your all-important quizzes a millisecond faster. [From: DownloadSquad]

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'Titanic' and 'Star Wars' Going 3-D, No Ads on Twitter in 2009 originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Sure, the Kindle has been upgraded several times since its original release, but if Amazon really wants to redefine publishing forever, it should release a 'Trapper Kindle' model. [From: Core77]
• A new report suggests getting retweets can be more science than art. Pump up your Twitter cred by using bit.ly (for shortening URLs) and avoiding semicolons at all cost. [From: FastCompany]
• User experience designers teehan+Lax reimagine the iPhone home screen to display everything in your digital life at a glance (e.g. calendar events, messages, weather). [From: teehan Lax via Matthew Buchanan]
• Robots have come a long way since those days of welding car parts together. Here are five robots designed to save your life. [From: DVICE]

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Best of the Rest: 'Trapper Kindle,' 9 Ways to Twitter Cred originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Google just announced Picasa 3.5, the latest version of the popular photo editing software. The update brings face recognition tagging. [From: GeekSugar]
• Innovation in building materials and design has enabled architects to move far beyond those ol' columns and walls. Don't miss these 80 strange and fascinating buildings. [From: Urlesque]
• Face it, computer mods involving 'Star Wars' and video games will never end. The latest absurd mashup involves an R2-D2 unit and eight video game consoles. [From: DVICE]

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Best of the Rest: Google Updates Picasa, Fantastic Architecture originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• The early days of digital music, marked by awful low bit-rate rips, still haunts recent memory. Unfortunately, most people are still ripping with their computer's default settings, so save your ears by transferring old CDs and vinyl to glorious digital audio with Gizmodo's handy guide. [Gizmodo]
• Ground-breaking musician and producer Brian Eno is back with another iPhone app. Eno explains that 'Air,' priced at $2, lets you create endless versions of his ambient masterpiece 'Music for Airports.' [From: DownloadSquad]
• Save your beach-balling computer by starting with the simplest solution: Restarting, quitting unused apps, and installing the latest software update will usually fix your computer woes. [From: creativebits Via: TUAW]
  
• Get your daily historical tech fix from Wired's excellent 'This Day in Tech' blog. [From: Geeksugar via: This Day in Tech]

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Best of the Rest: Correctly Rip Your CDs, Brian Eno's 'Air' iPhone App originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Just because Fashion Week is over doesn't mean we can't enjoy 'Super Mario'-inspired evening wear, designed by crafster member montyfull. [From: Geekologie]
• Hacking has been around for longer than most of our readers have been born. Don't miss this history of hacking infographic, tracing the last five decades. [From: Focus]
  
• Be thankful you don't have any of Cracked's list of the 5 worst computers of all time. [From: Cracked]
• You've got to find someplace for inspiration for your next Photoshop masterpiece, so check out the Internet Archaeology site, which has the gif gems and odes to Microsoft Paint. [From: Internet Archaeology]

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Best of the Rest: Dress Up With 'Super Mario,' History of Hacking originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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