Tech Culture- Page 4

Decades later, Luke Skywalker's 'Star Wars' home stands

Any fan of "Star Wars" will immediately recognize the Lars Homestead, where Luke Skywalker grew up. But they may not realize that the sets used to film those scenes in the 1970s were left essentially untouched after George Lucas and his crew departed Tunisia.

Thanks to Laughing Squid, I stumbled across the beautiful and haunting photographs by visual artist Ra di Martino, who visited the location in Chott el Gharsa, Tunisia, where Lucas filmed those scenes, and captured their decrepit state years later.

Of course, there are a lot of people who want to keep the Lars Homestead … Read more

Three centuries of geek-milestone devices in one epic auction

Attention early adopters: That first-edition Google Glass hardware is likely to be gathering dust a few years from now as the technology gets seriously revved (or falls victim to paranoid lawmakers and pub owners), but don't toss it out!

If an auction later this month of computing and other technological blasts from the past is any indication, it could pay off to hold on to those obsolete gadgets that were once on the cutting edge, even just briefly.

The highlight of the sale, planned for May 25 by German auction house Breker, is an original, working Apple-1, one of only 200 that were produced and 50 that are believed to still exist. Last year, Sotheby's auctioned off just an original Apple-1 motherboard for $374,500.… Read more

3D-printed designer shoe contains working iPhone

If you don't have a bag, pocket, or anywhere to stow that iPhone, how about kicking it around on your heels?

The iPhone Mashup Shoe was created by Alan Nguyen of Freedom of Creation, a 3D-printing house in Amsterdam.

The shoe was designed around iPhone cases from 3D-printed accessories site FreshFiber. You can see the cases in the base of the heel. … Read more

GamePop looks to play in Ouya's sandbox

If you're BlueStacks, the startup that figured out how to bring Android apps to Windows and Macs with its eponymous app player, the next logical step is to upend the mobile gaming market with a console and subscription service called GamePop, the company announced Thursday.

As CNET reported at CES 2013, GamePop is BlueStacks' Android-powered console that lets you not only play Android games on your TV, but also lets you use your phone or tablet as the controller.

GamePop preorders are available immediately at GamePop.tv, with consoles shipping this winter. As of today, the console ships with … Read more

Ouya game console launch delayed until June 25

People eyeing the Ouya game console will have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on one.

The maker of the small Android-based console said Thursday that the product won't reach the consumer market until June 25, three weeks after the initial launch date of June 4. The decision to delay the launch was based on high demand at the retail level, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman revealed in the following statement sent to CNET:

We've had incredibly positive reactions from our retailer partners. So, in order to meet greater-than-expected demand, we decided to shift our launch … Read more

When 'Star Trek' stars play product pitchman

If Starfleet Academy has a Marketing 101 class, these commercials must surely be on the syllabus.

Twice in recent days, Earth's ad agencies have dispatched officers of the "Star Trek" franchise on missions not to seek out new worlds, but to sell new products.

First came a video clip from PC maker Acer using clips from the imminent "Star Trek Into Darkness," docking soon in a movie theater near you, to pump up the excitement for its new flagship Aspire R7.

Then Audi flew into view with a two-minute Spock vs. Spock spiel for its … Read more

Social media self-promotion: The urge, the ick, the outcome

"My agent just sent my book to publishers! Fingers crossed!" That's the status message I just stopped myself from writing on Facebook.

It took all the willpower I've ever had.

In fact, I'm now eating a block of cheese because focusing so hard on not updating Facebook with that status has depleted my willpower reserves. My diet is left defenseless.

I'm 29, and I'm working hard to make a living, to produce something I am proud of, to pay the rent, to scrape some savings together, to make time for love, to eat … Read more

Syria back online after latest Internet outage

Syria is back online after an Internet outage cut it off from the rest of the online world on Tuesday.

Internet monitoring company Renesys updated its latest blog post on Wednesday, saying that "Syrian Internet has returned." The outage itself lasted 19.5 hours from Tuesday to Wednesday.

A new graph tweeted by content delivery network Akamai shows a huge spike in traffic to Syria, indicating that the Internet is flowing once again.

Syria Digital Reports earlier confirmed the news by tweeting that it received reports that Internet connectivity was returning.

This latest outage marks the third time … Read more

Time Warner Cable promises major upgrade to Android app

Android users who employ the TWC TV application will soon have far more functionality available to them.

Time Warner Cable announced on Tuesday that the upgrade to its Android application will deliver access to more than 4,000 On Demand TV shows and movies. The app will also allow for out-of-home access to some On Demand programming and live TV viewing over a Wi-Fi connection. Time Warner Cable says mobile users will have access to over 1,100 On Demand shows and movies and live television from "a dozen or so" news, sports, and entertainment channels.

Time Warner … Read more

Ouya game device gets the teardown treatment

Ouya, the open-source game console that took the Kickstarter world by storm, has been ripped apart by the folks over at iFixit.

The Ouya device earned a score of 9 out of 10 from iFixit for its high repairability. The iFixit team was able to tear apart the gadget with ease, and found that it was packed with several important components, including two Samsung 4-gigabit SDRAM modules (for a total of 1 gigabyte), a Texas Instruments power management tool, and Nvidia's Tegra 3 multicore CPU.… Read more