That failed terrorist attack Friday might make international flights a whole lot less enjoyable. Passengers are reporting that new restrictions are in place, and their severity varies flight to flight. Among the reports: No electronics allowed.
Update: According to a tweet from industry analyst Charlene Li, here's the situation:
Passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same thing everywhere. Due to the busy holiday travel season, both domestic and international travelers should allot extra time for check-in."
Again, these are isolated incidents, and there's still no official word from TSA. But in certain instances, some passengers are reporting that electronics usage on inbound U.S. flights is restricted. We'll let you know if an official announcement comes.
The New York Times is reporting that no one will be able to move from their seats during the last hour of flight. That means no bathroom breaks, no accessing carry-on luggage, nothing. When that plane starts descending, you're planted.
Multiple sources, among them Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing, have also been told that no electronics are allowed on international flights. None. So you can't even play video games to distract yourself from how badly you have to pee.
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Amazon's second-generation Kindle
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)Amazon.com on Saturday released its annual post-Christmas statement on holiday sales, and made one thing clear: the Kindle was king, perhaps fueled by continued shifts in plans for shipments of Barnes & Noble's competing Nook e-reader.
"We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history," said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
In another milestone for the e-reader, the company noted that on Christmas Day, for the first time ever, Amazon customers bought more Kindle books than physical books. The company didn't offer specific numbers for either category.
The peak shopping day for the online retailer was December 14, when customers ordered more than 9.5 million items worldwide, "a record-breaking 110 items per second."
Among those items bought between November 15 and December 19, the top electronics, following the Kindle, were Apple's iPod Touch 8GB and the Garmin Nuvi 260W GPS.
CNET News Poll
In the video game category, ... Read more
Finally, it's time to get my gorgeous body back!
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)So Christmas, as awesome as it has always been, is now over, and you're wondering what to do next. Well, I don't have an answer to that. However, if you already know what to do but just wonder how to best do it and you happen to own an Android-based phone, then I have something for you.
It's an app that can be used for basically anything, called eHow from Demand Media, the owner of the popular eHow Web site.
The app basically puts all the functions of the Web site and more in your palm. I tried it out over Christmas and really loved it. I was able to quickly find recipes and step-by-step instructions for dozen of cocktails and meat pies, and now I believe have mastered the way to make tuna steaks.
Best of all, I was even able to record the process of making the food with the phone. The app has a function called "I did this" that allows you to upload your experience of getting the job done via text, images, or video to the eHow Web site, or you can e-mail that to friends to show off, which I did. (I didn't upload anything to the site as I didn't want to risk my self-proclaimed level of steak mastery being questioned.)
Apart from food and thousands of other daily chores that you might need help with, the app also offers advice on serious issues, such as how to lose weight or find love. I didn't try any of these out (yet) but if you have and were successful, please share your experience in the comments below.
According to Demand Media, eHow is now home to more than 1 million articles and videos, and a vast community that shares its experiences and provides real-life advice. You don't need to be a member to get the advice but if you want to share yours, an account can be created for free. And now with the eHow app, you can do that when you're on the go, literally from anywhere in the world.
The app, however, does require an Internet connection. It doesn't have any content built-in; it's just a front-end application that accesses the data directly from the eHow's Web site each time you look for an advice. I tried it with Verizon's 3G connection and the performance was decent. Most text and image items loaded instantly, but the videos took a few seconds to buffer before playing, which was to be expected.
The app seems to be a perfect fit for Android phone users now that the new year is coming and you'll probably need help achieving your resolutions. The eHow app is available at the Android Market app store and can be downloaded for free.
The app is not available for the iPhone for now, which is a good thing in a way, because if you really already have "an app for everything," you might not need an app that has everything in it.
It's best to use the router's Web interface to configure its settings. This is the Web interface of a router from D-Link.
(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)You finally received a wireless-N router as a Christmas present and are now ready to move on to the new and faster standard. (And even if you didn't, I would recommend that you go get one yourself.) Now that you have some relaxing time, let's go through the basics on wireless networking and how to generally set up your router like a pro.
Wireless-N router basics
The year 2009 is a very significant year for wireless networking as the N standard (or 802.11n, which offers speed up to 300Mbps and higher) was finally ratified in September after seven years of being in draft. However, chances are, your new router is still based on the latest revision of the draft N. As far as I know, there aren't any final N products on the market yet, though there will be soon.
Nonetheless, as long as has been certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, it's guaranteed to be interoperable with N products when they come out. Even if it's not certified, it's likely that it will still work, and all existing draft N wireless routers can be upgraded via firmware to be fully compliant with the final N.
As some of you might not know, routers are platform-agnostic. It doesn't matter if you run a PC or a Mac, your new router will work. In other words, if you just upgraded to Windows 7 and your router's says it's "Vista-ready," you will not need a new router. That kind of labeling is just for marketing purposes. All wireless routers work with all consumer operating systems.
Wireless-N is backward compatible with previous standards of wireless networking including wireless-G, which caps at 54Mbps and is currently popular in mobile devices like smartphones and Netbooks, and the now obsolete wireless-B standards. This means clients (computers, phones, handheld devices, etc.) that use the old standards can connect to a wireless-N router and vice versa; the wireless-N clients can also connect to a wireless-G routers.
However, the cap speed of a mixed connection is that of the slowest standard. Most wireless-N routers are capable of delivering the slower speeds to clients of old standards while maintaining the high-speed connection to N client at the same time. So upgrading your router to an N one will not require changing the adapters to your computers, unless you absolutely need the faster speed.
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(Credit:
Art Lebedev Studio)
The Fleximus is a twisty concept camera from Art Lebedev Studio, generator of such innovative ideas as transparent trucks and the Optimus Maximus keyboard.
(Credit:
Art Lebedev Studio)
The Fleximus is a tubular, flexible photo and video camera with a lens at one end and viewfinder or a 3-inch display at the other.
The device is designed to be as simple as possible, with few controls. Natch, since the motto of Art Lebedev Studio is "No bullsh--."
The Fleximus is also meant to get those photo angles you never could before, though it seems less practical than, say, a more compact camera you can simply aim at anything.
But it may be perfect for plumbers angling through pipes, nooks, and crannies--rovided, that is, it ever becomes a product and gets a much longer tube.
There is a neat page of designs showing how the Fleximus was created here.
(Credit:
Olive)
It's Christmas Eve, which means it's too late to take advantage of any online gift deals. But it's not too late to think about giving yourself a post-holiday treat. And Olive is here to help. The company is offering a free copy of the Beatles Remastered CD collection to anyone who purchases an Olive 4 or Olive 4 HD digital music server. Yes, at $1,500 to $2,000, this is no impulse buy, but if you're in the market for a high-end digital music server, having the Beatles CDs (a $200 value) thrown in for free just might get you to take the plunge. (We liked the previous Olive product we reviewed back in 2006, and we'll be reviewing the Olive 4 in January.)
The deal runs until December 28. Check it out here, and be sure to read the terms and conditions as well.
Customers who placed early orders for Barnes & Noble's Nook e-readers will get them in time for Christmas, the company said Wednesday, despite its statements to the contrary a few days ago.
Barnes & Noble: "Just kidding on that latest delay."
(Credit: Barnes & Noble)Got whiplash yet?
On Friday, the retailer told some customers by e-mail that it aimed to get the device to customers by Thursday, Christmas Eve. Those who did not get the gadget in time would get an e-mail notification on Wednesday with a $100 Barnes & Noble online gift certificate, the company said.
It appears those gift certificates won't be showing up in in-boxes, however, as the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that all B&N's Nook shipping orders will in fact be fulfilled. "We're pleased to tell our customers today that we're shipping out all our orders in time," Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, told the paper.
Various shifts in plans have plagued the Nook since B&N officially entered the burgeoning e-reader market in late October. At that point, customers placing early preorders were told they could expect the Nook to ship by the end of November.
In November, however, the bookseller pushed that date back, telling preorder customers they could expect shipment by December 11. The company declined to say how many e-readers had been preordered.
Then, later in November 20, B&N announced on its Web site that its e-reader, a challenger to Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader, is officially sold out through 2009 and customers ordering after that date wouldn't receive the device until January 4.
(Credit:
Device Daily)
Thanks to Saygus, a small firm that specializes in video-calling software, Verizon will be the first to carry a two-way video-conferencing phone complete with a large touch screen, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and a 3D accelerometer.
They're calling it the VPhone, which may outshine its brother, the Droid, and its rival, the iPhone.
VPhone will be the first mobile device approved through Verizon's Open Development initiative, a program that encourages developers to build technologies to run on Verizon's network. So far, the company has only approved nonconsumer products.
Utah-based Saygus walked away with the Best of Innovations award in the wireless handsets category at the 2010 Design and Engineering Awards on November 10.
And it was deserved. Besides two-way video calls at 24 to 30 frames per second, the phone can serve as a wireless access point for up to eight devices. There's also a rear-facing camera with flash and a 5-megapixel lens, FM radio, and compass. Just for kicks.
Unfortunately, you won't find the VPhone in ... Read more
A not-so-merry holiday gift for Amazon.com: hackers say they've successfully cracked copyright protections on the company's Kindle e-reader, making it possible to export e-books to other devices.
One hack reportedly resulted from a Kindle DRM challenge issued on Israeli forum Hacking.org. On that site, an Israeli hacker known as Labba claims to have created a tool that lets e-books stored on the Kindle be transferred as PDF files.
A U.S. hacker has written a program to crack copyright protections on the Kindle for PC application.
(Credit: Amazon)A U.S. hacker who goes by the name "i♥cabbages," meanwhile, created a program called Unswindle that promises to convert books stored in the Kindle for PC application into a different file format.
The free Kindle for PC app lets book buyers read their books right from their PCs without having to buy a Kindle reader. Unswindle has to be used in conjunction with MobiDeDRM, a program by another hacker named "darkreverser."
Posters on i♥cabbages' blog give Unswindle mixed reviews, ranging from "works like a charm" and "worked flawlessly" to descriptions of various errors.
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(Credit:
Nobil)
Portable battery banks may be common these days, but the Juice charger deserves mention for being really pretty.
Made by a Japanese company called Nobil, this product's internal battery can be recharged through the wall socket prongs cleverly hidden in its body. It can then be used to charge any device that draws power from a USB port--just think of it as recharging using your home PC, less the PC. Furthermore, two AAA- or AA-size batteries fit on its sides so those can be recharged on the go, too.
The company describes it as an "ingenious portable charger," which is a bit of a boast. We think it should play on the aesthetics instead as most similar products are really bulky and ugly compared with the Juice.
Nobil's Web site says the product will go on sale in March, though we're not exactly sure where. Contact the company directly for more information on availability.
(Source: Crave Asia via Buzz Beast)
