trip

Daily Tidbits: Carpool to President-elect Obama's inauguration

TripVerde, a company that provides online carpooling services in an attempt to reduce U.S. vehicle mileage by 3 percent to 5 percent in three years, announced Monday that it has launched a new site to connect those people who plan on traveling to Washington, D.C., for President-elect Obama's inauguration in January. According to the company, it will pair up like-minded people from the same region to carpool to the event. In order to be considered, visitors need to sign up for TripVerde's service and fill out information about themselves. Once complete, TripVerde will find individuals with … Read more

Open-source companies crashing en masse? Puh-lease!

Remember Trip Chowdhry, the analyst with Global Equities Research? He's the guy who said that Red Hat is rubbish, and that the entire LAMP stack is potty, too. He said this a year ago, and Red Hat has delivered three solid quarters of growth and profitability since then.

Given how far off Chowdhry was then, it's perhaps no surprise that he's now claiming that "'almost every VC funded open-source company is struggling and will run out of funds within the next six months," as reported in Barrons.

To be fair, Chowdhry doesn't stop with … Read more

Cut road trips in half with MeetWays

It's a 3-day weekend for some of us (thanks Columbus!), and oil is now under $80 a barrel. In other words, it's the perfect time for a road trip. If you're thinking about organizing an impromptu meet-up with far away friends, organizing a Craigslist buy, or just need to find a fair location for a child custody swap, you should check out MeetWays, a service that helps you find the a perfect mid-point.

Setting up a trip is very simple, you just plug in your address and the other person's and it picks the nearest freeway … Read more

CostToDrive estimates gas costs for road trips

The other day I picked up a rental car while visiting Los Angeles. In just a few days it ended up costing me well over the price of gas it would have taken to drive my own car there and back. A smart tool called CostToDrive would have helped me figure this out before I made the trip. It calculates how much a trip is going to cost you based on how far you're traveling, combined with the fuel efficiency of your car and average price of gas. Assuming you have to fill up when your tank is about … Read more

Griffin iTrip Universal does FM with USB

FM transmitters don't see a ton of traction on Crave, and for good reason. Strict regulations over broadcast power and frequency range have effectively stalled product innovation. The designs may change, but most of the new FM transmitters we see are just a rehash of last year's model.

Which is why we're happy to see Griffin's latest iTrip Universal, an FM transmitter with a rechargeable battery that uniquely aims to fill the void of FM transmitters designed for use beyond the car. Sure, the iTrip is as underpowered and interference-prone as any other FM transmitter, but … Read more

Viewing a space shuttle launch from high in the sky

One of the first things I did on my Road Trip 2008 project this summer was report on the landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

It was great to watch the shuttle land, but I was a bit disappointed I hadn't been able to make it to Cape Canaveral just a couple of weeks earlier to watch the launch.

Well, it turns out that all I would have needed to do to see the launch would have been to fly by. At least, that's how it seems, given a video that's … Read more

Paying off a $5 iPhone bet

Earlier this year, when I was preparing to head out on Road Trip 2008, my journey around the American South, I arranged for a loaner iPhone because I was curious how it would perform deep in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and the like.

Having watched friends and colleagues jump on the iPhone bandwagon, I was of course curious about the device, but given that I was still deep in my Verizon Wireless contract--due to whatever funny look I happened to give my phone that caused a re-up of the two-year contract--and because I already had an iPod and way more music … Read more

CNET Live - Episode 63

Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell from GeekBrief TV talk about how they got their start in podcasting and their plans for The Big Trip.

Watch the show soon on CNET TV.

Things we Crave

Robot crabs

UltraDock V4.

First Look

Brian Tong reports from E3.

Download of the Week

Truephone.

Quick Tip

30-second skip on TiVo

Best of the Web Bubble Comment Your calls

Nokia N81 reportedly will not work on T-Mobile's 3G network.

Crack open the iPod Nano.

CNET's list of the best network-attached storage.

How to downgrade from 2.0 to 1.1.4 firmware.

Vista … Read more

Post-mortem on Road Trip 2008 gadgets

TAMPA, Fla.--And so it ends.

After driving through nine Southern states and crossing innumerable borders, Road Trip 2008 has come to an end.

What began in Orlando, Fla., ended 4,593 miles later here in Tampa. Along the way, the trip has taken me to a Space Shuttle landing, to the Corvette factory, to watch the Blue Angels practice at their home base, to being banned from Graceland, and much, much more.

Through it all I carried with me thousands of dollars worth of tech gear, aiming to road test it all. The list of gadgets included some of … Read more