friday

Computer vendor Systemax is bringing CompUSA back to life, and now it looks like it might be doing the same for Circuit City. The company bought the intellectual property and domain name this week.

The two might rise as separate chains, but we wouldn't be surprised if they end up as some sort of mashup, a Frankenstein-like monster of retailers.

But why stop there? We can think of a few more franchises Systemax could add to its unholy abomination of shops to round out its offerings to customers. What should it be? Vote in our poll. And if we … Read more

A couple of days ago, Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, said, in essence, that Netbooks--one of the fastest-growing tech markets in the world right now--are for kids. Which is to say the mini-laptops are not for adults. We, of course, politely disagree.

But now we must wonder: what tech is for grown-ups? What are we expected to use if not Netbooks without drawing snickers from Intel? If we missed anything, please let us know in the TalkBack section below.

AT&T had an outage yesterday morning in the bay area due to fiber-optical cables being cut. This didn't just affect landlines, but cell phones as well. Rafe describes the dangers hackers would face in trying to cut those cables. We also estimate the distance to New York as 12 worms, and give a plus-five Holy Avenger sword salute to Dave Arneson.

AT&T was vandalized in the Bay Area? http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26715

AT&T uses Twitter … Read more

In observance of Good Friday, a New York church has been Twittering the story of the Passion--the biblical tale of the hours leading up to Jesus' crucifixion. This means that subscribers will receive 140-character updates coming from a set of Twitter accounts run by people playing characters in the story.

Trinity Wall Street is an Episcopal church in Manhattan's Financial District that live-streams its services on the Web, encourages members of the congregation to send video e-postcards to friends and family, and produces its own podcasts. The church's thinking behind offering a Twitter feed of the Passion … Read more

A large number--if not the majority--of the phones we saw at this year's CTIA trade show in Vegas featured some sort of QWERTY keyboard instead of (or in addition to) the traditional T9 numeric keypad most phones have had for years. The HTC Snap and Samsung Impression pictured are just two examples of QWERTY phones.

We think QWERTY might replace T9 entirely within just a few years. As T9 fades into memory and QWERTY becomes the default, a few things might happen. What do you expect to see?

As always, if we missed anything, be sure to let us … Read more

This week at GDC 09, we learned about OnLive, a new "cloud"-based on-demand video game and entertainment service. It promises high-quality streaming of first-run major publisher games to many Macs and PCs, and it could threaten the traditional console model for gamers that Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have built their game businesses around.

The companies have definitely taken notice, but what are they saying behind closed doors? Which of these responses would you most like to hear from the gaming behemoths?

The idea of a "Star Trek"-themed line of fragrances is entertaining, but will people actually wear the stuff? And if so, where would they wear it for maximum effect?

In a blog entry that went up earlier Friday, fellow Crave writer Eric Franklin suggests it'd be great for guys looking to find that special someone at a "Star Trek" convention. But those (sadly) don't happen every weekend. And they're not really the best place to find lovin'.

Ladies of the Internet, please tell a single nerd like me where I could find … Read more

This week Apple quietly released a new, redesigned version of the iPod Shuffle, and for the most part, we don't like it.

The previous version was great. It was small, usable, and cheap. Apple retained the small and cheap aspects but made, well, a nub. We're not even sure where you're supposed to put the thing, and we know we'd lose it the first day out. So the question is: why did Apple do the Shuffle that way?

The halls of Crave were a-bustle this week, with Demo 09, the Photo Marketing Association trade show, Sony line show, and CeBit all going on at once. And that's not even counting Apple's hardware refresh or Friday's premiere of the "Watchmen" movie (an event that has a few of our geekiest Cravers on the verge of apoplexy).

We understand if you're a tad dizzy from trying to take in all the posts that filled our pages, but once you've regained your balance, let us know: which happening most appealed to your geek sensibilities … Read more