candy

Real estate search and resource service Trulia has a new tool built by the guys at Stamen Design called Snapshot. It's built off of Microsoft Virtual Earth and shows off little clusters of homes all over a 2D map. It's been pitched as an "alternate" view of the Trulia real estate listings, but a better way to describe it is pure, unadulterated eye candy.

That's not to say it's without use though. You can sort out houses in your area by price tag, or simply when they were listed. Each house has a little … Read more

The Korean electronics giant has announced a candy-bar version of its Soul (or Spirit of Ultra) handset. Called the Soulb, this new mobile phone measures a slim 9.9 millimeters and "fully covered in an elegant metallic body which is softly brushed with a hairline pattern," according to the company.

Among its key features are a 3-megapixel camera with LED light, FM radio, 1GB onboard memory with microSD card slot, and a 2-inch QVGA display. The triband Soulb also comes with a multimedia player, document viewer/editor, Bluetooth, and HSDPA support.

Available in five colors (including Soul Grey, … Read more

Readers are always asking, justifiably so, who in their right minds would buy a gold or diamond- studded gadget. (The operative phrase here is "right minds," of course.) But ours is not to question why.

What we do know, if this eBay auction is any indication, is that some people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a 24k gold iPhone--presuming that the bids are authentic. The auction, tracked by Gizmodo, drew 69 bids and ended with a sale price of $6,000 last night.

The phone itself is unlocked and of the 16GB variety, apparently … Read more

Can your computer do magic?

This prototype design can. The Illusion PC is one of thousands of entries into the Next-Gen PC Design competition sponsored by Microsoft. Gizmodo spotted it, and I have to agree that it pulls off a pretty nifty visual trick.

The design makes the PC appear to have no inner components. The designer says the aim was to make the computer not look like a computer, and when turned off to look just like a household decorative object.

The cube measures 8.25 inches on each side and uses a Mini-ITX mainboard, 200-watt mini-PSU, and slot-loading … Read more

You've got to hand it to Madonna. As she turns 50 this year--50!--she's still remaking and evolving herself to stave off irrelevance. And that applies to technology as well, especially where marketing is concerned.

Her latest idea is to make seven tracks from her upcoming album, Hard Candy, available to Vodafone customers before its April 28 release. But don't expect the tunes to be free, GeekSugar says--just early, for bragging rights.

By the way, in case you were wondering, the uber-star's publicist says reports that her marriage is on the rocks are patently false.

The alternate-reality game genre has a new friend, and a new format, thanks to Penguin Books, the famous British publishing house.

On Tuesday, Penguin and startup Six to Start launched their new ARG, We Tell Stories, a new-style game that its creators say is a hybrid of traditional story-telling, Web 2.0-style mashups, interactive games and classic novels.

We Tell Stories is actually a seven-part adventure, said Jeremy Ettinghausen, the digital publisher for Penguin. It will begin with six weekly installments, each of which is based on a classic novel--and written by a different Penguin author--and which tasks participants with … Read more

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a sucker for pretty-looking things. It helps when they're actually useful, too. In the case of most items in Digg's labs section, the latter can't often be said, but they're certainly fun to look at. Today Digg launched a new visualization called "pics," which is a new way to see what pictures people are digging in real time. The new feature coincides with the enhancement of a pictures section, and recategorization, which took place earlier this month.

Each category on Digg … Read more

Part of the reason people buy Macs is because of Apple's attention to style. Whether it's bondi blue, smooth white, glossy black, or brushed metal, Mac hardware is as much about functionality as it is the overall aesthetic. Of course, attention to aesthetics doesn't stop at Apple hardware. Mac OS X and most Mac software shares the same smooth lines and beveled edges of the hardware surrounding it. The application icons in the Dock are bright and slick, and the open and close buttons on documents and applications are like pieces of candy. Anyone who has turned … Read more

Money is boring, unless you're spending it on something like an iPhone or a cute new pair of shoes.

Or unless you make investment cool, which is what a new company called Thrasher Funds is trying to do. It's a new mutual fund that's targeting the under-35 crowd with a bunch of youth-oriented and tech-focused holdings (Apple, Uniqlo, Diageo, American Apparel, Volkswagen, Google, and Garmin), "investment parties," and a Web site that looks like a Good Charlotte album cover.

"Commercials from financial behemoths only implore Baby Boomers to start planning and saving for their … Read more