jacks

There are a number of companies offering products that let you plug your guitar into your iPhone. Most of them assume (astutely, perhaps) that musicians don't have a lot of money to throw around. Products like Amplitube iRig or Griffin GuitarConnect offer ways to transform your iPhone or iPod Touch into a virtual practice amp for around $30-$40. The result is fun and arguably convenient, but the sound quality isn't great.

Sonoma Wire Works takes a different approach, with a $199 accessory called GuitarJack that works directly through your iPhone or iPod's dock connection. The product … Read more

As expected, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled today the creation of "Startup: Education" a charitable foundation to "improve educational opportunities for young people in America." Its first project, to be announced later today on The Oprah Winfrey Show, is a $100 million donation to support the public school system in the troubled city of Newark, N.J.

Zuckerberg will appear on the syndicated talk show with Newark mayor Cory Booker and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, where they will announce the joint Partnership for Education in Newark.

"Mayor Booker and Governor Christie refuse … Read more

Jack White (White Stripes, Raconteurs, Dead Weather) has a cool video demonstrating his "triple-decker," three-records-in-one 12-inch single, "Blue Blood Blues." You have to watch the video to see exactly how the technology works, but let's just say for now it's a 7 inch 45 rpm single glued to one side of a 12-inch single; but the 12-inch can be pried open to retrieve another 45! It's a limited to 300 edition so I'm sure it'll sell out quickly. The Triple-Decker Record is a Jack White invention; and it's assembled by … Read more

Although the FBI reports that vehicle thefts are down, you are still unlikely to recover your stolen car if you don't have some sort of electronic recovery system.

According to the 2009 Crime Statistics report, out of the 794,616 vehicles stolen that year, only 343,274 vehicles (43.2 percent) were recovered. This is the lowest recovery rates have been reported in 25 years.

Stolen vehicles are notoriously used by thieves to commit other crimes, or taken to chop shops and stripped for parts. A number of vehicles each year are shipped out illegally overseas.

In a news … Read more

The Internet is a killer of art--or at least that's how a couple of former rock 'n' roll gods see it.

John Mellencamp, known for such '80s hits as "Jack and Diane" and "Hurts So Good," last week said the Web is the most dangerous creation since the atomic bomb. Stevie Nicks, the Fleetwood Mac songstress, concluded in an interview this week that the "Internet has destroyed rock."

Jac Holzman, the man who discovered The Doors, founded Elektra Records, and nudged the big recording companies into adopting the compact disc, considers the Web … Read more

Less than a month after his previous company, Slide, sold to Google, Silicon Valley mainstay Keith Rabois has landed in a new gig as general manager of Square, the e-commerce company spearheaded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Rabois made the announcement in the form of an interview with the Los Angeles Times. At Slide, he'd served as vice president of business development while also making a name for himself as a notable angel investor, and serves on the boards of companies like Yelp (which was nearly a Google buy itself late last year before the negotiations famously fell through). … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Hacking into an ATM isn't impossible, a security researcher showed Wednesday. With the right software, it's actually pretty easy.

Barnaby Jack, director of security testing at Seattle-based IOActive, hauled two ATMs onto the Black Hat conference stage and demonstrated to a rapt audience the fond daydream of teenage hackers everywhere: pressing a button and having an automated teller machine spew out its cash until a pile of paper lay on the ground.

"I hope to change the way people look at devices that from the outside are seemingly impenetrable," said Jack, a New Zealand native … Read more

With Leopard and prior versions of OS X, one of the popular maintenance utilities was AppleJack, which is a free SourceForge project and ran in the Terminal (preferably Single User mode) as an easy-to-access way to run a bout of cleaning functions on the Mac. AppleJack so far has been incompatible with Snow Leopard, but with today's update the Snow Leopard incompatibility has been squashed.… Read more

Invitation-based, private sale sites like Gilt, Vente-privee, and Ideeli have become all the rage over the last two years as entrepreneurs and investors have looked for new ways to reach customers who have more disposable income than the recession-burdened masses.

On Thursday, Thrillist, a provider of daily e-mails highlighting cool things to do, see, and buy, announced it would acquire JackThreads, a guy-oriented shopping site that runs daily specials for invitation-only members. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. (Note: in this case, invitations are given to pretty much anyone who asks, and are used as more of a … Read more