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Red Pop adds camera button to your iPhone

As every iPhone owner knows, taking photos with the device can be a hassle. Unless you're looking straight into the screen and holding the phone with two hands, it's downright tricky to hit that tiny shutter-release button. And if you're trying to snap a self-portrait, forget about it.

With any luck, Apple will do something about that in iOS 5. Of course, there are camera apps that can snap a photo when you tap anywhere on the screen, but that's just not the same thing as pressing a physical shutter-release button.

Enter Red Pop, an iPhone 4 accessory that adds a big red camera button to the business end of your phone. It's currently in development--and its creators are seeking funding via Kickstarter. Here's the full scoop:… Read more

Open-source Scala gains commercial backing

The open-source Scala programming language is getting a big boost today in form of venture-funding for a new start-up.

Typesafe is launching the first commercial entity behind Scala, founded by Scala creator Martin Odersky and flush with $3 million from Greylock Partners.

Scala is a general purpose programming language designed to express common programming patterns in a concise, elegant, and type-safe way. It integrates features of object-oriented and functional languages and reduces code size in comparison to Java.

Greylock also funded Red Hat and Cloudera so it's no surprise that Typesafe will be taking a page from those companies … Read more

New no-dongle HDMI solution for iPad and iPhone

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad 2, he made a big deal about how you could connect it to your HDTV using an HDMI cable and mirror what was on the iPad 2's screen. The only problem was you had to purchase Apple's $39 Digital AV adapter, as well as an HDMI cable, to make that happen.

That's about to change.

Today we met with RedMere, an Irish company that makes the chip that allows manufacturers to create ultrathin HDMI cables. We got an early look at a reference design for a new slim HDMI cable with a 30-pin connector that plugs directly into your iPad 2, iPhone 4, or iPod Touch 4G and passes full HD video and sound.

No word yet on which companies will be making the new cables (RedMere just makes the chip inside the cable), but we should hear soon. As for price, nothing on that, either, but we'd hope to see these guys for less than $40--and hopefully less than $30. … Read more

Stay prepared with the American Red Cross Axis Safety Hub

I am not the type who's well-prepared (my fridge is almost always empty), nor do I want to scare people into getting things that they don't really need.

However, I ran across the American Red Cross Axis from Eton the other day and thought it was a really handy device to have around the house, or in your car.

It's hard to classify the Eton Axis as one specific type of device because it's many things in one. It's a radio (AM/FM/NOAA Weather), a flashlight, and a cell phone charger. Best of all, … Read more

preGame 50: MotorStorm: Apocalypse

On today's 50th episode of preGame we'll round up all of the PSN news, including the highs and mostly lows of the now weeks-long outage.

Would you rent games from a box? For $2 a day, Redbox is doing just that. In addition to DVD and Blu-ray rentals, Redbox will start renting video games in 21,000 out of their 27,000 locations. We're encouraging our preGame audience to write to us about this experience when the rollout begins next month.

Today's demo is MotorStorm: Apocalypse, the latest in the PlayStation 3 exclusive racing franchise. Apocalypse … Read more

Seeding the image-editing revolution

Acorn is an easy-to-use but still relatively feature-filled image editor that provides a lower-cost alternative to professional editing programs. With its slimmed-down interface--just a single palette and a document window--Acorn feels much like Apple's iLife applications, but it still provides a full array of editing features, including multiple layers (with masks), vector shapes, filters (such as tilt-shift, plus support for Quartz Composer compositions), blending, gradients, text and drawing tools (including a Brush Designer for custom brushes), and a hex color picker.

What makes this app most appealing is its ease of use and raw speed: Acorn takes full advantage … Read more

The 404 793: Where Wilson's back with a vengeance (podcast)

The Bubble Boy gets released from quarantine and joins us back on today's episode of The 404, where we're chatting about Dish Network grabbing Blockbuster for $228 million; a Canadian service that could mean the end of missed packages; a girl who can't close her mouth; and the end of one of our favorite TV shows: "30 Rock."

The 404 Digest for Episode 793

Dish Network wins bidding war for Blockbuster Video. The BufferBox may signal the end of missed packages. Just for fun, here's the delivery guy spoof scene from "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective." Nurse uses Popsicle sticks to reset a jaw in mid-yawn. News anchor falls for Shock Top app prank. "30 Rock" will end next season, according to Alec Baldwin.

Episode 793 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Google, eBay execs make mobile commerce pitches

SAN FRANCISCO--There will be quite the land grab ahead as mobile trends continue to make their way into the e-commerce world. Or at least that's what it seems based on two short talks at this week's Web 2.0 Expo about the future of commerce, one yesterday afternoon from Google vice president of payments Osama Bedier, and one this morning from eBay vice president of global product management Dane Glasgow.

"Shoppers don't distinguish between online and mobile. They think of mobile as an extension of their everyday activities," Glasgow said. "Mobile's clearly having … Read more

The 404 776: Where it's Steak and Pi Day (podcast)

Happy Pi Day; it's March 14, which means it's the day to commemorate the mathematical holiday started by Larry Shaw, who created it in 1989 while working at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. We're all about celebrating nerds, so enjoy a sweet or savory pie today with us!

Wilson's enjoying Pi Day with a slice of his own Apple iPad 2; he and Jeff waited patiently in line to become two of the 500,000 estimated iPad 2 owners over the device's launch weekend. Many Apple stores officially ran out of stock this weekend, and now analysts are expecting up to a two-week backlog on orders reserved online.

You can read CNET's official review of the iPad 2 here, but we also want to talk about the new features being added to the iPad 2 with the public release of iOS 4.3.… Read more

The 404 775: Where we <3 Japan (podcast)

We're keeping Japan in our collective thoughts today as the country continues to suffer from the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit this morning. Be sure to visit RedCross.org for how you can help with the relief effort.

As usual, Google is doing its part to help on the tech side with a Person Finder to help locate displaced family and friends in Japan. Google launched a similar project in February of last year amid the Chilean earthquake disaster.

It's hard to think about anything but our friends in the East, but today also happens to be iPad 2 day, and there are already people in line for the release at 5 p.m. tonight.

And after spending almost 41 hours in line (all the way through last night's torrents), college student Amanda Foote just sold her first-place spot in line for $900. She plans to use the money to buy Lady Gaga tickets.

This morning also marked the release of the trailer for JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg's new sci-fi thriller "Super 8." The Twitter-exclusive full-length trailer finally gives context to the teaser we first saw in last year's Super Bowl ad, although we still don't know exactly what escaped from the train crash.

In typical Bad Robot fashion, JJ Abrams and his crew add to the mystery of the film with an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) alongside viral marketing that creates an entire world to discover around the film.

There's already a product page in place for Rocket Poppeteers that lets you sign up and create your own member certificate, as well as an easter egg editing room whose URL is seen in this frozen screenshot from the trailer.

After an extended chat about the origin of ARGs, Jeff and I both have stories to talk about that deal with our beats--video games and printers, respectively.… Read more