peek

Hey, remember the Peek, that handheld device from 2008 that supplied e-mail, and only e-mail, for $20 a month?

Yeah, didn't think so. After supporting customers on the original Peek, the marginally more useful Peek Pronto, and the Twitter Peek since then, Peek and its CEO Amol Sarva are shutting things down.

This does, unfortunately, affect the "handful" of remaining users who bought a lifetime service on a device that's still ticking.… Read more

Husband, father, grandfather, citizen, small businessman, author, former Speaker, candidate for president, and Twitter fraudster? Newt Gingrich is being accused of having more than a million fictitious followers on Twitter.

The provocative blog Gawker has been on an absolute tear over the last few days, accusing Gingrich of using campaign money to hire spam agencies designed to boost Twitter follower counts. The accusations supposedly originate from an anonymous former campaign staffer.

Things got even spicier today, when Gawker cited a new report by New York-based search company PeekYou, which claims to have analyzed every Gingrich follower and to come up … Read more

If you've been looking for a way to get video from your iPod, iPad, or iPhone to your vehicle's rear seat entertainment system, Scosche may have a solution for you with its SneakPeek auto. This combination cable and charger adds an iPod input to any in-car video receiver with RCA connections.

Externally, the SneakPeek auto's construction is rather simple. The 9-foot shielded cable features a 30-pin Apple dock connector on one end and a trio of analog gold- and nickel-plated RCA connections at the other. Somewhere along the line, there's a black box that handles the … Read more

Some of the best things about Windows 7 are the window-management tools under the Aero umbrella. Aero Snap, Aero Shake, and Aero Glass do nothing less than make Windows 7 competitive with Apple's Mac OS X Snow Leopard on the window management front. They pop visually, they're fun to use, and most importantly, they're useful ways of managing windows. But that doesn't mean you can't tweak them, and for people who want more out of their Aero, there's AquaSnap.

AquaSnap gives users fine-tuning control to change the Snap/Shake/Glass functionality, customize the Aqua … Read more

Early adopters of Netbooks have a nice new option in Gmail, courtesy of a labs update that went out Thursday. The feature, called "message sneak peek" is a simple pop-up preview of the message. It's not a full version of the message, but in most cases it's enough to read the entire thing without having to leave your in-box.

The peek feature must first be turned on in labs. It can then can be summoned by hitting the "H" key on your keyboard (if you have a message selected), or by right-clicking on a … Read more

The single-purpose TwitterPeek is a crazy device. But hey, now that Peek has gone down this road, why stop there? Here are some ideas for the next generation of Peek handheld devices.

NotepadPeek Take notes on the go! Never be without your shopping list again! Doesn't sync with anything on your normal computer. $99 for six months of service or $199 for lifetime use.

YelpPeek Find restaurants and businesses around you, and leave reviews of those you go to. How convenient! No GPS. $99 for six months of service or $199 for lifetime use.

TimeZonePeek What time is it in various time zones? Now you know with this Peek! $99 for six months of service or $199 for lifetime use.

ClockPeek What time is it? Never ask such a stupid question again! No alarm function. $99 for six months of service or $199 for lifetime use. … Read more

Wilson G. Tang is happily celebrating his 25th birthday tomorrow, so we take a few minutes at the beginning of today's episode of The 404 podcast to congratulate the man on making it this far. Can you believe this fool has only been on Earth 25 years? I always assumed you could tell Wilson's age by counting the highlights in his hair, but the consensus is that Wilson is certainly an old soul.

He also brings in a very special birthday present that he got from his boo-bear this morning: a brand new Apple Mac Mini to add to his Apple museum brewing at home! Don't tell Wilson, but we've also arranged for a naughty Steve Jobs look-alike to pop out of his mooncake later tonight.

Speaking of scary things, just because Halloween is over doesn't mean you can't still creep out your friends with this new iPhone app from TechPad productions called iMEvil. On today's episode of The 404 Podcast, Jeff manages to get his hands on a free copy of David Sobolov's (the voice talent behind Halo Wars, Call of Duty 4, Diablo III, Unreal Tournament 3, and more) soundback app that has 32 hilarious lines like "Prepare yourself to serve me" and "I'd buy that for a dollar."

Since we're all about giving here at The 404, Mr. Sobolov and Tech Pad Productions were nice enough to provide our listeners with 5 free codes (normally priced at $1.99 in the iPhone App Store). If you'd like a free download, e-mail us at THE404{AT}CNET[DOT]COM and put only "iMEvil" in the subject and we'll pick five random winners to announce on Monday. Good luck!

In the spirit of all things Apple, we present to you the typical dating profile of the average iPhone user. A new study from Retrevo reveals the absurdity behind what makes iPhone users tick. Among other things, one in five iPhone owners has admitted to watching "adult material" on an Apple gadget, which happens to be twice as many as the average BlackBerrian. And well...judging by Wilson's constant fixation on his iDrone, we ain't too surprised.

Many more stories to get to that won't fit into this blog post, stuff like this Twitter-only handset and the most impractical, irresponsible, and dangerous accessory ever for your laptop, so be sure to check out today's full episode.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILSON!

A new gadget designed specifically for people who want to tweet on the go was launched Tuesday by gadget maker Peek.

The device, dubbed TwitterPeek, does one thing and one thing only: it lets people tweet. It doesn't access e-mail. It doesn't make phone calls. It tweets. That's it.

TwitterPeek, which looks like a smartphone, features a QWERTY keyboard and comes in black or aqua blue.

The idea behind TwitterPeek is simple. After buying the device, users need only to input their Twitter credentials to get going. The gadget lets them tweet, reply, retweet, send direct messages, … Read more

Three new features are now available to Windows 7 users of the new beta release of Firefox. Firefox 3.6 beta 1 introduces enhanced previews for both the new Windows 7 taskbar and the tabs.

The taskbar previews for tabs brings Firefox into parity with Internet Explorer 8, allowing users to see and select their open tabs via Aero Peek. The obvious limitation with this feature is how it impacts the display when you've got a high number of tabs open. As you open more tabs, their preview panes will shrink.

While the taskbar preview will work without manually … Read more