By Evan Ackerman The somewhat ironically named company Cables Unlimited announced yesterday that their wireless USB adapter kit is now for sale in various places including Amazon and Fry’s Electronics for about $80. No special software is necessary, it’s as easy as plugging one adapter into your computer’s USB port and the other into the USB […]

By Evan Ackerman

The somewhat ironically named company Cables Unlimited announced yesterday that their wireless USB adapter kit is now for sale in various places including Amazon and Fry’s Electronics for about $80. No special software is necessary, it’s as easy as plugging one adapter into your computer’s USB port and the other into the USB port on the device up to 30 feet away, and letting your computer recognize the connection just as it would if there was a USB cable there.

According to the instructions, it works on USB hubs as well as individual devices, meaning just one adapter set can be used for up to 127 different USB devices. If that’s not enough flexibility for you, Cables Unlimited will at some point be selling the adapters separately, so that you can use multiple wireless USB devices with only one receiver on your computer. It would be cool if you could also use multiple receivers to share a wireless USB enabled device on multiple personal, but I’m not sure if that’s part of the deal. And needless to state, there’s no wireless power transmission, so these aren’t going to be able to directly power things like webcams (or USB volcanoes).

[ Amazon ] VIA [ Engadget ]

Via [Ohgizmo]

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GoodGuide, the startup that rates consumer products by factors including the toxicity of their ingredients and environmental impact, has released its native iPhone application on Apple’s App Store. The free application grants users to browse and search through the site’s rapidly growing database (now with around 60,000 products) using either a product’s name or UPC code, and can be found here. GoodGuide was a favorite at this year’s TechCrunch50 conference, generally regarded as a great idea and eventually finishing as a runner up for the event’s top prize. The site’s database rates each consumer product based on its health, environmental, and social performance, pointing out things like carcinogenic ingredients and the manufacturer’s treatment of employees and the environment.

GoodGuide, the startup that rates consumer products by factors including the toxicity of their ingredients and environmental impact, has released its native iPhone application on Apple’s App Store. The free application grants users to browse and search through the site’s rapidly growing database (now with around 60,000 products) using either a product’s name or UPC code, and can be found here.

GoodGuide was a favorite at this year’s TechCrunch50 conference, generally regarded as a great idea and eventually finishing as a runner up for the event’s top prize. The site’s database rates each consumer product based on its health, environmental, and social performance, pointing out things like carcinogenic ingredients and the manufacturer’s treatment of employees and the environment.

Because shoppers don’t generally plan exactly which items they’re going to purchase until they’re in the store, GoodGuide’s mobile functionality will play an important role in the startup’s success. Before now users could access a mobile version of the site through a web browser, but the iPhone’s native app is much speedier and more intuitive - I could see this becoming a favorite for the “soccer mom” demographic and the environmentally and health conscious. GoodGuide also plans to have an Android version available within the next few months.

My one major gripe with the app is that it always opens to a “featured products” page, forcing you to hit a few menu items before reaching the search box. I’d also like a way to photograph the barcode of a product and automatically look it up in the database, though I’m not sure the iPhone is even capable of this (there are only a few barcode apps on the iPhone, and it seems that most of them only support QR Codes. On Android, they rank among the most popular apps).

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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Last week Google announced a new set of gadgets for Gmail Labs that offer integration with Docs and Google Calendar. But perhaps most exciting (and under-emphasized at the time) was the introduction of support for third party gadgets, giving users the chance to add features to Gmail beyond what Google offers. One of the first developers to take advantage of the new feature is Remember The Milk (RTM), a popular To-Do list application that we reviewed back in 2005. The service allows users to access and input to-do items from a variety of locations, and offers its core service for free (you can pay $25 a year for support on extra mobile devices). While RTM offered support for Gmail before now, it was reliant on a Firefox extension, raising the barrier to entry and cutting out a massive portion of the browser market.

Last week Google announced a new set of gadgets for Gmail Labs that offer integration with Docs and Google Calendar. But perhaps most exciting (and under-emphasized at the time) was the introduction of support for third celebration gadgets, giving users the opportunity to add features to Gmail beyond what Google offers.

One of the first developers to take advantage of the new feature is Remember The Milk (RTM), a popular To-Do list application that we reviewed back in 2005. The service grants users to access and input to-do items from a variety of locations, and offers its core service for free (you can pay $25 a year for support on extra mobile devices). While RTM offered support for Gmail before now, it was reliant on a Firefox extension, raising the barrier to entry and slicing out a huge portion of the browser market.

The new Gmail gadget works across on all popular browsers and isn’t dependent on any plugins. Unfortunately adding the gadget isn’t exactly intuitive - you’ll first have to enable the “Add any gadget by URL” feature in Gmail Labs, and then manually enter the RTM gadget location (http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/modules/gmail/rtm.xml). You can find the full instructions at the RTM blog here.

The Gmail blog post notes that this process isn’t very user-friendly yet, explaining that it is mostly for developer experimentation rather than widespread use. But it’s an exciting taste of things to come, and it looks like Google is going to be expanding developer access even further, allowing them to integrate their gadgets beyond the left nav-bar. Look for more Gmail addons to make the jump from plugin to native gadget in the near future.

Thanks to Orli Yakuel for the tip.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Via [TechCrunch]

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By Andrew Liszewski Luke first wrote about the H2GO hydrogen fuel cell automobile at the beginning of the year, but at that time there was no information on pricing or availability. Well here we are nearly 9 months later and it looks like Hammacher Schlemmer now has the H2GO available, just in time for the gift-giving […]

By Andrew Liszewski

Luke first wrote about the H2GO hydrogen fuel cell vehicle at the beginning of the year, but at that time there was no information on pricing or availability. Well here we are almost 9 months later and it looks like Hammacher Schlemmer now has the H2GO available, just in time for the gift-giving season. Besides the futuristic design, what sets the H2GO apart from other RC automobiles on the market is that it uses a bona-fide hydrogen fuel cell instead of AAs or other types of built-in rechargeable batteries. So instead of having to remember to purchase batteries for Christmas morning, you just need to make sure you’ve plenty of tap water available.

The hydrogen used by the fuel cell is generated by the included fueling station which uses electrolysis to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen, and it itself is solar powered. The vehicle is controlled by the Wiimote Nunchuck looking remote (which is probably the one component of the kit that does require a battery) and has a top speed of about 6MPH. You’ll get about 6 minutes of driving time after each 3 1/2 minute refueling, and the hydrogen fuel station will operate for about an hour after a 4-minute charge from its solar panel. At $149.95 it’s probably not the cheapest or even the most exciting remote control toy car on the market, but it will teach your kids about the exciting world of alternative fuels!

[ Hammacher - The First Remote Controlled Hydrogen Powered Automobile ]

Via [Ohgizmo]

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I would have expected the Death Star to lay off people before EA would. I guess the Empire had a pretty solid economy, though. It seems that even though EA is doing well in the long term, it’s cautious of incurring too much in costs during the downturn. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be having Maddens for years to come, but a 6 percent reduction in headcount at something like EA is a serious move. I hope they don’t have make any more like that. I would have expected the Death Star to lay off people before EA would. I guess the Empire had a pretty solid economy, though. It seems that even though EA is doing well in the long term, it’s cautious of incurring too much in costs during the downturn. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be having Maddens for years to come, but a 6 percent reduction in headcount at something like EA is a serious move. I hope they don’t have make any more like that.

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YAY! The long awaited, much promised, never delivered Delicious 2.0 will launch in the next few minutes, just like they promised again last week. The new Delicious is just like the old Delicious, except for the way it looks. They’re also promising that it will be “faster, easier to learn,” and “hopefully more desirable.” Speed: We’ve […]

YAY! The long awaited, much promised, never delivered Delicious 2.0 will launch in the next few minutes, just like they promised again last week.

The new Delicious is just like the old Delicious, except for the way it looks. They’re also promising that it will be “faster, easier to learn,” and “hopefully more desirable.”

Speed: We’ve moved to a new infrastructure that makes each page faster. This new platform will enable us to keep up with traffic growth while ensuring Delicious is responsive and reliable. You might not have noticed, but the old backend was getting creaky under the load of five million users.

Search: We’ve completely overhauled our search engine to make it faster and more powerful. Searches used to take ages to return results; now they’re very quick. The new search engine is also smarter, and more social: you can search within one of your tags, another public user’s bookmarks, or your social network. Now it’s easier to take advantage of the expertise and interests of your friends, not to mention the Delicious community at big.

Design: Finally, we’ve updated the user interface to improve usability and add a few often-requested features (such as selectable detail levels and alphabetical sorting of bookmarks). Our goal has been to keep the new design similar in spirit to the old one, so all of you veterans should be able to jump in without any confusion. At the same time, we’re hoping that newcomers to Delicious will find it easier to learn.

Users will need to log into their accounts and get a new browser cookie. Honestly, I rarely visit Delicious any more, the Firefox plugin is so good that actually visiting the site isn’t necessary. So all I’m really hoping for here’s a stable service. If there are glitches, I hope they fix them swiftly.

As I stated in our previous posts, it’s too bad Delicious 2.0 couldn’t launch before founder Joshua Schachter left the company in frustration. I called Schachter to ask him what he has to say about the new launch. His response - “Good luck. I hope it goes well.”

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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YAY! The long awaited, much promised, never delivered Delicious 2.0 will launch in the next few minutes, just like they promised again last week. The new Delicious is just like the old Delicious, except for the way it looks. They’re also promising that it will be “faster, easier to learn,” and “hopefully more desirable.” Speed: We’ve […]

YAY! The long awaited, much promised, never delivered Delicious 2.0 will launch in the next few minutes, just like they promised again last week.

The new Delicious is just like the old Delicious, except for the way it looks. They’re also promising that it will be “faster, easier to learn,” and “hopefully more desirable.”

Speed: We’ve moved to a new infrastructure that makes every page faster. This new platform will enable us to keep up with traffic growth while ensuring Delicious is responsive and reliable. You might not have noticed, but the old backend was getting creaky under the load of five million users.

Search: We’ve completely overhauled our search engine to make it faster and more powerful. Searches used to take ages to return results; now they’re very swift. The new search engine is also smarter, and more social: you can search within one of your tags, another public user’s bookmarks, or your social network. Now it’s easier to take advantage of the expertise and interests of your friends, not to mention the Delicious community at huge.

Design: Finally, we’ve updated the user interface to improve usability and add a few often-requested features (such as selectable detail levels and alphabetical sorting of bookmarks). Our goal has been to keep the new design similar in spirit to the old one, so all of you veterans should be able to jump in without any confusion. At the same time, we’re hoping that newcomers to Delicious will find it easier to learn.

Users will need to log into their accounts and get a new browser cookie. Honestly, I rarely visit Delicious any more, the Firefox plugin is so good that actually visiting the site isn’t necessary. So all I’m really hoping for here’s a stable service. If there are glitches, I hope they fix them swiftly.

As I said in our previous posts, it’s too bad Delicious 2.0 couldn’t launch before founder Joshua Schachter left the company in frustration. I called Schachter to ask him what he has to state about the new launch. His response - “Good luck. I hope it goes well.”

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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By Evan Ackerman This cube timer is a really simple, straightforward little device: just rotate the cube so that the time you want is facing up, set it down, and an alarm will go off after that amount of time has passed. To close it off, flip it back over to zero. There are no dials, […]

By Evan Ackerman

This cube timer is a really easy, straightforward little device: just rotate the cube so that the time you want is facing up, set it down, and an alarm will go off after that amount of time has passed. To close it off, flip it back over to zero. There are no dials, no buttons, and no blinky LEDs… It’s a cinch to use.

The unfortunate thing about keeping track of time, though, is that you’re often having to deal with inconvenient numbers that aren’t 5, 15, 30, or 60 (and for the record, I’m pretty sure that’s leaving the sixth side undefined). What if I want 10 minutes? Or 45 minutes? It would be utterly impossible to measure those increments of time with this gadget. The obvious solution, of course, is to just use a hexecontahedron, which would include faces for all of the numbers from 1-60. Ah, but what about the zero face to halt the timer, you ask? Well, just take out the number 18 and put the zero in there. I mean, come on, 18? Nobody uses it for anything.

It’s $18 from Whateverworks.com.

[ Whateverworks ] VIA [ bookofjoe ]

Via [Ohgizmo]

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Facebook blew past MySpace in visitors from across the world back in April, but the global gap continues to widen. According to the latest figures from comScore, Facebook attracted 161.1 million unique visitors worldwide in September, compared 117.9 million for MySpace. For Facebook, that number was up from 4.7 percent from the 153.9 million people who visited the social network in August. Visitors to MySpace declined 1.6 percent globally from 119.8 million.

Facebook blew past MySpace in visitors from across the world back in April, but the global gap continues to widen. According to the latest figures from comScore, Facebook attracted 161.1 million very special visitors worldwide in September, compared 117.9 million for MySpace. For Facebook, that number was up from 4.7 percent from the 153.9 million people who visited the social network in August. Visitors to MySpace declined 1.6 percent globally from 119.8 million.

The global gap between the two is now 43.2 million visitors. To put that in perspective that’s a tad more than the number of people who visit Facebook in the U.S. alone, which in September was 41.4 million. MySpace still dominates in the U.S., with 73.0 million visitors in September.

MySpace argues that it is more interested in winning globally in the top ad markets, and in general it is winning in countries such as the U.S., Germany, and Japan. But Facebook is leading in France and the UK. Those are the top five markets.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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By Jonathan Kimak I’m an avid reader, I’ll read nearly any genre except the harlequin romances. And I do occasionally use a bookmark or even a piece of paper to keep my place instead of flipping through the pages randomly to find my spot. But generally the bookmarks fall out of the book and eventually disappear. […]

By Jonathan Kimak

I’m an avid reader, I’ll read almost any genre except the harlequin romances. And I do occasionally use a bookmark or even a piece of paper to keep my place instead of flipping through the pages randomly to find my spot. But generally the bookmarks fall out of the book and eventually disappear. That’s why I’m curious about these “liquid” bookmarks.

The bookmarks, as you may have guessed, are not actually liquid, it’s just a stylish bookmark that, depending on the color, might make people think you used your mystery novel to commit a real murder.

The bookmarks come as a set of 3 with a white, red and gray bookmark. Including shipping the bookmarks will set you back $29.

I wonder if they come with a tracking device.

[ Liquid Bookmarks ] VIA [ Gizmo Diva ]

Via [Ohgizmo]

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