Google Jazzes Up Its Homepage With Some HTML5 Festivities
Are you feeling Christmassy yet? Because Google sure is! The search giant has updated its homepage with a few Christmas Easter eggs (or something to that effect… you know what I mean) for you to find over the festive season, and they’ve been making the rounds across the blogosphere today.
Using a browser that supports HTML5 (that doesn’t include older version of Internet Explorer, so if you’re reading this from work you may as well give up all hope right now), if you go to the Google homepage and type “let it snow” the screen will start to fill with virtual snow, which you can rub away to reveal the search results underneath with your cursor.
If you’re celebrating Hanukkah over the holiday season, then you may also get a kick out of the festive banner placed above results when you search for it. If you’re too lazy to try them out for yourself then you can admire the screenshots below, but “let it snow” is well worth seeing in all of its glory.
Continue reading »What Not To Buy Your Geek This Christmas
You don’t want to be “that guy” this Christmas who gets someone a gift that they really don’t want. Technology is a minefield when it comes to giving gifts, purely because every product has its own unique selling point and everyone has their own preferences. Hopefully, I’m about to give you a quick list of things that may not be appreciated this Christmas, to give you a better idea of what to avoid.
If you want to check out our list of things that you should be buying this Christmas, head over to here!
Continue reading »What’s The Most Wanted Gadgets For Christmas 2011?…Well It’s Good News For Apple, Again!
Although unseasonably warm weather continues to hamper high-street Christmas sales, and another recession still looms ominously in the background, people are already well into the mindset of deciding what they would like and it seems that ‘all they want for Christmas’ is a gadget. And preferably one with a small silver Apple on it.
Yes it’s that time of year already when the consumer gloves come off and the annual hotly contested competition for the highest Christmas sales begins. Last year we saw Apple leading the way with the iPad being the most desired gadget followed closely by the iPhone 4 with the Kindle, TomTom Sat Nav and the Sony Playstation Move bringing up the rear. Now vouchercodes.co.uk have surveyed the same number (3,000) of people again and the results show a very interesting trend.
Continue reading »5 Things To Buy Your Geek This Christmas
Yes, it’s that time of the year again. The cold nights are here, advent calendars are being opened all across the country and Christmas shopping is on everybody’s mind. If you’re struggling to buy gifts for the geek in your life, then carry on reading for a few pointers on what they would appreciate this holiday season!
PowerMonkey Chargers Use Solar And Mains Power To Keep Your Gadgets Running
If you want a sleek, portable device to take with you as a backup power supply in case your phone dies when you’re in the middle of nowhere, you may want to check out PowerMonkey.
Awesome name aside, PowerMonkey chargers come in two varieties and can keep your gadgets running when there isn’t a mains plug in site!
The eXplorer version, available in blue and grey, uses solar panels to keep whatever you attach to it running. You may not want to be in the UK relying on solar power, but if you’re in a remotely sunny place you should be good until you reach a plug! You can also charge the eXplorer version via AC or USB if you want to make sure you have enough power before you leave.
Continue reading »Amazon’s Kindle Fire May Land In The UK By January 2012
Are you still getting over the immense disappointment of not being able to ask Father Christmas for a Kindle Fire this month? Unfortunately that’s not going to change before the year is out, but you may well be able to get hold of one as early as next month if reports from Know Your Mobile are to be believed.
Unfortunately, Know Your Mobile’s source didn’t divulge any information regarding pricing or even a precise release date, but considering how well Amazon’s aggressive pricing strategy has worked in the US since the release of the Fire on the other side of the pond, you can bet that it will be priced significantly lower than the iPad to attract consumers away from the world of Apple.
Continue reading »Windows Store Launching With Windows 8 Public Beta In February 2012
Developers (developers, developers!), take note! You have until February to get your Windows 8 application in a decent shape, because that’s when the Windows 8 App Store will launch with the public beta of Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system.
The store adopts a similar revenue sharing model to existing app stores, with Microsoft taking a 30% cut of the revenue made on all new applications. The good news for high fliers is that once you’ve made $25,000 on the store, that cut will be reduced to 20%, meaning that you’ll take home 80% of the revenue made from your app.
Continue reading »Microsoft To Release Windows 8 Public Beta In February 2012
This isn’t entirely unexpected, but it’s certainly good to have a solid date to look forward to. Microsoft has announced that the public beta of Windows 8 will commence in February 2012.
MiniLyrix For Mac OS X Review
With so many sources of music available on the internet, it’s no surprise that iTunes libraries continue to grow and grow (and grow and grow), but despite all of this music in our libraries, there aren’t many programs out there that can provide you with lyrics to the song that you’re currently listening to.
MiniLyrix is a very small (0.5mb) application which is available from the Mac App Store, and it pulls all of the lyrics information from the id3 tags of the track which is currently playing. This means that if you have an unorganised mess of a music library, this isn’t an application that you’ll want to use. For the perfectionists among us who have perfectly tagged libraries, read on.
Continue reading »USB Microscope Allows For 400x Magnification, Large Sized Viewing On Your Monitor
Do you feel the need for something more to help you procrastinate at work? Are you tired of the USB desktop fan already? Then take note, readers! I present to you the USB Microscope.
Giving you 400x magnification, the microscope connects to your PC via USB and allows you to zoom in on object that you place underneath it. Simply plug it in, install the necessary software which is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS X 10.5 or above, and admire the view of that seriously dirty desk of yours!
Continue reading »The USB Negative Scanner Allows You To Digitise Your Old Negative Photos
If you’re like me, you will have boxes and boxes of old negative photos that are never seen because they aren’t on your computer, and often get forgotten.
If you want to take all those negatives and make digital copies of them, it’s as easy as putting them through this USB negative scanner, which will transfer them to your computer for you! Simple.
When you put your negatives through the scanner, you can change various settings for importing them, such as the colour depth and dpi using the supplied software.
You won’t need to worry about using batteries or the mains to power the scanner either as it can be fully powered via USB, no alternate power source necessary.
Continue reading »Straight Out Of Sci-Fi, The Anti-Gravity Platform Will Make Any Object Under 85g Float In Mid-Air!
There’s cool, then there’s awesome, then there’s anti-gravity at the top of the technical food chain! This one is so cool it’s not a question of whether you should buy it, the question is how much time you should spend admiring the supplied globe float. In mid air. Above the platform.
I’m not kidding around either, as the anti-gravity platform utilises insanely powerful magnets to levitate the included globe that you can place above it. It will float, rotate, and look super cool wherever you put it – it’s straight out of Star Trek! There are even LEDs around the base to add a little extra “nerd” to the package.
Continue reading »The USB Desktop Fan Will Keep You Cool When You’re Working
USB peripherals have been all the rage in the past few years, and it appears that this year is no exception. If you live in the UK right now your first priority may not be keeping cool, but preventing an early death thanks to hypothermia, but you can never plan too far ahead for the future, right?
If your office always seems like a warm, stuffy place to work, then you may be interested in the USB Desktop Fan offered by Firebox. This one couldn’t be much simpler: simply plug the fan in to a spare USB port in to your computer, and relax as you’re cooled down by a gust of fresh air.
Continue reading »Bigtrak! The Programmable Rover Ready To Obey Your Every Command
You remember this little fella, right? Bigtrak is a programmable vehicle that can remember up to 16 commands (and loop those 16 commands for as long as you want it to) and infuriate you as it bumps in to every object imaginable as you send it on a mission across the living room!
So how exactly do you control the thing? Well, on the top of the device is a 23 button keypad which allows you to specify which direction you want it to go and how many lengths it should go in a particular direction. You can tell it to rotate any number of degrees, too, sending it on a wild goose chase for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc with your resident pet.
Continue reading »LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 Review (PS3)
There’s no more books and no more films, so it’s a welcome sight to see the second installment of the LEGO Harry Potter games hit our shelves. Yet another LEGO game of a popular movie franchise hits our shelves, and I can see how some people could get bored by the amount that are out there. But these games are just too damn fun. So what makes LEGO Harry Potter years 5-7 different from the rest and worth your money?
CleanMyMac Will Be Available For Half Price On Black Friday
I reviewed CleanMyMac for Mac OS X back in 2010, and found it to be one of the best utilities available for those using Apple’s desktop operating system.
The only problem for most people is the price: at £24.95 for a license, it’s one of the more expensive applications that you’re going to buy, especially now that the Mac App Store has arrived and driven down the price of software from a lot of developers.
Continue reading »Why Are Trains So Technophobic?
We live in a society where everything is transitioning over to 0s and 1s. People are ditching Sky to watch TV online through services such as BBC’s iPlayer and we are consuming more mobile data over 3G networks than ever before.
Despite this, certain industries are finding it more difficult than others to make the transition over to the digital age. As I write this, I’m sat in a railway station waiting to catch the last train home, because I missed my earlier one by 30 seconds. Why? Partially due to my horrendously bad planning skills and partially due to the fact that I had to print my pre-ordered tickets as I entered the station.
Continue reading »AppleCare Review: A Worthwhile Investment Or Money Down The Drain?
For the uninitiated, AppleCare is an additional insurance option offered by Apple, that provides you with extra protection for your Macs, iPhone and iPad. Many people unfamiliar with Apple products may question why you’d need such a plan; after all, when you buy any other electronic item such as a TV, the likelihood of you taking out extra protection on it is minimal.
Maybe it’s the transparency of AppleCare that makes it such a tempting offer for many buyers. It can be quite comforting for someone buying an Apple product for the first time to be taken through the plan step by step by a genius in a brightly coloured t-shirt, and let’s face it, who can say no to a lovely genius in the Apple store?
Continue reading »Burnside Easy Answer II Helps Seniors To Cut The Cord, Leaving Their Landline Phones Behind
When you think of “cutting the cord”, you would tend to relate it to tech savvy individuals who want to change the way that they consume media and take calls. It’s certainly not a phrase that you would often associate with the older generation.
Landline telephones have been around for a considerable amount of time, and their reliability is still better than that of a mobile phone when you want to make a call. That being said, there are numerous disadvantages to owning a landline phone, too, the most obvious of which is the line rental fee that you have to pay to stay connected, regardless of whether you actually use your phone at all.
For seniors living in the UK, this just adds to the already high cost of living in many areas. According to Burnside’s press release, ‘four million people over 65 now live alone and 2 million are still living on less than 60% of the median UK income, after housing costs’. Clearly, cost matters.
Continue reading »iTunes Match Now Live In The US
Apple’s quasi-streaming service, iTunes Match, has finally gone live in the US today! The service, which will upgrade all of your iTunes library to 256kb/s regardless of whether you originally bought the tracks from iTunes, was initially announced at WWDC in June but has seen delays since.
If you’re in the US, you’ll have to upgrade your iTunes to 10.5.1 before you can begin to use the new service. Once you’ve signed up to iTunes Match for $24.99 a year, your library will then sync with Apple’s servers, and anything that isn’t on the iTunes store will be uploaded manually. After this, you will be able to listen to your entire library from your PC or an iOS device without actually syncing your music across.
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