Filed under: Cellphones

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/iPhone_headphones_Most_3rd_ party_don_t_work'; As several tipsters have pointed out, the recessed iPhone headphone port means that a lot of third party headphones don't work properly: we've tested a few models already (you can see the current list after the break), but maybe you can help us out and let us know which models work / don't work in the comments -- and yes, if you have to press down on the jack to get both channels to play sound, we count that as not working. You'll need to buy a $19 "TTY Adapter" if you want most third party headphones to function correctly, which sounds like a great business plan to us: just break an important device function, and sell the solution for fun and profit. For now, one of the few third party 'phones that do work are the Zune headphones.

Continue reading iPhone doesn't work with most 3rd party headphones

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Features, Interviews

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/Interview_With_Steve_Woznia k_Waiting_In_Line_For_An_iPhone_Video'; We caught up with the one and only Steve Wozniak waiting in line to take an iPhone (or six) home. He even gave a bunch of people in line shirts and signed line badges. Aw, how nice! (Higher res versions coming soon.)

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

There's been so much hype around search startup Powerset that it seems like it's going to be quite difficult to live up to it. The company kicked off by raising a lot of money at an insanely high valuation for a seed stage company, and then used some of that cash to license some natural language technology from PARC. Of course, natural language search has been tried and failed many times before -- sometimes because the technology sucks, but more often because there just isn't that big a benefit to it compared to traditional keyword search (especially as more people have become comfortable with keyword searching). However, Powerset keeps generating lots of attention and hype, and on Thursday apparently revealed a lot more concerning what it's about... we think. That is, the company revealed a lot, but an awful lot of it comes off as simply repeating every buzzword they can think of and reminding everyone they have patents.

It's always a signal to be worried if a company kicks off a description of its product by bragging about its patents rather than the actual benefits of its product, but Powerset kicked off the discussion by talking about how "locked down" its patents are. If the company is really doing something special, then people will beat a path to its door, whether or not it has patents. If the technology is useless, the patents will also be meaningless. We don't care about the patents, we care about what's useful. The rest of the talk apparently was about this incredibly confusing buzzword-fest of a social network/ecosystem that the company is apparently trying to build around its search engine:

"Imagine a mashup between Facebook, Digg and Google Apps, but you get to participate in the building of the products that sit on top of our platform. You log into a social network, like you would Facebook, and you get certified to be a Powerlabber. Once certified you can join different interest groups, such as travel, and participate in idea and mashup competitions. QA is embedded and its all bloggable."

What does that mean? I've read it many times and I still can't figure it out. He goes on to mention MySpace, Second Life and Wikipedia, of course. It sounds like the company is trying to build the ultimate web platform -- which is a good strategy, but it needs to get away from buzzwords and patents and actually explain what makes it useful.

A few years back, we posted some research someone had done noting that youth violence had decreased drastically over the years as violent video games became more popular. Now Digg is highlighting a similar, and rather dramatic, drop in overall violent crime during the period since 1993 (when the video game Doom was released). Obviously, this is a correlation, not proving any kind of causal linkage. However, if it were true that these video games were convincing people to go out and commit actual crimes, it would be hard to bring that into line with this data. Combined with recent studies that have shown that violent crime decreases when violent movies are released, it certainly suggests that the "threat" of such movies and video games aren't as big as some would have you believe.

Filed under: Transportation

While we've seen everything from brilliant engineering to run-of-the-mill hacks enable vehicles to squeeze every last inch out of a tank of fuel, it looks like the Senate is taking larger strides in order to raise the MPG bar. The US Senate has reportedly passed an energy bill that would raise fuel efficiency standards to an average of 35 miles-per-gallon, create additional provisions that make it unlawful to charge "unconscionably excessive" prices for oil products, and establish new appliance and lighting efficiency standards to accelerate the use of more efficient lighting in public buildings. Lastly, there was purportedly verbiage that provided "grants, loan guarantees, and other assistance to promote research into fuel efficient vehicles." Of course, the bill still has quite a ways to go before it gets set in stone, and while upping the standard sure seems novel, a quick glance around existing lots will show that quite a few whips sold today aren't quite living up to the 22.7 mpg standard that's already in place.

[Via Digg, image courtesy of MPGStickers]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

In a move seemingly influenced in equal parts by Halo and David Lynch's film Dune, Darpa has announced that it's ponying up $15 million to develop one-way-invisible, self-healing, shoot-through shields for use in urban combat. While the Pentagon's research division acknowledges that there are "significant technical obstacles" in the process, it's fairly gung-ho about developing a technology combining metamaterials, 'coded' obscurant systems, and a bunch of other stuff no one really understands. Trust us, you'll thank them if the Harkonens try and overthrow your spice-mining operation.

[Via Digg]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

As we've reported before, tasers might not be as safe as their makers like to claim. Juan Flores Lopez, a Texas man who had doused himself in gasoline, became the latest unfortunate taser-related casuality when police used the stun device (which sometimes emit sparks) during his arrest. "We don't know what ignited the fire," perplexed officers admitted. The case is currently being investigated by the Texas Rangers.

[Via Digg]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!