Tech News Tuesday June 9, 2009
Get your daily fix of news, gadgets, new websites, blog watch, video picks and cheap (under $1.00) tech products available via Amazon.
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WHEDONesque :: A community weblog discussing the work of TV maker Joss Whedon. Anyone can post a story or comment to this site, as long as it pertains to Joss Whedon’s work.
Screenwriter Joss Whedon is the writer, director, and producer of the TV series ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, based on his 1992 film of the same name. Both Whedon’s father and grandfather wrote for television. His grandfather wrote for various sitcoms in the 50’s and 60’s (‘Leave it to Beaver’, ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’, ‘The Donna Reed Show’). His father for shows such as ‘Benson’ and ‘The Golden Girls’. He grew up in New York, and spent his high school years at an all-boy’s school (Winchester) in England. After studying at Wesleyan University (Connecticut), he was hired as a writer for the sitcom ‘Roseanne’ and later worked on ‘Parenthood’. He is the writer and creator of the comic series ‘Fray’.
Joss sold his first script for the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer which was then made into a film in 1992 starring Kristy Swanson as ‘Buffy’ and Donald Sutherland as Buffy’s first watcher ‘Merrick’. Since then he has worked on scripts for ‘Toy Story’ (1995), ‘Alien: Resurrection’, ‘X-Men’ and (uncredited) ‘Speed’. In 1997, he started the TV version of Buffy, which eventually launched a spin off series, ‘Angel’, in 1999. In 2003, Whedon produced a new Science Fiction series called ‘Firefly’, a western in space, which sadly was cancelled before it had a chance to find a larger audience, but a movie picture based on the series, ‘Serenity’ was made. Whedon also writes comics; Astonishing X-men, Runaways and ’season 8′ of Buffy, published by Dark Horse in 2007. (Follow Here . . .)
Best Tweets : The Friday poll -- Given the choice, would you rather be in Buffy’s Scoobies, Angel’s Fang Gang or a crew member aboard Serenity?
Tech News
WWDC 2009
Complete coverage of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2009. (BBC . . .)
PC Case Mods
PCs packed into pianos, barbecue grills, gas pumps, and whiskey bottles--and that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Check out these 20 wild, working pieces of PC art. (PC World . . .)
Conspiracy Theory Unveiled, By Dark Lord
Cheney admits giving Detroit $17 Billion in taxpayer money just so to keep it afloat until Bush left office. (Auto Blog . . .)
Free Sticker
Bing, Bing, Bing . . . Bong. (Tech Crunch . . .)
Flupper, I Kid You Not
In pictures -- Mobility Roadshow ‘09. My pick is the Flupper, self powered lift/elevator. (BBC . . .)
Boy or Girl
But only sold in US, because US citizens would never, ever gender select. (UPI . . .)
What?
Tiny antenna capable of receiving any radio signal, based on the human ear. ! (MSNBC . . .)
Guerilla Drive-In
If you do not have a large enough back yard, projector and AM tranmitter. (AP . . .)
What Brings the US IQ Average Down
Twitter user says vacation tweets led to burglary. (BBC . . .)
Blog Bounce
Mac Stories :: A new blog/website about Mac apps reviews, tutorials, Firefox and in-depth thoughts about Mac world. Aimed at both the casual and pro/geek user, MacStories provides a central resource for discovering less known Mac apps and getting a chance at winning them.
Features will include:
- Multi-language: both in Italian and English
- Giveaways: MacStories has already featured competitions about Mailplane and Tweetie, more to come in the next weeks
- Reviews: covering famous and less known Mac apps
- Mockups: for those who want to be creative
- Firefox section: entirely dedicated to Firefox:Mac add-ons, scripts, beta versions and other geek stuff
- Roundups: the best of the best
Website Watch
Page Album :: Allows you to organize your ugly looking textual hyperlinks or bookmarks, into an online mosaic of web pages. Use PageAlbum.com as your browser’s start page, as a URL organizer, or as index page to your website. It is free and open to anyone. Check out the examples below and give it a try. (Page Album. . .)
Tech Quote
“One day soon the Gillette company will announce the development of a razor that, thanks to a computer microchip, can actually travel ahead in time and shave beard hairs that don’t even exist yetâ€
~ Dave Barry
Get that Gadget
Liquid Image 302 Explorer Digital Camera Mask
Ever want to capture footage of your own underwater adventure? Whether you’re snorkeling or swimming, with the Liquid Image 302 Explorer Digital Camera Mask you’ll get pristine images of the deep blue. Equipped with a 5.0-megapixel sensor, this amazing digital camera includes 16MB of internal memory and a microSD memory card slot for further storage. The Liquid Image 302 Explorer Digital Camera Mask can take up to 29 pictures in 2560 x 1920 resolution and does not require software to download images. Explore crystal clear waters with the Liquid Image 302 Explorer Digital Camera Mask today!
Price : $119.99
Note: There is a cheaper underwater mask $99.99 Equipped with a 3.1-megapixel sensor.
Cheap Amazon
Weekly Free iTunes
Weekly Contest
Comic Book Pick
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Tales of the Vampires
Written by Becky Cloonan.
Art by Vasilis Lolos and Dave Stewart.
Two Different Covers:
In a small town in Massachusetts, a young man named Jacob goes about his day as usual-wakes early, eats breakfast with his mom, and heads to school. He’s a hard worker and a reliable friend to Alexia, an athletic and headstrong young woman. But at night Jacob likes to cut loose at the local arcade, where he’s befriended a reckless gang of vampires who enjoy drinking his blood. Jacob craves the high and the easy escape from the monotony of his life that this ‘bloodletting’ provides. Enter the mysterious and sultry May, who can help Jacob leave those high-school days behind-that is, if Alexia doesn’t stop her first.
40 pages, full color.
MATURE READERS
Video Picks
Freeware Find
GM Desk :: Bring Google’s Web apps to the desktop with this site-specific browser interface that requires Adobe Air. You’ll have access to Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Docs just as you would in a browser, but GMDesk stays alive when your browser crashes.
Available for Windows. (Get it Here . . .)