Filed under: Transportation

Although the Rumbler, conceived and sold by Federal Signal, has been helping cops grab the attention of citizens for a few months, its shock waves are just now getting the publicity they demand. The setup is being installed on patrol cars in locales such as Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and New York, and it serves the purpose of moving crowds / vehicles out of the way when an officer is headed to an emergency. More specifically, Rumbler-equipped rides take advantage of the powerful woofers and amplifier to shake the ground beneath them and get people a-lookin’ some 200-feet away. Reportedly, the gizmo is meant to be used “judiciously, in situations where motorists should pull over to make way for the police,” and it can also be helpful in grabbing the eyes of deaf drivers who cannot hear the traditional siren. ‘Course, you could just load up your ride with […]

Original post by Darren Murph

We just got the advance word on the American Express holiday My WishList deals, running from November 27 to December 13. If you recall, Amex sells certain hot products for super cheap in very limited supplies, but you have to go to the site and try to buy it on a certain day (and yes, with an American Express card). It’s really just a game, because demand always comically dwarfs supply. But there are other products that go on sale immediately, and are available at low but not necessarily insane prices until they sell out. And they always sell out. Before you go and shoot your wad during the Black Friday frenzy, you might want to check out this year’s lineup, edited down to the most Giz-appropriate selections (i.e. no spa retreats or studded mini clutches):
Remember, the first four products are going for ridiculous prices, but because of this they […]

Original post by Wilson Rothman

We just got the advance word on the American Express holiday My WishList deals, running from November 27 to December 13. If you recall, Amex sells certain hot products for super cheap in very limited supplies, but you have to go to the site and try to buy it on a certain day (and yes, with an American Express card). It’s really just a game, because demand always comically dwarfs supply. But there are other products that go on sale immediately, and are available at low but not necessarily insane prices until they sell out. And they always sell out. Before you go and shoot your wad during the Black Friday frenzy, you might want to check out this year’s lineup, edited down to the most Giz-appropriate selections (i.e. no spa retreats or studded mini clutches):
Remember, the first four products are going for ridiculous prices, but because of this they […]

Original post by Wilson Rothman

While the gaming press leaves you with impressions of the king of all rhythm games, Rock Band, I’m going to tackle the hardware, which the Best Buy in SF had plenty of as of this afternoon. Let me start out by saying that the gear looked smaller on the internet; I’m too old to have toy instruments cluttering up my livingroom. I guess that leaves lying about them being MIDI devices, since I’m not getting rid of this stuff any time soon.
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Guitar: Vs Guitar Hero 3’s Wireless Axe, the Rock Band wired guitar has far better neck action, feeling less like a toy, a set of closely placed buttons up near the body that function identically. The neck is slim as a real guitar. The button presses happen with little throw, and don’t click. The strum bar doesn’t click either, but there is a notch at the […]

Original post by Brian Lam

Filed under: Networking
A new study published by the Nemertes Research Group indicates that demand for bandwidth will outstrip capacity by 2010 — and that planned infrastructure upgrades will fall some 60-70 percent short of making up the difference. Using a model it claims anticipates the next bandwidth-consuming innovation, Nemertes says that carriers and other infrastructure providers will have to spend at least an additional $42B over the estimated $72B it estimates is currently budgeted to prevent the bandwidth crunch from taking place — but we’re a little unclear on where those numbers are coming from, so don’t start running your cable modem on overdrive just yet. Either way, it looks like network scaling is something we’ll all be affected by over the next few years — unless the shame of watching people make fools of themselves on YouTube is finally too much and we move to the beach for good.
[Via […]

Original post by Nilay Patel

According to Informationweek and Computerworld, Segate has inked a deal with Staples that will bring data recovery services to all of the retail chain’s 1400 stores. The deal will allow users to reclaim their lost data from any type of digital media, regardless of brand or condition. After a free evaluation, the experts will determine whether or not the data can be salvaged and what fee should be charged for its recovery.
The data recovery will be done on site unless the problem is particularly tricky — in that case the device would be sent to the Seagate lab. Turnaround times are expected to be 3-5 days for smaller devices and a week for large devices. The recovered data will be presented to the customer on a Seagate USB device, or a 6GB Seagate pocket drive depending on the amount of data recovered. In the event that the process fails, […]

Original post by Sean Fallon

According to iSuppli, Vizio, of Sam’s Club and other fine club merchant fame, holds on to its spot as no. 1 supplier of LCD TVs in the US for Q3 2007, with 13 percent of sets shipped. But that’s a .7 percent drop from last quarter, while every other major player saw a spike.
Climbing to 12.8 percent, Samsung’s now just .2 percent away from the LCD lead (it’s winning in flat-panels overall). If the trend continues, Vizio will drop a couple of spots as soon as next quarter. The question is whether that’s because brand name sets are getting cheaper, or people are now simply willing to pay a bit more to get a better quality TV. [Bits]

Original post by Matt Buchanan

Apple says Hola to Mexico by opening up its own online store and giving away a MacBook a day and an iPod every hour. Not having to deal with the U.S. store’s nice on its own, but we’re not ones to argue with free stuff. [Apple Store Mexico via TUAW]

Original post by Matt Buchanan

Mid-Tex Cellular systems out of De Leon, Texas is currently running both GSM and CDMA network using a software-based radio system on nine of of their cellular towers. Because the Vanu, Inc. designed software can be upgraded easily, there is no need for costly new hardware when supporting new or incompatible networks. If this technology is widely adopted, cellphone carriers will be able to upgrade and adjust to new standards more cheaply and users will see bigger, better, and possibly cheaper coverage.
Currently, Vanu is looking to expand their business outside of Texas with 200 towers set to go up in Alaska. They have also announced a prototype of a “femtocell” device —a base station of sorts for a single house or office. The plan is to use the device with the 700-MHz spectrum band that is coming up for auction from the FCC in January 2008. [Wired]

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Original post by Sean Fallon

newVideoPlayer(”pcstore_gawker.flv”, 475, 286);PSN’s director of operations, Eric Lempel, walks us through buying and downloading stuff to your PSP from the freshly launched PC PlayStation Store. It’s not the most elegant setup, and you’ve gotta use a loader app, but it’s not too painful either. Mac support and Wi-Fi transfer—or better still, a direct PSP store, a la iPod touch—are big things they should to add. What else do you guys wanna see? [Playstation.Blog]

Original post by Matt Buchanan