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Sometimes, the biggest innovations and most important discoveries come not as a result of a group of creative minds pitting their energies together in efforts to create a single product, but by pure chance.Full Story Sometimes, the biggest innovations and most important discoveries come not as a result of a group of creative minds pitting their energies together in efforts to create a single product, but by pure chance.
Full Story NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden called on the technologists at the 2014 South by Southwest Interactive Festival to help "fix" the problem of mass government surveillance through easy-to-use encryption technology.Full Story NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden beamed in through a video feed to call on the technologists at the 2014 South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, to help "fix" the problem of mass government surveillance through easy-to-use encryption technology.
Full Story Facebook announced policy changes affecting the way firearms are advertised and sold on the social networking site. Instagram, which Facebook acquired back in 2012, is also affected by the new rules.Full Story Facebook announced policy changes affecting the way firearms are advertised and sold on the social networking site. Instagram, which Facebook acquired back in 2012, is also affected by the new rules.Full Story Sorry, pornography. You may corrupt our innocent eyes with your graphic sexual imagery, but you're not as bad as you once were.Full Story Sorry, pornography. You may corrupt our innocent eyes with your graphic sexual imagery, but you're not as bad as you once were.
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Full Story British spies may have naked pictures of you. That's the latest revelation from the Guardian's investigation of documents leaked by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden.Full Story British spies may have naked pictures of you. That's the latest revelation from the Guardian's investigation of documents leaked by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
Full Story Samsung unveiled its highly anticipated new smartphone, the Galaxy S5, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Full Story Samsung unveiled its highly anticipated new smartphone, the Galaxy S5, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Rolling out with a full orchestra and impressive display, Samsung placed the Galaxy S5 center stage, and it certainly has big shoes to fill considering last year's record-breaking release.
Full Story Moviefone, the once-popular phone service that provided movie times for your local theater will be shutting down approximately one month from now.Full Story Moviefone, the once-popular phone service that provided movie times for your local theater will be shutting down approximately one month from now.
Full Story It looks as if it's going to be a busy start to the week for Apple's security team, with more bad news surfacing in connection with a recently publicized ‘gotofail' vulnerability.
Full Story It looks as if it's going to be a busy start to the week for Apple's security team, with more bad news surfacing in connection with a recently publicized 'gotofail' vulnerability in its mobile and desktop operating systems.Full Story
By Nick Mokey
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Holidays are the time for family, friends, and thanks to social conventions, rooms teeming with people you would otherwise never associate with. From holier-than-though cousins who can't keep politics out of the dinner conversation, to well-heeled inlaws that will jaw on and on about the latest client at their firm after critiquing the wine, we'll all brush shoulders with someone we don't like this season. And maybe even have to buy them gifts. If you're feeling passive-aggressive and would rather give a gift that says "I don't really like you" rather than actually blurting it out after one too many brandy-spiked eggnogs, let these godawful gadgets do the talking.
Despite a series of
amazing demos showing how this amazing nanocoating will shed water like Miley Cyrus sheds clothes at the VMAs, it kind of sucks when you actually try it (not unlike her music). We
put Neverwet to the test and found that its purported ability to waterproof electronics is definitely optimistic – all of the ones we coated failed hard with a dose of water. The shirts, too.
We had high hopes for this seemingly simple Wi-Fi security camera until we discovered it works approximately one out of every five times we try to use it. We think there may be a formula involving the relative humidity, moon cycle and price of a barrel of oil. Even if you do coax it into functioning, you'll need to spend $6 a month for Swann's cloud service to get it to do anything useful, like actually record video. A product that will routinely fail
and cost your giftee a monthly fee? Win and win.
Rarely do we see a reputable manufacturer faceplant as hard as Toshiba managed to with the Click, a hybrid laptop-tablet combo that serves miserably in both roles. An AMD processor leaves it with dismal performance, it's heavy, and the purported ability to use two batteries failed in not one but two review samples. Its saving grace for this list is that it looks nice enough to trick the unsuspecting recipient into thinking they might be getting something awesome. Just make them wait until they get home to fire it up.
Sure, you could just buy some furry cat ears as a gag gift, but the "mind reading" allure of these ensures your recipient will have to try them on and demonstrate them in front of everyone. Using brainwave sensors, these ears actually sense your mood and move around to signal when you're relaxed, focused or interested. The wrong recipient might actually find this gift cute, so we really only recommend targeting a guy who takes himself way too seriously. Don't worry, they can't detect suppressed rage.
Does your target own a perfectly good computer running
Windows 7? Buy them Windows 8.1 and ruin it! Watch as they spend an hour installing it, only to realize that it adds a bunch of features that are totally unnecessary on a laptop or desktop, that you can't get rid of. If you could download Windows 8.1 for free they would call it malware, but
Microsoft charges $120 so it's "software." If your mark shows any doubts, just assure them that the number is higher so it's better
Imagine a
smartphone taped to a point-and-shoot camera. Does that sound like something you want to own? Probably not, which is why someone will be utterly dumbfounded that you bought them a
Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom.
A single cable that can handle charging microUSB, Lightning and
Apple 30-pin devices seems like a godsend, which is why your unfortunate giftee will be devastated to learn it doesn't actually work. For very long, anyway. Like a lot of aftermarket Lightning cables, this one bit the dust after a few weeks. Unlike a lot of aftermarket Lightning cables, it costs $18, which is only $1 less than the real thing. On second thought, just buy them a five-pack of cheaper cables that will break just as quickly, for five times the failure.
If you buy someone an atrocious, bottom-of-the-barrel version of something nice, they'll inevitably have to upgrade when they realize it's completely inadequate. That's your play here. Don't think of it as spending $60, think of it as costing your giftee $500 somewhere down the line when they upgrade to the real thing.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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