Filed under: Audio/Video, Celebrities

Community leaders in Christchurch, New Zealand hope that the songs of Barry Manilow will deter juvenile delinquents from congregating at the town’s outdoor mall, according to an AP report at Yahoo! News.

While recent auditory repulsion techniques have met disapproval from certain quarters, Christchurch’s Central City Business Association manager Paul Lonsdale hopes that piping Manilow tunes through the mall’s P.A. will be less controversial. “The intention is to change the environment in a positive way .. so nobody feels threatened or intimidated,” he explained to the AP. Manilow, pictured above (no, that’s not Rod Stewart’s older sister), has long been known for his unobtrusive songs and mellow croons.

Say what he will, Lonsdale has to know that “Mandy” is to teenagers what kryptonite is to Superman. While we’re pretty sure that this plan — if implemented — would deter teenagers, we’re also afraid of the prospect of an entire town being populated by clones of this dude. [From: AP Via: Neatorama]

Continue reading Shopping Mall Hopes Manilow Tunes Will Repel Teen Vagrants

Shopping Mall Hopes Manilow Tunes Will Repel Teen Vagrants originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Audio/Video, TV

For all of you still waiting for a little governmental assistance in buying that DTV converter box that you should’ve purchased months ago (we kid… a little), we’ve excellent news. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is overseeing the program, has announced that it has finally begun to ship $40 vouchers towards the purchase of these very boxes once more. The waitlist has grown some 4.1 million deep since the subsidy program ran dry back in January, but the agency is hoping to have that cleared within three weeks. Of course, you better not procrastinate on your second chance — who knows how quickly the $650 million it has left will last.

[Image courtesy of BreakItDownBlog]

DTV Coupons Begin Flowing Once More originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Cameras, Visionaries

One Canadian filmmaker is striving to transform his false eye into a working video camera, according to a Reuters report at FoxNews.com.

Having lost an eye in a childhood shotgun accident, Rob Spence, 36, has called upon the kindness, and ingenuity, of strangers to help him in his self-proclaimed EyeBorg Project. With the help of engineering wunderkind Kosta Grammatis, inventor Dr. Steve Mann, and ocularist Phil Bowen, Spence seems to be well on his way to a functioning, wireless eyeball-cam.

That all depends of course, judging from the above video, on whether or not Grammatis can calm himself enough to solder correctly. [From: Fox News And: The EyeBorg Project]

Related Links:

• Double-Amputee Gets Mermaid Tail
• Artist Wants Webcam Installed in Her Prosthetic Eye
• Bionic Arm Restores Sensation and Mobility to Amputees

Man Well on Way to Having Video-Cam Eyeball originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Audio/Video, Computers

In an effort to bring the other three senses up to par with sight and sound in the virtual landscape, researchers in the UK have developed a headset that not only offers a stereoscopic display and four speaker surround sound, but throws in smells, tastes, and a fan for heating your grill up (or cooling it down) for good measure. The Virtual Cocoon doesn’t look too terribly comfortable (this thing would be burdensome without the required tubes for the user’s mouth and nose), but Professor Alan Chalmers of Warwick University doesn’t seem to think this is a problem. If anything, the team is betting that you’re going to welcome the opportunity to smell your co-workers when telecommuting, or your fellow cybernauts when running around ‘Second Life.’ The device, which will have an estimated cost of £1,500 (around $2,100), should be ready for production within five years. More pics after the break.

Continue reading New Headset Creates Virtual World of Sight, Smell, Taste, and Sound

New Headset Creates Virtual World of Sight, Smell, Taste, and Sound originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s a ton of great tech news happening out there every day, and unfortunately we just can’t cover all of it. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey on the wild, wild Web:

• Despite our best efforts, we’ve always had trouble taming that beast called e-mail. We’ve got too many drafts to count, and we prefer to ignore how many unread messages keep piling up. Here are some tips and tricks to cut down on your e-mail anxiety. [NYTimes]
• Some doctors have tried to silence negative reviews as patients have started posting comments online. [ArsTecnica]
• Scammers, taking advantage of the recession, are phishing for victims with fake job offer e-mails. [MSNBC]
• Lawmakers in California proposed legislation to require Web-based mapping services to blur details of public buildings. Why? To fight terrorism, of course. [DownloadSquad]

For more gems like these, check us out on Twitter @switched (or via the fancy new button on our right sidebar).

Best of the Rest (3/05/09) originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: MySpace

We have seen no greater example of exactly why we are in our current dire financial straights than the new MySpace-branded credit card. In what we can only assume is a conspiracy by News Corp (owner of MySpace, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal) to ensure that the younger generation will be subject to the same crippling debt that we are, the social networking service has lent its brand name to a credit card offered through a partnership with Citibank and Visa.

We can only assume that Citi and Visa signed on because, at this point, the MySpace name is more trusted than that of the almost bankrupt Citibank and, well, almost any credit card company (which is just plain sad). The card works in conjunction with the “Generation Forward” program, which will reward card holders for spending wisely, going green, and giving back to their communities.

Of course, with a standard annual percentage rate (APR) of 14.24-percent, one of the most responsible things someone could do would be to avoid this card. But really, regardless of the APR, it’d be smart not to trust any credit card offered by the folks that brought us high-angled cell phone self-portraits and endlessly re-posted surveys about people’s secret crushes. [From: ReadWriteWeb]

Related Links:

• More Credit Card Numbers Exposed, Visa and MasterCard Tight-Lipped
• Identity Theft Soars for Twentysomethings
• Kanye West Is Bisexual, Say Rapper’s Hacked Gmail and MySpace

MySpace Offering Credit Card (Seriously. Stop Laughing.) originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Audio/Video, Home Video

In the VHS days, rental versions of movies were usually saddled with preview after preview that you’d have to fast-forward through before getting to the main event — a small penalty for not having to pay full-price to watch it. With the advent of the DVD, and now high-def Blu-ray discs, you’re usually just a button-press away from the film itself. Increasingly, however, the real attraction of disc-based movies has become the special features — deleted scenes, director commentary, blooper reels — that are currently present on both retail and rental discs. Now, though, Fox wants to put a new penalty for renters in place, by stripping out those special features and restricting them only to the full-price versions that you buy.

For example, Fox’s retail DVD copy of recent Oscar darling ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘ will feature the usual selection of deleted scenes, making-of documentaries, and commentaries from those who worked on the film. The rental version, however, will only have the film itself and trailers for other upcoming Fox DVDs — hardly a fair swap. ‘Slumdog’ will be the guinea pig for this business experiment along with ‘Marley and Me,’ also being released on March 31. Different films will feature different sets of features, and it remains to be seen whether this will have the impact Fox must surely be hoping for (more movies bought, fewer rented), but we’re fairly certain most Netflix subscribers won’t be too pleased to hear this news. [From: Boing Boing Badgets]

Related Links:

• ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Coming to Blu-ray on March 31
• Recession-busting $150 Blu-ray Players Coming This Year
• Many Netflix Customers Opting for Streaming Flicks

Fox Removing Special Features from Rental DVD and Blu-ray Movies originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Computers

To an icon in the consumer electronics retail space, we wave goodbye. And for the hordes of employees already / soon to be looking for new uniforms elsewhere, we empathize. Circuit City has just announced that on March 8th, all of its stores will lock up for the last time. Granted, some locations have already shut their doors in permanent fashion due to stock depletion, but regardless of leftover wares, March 8th is the end of the line for the laggards. We’d say you might want to stop by your local outlet to catch any last-last-minute sales, but even at a penny, you’re not going to want that open-box 4MB SD card.

[Via HotHardware, image courtesy of wbeebe]

All Circuit City Stores Closing Permanently on March 8th originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Computers, Google

Your local coffee shop or cafe probably has a tip jar hanging out by the cash register with a few odd coins and crumpled bills tossed in for the baristas and sandwich makers to split. Take a look inside and you’ll realize it’s probably not enough to help anyone pay for college. A new online tip jar also isn’t going to give you any extra funds to pay down your debt, either, but it might just give you the info you need to stay out of debt in the future. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s powered by Google.

It’s called, simply enough, Tip Jar, and is built on a software platform built by Google. It is designed to let people share advice and suggestions on how to save money, the idea being that everyone can learn something and save themselves some cash. Anyone can submit their own tips or search for others’ in a number of categories, like “Food” or “Travel.” Here are a few of our favorites from that latter category:

Continue reading Exchange Money-Saving Strategies on Google’s ‘Tip Jar’

Exchange Money-Saving Strategies on Google’s ‘Tip Jar’ originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The folks over at TechDealDigger are letting us know about some of the best deals they find on gadgets every day, so we’re going to pass that information on to you. After all, in these tough economic times, every little bit counts. We may not be buying Swarovski-covered iPods any time soon, but everyone needs essentials like a computer, so take a look at what the online deals site sent us today.

DSLR cameras are increasingly popular these days, but they’ve always been a bit pricier than their point-and-shoot brethren. Although the 10.2 megapixel D200 was released back in December of ‘05, Nikon’s award-winning camera remains an excellent step up from the entry-level SLRs like the Canon Rebel XS and Nikon D40. Check out some sample shots over at dpreview.com.

BestBuy is offering Nikon’s D200 camera body — you’ll have to buy lenses separately — for $599.99, complete with free shipping. If you’ve got a budding photographer in your family ready to graduate from a point-and-shoot or just want to splurge on a well-rounded camera that will serve you well for years, the D200 is an great choice.

Watch this space every day for new tech deals. [From: TechDealDigger]

Our Daily Deal: Nikon D200 DSLR for Under $600 originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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