It’s not the week leading up to Christmas, and retailers are ramping up their promotion campaigns, hoping they catch shoppers trying to fit in some last-minute Christmas shopping into their busy schedules. So they make sure the market knows all about these bells and whistles. Like engravings on iPods. It’s a great way to personalize Apple’s popular media player for a friend or loved one. Just in keep in mind that it’s impossible to return an engraved iPod! Makes sense actually: Except for those who originally bought them, these engraved iPods have virtually no resale value, and Apple definitely can’t provide refurbished units with “WORD 4 LIFE” engraved at the back of them, can they? Still, this is... [Read more]

Feel free to call me an old fogey who’s slowly turning into the harrumphing adult, the kind who was irritating when I was kid. But when did kids start thinking that sending “nude or nearly nude” photos of themselves to friends was an ok thing to do? A probably late news report summarizing the trend: It’s like what JayeCuevas on YouTube said: “hey i have an idea! DON’T TAKE THOSE KIND OF PICS IN THE FIRST PLACE! now there’s a concept”. In any case, even adults need to learn that keeping a record of incriminating pics or text is simply asking for it. It doesn’t help that, with everything connected to the net, what you do foolishly becomes part of the permanent cyberspace history, free for... [Read more]

The home page of goo.gl, Google’s new URL shortening service, claims that it’s “not for broader consumer use”. But thanks to Alexandre Gaigalas, who created a third-party goo.gl URL shortener, that’s not true. Visit http://gaigalas.net/lab/googl, type in any URL and press “Shorten” to get your very own goo.gl URL! Thanks for the tip Andry! [Read more]

A quick face-to-palm worthy moment: The Register reports on a company suing Apple, Microsoft, and other big operators like Sony for infringing on their patent—or the “standard activation software used by a vast array of software”. Consider this your monthly dose of patent trolls (BetaNet LLC in this case) seeking to profit off the hard work of others. [Read more]

A development that will surely worry Barnes & Noble execs at best, and force the book retailer to come out with a firmware/software update at “worst”, a group of developers have managed to turn the nook e-reader into a sub-$300 web tablet—with free 3G access via B&N’s network access. The process, which predictably violates the nook’s warranty and user agreement, first involves removing the e-reader’s internally stored 2GB microSD card. The next step requires connecting this card to a PC running Linux or Unix, editing an initialization file, and simply replacing the word “disabled” with—you guessed it—”enabled”. However, that’s not the end of this story. As Top Tech News... [Read more]