Author: Ty Dunitz

Hey, you know Microsoft Office, that thing you’ve been downloading illegally for free all these years? It would seem that Microsoft’s finally catching up with the current state of computing – in June, they’ll be offering it for free, for real. In a move more than likely inspired by Google Docs’ sudden usefulness to people who want to be able to use one set of tools across the cloud, Microsoft will be releasing a free, ad-supported, online version of Office along side a more robust, un-free version in June. The hope is that, as approximately 90% of Office users are business users, they’ll prefer the…

Anyone who’s familiar with my posts by now is probably aware I’m not a fan of the iPad. Now, let’s not get our lines crossed; Apple is The New Hotness – not to mention The Old Hotness – and Jobs is a wonderful man whom I’d gladly have a beer with. Hell, I’m even typing this post on a Mac Pro! I just haven’t really cared for the iPad up to now. At any rate, this video was a welcome surprise this morning. Seems there’s an app for jailbroken iPads now tailor-made for people like me – that is, people who wonder why Apple’s flagship device is a giant iPhone, and not more like a netbook. Well, now it’s both! BTstack Mouse…

Straight outta the Enterprise’s engineering lab comes the newly-launched Google Goggles for mobile platforms, which can translate text from photographs in English, Italian, French, German and Spanish. No word on Klingon, yet. But seriously, this is for real – just snap a photo of the desired text and Goggles will translate it into your language… or another one, if you don’t feel like making any sensible use of the app. Any way you slice it, this is possibly the biggest boon to prolific world travelers in decades, as it renders obsolete the awkward practice of thumbing through a translation…

In the event you’re suffering from Star Wars Day withdrawal, here’s a cute segue back into real life – the Star Wars trilogy (no, not that Star Wars trilogy) summed up in two minutes, narrated by a child, presented in stop-motion Lego. I was skeptical at the film’s ability to sum up three films inside of 120 seconds, but it actually manages to hit on every major plot point, several minor ones, and even tosses in a few SW geek in-jokes. Masterful pacing. Masterful, indeed. [Via CrunchGear]…

It was only a matter of time before the iPad started seeing spyware surface. But I, for one, sure couldn’t have guessed it’d be like this. Mobile Spy is an app (I use the term loosely – I’ll explain in a moment) that allows an individual to collect the usage data of the target device, be it an iPad, Android phone, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile device, and view it via an online account. Said James John, CEO of Retina-X, the company behind the software: “Any device that can browse the Internet or send email can lead to unauthorized activities. Before now there was no method to monitor activities of children…

Today the Internet Archive announced a new service that will provide over a million books for the blind and visually impaired. I was so excited, I practically broke the New Post button to tell you all about this awesome new service, before stopping cold to ponder how exactly Internet Archive planned to bring braille to the internet. Seriously. But my idiocy aside, this is a great initiative. The IA folks have been hard at work scanning hundreds of thousands of books to be digitized into DAISY (a text-to-speech format) for consumption by the print-disabled population, at no cost. Their plan is to…

Wade McGilberry is laughing all the way to the bank after winning a million dollars to play a video game. Or, rather, not play it, depending on how you look at it. Developer 2K Sports had offered up a million dollars to the first player who could pitch a perfect game – that is, not allow a single player to make it even to first base – in their latest baseball offering, Major League Baseball 2K10. Upon hearing about the contest, McGilberry’s wife told him to gun it. “She told me, if I was going to be serious about this, that I should stay home [from work] and play the game. I decided to go to work anyway.” Apparently,…

This isn’t the first Rubik’s-cube-solving Lego robot that’s been viral in the last few months, nor is it the fastest (25 seconds), nor is it the most intimidating. But this one’s special for another reason entirely – this one’s powered by the Motorola Droid. Designed as a promotional vid for chip manufacturer ARM, builder David Gilday must be crying himself to sleep for missing his chance at YouTube kingship by a mere two months. You’re still number one in our hearts, Dave. [Via Make]…

I can’t get enough of widgets. I remember, back in the day, as a rabid PC user, vehemently anti-Apple, I flat-out lold at the concept of widgets. Now, years later, on a Mac Pro, I seem to be hitting F4 for one reason or another every four or five minutes. My widget addiction is about to get worse. With Google having recently acquired 3D desktop manager BumpTop, it would appear Apple’s looking to create an entire new generation of widgets in response, both multifunctional and existing in 3-dimensional virtual space. OSX was already a champion of pointless eye candy, but this is going to waste SO much…

The headline pretty much says it all. Keep reading anyway. It’s true: in a recent study by self-proclaimed ultimate electronics marketplace Retrevo of when it’s okay to answer a text, 10% (yes, TEN PERCENT) of people under 25 declared it perfectly acceptable to text during sex. Think about it. That’s one in ten. And that’s awful. Have we really become this disconnected? Other statistics from the study in the same under-25 demographic cited 49% during eating, and 24% while using the toilet. The toilet one I can understand. After all, it gets kind of lonely during those leg-numbing extended trips…