iPhone Users Get GarageBand Ringtones

iPhone users with crappy bands will rejoice today, as the recently released GarageBand 4.1.1 update adds easy ringtone exporting. Users have full access to Apple Loops and iLife jingles—as well as their own recordings—to export tracks. Here's the full procedure:


1. Start a crappy band.
2. Meet twice a week to argue whether you are going for a sound reminiscent of the Beatles pre or post Sgt. Pepper.
3. Lose your lead singer who is starting a solo career.
4. Say "fuck vocals, it's all about jamming anyway."
5. Hire a random Hooters waitress for the part in a moment of weakness when you'd had too many to drink and wondered why you were starting a band at age 37.
6. Regret signing tone-deaf Hooters waitress.
7. Fire waitress.
8. Get hummer in back seat.
9. Realize that waitress isn't such a bad singer after all.
10. Record your song in Garageband.
11. Set up a cycle region that covers the area you wish to use in the GarageBand song.
12. Once the cycle area has been set, choose Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes.
13. Find out that the drummer's been "hitting that shit, too."
14. Refuse to pay for the baby—there's no proof it's yours.
15. It's totally yours.
16. Break up with band/waitress.
17. Move to Alaska.
18. Get a call from a special someone you hadn't thought about in some time...a ringer you hadn't heard in ages.
19. Decide to get the band, and relationship, back together.
20. Find out the drummer is "still hitting that shit."

MSKYO Granny Ghetto Blaster Gives Loads of Oom-pah but No Oomph

From Germany comes MSKYO, the speaker that allows your granny to buy her cauliflower and mince at the market while listening to Snoop Doggy Dogg at full volume. This portable ghetto blaster has, according to their creators, "incredible sounds quality." For its $3,900 (2.656,50 euros) price tag, it better be truly amazing no matter if I put my sardines and vegetables in it. I like. Jetz kaufen,

S5 "Poor Man's LoJack" Tracking Chips Will Run for Four Years, Cost $2, Weigh Nothing

When Spidey tosses one of those sticky spiders to a getaway car, suspicious villain or hot chick he plans to stalk rescue later, we take for granted that the tracking chip inside is going to work right? Wireless-technology developer S5 plans to deploy a network of receivers in cities, so that its tiny $2 transmitter chip's unlicensed 915MHz signal can be triangulated wherever it comes from, indoors or out. You'll probably recognize this as a sort of inverted GPS—and also as an infrastructure nightmare—but there are reasons why this harebrained scheme just might work:

Besides the chip's extraordinarily small size and price—$2 though the module itself will cost $7—the main boast is that it will be able to be spotted wherever there is a network of receivers, whether the chip itself is indoors or out. S5 is cautious about managing expectations though: the claim is "accurate location equivalent to GPS."

What's more interesting still is the battery life, which S5 says can last up to four years. That is a stark contrast to current GPS trackers, which need to be charged regularly to be functional.

The trick will be getting enough people to adopt the technology, which is why it's giving away the design of the chip itself, royalty free. The company intends to charge money on the service itself, at somewhere around $1 per month.

The S5 vision is lightweight tags on everything from cats to cars to crates, but they gotta get cracking on that network if the thing will ever happen. According to the company, "several" cities will get S5 receiver towers next year, with 35 cities within three years. Even then, if you want to hide, you just have to drive to the outskirts of town, like the Dukes of Hazzard used to do.

I leave you with some final caveats from the S5 website:
• "Four-years is the approximate life of a 2100 mAh battery when the tag transmits every 30 minutes. "
• "Actual coverage will depend on service availability and network coverage by city."
• "This is an estimated price based on a number of factors, including estimated manufacturing volume and a basic set of features and is subject to change at any time."

High Speed Laser Kills Virus Without Damaging Healthy Cells

A new high speed pulsing laser developed by Arizona State physics professor Kong-Thon Tsen and his son Shaw-Wei Tsen, a pathology student at Johns Hopkins, has succeeded in killing a common virus without damaging the healthy surrounding cells. The laser utilizes the principle of "forced resonance" by vibrating the shell of a virus to "crack" it. Plus, tests have proven that it is possible to break down the shells at energies far lower than those needed to damage surrounding T-cells.

Since these ultrashort-pulse lasers or USPs don't generate a lot of heat, they are far gentler than conventional lasers, which may open up the possibility of using them to eradicate viruses in stored blood. The duo is currently testing the laser on HIV and hepatitis, which could be truly groundbreaking if successful. Will this physics professor and his biologist son restore my faith in medical science? Only time will tell.

TechFaith Launches "World's First WCDMA/GSM Dual Mode Phone"

China's TechFaith Wireless Communication Company has developed what they are calling the "World's first WCDMA/GSM dual mode phone." The "Twins" phone, as it has been dubbed, allows users the option of loading one WCDMA card and one GSM or loading dual GSM SIM cards. That means it would no longer be necessary to switch out SIM cards or carry around two phones for calls on both business and personal lines.

Other features include: a 2.0 megapixel camera, 2.8" touch sensitive TFT-LCD display, 256MB/64MB ROM memory, MP3 and MPEG4 player, WCDMA modem, Bluetooth, and video call capabilities. Two models will be available the "Dragonfly" and "OMAP' with the latter having a faster CPU and tri-band network support instead of quad-band. Naturally, no pricing information has been released, which is just as well seeing as how this product is unlikely to make its way to the states anytime soon.

NEC shows off cloth antenna: receives OTA, clears nostrils

We've seen some pretty outrageous looking antennas in our day, but NEC could have a hit on its hands with this newfangled cloth iteration. Granted, details are still hazy, but apparently this device can receive OTA TV signals and double as a handkerchief if you so desire. Reportedly, the firm has lined the cloth triangles with a "special metal" that can pick up broadcasted signals, and it's already thinking about integrating this into tents and other outdoor equipment. Additionally, this could certainly take wearable electronics to a new level if it were woven into one's garb (walking televisions, anyone?), but sadly, there's no word as to when (or if) this technology will hit the mainstream.

Logitech Classic Keyboard 200 for Nintendo Wii use

Why on earth would anybody want a keyboard for the Wii gaming system. Well I have a Nintedo Wii but I don’t use it to chat or surf the internet. The Wii remoted is good enough as you can point directly on the TV screen to type in your names or codes. That would be a safer way to prevent RSI on tired fingers. But just in case you need a good keyboard, try the new Logitech Classic Keyboard 200 for Nintendo Wii use.