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You knew it was going to happen sooner or later…Yahoo has announced that starting in May they will offer unlimited storage for its free email service to its quarter of a billion users. This is in response to the massive growth of email attachments such as videos, photos and music. Another reason is that the cost of storage is rapidly decreasing, making life for Yahoo—and fellow pack rats worldwide—just a little bit easier. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft (which offers 2 GB of free email) and Google (2.8 GB) will respond to Yahoo’s boldness.
Read More 
| PC Magazine
Gallery: Yahoo Offers Unlimited Email Storage
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There are widgets for everything now from The Zodiac with your daily horoscope to the Symphonic with iTunes. When we found out that corporations are beginning to use them as a marketing tool, we weren’t surprised.
Yahoo’s Widgets 4 is a collection of more than 4,300 and includes some with company branding. “The user’s desktop is extremely valuable, it’s prime real estate,” said Paul Brody, Yahoo VP of desktop products.
We would personally prefer to clutter our own with a widget coffee alarm that lets us know its break time. Come to think of it, we think we hear it now.
Read More | Reuters
Gallery: Widgets Go Commercial
Dine With Gene and Shannon
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Home Entertainment, Internet, Music,
Who could resist a chance to hobnob with Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed? A plane ride for you and three guests will whisk you away to LA where you briefly get to be a part of the Simmons’ Family Jewels, metaphorically speaking. Have dinner with the rock star and the model, spend the night in luxury hotel accommodations, and know that you are helping out a worthy cause. The bidding is presently set at $15,201.09. All proceeds from the eBay auction, which commences April 4, will be donated to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatrics AIDS Foundation.
Read More | eBay
Gallery: Dine With Gene and Shannon
Up Close and Personal with the AMD Vanishing Point Chip
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Internet, PC / Laptop,
So, remember all that Vanishing Point hoopla that was going on earlier this year, which included Loki throwing out puzzle after puzzle (heck, and even taking over the Bellagio)? Well, the final puzzle was the task of figuring out exactly who Loki was, and the person who did that first would get their name inscribed into a limited run of AMD Athlon processors. Audrey Murphy came out on top in this one, as you saw in our video coverage of the announcement, and won the right to have her name become a part of technology history. We got our hands on one of the chips, and have put up a gallery that features a sample of what the chips might look like. As you can see, she put her name on there along with her husband’s, and then thanked a couple of sites that gave them support during the content. Check out the gallery for a few more shots. Congratulations, Audrey!
Read More | AMD Vanishing Point Chip Gallery
Gallery: Up Close and Personal with the AMD Vanishing Point Chip
Yoggie: Miniature Security Device for Your Laptop
Posted by Lolita Beckwith Categories: Accessories, USB, Internet, PC / Laptop, Wireless / WiFi,
With telecommuting growing by leaps and bounds and free WiFi access becoming more and more prevalent, protecting vital information on your laptop is of the utmost importance. Help has arrived in the form of Yoggie, a palm-sized device that houses 13 security products. Once plugged into the USB port, Yoggie offers such safety measures as anti-spam, anti-phishing, anti-spyware, anti-virus, a firewall, intrusion detection/prevention, and much more. Yoggie will put you back $199 USD, but we feel that beats the trials and tribulations of having your identity stolen by a 12-year-old hacker.
Read More | Yoggie
Gallery: Yoggie: Miniature Security Device for Your Laptop
Fontifier is a great little tool for using your own handwriting text on your computer. It takes a sample of your written material and turns it into its own font. Print out their template sheet, write your own characters on it, scan, and upload it. You then preview the results, download, and install. Fontifier is free to try and a mere $9.00 to buy. If your handwriting is as indiscernible as some of ours at Gear Live, just don’t expect anyone to be able to read it.
Read More | Fontifier
Gallery: Fontifier Turns Handwriting into Fonts
France’s National Space Agency CNES has made its UFO files public by creating a website. Covering sightings over the last five decades, the Office for the Study of Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena has gathered about 10,000 documents, which include images, police reports, and videos. They then offer explanations for some of them which so far amounts to about 9%. They plan to update their findings when new cases are reported. France is the first country to uncover its documentation and say that site has become so popular that access has almost become unattainable. E.T., if you are hanging around Paris and can speak French, you can finally phone home.
Read More | CNES (French) via BBC
Gallery: France Makes UFO Info Public
YouTube Announces “Tubey” Winners
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Movies, Music,
Dony Permedi’s animated video “Kiwi!” has won one of 7 of what we at Gear Live refer to as “Tubey” awards. Announced today, it joins other winners “OK Go’s” music video, “Ask a Ninja,” Terra Naomi’s “Say It’s Possible,” a vlogger known as “the winekone,” Australian Juan Mann’s “Free Hugs Campaign,” and Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox, also known as “Smosh.” Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing, sees the competition as a way of rewarding the creativity on its site.
If you missed any of them or would like to see the other finalists, hang out at YouTube for a bit. Gear Live would like to congratulate all the winners as well as the runners up on behalf of vloggers everywhere.
Read More | USA Today
Gallery: YouTube Announces “Tubey” Winners
Nokia Begins Shipment of N95
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Cameras, Smartphones, Corporate News, GPS, Internet, Portable Audio / Video, Wireless / WiFi,
Nokia has announced that it is now shipping its N95 to European, Asian, and Middle Eastern markets. The phone also has the ability to watch and record videos, play music from 2 GB of storage, take photos with its 5 megapixel camera, check e-mail, and browse the Net. With a 2-way slide design, it also has GPS capability, and WLAN, EDGE, and WCDMA network support. Available in black or silver, Nokia says that it will begin shipping in other markets in the next few weeks. Check with Nokia for price and availability to our side of the planet.
Read More | Nokia
Gallery: Nokia Begins Shipment of N95
Federal Judge Overturns Outdated Pornography Law
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Internet, Software,
A federal judge has struck down a governmental effort to control pornography on the Internet. The 1998 U.S. Child Online Protection Act deems that it is a crime if Internet sites allow children to access material that is “harmful to minors.” The law would have expected sites to ask for a credit card number or other such proof of age. Penalties of a $50,000 fine and up to 6 months in prison would have been given to those who did not comply.
In 2004, the Supreme Court upheld a temporary injunction on the basis that the law may have been outdated and would probably be struck down. Sexual health sites complained that the law was vague and may have other repercussions to these sites. The judge declared that parents can already protect their kids by filtering online material without limiting free speech.
“Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if (free speech) protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection,” wrote Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., who presided over a month long trial last fall.
Read More | CNN
