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If you want to stay on top of all of our video reviews of the latest tech, be sure to check out and subscribe to the Gear Live YouTube channel, hosted by Andru Edwards! It’s free!
A few days ago we posted our first of what we hope to be many podcasts, where we spoke with Box.net founder Aaron Levie. Now, with the release of iTunes 4.9 with podcasting capabilities, we are included in their podcast index. The hard way to find us is to check out the Business category, and look under the Management sub-category for “Venturus”. Of course, if you are more hip than that, just go ahead and use the subscribe link below. If you have any suggestions for the podcast, drop us a line at andru [at] venturus.com.
Click to continue reading Venturus Podcast Now On iTunes
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proud dog owners want to make a point that it is unfair to ban a whole breed of dog from a location, rather than doing it on a dog-by-dog basis. So because of this, I guess the way to combat is to punish the dog by dressing them up like idiots? Really, if someone wants a poodle, they will get one - not a freaking black lab. That being said, I wouldn’t mind running into a dog dressed like this at Green Lake. It would certainly make my day. If you want to dress your dog in a similar fashion, check out the link.
Read More 
| AttackChi.org
The ultimate solution for anyone who needs a quick 10,000 or so T-shirts printed out at a moments notice, the Fast T-Jet allows you to print on any light cloth without much delay at all. Of course, even they have their own proprietary ink that you must buy from them, called FastINK Textile ink. Oh, and the printer costs $10,995 USD. There go my dreams of clothing everyone in Seattle in a Flash Gordon shirt.
Read More | Fast T-Jet Product Page
Latest Gear Live Videos
Mercedes-Benz recently announced a radar assisted braking technology. The technology uses the radar information Mercedes gains from its adaptive cruise control technology and adapts it to braking. The system will not brake on it’s own (as that would violate US law), but instead will apply the brakes with varying degrees of firmness depending on the situation. For instance if the driver is not applying the brakes strongly enough and the system thinks the car is about to get into an accident the system will increase the firmness of braking to avoid a collision. The system claims to reduce accidents by up to 80% in emergency situations.
Read More | Topgear
Firefox got a few mentions in the news today. Firstly, Google announced they would be releasing a version of their popular Google Toolbar for Firefox. This would of course come out as an extension for Firefox, bringing some additional Google functionality to Firefox’s popular cross platform browser. Secondly for anyone who is addicted to Microsoft Internet Explorer’s user interface you can now make Firefox look and act very similar to IE. By installing several extensions and a theme you can make Firefox act almost entirely like Internet Explorer.
Read More | Google Toolbar for Firefox
Read More | FirefoxIE
Gear Live Podcast: Participatory Culture’s Tiffiniy Cheng
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Internet, Podcasts,
Get ready for a new way to present your work. Peer-to-peer publishing with BitTorrent means file size and cost are not issues anymore, so you can offer fullscreen video with no bandwidth costs. That is the midset behind the Participatory Culture project. We sat with Tiffiniy Cheng of Participatory Culture to discuss bringing the media back into the hands of the people, publishing video on the Internet, and President Bush’s pirated music. Click here to download the MP3, or you can just subscribe to the Gear Live Podcast feed. Conversely, you can now subscribe to us directly from iTunes - be sure you have version 4.9.
Voices: Andru Edwards, Tiffiniy Cheng - Participatory Culture
Length: 40:28, 23.2 MB
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Listen | Participatory Culture Interview
Tom Bihn Brain Cell Review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Features, PC / Laptop, Product Reviews,
Tom Bihn constructs some very unique and functional bags. We recently got the opportunity to try out a couple of them, and the results are in. The first bag we are going to talk about it the Brain Cell laptop bag. If you have a notebook, it is essential that you have a way to carry it while keeping it protected. How does the Brain Cell meet the challenge? Find out after the jump.
Click to continue reading Tom Bihn Brain Cell Review
So, a few weeks ago I made a post where I discussed the Netzero HiSpeed 3G commercial that I saw while watching TV. I called out NetZero for the way they were promoting the service, saying that you won’t believe it isn’t broadband. I then searched their site for the Terms of Service, and posted them to Gear Live. I pointed out how it basically sped up text transfer and images. Basically, none of the things that people get broadband for in the first place - multimedia streaming, downloads, VOIP, etc. - had any different on NetZero 3G. I also stated that the 3G term was misleading, as many understand it to be a truly broadband way of transferring data. Well, Peter Delgrosso took offense to the post. He works with NetZero, and pointed out his stance on the situation. I responded, offering to review the service and give an honest opinion - he never wrote back. Below you can read our email exchange:
Hi Andru,
I would just like to clarify two points in yesterday’s NetZero HiSpeed 3G review you wrote. #1, NetZero’s claims as the fastest dial-up service on the market today have been validated by the leading software testing lab VeriTest. As a result, it does give users a broadband like feel. #2, you mention we’re only caching text, which is not accurate, the technology has been developed over the years to utilize caching and compression technologies along with other various proprietary techniques to accelerate
Web pages (HTML markup and JavaScript), graphics including JPEG and GIF images, Text, and email including POP3 and Email on the Web. If you’re interested in a trial account so you could try out the service for yourself, please just let me know. I’d be happy to arrange it. Thank you.Peter Delgrosso
VP, Corporate Communications
United Online, Inc.
My response followed:
Hi there Peter,
I was specifically referring to the terms from the NetZero HiSpeed 3G site. Looking at it, it disqualifies just about everything that people expect from broadband. Most people don’t get broadband service so that it speeds up the loading of text. It is for the music, video, and other multimedia aspects, which 3G does not support. Now, even if it isnt just caching and pre-fecthing, it still is only limited to text and images. Are the images downgraded in quality to support the higher speeds?
I would be happy to make corrections and/or let people know exactly what they can expect with the service. Heck, I would even be willing to give it a test if you would like me to. I will give it a fair shot.
Also, what does the 3G stand for? I can see many confusing that with the broadband 3G term.
Andru Edwards
Editor-in-Chief
Gear Live
Since then, I figured out that 3G stands for Third Generation. Anyone use NetZero HiSpeed 3G yet? Any thoughts?
Opera for Windows 8.02 Technical Preview 1 was released, one of the biggest new features is implementation of BitTorrent protocol support. Being that such a large percentage of Internet traffic is from BitTorrent, you can’t blame them for going this route. I just hope it is feature-rich, rather than a clunky attempt. The official announcement should be coming tomorrow.
Read More | OperaWatch
WeatherBug announced yesterday that it will bring its popular weather application to the cell phone via WeatherBug Mobile for Java. The service is only available through Sprint, and will cost users $2.99 a month. While Sprint PCS Vision customers already have access to Weather Channel information through their phone, most weather information is only updated hourly, unlike WeatherBug. “A recent AP poll indicated that most Americans closely monitor weather reports but find them unreliable. People want reliable weather conditions for their specific location and want to be able to view them as they go about their day, depending on where they are,” said Andy Jedynak, Sr. Vice President and General Manager, WeatherBug. “Unlike all other weather reports, which are based upon hourly data from local airports, WeatherBug offers continuously updated live weather information at your fingertips, when it matters most.”
Read More | WeatherBug Mobile
