san

Did SFPD reveal that lost device is iPhone 5?

There's still some confusion surrounding the hunt by Apple and the San Francisco Police Department for a lost, unreleased iPhone, thanks in large part to conflicting statements by the police, as well as Apple's reluctance to discuss the matter.

San Francisco police confirmed yesterday that they "assisted" Apple internal security in a recent search of a home that was aimed at finding an unreleased iPhone owned by the company and lost in a San Francisco bar. On Wednesday, CNET was the first to report the search for the errant phone.

Apple has declined to identify the … Read more

The 404 896: Where 'tis a far far better thing doing stuff for other people (podcast)

We have big announcement to make today! At the end of this month, CNET will begin a daily block of live podcasts, starting with The 404! You asked for longer episodes, so we're extending the show to fit in all the news headlines of the day, plus Calls From The Public, more weekly segments, including the return of Tang that Tune, and more!

On today's extracasual episode, we jump into a few stories we weren't able to discuss yesterday, like Apple losing yet another unreleased iPhone prototype, Germany lifting a 17-year ban on Doom 1 and 2, and a Tang That Tune with a surprise ending!

The 404 Digest for Episode 896

Apple loses another unreleased iPhone (exclusive). Doom finally unbanned in Germany. Apple customer accidentally given store hard drive.

Episode 896 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Student misses e-mail, loses college place

Colleges seems like frightfully commercial enterprises to me.

They enjoy pretending they're about education. But they do seem to charge absurd amounts of money in order to give the young and impressionable the often erroneous belief that they're worth something. For a price that can be $50,000 a year.

So I find myself curiously unsurprised to hear the story of Hanaroo Kim, a student who thought he was entering San Jose State University.

As CBS 5 in San Jose describes it, Kim turned up for freshman orientation, only to find it utterly disorientating. For he was told … Read more

StubHub adds mobile ticketing for Giants fans

StubHub is launching a mobile ticket option today for San Francisco Giants fans that allows them to get tickets sent directly to their phones, eliminating the need for printouts.

Because the feature, which is being added to the current StubHub app for the iPhone or Android phones, eliminates the need for a paper ticket, buyers will literally be able to find and buy tickets as they stand outside the gate. Ushers using special scanners, not the bar code scanners currently in use at most sporting and concert venues, simply scan the image of the ticket displayed on the screen.

The app does not completely eliminate the need for paper: ushers will hand customers a printed receipt that they need for reentry to their section after leaving for the bathroom or food.

Mats Nilsson, director of product at StubHub, said that for now there are six of the new scanners at the Giants ballpark. The company plans to expand the mobile ticketing service to other venues over the next few months. … Read more

SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip review: Short and sweet

The MP3 player will never die. You can show me your smartphones and your tablets and all of the dozens of ways we have now to listen to music, but there will always be a place in the world for a cheap, reliable MP3 player.

SanDisk's latest Sansa Clip Zip is proof of this point. Starting at just $49 (4GB) and decked out with an enviable array of audio format support (including AAC and FLAC), an FM radio, a voice recorder, a stopwatch, and a 1.1-inch color screen, the Clip Zip is destined to become the same kind … Read more

Sifteo's hot Cubes born of ubiquitous computing heritage

SAN FRANCISCO--Can toys be part of a computing movement?

At Sifteo, a start-up here launched by two MIT Media Lab graduates, the answer is an emphatic yes. And while the world may be focused on the innovative play offered by the young company's motion-aware Cubes, the founders have higher aspirations than just being a toy company.

This evening, at a party in San Francisco, Sifteo is publicly launching its first product--a set of small electronic cubes (see video below) that communicate with each other wirelessly and enable a wide variety of casual digital games. The cubes come in sets … Read more

CTIA weighs challenge to revised SF cell phone law

Just when you thought the legal battles between the CTIA and the city of San Francisco were over, it appears that the fight may continue.

In an interview today, a spokesman for the wireless industry's trade group told CNET that the organization is strongly considering challenging a new city law that requires San Francisco retailers to post informational notices that cell phones emit radiofrequency (RF) energy and offer fact sheets to consumers who request them.

John Walls, CTIA's vice president for public affairs, refused to say exactly what legal recourse the group is considering, but that it is … Read more

SanDisk Ultra SSD review: Keep that hard drive, too

A little while ago I made a case that you should keep your hard drive when upgrading to a solid-state drive (SSD). That case is even more clear with the SanDisk Ultra.

This is the first SATA 2 (3Gbps)-based SSD I've reviewed since the Samsung 470, and it's also the first that trailed behind hard drives in terms of data transfer speed. In our testing, the Ultra was actually the slowest among all internal storage devices we've seen when it comes to copying files.

This doesn't mean the drive is slow in other operations. According to SanDisk the Ultra is optimized for random access, which helps boost the performance of applications, especially during launch. And indeed the drive helped improve the overall performance of a computer a great deal in our trials. Games and large applications took much less time to fully load when compared with a traditional hard drive. The drive also cut down the boot and shutdown time significantly. … Read more

Cities and states consider cell phone radiation laws

Editors' note: This story was originally published June 2. It has been updated with new information.

Though the science on the possible health effects of cell phone radiation is far from conclusive, several state and local governments are proposing legislation to address public concerns. And though no law has been implemented yet, it's clear the issue isn't going away.

How we got here Maine largely led the way in early 2010 with a bill that would have required warning labels that cell phones may cause brain cancer. That legislation later died in a Maine House of Representatives committee, … Read more