boxing

Running out of creativity when trying to find gifts for friends and family? Here's a suggestion that almost guarantees some good fun, regardless of the gift: dummy gift boxes from prankpack.com.

These are regular rectangular cardboard boxes, about the size of a giant phone book, with professionally printed art and photos that suggest out-of-this-world, crazy products they have inside. The thing is, none of these products exists, and instead you just use the boxes to pack anything else that you want to give.

Just imagine the excitement, mixed with some bewilderment, your nerdy friend will have upon receiving … Read more

The Google TV-equipped Logitech Revue is finally getting its Honeycomb update.

Earlier today, both Google and Logitech announced that the set-top box's owners would be able to download an over-the-air update bringing Android 3.1 to the device. Honeycomb delivers a host of improvements, including a redesigned interface, access to Google Music, and support for the Android Market. In addition, the software's Chrome browser supports Adobe Flash Player 10.2.

The update comes over a month after owners of Sony's Google TV-based devices were offered the software. The only issue is, early reviews of Honeycomb for Google … Read more

Cloud-based storage service Box is in a generous mood this holiday season.

The company announced new partnerships with LG and Sony Ericsson today, and effective immediately, anyone who owns an LG smartphone running Android 2.1+ will receive 50GB of free storage when signing up for an account.

The generous amount of cloud-based hosting far exceeds the 5GB of Dropbox storage that HTC recently began offering their customers and lasts the lifetime of the account. However, LG owners must sign up for an account using their handset before March 31, 2012, when it's expected that the storage will go back down to the 5GB plan. … Read more

Per the video, couples can use the SwissRoomBox to shower and have pillow fights.

The Swiss took a simple pocket knife and made it open bottles, burn ants with a magnifying glass, and saw down trees. So we are not terribly surprised to see the SwissRoomBox. Its red-painted sides conceal a stove, sink, shower, table, and bed, and it can be fit into different types of cars.

This promotional video shows a couple on a splendid car camping adventure somewhere in the European countryside, taking advantage of the many uses of the SwissRoomBox, and proving that the Swiss do, in fact, wear leather underwear. … Read more

Downloads and streaming music can't touch physical media for sound quality, or the pleasures associated with truly deluxe packaging.

For a prime example of the state of the art of the box set, check out the extra-thick album sleeves and gorgeous slipcase on Pearl Jam's "vs. & Vitalogy Deluxe Edition" three-disc set. The third disc is a live show from Boston's Orpheum Theatre in 1994. The band is peaking, and it's great to hear this fierce, passionate music sounding this good. To get the full effect, you'll want to play it loud. The … Read more

Box.net announced today a project called Box Innovation Network, which taps into developer communities and cloud technology partners to encourage development of enterprise software. The goal is to create a "vibrant ecosystem" for enterprise like Facebook did for social.

That's ambitious. A network for cloud-based software isn't nearly as spine-tingling as a new social network.

"Nothing will be cooler [than Facebook] for sharing photos with my grandmother and this isn't as sexy as daily deals," says Aaron Levie, the energetic CEO and founder of Box.net (now going by "Box"). &… Read more

Boxee co-founder Avner Ronen took to the official Boxee blog this morning to announce the Boxee Live TV tuner.

It's a $50 TV tuner dongle coming in January that connects to one of the Boxee Box's USB ports and works with either free over-the-air TV signals (which typically include the major networks, plus PBS) or unencrypted Clear QAM cable channels. (There's a useful overview on Boxee's site.)

The pitch is that the Live TV tuner makes the Boxee Box an exceptional cable-cutting device, letting you still watch major TV events like local sports and award shows, while catching up on other TV and movie content via streaming video services like Netflix and Vudu. (But not Hulu Plus, which still hasn't been added to Boxee, despite the announcement over a year ago.)

The catch? That all sounds great, until you remember that every modern HDTV already has a built-in ATSC tuner that allows you to watch live TV.… Read more

Logitech is halting production of its Google TV Revue set-top boxes, acknowledging that the whole affair was a financial disaster for the company.

At an Analyst and Investor Day hosted by Logitech on Wednesday, CEO Guerrino De Luca confessed that the Revue was a "mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature." In his presentation, DeLuca in part pointed the finger at Google TV, referring to it as a "beta" product, according to The Verge.

De Luca told investors that Logitech lost more than $100 million in operating profits on the Revue after bringing it to the … Read more

Having just come from the unveiling of the latest Nook e-readers, I'm feeling more than ever that the future of reading will come in tablet form. I'm already "that guy": I read all my latest books on my iPad via iBooks or the Kindle app. And yet, there's something big--something obvious--that e-readers are missing. It's something that magazines, newspapers, DVDs, and Blu-rays have already figured out.

A way to marry print books and digital ones.

I see bookstores around me closing every day. I'm part of the problem. Here's the vile thing I do: I browse through a bookstore like a vulture. I finger through books. When I find one I like, I buy it, right there, on my iPhone--on the Kindle. The bookstore loses the purchase. I'm a horrible person. And yet, I'll keep doing it. Because those big, bulky physical books don't come with download codes to get e-versions, and right now, I'd rather choose digital. There has to be another way.… Read more