electronics

Another top retail exec gets the heave-ho -- this time at Best Buy -- and the company says all the right things in a dutiful statement pledging "new leadership" to spur growth and profitability.

Good as far as it went and I'm sure the search committee will try its hardest to land a solid replacement. But even if they combined the DNA from the best retail execs of this -- or any generation -- to conjure up a dream CEO, Best Buy would still need a miracle to avoid the fate suffered by the likes of Good Guys, … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- The autocratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia doesn't have much to worry about, at least not yet, from democracy activists and the Internet, one of the country's best known bloggers predicts.

"It is very unlikely that we will see any change in the country in the short and medium term," Ahmed Al Omran, creator of SaudiJeans.org, said at an event in CNET's offices in downtown San Francisco yesterday evening. Al Omran left Saudi Arabia to study at Columbia University and now lives in Washington, D.C.

A so-called Day of Rage protest … Read more

Blame MegaUpload, if you stored legal documents on the cyberlocker service and now may not be allowed to retrieve them, according to the U.S. government.

Neil MacBride, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who in January shut down MegaUpload, after accusing founder Kim DotCom and six other company managers of criminal copyright violations, asked a federal court in documents filed last night to deny a request for a protective order filed by Carpathia Hosting, which houses MegaUpload's user data.

Carpathia wants the court to help pay the costs of preserving MegaUpload's data, which … Read more

It appears LG is making good on its promise to bring flexible displays to e-book readers, as the Korean consumer electronics company revealed that it has started mass production of the "world's first" plastic electronic paper display (EPD).

The screen measures 6 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 1,024x768 pixels. It can bend at a range of 40 degrees from the center of the screen, and it's also about one-third thinner and half as light as current glass EPDs, LG says, meaning it'll be even easier to carry than the e-book readers today.

LG also cites durability as a benefit of its plastic EPD. The company ran numerous stress tests on the display, including dropping it from a height of about 5 feet and hitting the screen with a small urethane hammer (how do I get this job?), and saw no damage. Presumably, this means you could toss your reader into your bag sans case without fear of scratching up the display. … Read more

The trade group for the top Hollywood film studios told a federal court that it opposes any plan that would allow MegaUpload to buy back its servers.

That unyielding stance position could hurt MegaUpload's efforts to retrieve its servers, which company lawyer Ira Rothken said it needs to defend itself. In January, the United States filed criminal copyright charges against the cyberlocker service, founder Kim DotCom and other managers. DotCom and six others are expected to fight U.S. attempts to extradite them to this country.

The Motion Picture Association of America laid out its position in an 8-page … Read more

Robotspeak does not sell actual robots -- though I never tired of getting that question from people who wandered through the door. There are many delightful things you buy on San Francisco's historic Haight Street, but to the best of my knowledge, robots are not one of them.

In spite of the occasional befuddlement of robot shoppers, Robotspeak is a fitting name for a shop that specializes in the type of unique audio gear and music recording software perfect for composing symphonies of synthetic bleeps and squelches.

Robotspeak's walls are lined with synthesizers, drum machines, mixers, effect pedals, and MIDI controllers. But more importantly, the shop is filled with the kind of geektastic sound toys that bigger stores wouldn't risk carrying.

So why am I writing about Robotspeak here on Crave? Well, I might be biased, but I think a shop like this is even more precious and worthy of geek attention than the sum of the gear contained inside it. Like Crave itself, Robotspeak is a place for a curious cross section of obsessives and coveters of technology. … Read more

In December 1998, a U.S.-based hacker group called Legions of the Underground declared cyberwar on Iraq and China and prepared to protest human rights abuses in those countries by disrupting their Internet access.

About a week later, a coalition of hackers from groups including Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc), L0pht, Chaos Computer Club in Germany, and hacker mags 2600 and Phrack issued a statement condemning the move. "We - the undersigned - strongly oppose any attempt to use the power of hacking to threaten to destroy the information infrastructure of a country, for any reason," … Read more

If Jell-O could sing, what sort of a delicious opera might come about?

Working with technology that's used in touch screens, two French design students have created a toy that playfully answers that question.

With "Noisy Jelly," kids (or abnormally sound-obsessed adults) mix up some gelatin, add a little "musical coloring," pour it in a mold, place the resulting forms on a special board, and then "play" the jelly with their fingertips (as you'll see in the video below).… Read more

A sign we live in the future: the next SimCity requires an Internet connection to launch the game, Maxis lead designer Stone Librande said in a recent interview with Joystiq.

Origin, everyone's favorite game distribution punching bag, must run on the computer to launch SimCity. After the initial Origin log-in, you can play SimCity offline without an always-on Internet connection.

The emphasis on an online experience revolves around the expanded multiplayer element, which includes a global economy, regional opportunities, and wide-area issues (pollution, disasters, etc.). This development may startle some veterans of the city builder, as one typically built cities and regions in an offline environment when playing previous versions of SimCity. … Read more