Back in August of 2009 the Consumerist featured a New York Times article about a growing Japanese trend of single men carrying ’2-D Girlfriends’ around everywhere with them. The rise of 2-D love can be attributed in part to the difficulty many young Japanese have in navigating modern romantic life. According to a government survey, more than a quarter of unmarried men and women between the ages of 30 and 34 are virgins; 50 percent of men and women in Japan said they were not “going out with anybody”. Now Sears.com is getting in on this new trend, featuring the Girlfriend Body Pillow from DeluxeComfort.com. This is a somewhat… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

No, no; relax:  it’s not the evil giant purple dinosaur.  It’s more like Agustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but you get to control him and get the goodies.  It’s Barney in Chocoland HD, now released by Rapid Turtle Games for the iPad.   Rapid Turtle describes it thus: The player is controlling Barney. Chocolates are falling down, and they need to catch and insert them into the barrels. When the player misses a chocolate, it is eaten by Coco. 3 misses and the game ends. Straightforward arcade game, it sounds like, but the price is pretty good, especially for an iPad game.  Barney in Chocoland HD can be yours if … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Google seemed pretty intent on rolling out the Nexus One to all four carriers, but it looks like they’ve changed course. The Nexus One site no longer says “coming soon” for Verizon. Instead, it shills the HTC Incredible. Remember, the Incredible and the Nexus One are both HTC made phones. But clearly someone has more of a stake in pushing the Incredible. It is easy to blame Verizon, with their history of controlling behavior, but I think HTC has more at stake here. Think about it; if Verizon oks the Nexus One and the Incredible, either way the customer is paying Verizon for service. If anything, a full price Nexus One is probably a better deal since… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

[image courtesy of zdnet] We asked how music impacts your life, and you answered!  We had three We’re happy to announce the winners of our Slacker Radio Plus Giveaway. Without further adieu, the winners are…. One-Year Subscription: jdnorthwest clulisa Three-Month Subscription: Heatwave316 wyssaj01 lloydrv Winners: Please email me directly (jason at geardiary.com) to get your Slacker subscription certificates. Congratulations!  … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you are looking for notebook one of the best options is often to look at the refurbs that are available. While the selection may be limited the savings can be significant. And thanks to our Gear Sponsor you can save even more. With this Gear Deal you will save an additional 30% when you shop the Sony VAIO Laptops at SonyStyle outlet store. You will even get FREE shipping when you do. If this sounds good to you act fast… the coupon expires April 28. Sony Outlet: 30% Coupon VAIO Laptops via LOGICBuy Continue reading on Gear Diary …

While you may think that your friendly Gear Diary team subsists on gadgets and electricity, we in fact consume tasty comestibles just like anyone else.  In fact, you might be surprised at how much of our private chatter is taken up by food-related topics.  (Two weeks ago:  Texas bar-b-qu places.) So while it is not in our usual line, we bring you news from Find Me a Gift, a “unique gift” site in the U.K.:  the Gangster (cheese) Grater.  The Gangster Grater is in the shape of a classic 30s-era car, complete with bullet holes for that authentic, Al Capone, bootlegger feel.  Available from Find Me a Gift for about 7 bucks. Full… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Photo courtesy of Cisco Systems, Inc. It’s called the Cisco CRS-1; it’s nearly 7 feet high, weighs around a ton “fully loaded”, requires a special lifting mechanism to move around, and can network data at a rate of something like 3 Terabits per second.  (It also sounds like a Boeing 747 when it’s operating, and sucks so much air you’d think it was a Bugatti Veyron, but that’s another story.) And I wrote the manual for it, thank you very much. Unfortunately, that particular document is not available through Cisco Press.  Maybe someday!  However, Cisco is offering a number of new books and iPhone apps anyway,  even if none of mine are… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If your an iPhone user who’s Jailbroken, chances are you’re familiar with Geohot’s program Blackra1n.  Perhaps you even used it to Jailbreak your device. Looks like someone’s done some fancy detective work (okay not really that fancy) to determine guess what Geohot might call his next Jailbreak tool, the one he showed off Jailbreaking the much anticipated iPhone 4.0 operating system. If you plan to Jailbreak 4.0, then Limera1n might become your tool of choice. Redmond Pie reports that the domain records for both Blackra1n and Limera1n are similar, and that Geohot… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

[images courtesy of geeky gadgets] If you were expecting the first round of announcements from RIM’s 2010 Wireless Enterprise Symposium (aka WES) to be earth shatteringly awesome, well you’ll be a bit disappointed.   While we’re still hoping to see RIM’s 6.0 OS in action with full webkit browser glory, we’re going to have to settle for the official announcements of the CDMA BlackBerry Bold 9650 and the 3G BlackBerry Pearl 9100. Yes, wireless carriers are feverishly upgrading their networks to 4G — be it WiMAX or LTE.  So, um yeah, let’s get on that 3G Pearl wagon and strike while the iron’s lukewarm.  The 9100 model Pearl features a 20-key condensed QWERTY keyboard (a la SureType) and the 9105 model features a 14-key traditional phone keyboard. All you BlackBerry Tour-toters will be sad not likely notice that the 9650 Bold will be taking the throne on CDMA networks (expect the new ‘Berry to hit Verizon in May). Read on for more details and RIM’s official press release…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox (Joseph wants to see this again; I’m more of an Astro Boy kinda guy, myself.) Always put the word “FREE!” in all caps, and 24 point type (or bigger) if you can, that’s what those journalism professors say.  Or so I’m told. Yes, free movies!  Free trip to the theater (or “theatre,” as the Regal folks spell it) with your kids!  Check it: [Regal Entertainmented] today announced details of Regal’s 2010 Free Family Film Festival. During this 9-week festival, 328 Regal Cinemas, United Artists and Edwards Theatres will offer selected G or PG rated movies for free on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at 10am. Participating theatres offer free Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A lot of people have noticed “the fingerprints problem,” including our own Larry G., who was just posting about it yesterday: Fingerprints.  It’s perhaps my biggest pet peeve about the iPad’s glorious screen.  It’s one gigantic fingerprint magnet.  Unless you plan on joining the Men In Black (they remove your fingerprints), it’s something you just have to deal with. Larry told you about one solution:  styli.  But there’s another solution that Speck is offering:  their new New “ShieldView” Screen Protector Line.  The new Speck line is designed “to keep your device displays and touch screens looking clean and pristine.”  Speck has new protectors for the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, “and more,” they tell us.  So if you’re… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

At the end of 2008 I bought my first digital picture frame, the Gigantor 15″ from Think Geek, which at the time was one of the largest available without getting into astronomical amounts of money. I paid about $200 for it, which I thought was a pretty good deal considering that many 10″ and under frames were selling in the ~$150 range. Everyone who comes into our house will generally stop dead in their tracks when they see the massive photo display; they want to know who people are, when photos were taken, and where they were taken. It’s as much fun for us as it is for them, and I am glad… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We’d like to thank everyone who entered our Ultimate Small Business Starter Package Giveaway, and we’d like to congratulate mattgibstein, our winner of the 12 months’ free service of RingCentral Mobile ($300 value). mattgibstein is one of the ultimately 25 winners from which five grand prize winners will also be selected for the Ultimate Small Business Start-up Package (additional $862 value, for a total value of $1162). An email has been sent to mattgibstein, who responded to contest entry asking for people to post a comment naming these three things: 1) your favorite blog, 2) your favorite blogger, and 3) a paragraph about why #1 is your favorite blog and #2 is Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Fingerprints.  It’s perhaps my biggest pet peeve about the iPad’s glorious screen.  It’s one gigantic fingerprint magnet.  Unless you plan on joining the Men In Black (they remove your fingerprints) it’s something you just have to deal with.  Unless of course you find some other way to use your iPad without touching the screen with your finger. Enter the WirelessGround Touch Screen Stylus Pen.  The stylus, which is available in Black, Purple, Blue or Pink, features a soft tip which gives your more precise control when tapping on your screen and allows you to do so with using your finger. WirelessGround was kind enough to send me the black version… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(Image courtesy of Agile Web Solutions) With more people creating a variety of online accounts and putting more information online and with the increase in the number of hacks trying to get into accounts, having a password manager is worth looking into. One of my favorite password managers, 1Password, has been available on the Mac platform for years and works seamlessly with a variety of browsers. 1Password is also available on the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad. Well, imagine my surprise to see that Agile Web Solutions has released a beta of 1Password for Windows! While it does not yet have feature parity with the Mac version, it’s an excellent first version. There are plugins… Continue reading on Gear Diary …