Perhaps because of all the recent terrorist-type activities going on in the UK lately, Merseyside County police were treated to a demonstration of the German built MD4-200 chopper. Three feet wide, the drone has four almost silent rotors and can fly up to 15 mph via GPS way points. It sends images to the pilot and/or a control room from nearly 550 yards away, but can only work for 20 minutes at a time. The choppers will be utilized, starting in September, for such minor duties as traffic jams and recording evidence, but we are pulling for the little drones to do their part to seek out the baddies, too.

 

Read More | Popular Mechanics

Gallery: German Chopper To Aid UK

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Here's how to get the show:
|Download| - iPod-formatted H.264
|Download| - Apple TV High Resolution
|Download| - MPEG-4

Read More | The Bleeding Edge

Gallery: The Bleeding Edge 174: DARPA Grand Challenge Qualifier: Carnegie Mellon and GM’s BOSS Vehicle

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Our Apple iPhone unboxing video is finally here. We dive right in and show you all the ins and outs of the 8GB Apple iPhone, showing off the phone itself, along with all the included accessories that come with the device.

This video is a part of the Unboxing Live series. If you would like to be automatically notified of new episodes, you can subscribe to us in iTunes, or manually using our RSS feed.

Read More | Unboxing

Gallery: Apple iPhone Unboxing Video

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Alright kids, we know it hurts, but Walt Mossberg, David Pogue, Steven Levy, and Edward Baig have all had their iPhone units for a couple of weeks now, and the embargoes were lifted earlier today. So what does all that mean? We have the first four iPhone reviews available for public consumption, and they all pretty much leave us with the same feeling - the iPhone is definitely a game changer, and is an amazing experience. However, the fact that it is on EDGE instead of 3G HSDPA sucks, and the software keyboard takes a few days to get used to. Of course, that is a very, very short summary. All in all though, Apple looks to have another winner on it’s hands. You can check out the reviews at the following links:

• Wall Street Journal iPhone Review
• New York Times iPhone Review
• New York Times iPhone Video Review
• USA Today iPhone Review

Gallery: Early iPhone Review Roundup

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Steve Jobs just made public another first in the cell phone industry. This time, it is the fact that iPhone purchasers will actually self-activate their phones from home. Typically, when buying a cell phone from any carrier, you have to wait while they perform the unboxing for you and set everything up. This normally takes at least 20 minutes or so, and was the main worry of those looking to purchase an iPhone at launch. Now we know that all you need to do is have your cash, check, or credit card ready so that you can complete the purchase and go on your way. Once home, when you hook it up to your Mac or PC, iTunes pops up, and you give it all the required information necessary for activation - that being SSN, credit card number, personal details, etc. You must be running Mac OS X v10.4.10 or later (sorry Panther users!); Windows XP Home or Pro with Service Pack 2 or later; or Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate Edition.

For all the details, head on over to the link below, where Apple shows off iPhone activation in a sleek video.

 

Read More | iPhone Activation Video

Gallery: iPhone To Be Activated From Home Via iTunes

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The USB Doorbell replaces your current one and allows you to play sound effects, audio clips, and WAVS or MP3s. Plug it into your computer to load, then attach it to your existing wiring if it is low (4 to 24) voltage. It has three different volume settings, a mounting loop, needs three AA batteries (not included,) and carries an MSRP of $99.99 at ThinkGeek. We were thinking that we would equip ours with Lurch asking “You Rang?” or Clint Eastwood saying “Make My Day, Punk!” The possibilities seem endless.

And by the way, we find it sort of fascinating that YouTube is becoming an outlet for commercials. This makes for good product demos and certainly helps us here at Gear Live, but we wonder how soon the site will be saturated with ads, and if the site will eventually be charging for that benefit.

 

Read More | ThinkGeek

Gallery: USB Doorbell Makes “Ding-Dong” Obsolete

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Apple has revealed that YouTube is the twelfth application on the iPhone. We have all wondered out loud about the lack of balance shown on the iPhone’s Home screen, what with two rows of four icons, and a third row with only three. Then one of the iPhone commercials gave a peek that there would be twelve, but we just couldn’t see what it was. Now we know. In conjunction with releasing YouTube on Apple TV, the company made it know that a customized YouTube viewer application would ship on the iPhone as well. We must say, we were underwhelmed at first, since the iPhone has Safari and should thusly be able to view YouTube anyway - but when we saw the video of YouTube in action on the device, it looked very slick. Just one more thing to look forward to come June 29.

Read More | Apple iPhone Ads via YouTube

Gallery: New iPhone Commercial: YouTube

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We recently posted a video of us opening up a Belkin TunePower for Zune over on Unboxing that we figured you guys might be interested in. The TunePower for Zune extends the battery life of the device by 6-12 hours, depending on what sort of activity you are doing, and also has a kickstand for your video viewing pleasure. Check out the video for the full scoop.

This video is a part of the Unboxing Live series. If you would like to be automatically notified of new episodes, you can subscribe to us in iTunes, or manually using our RSS feed.

 

Read More | Unboxing

Gallery: Video: Unboxing Belkin TunePower for Zune

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We can hardly contain our inner excitement over this prototype AUR Lamp that was designed by Guy Hoffman, a member of MIT’s Robotic Life Group. The device knows when to turn on and off, follows you around the room, and can be set to mood lighting. According to Hoffman, AUR “is aimed to evoke a personal relationship with the human partner without resorting to human-like features.”

We would like to ask the team politely what happens when a second person enters the room.

 

Read More | Guy Hoffman via Mr. Future

Gallery: AUR Lamp Interacts With Humans

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Sony has apologized to the Church of England for using Manchester Cathedral as a background in level 8 of their PSX game “Resistance: Fall of Man.” The Senior Anglicans have requested that the company withdraw the offending game from the market, which features an alternate history without the rise of Russian Communism, the Great Depression, and WWII.

The letter sent from Sony said, “We do not accept that there is any connection between contemporary issues of 21st Century Manchester and a work of science fiction in which a fictitious 1950s Britain is under attack by aliens.”
The game was released in late 2006 in Japan and the U.S., and in March 2007 in Europe. There has been no word yet on pulling the game itself. We wondered why the church had not complained before but figured that they couldn’t get past Level 7 until now.

 

Read More | BBC

Gallery: Sony Expresses Apologies over Video Game Setting

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