Operation Gadget

Month: December 2004

  • Seattle Times Discusses Amazon.com’s Holiday Shipment Effort

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteMartin O’Donnell pointed out a Seattle Times article that discusses the performance of Amazon.com’s fulfillment centers during the 2004 holiday season. The article also provides some statistics about overall e-commerce sales: Consumers spent $2.03 billion online during the five days ending Friday {December 17}, a 49 percent jump compared with the…

  • TiVo Distributed Almost 2,000 Free PVRs to Bay Area Comcast Customers

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn case you didn’t see the outcome of the TiVo giveaway in the Bay Area, The San Jose Mercury News reported that nearly 2,000 TiVo PVRs were given away to Comcast customers who had wanted Comcast PVRs but had not yet received them. More than 2,000 toys were collected for the…

  • Glofun Raygun Game Coming Soon For Nextel i710 and i730

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteGlofun RayGun: a Java-based, GPS-enabled game coming soon for the Nextel i710 and i730.[ Graphic: GloVentures LLC ] GloVentures sent me a Nextel i710 mobile phone with a Java-based, GPS-enabled game called Glofun RayGun installed on it. Glofun Raygun is expected to be available early in 2005, initially for Nextel i710…

  • FBI Uses IP Addresses to Apprehend Alleged Murderer

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe Associated Press reports that FBI agents identified an alleged murderer by the IP address of her computer before apprehending her. Lisa Montgomery of Melvern, Kansas was arrested and charged with “kidnapping resulting in death” in the strangling of Bobbie Jo Stinnett of Skidmore, Missouri. Stinnett is the pregnant woman who…

  • December 13 – 19, 2004 Weekly Summary

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteThis is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of December 2004. I’m experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism…

  • President Bush Orders Plan for Temporary Shutdown of the GPS System During National Crisis

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteMany news organizations reported that President Bush ordered plans to be made for temporarily disabling the Global Positioning System during times of national crisis to prevent terrorists from using the technology to precisely target their attacks. Some people are scoffing at this, but they probably did not have friends or relatives…

  • Tour de France Will Feature New Millau Viaduct in 2006

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteMillau Viaduct: To be part of the 2006 Tour de France. [ Photo: Stuart Isett, The New York Times ] The New York Times reports that the Millau Viaduct opened in southern France on Thursday. Billed as the highest road bridge in the world, it’s 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) long and…

  • Nokia 6600 Called “Cheap and Reliable” by Paul Boutin in Slate

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe Nokia 6600 is still available at a great price considering its features. Slate just published an excellent review of the 6600 by Paul Boutin where he touts it as almost the antithesis of the Motorola RAZR V3: So, why am I telling you to rush out and get a cheap,…

  • TiVo Offering Free PVRs to Comcast Customers in the Bay Area on December 17, 2004

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteTiVo announced that they will give away TiVo units to Comcast customers who can get to TiVo’s headquarters in Alviso, CA tomorrow between 11:00am and 1:00pm Pacific Time. In order to receive a TiVo, you will need to bring: a Comcast cable bill for current service, a photo ID matching the…