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Amazon will add a neat new feature to its Kindle e-book program later this year, designed to let you loan Kindle e-books to your friends, either via Kindle devices or the Kindle app for the iPhone, iPad, Android, etc. Sounds great! We've been hoping for this for a long time, because this is how people share paper books. But there will be some big limitations. First, "Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period," Amazon explains. And perhaps more importantly, publishers will also be able to turn lending off for their books. Let's hope they don't screw this up. [Via Fraser Speirs.] The author of this post can be contacted at [email protected]

Either a writer at Luxembourgish newspaper L'essentiel is very confused or we've all been seriously deceived. Whichever the case, there's definitely an article claiming that Gizmodo Editor Jason Chen is "an official from Apple." The above passage was found in an article about the new Mac App Store and translates like this: This translation was done by Google Translate and confirmed with several French speakers for accuracy. We suspect (and hope) that we all overlooked an alternate meaning for the keywords and that our dear fearless leader is not secretly Steve Jobs' coworker. But if he is, then we all expect new Apple gadgets for Christmas. [Thanks to Charel of TouchBite for the images!] Update: Our counterparts at Gizmodo France sent us a note to say that the translation "is 100% correct" ...

Wondering just how much juice could be squeezed from your Motorola DROID X or DROID 2 after seeing T-Mobile’s G2 up-clocked to 1.42GHz? Well, wonder no more. Droid-Life is reporting that two users from Team DeFuse have managed to over-clock both the DROID X and DROID 2 from 1.0GHz all the way up to 2.0GHz. The blog also noted that the duo is working to “make the release stable,” which would be pretty impressive. We haven’t seen any benchmark statistics emerge from the severely over-clocked handsets, but we’re sure it is only a matter of time. Hit the break to see a short video showing the D2 running at warp speed. UPDATE: Matt from Team DeFuse just hit us up with an update. He’s managed to ratchet up the DROID 2 up to 3.0GHz. Nice work Matt, keep a fire ...

Wondering just how much juice could be squeezed from your Motorola DROID X or DROID 2 after seeing T-Mobile’s G2 up-clocked to 1.42GHz? Well, wonder no more. Droid-Life is reporting that two users from Team DeFuse have managed to over-clock both the DROID X and DROID 2 from 1.0GHz all the way up to 2.0GHz. The blog also noted that the duo is working to “make the release stable,” which would be pretty impressive. We haven’t seen any benchmark statistics emerge from the severely over-clocked handsets, but we’re sure it is only a matter of time. Hit the break to see a short video showing the D2 running at warp speed. UPDATE: Matt from Team DeFuse just hit us up with an update. He’s managed to ratchet up the DROID 2 up to 3.0GHz. Nice work Matt, keep a fire ...

The sadists at iFixit have torn apart one of Apple's brand new MacBook Airs to see what's inside.

HP on Friday announced its highly anticipated Slate 500 tablet, which is targeted at businesses.

You can call them "near Earth objects" if you want to. I'll stick with "asteroids hellbent on obliterating our planet and all we hold dear." Here's the lineup of the space rocks closest to killing us, and where they are. As a bonus, designer Zachary Vabolis has taken the liberty of listing the recorded objects that have or will come closest to impact. And these are just the 1,000m diameter or wider crowd. So, hey, it's been real everybody! I just hope when we get got, it's a meteor with a cool name that does it. [Power of Visualization via FastCo Design] Send an email to Brian Barrett, the author of this post, at [email protected].

Google announced today that the Wi-Fi snooping its Street View vans were engaged in was even worse than previously acknowledged. The company announced today that entire URLs, emails, and passwords were collected as well. And they still have it. Google broke the news at the end of a lengthy blog post late Friday afternoon, so it's safe to say it's something they're not particularly proud of. The revelation didn't even come from Google itself; the breach was discovered by external regulators who have been investigating Google for its illicit data collecting. According to Google exec Alan Eustace: So for months, Google has been sitting on extremely sensitive personal information, and it took outside auditors to get them to find and fix it. And although Google wants to delete the data soon, ...

Flying Meat's image-manipulation software Acorn has been bumped to version 2.6, adding Quartz Composer filters and more.

More than 25 years ago, a commercial warned us about the future of computers. Closed. Censored. Dark. A "garden of pure ideology." How strange that that's exactly what the future of Apple's computers looks like today: the Mac App Store. OSX 10.7—the Lion!—features an App Store for the Mac. It's the philosophy of the iPhone and iPad, imported to the desktop computer, and it could be amazing. No more viruses. No more unstable programs. A clean, consistent, safe computer paradise where everything works properly, where the streets are paved with brushed aluminum and the skies are always clear as a retina display. An electronic Camelot? For some, maybe. Computers used to run applications or programs, but Apple has slowly turned everything into an "app." The word is cute, ...

Two hot Android devices are coming to T-Mobile UK this November. The 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab and the tough IP67-certified Motorola DEFY are already listed on the carrier #039;s website and you can register your ...

&utmWhat happens next is the chess computer goes the way of Chris from Into The Wild. I won't spoil the ending, but poor, poor chess computer. You once had everything and now, nothing. *weeps* [Tom Gauld via Eggshell Robotics via BotJunkie] Send an email to Kat Hannaford, the author of this post, at [email protected].

In my line of work, cell phones come and go faster than mixed drinks on MTV’s Jersey Shore. They’re here, they’re gone and most of the time they’re quickly forgotten. I can’t even recall all of the mobile devices I’ve handled in the past month, let alone the past year. And though hundreds of handsets have crossed my path in the 1,211 days since June 29th, 2007, only one phone has managed to stay in my pocket day in and day out: Apple’s iPhone. Say what you will about the device, the company, me, my mother, or anything else… the iPhone might be my go-to handset but I have no allegiance to any manufacturer or OS. In fact my iPhone 3GS was almost replaced last year by Sprint’s Palm Pre. I still love webOS but I need hardware that matches the ...

Apple has moved to block access to account information from inside the FaceTime for Mac application, temporarily fixing a security vulnerability.

The three major U.S. television networks are reportedly blocking full episode video streaming from their Websites to Google TV devices.

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/d03dHnvklL8&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":332.5,"ratio":0.615,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube","wrap":true,"agegate":false} ); I can hardly walk through a grocery store aisle without clumsily knocking something over. An amputee equipped with Dean Kamen's incredible, shoe-controlled prosthetic arm, however, selects produce with grace. It's enough to make you forget about the Segway. Putting away small bags and squeezing oranges demonstrates just how sophisticated the device is—we take that stuff for granted, but when you think about it, these tasks do demand some motor skill finesse. And finesse isn't something you ...

Kids are so mollycoddled these days, what with apps detecting monsters in wardrobes instead of just living through the fear like we did, so I'm not surprised the developer included a positive-reading option for this $1 app. [iTunes via AppsPlayground] Send an email to Kat Hannaford, the author of this post, at [email protected].

Who knew a support thread on corporate WiFi login issues would lead to anything we'd care about? Cut to Google code's Android forums, where an anonymous Google engineer confirms that this problem will be patched in the "next major release" of Android, specifically version 2.3. So... does this mean Android 2.3 is the oft-discussed (and close on the horizon) Gingerbread? Not necessarily -- while possible, there isn't any indication to that effect, and logic doesn't arbitrarily equate the two. After all, recall that Eclair was both 2.0 and 2.1, so there would be some historical precedence to this 0.1 leap being nothing more than sprinkles on frozen yogurt.Android 2.3 'next major release,' says anonymous Google engineer originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:00 EST. Please see ...

Apple is set to open its new Lincoln Park retail store in Chicago tomorrow at 10:00 AM, an event that will mark the debut of a yet another of Apple's "significant" stores that are meant to provide an iconic presence for the company. ChicagoNow and ifoAppleStore offer a sneak peek at the new store and the unique arrangement that has seen Apple construct a public plaza and refurbish a run-down subway station next door to the tune of nearly $4 million. As ChicagoNow notes, the new Lincoln Park store offers three entrances, suiting the building's siting on a triangle of land.At the North Avenue entrance - conveniently on the north side of the building, it's all about retail. That's where you go in to see every single product Apple sells. The south entrance ...

Remember the sleek Lumigon smartphone we told you about yesterday? It turns out its name will be T1 and it will be running the latest version of the Android OS - 2.2 Froyo. The Danish company...