Küat Racks Bike Lock Camouflages Itself As A Water Bottle [Cycling]

By Andrew Liszewski Oct 11, 2011 11:40 AM 10,476 20

In the ongoing battle between bike thieves and victims, those hoping to return and find their rides exactly where they left them have a new weapon.

Well, it's less of a weapon, and more like your run-of-the-mill cable lock that's disguised to look like a water bottle attached to your bike's frame. As far as security goes, its 5-foot long, 7.5mm braided steel cable doesn't really give you an advantage over other cable locks. Instead, it seems more concerned with aesthetics, allowing the cable to be stored out of sight, inside something you ride with anyways.

The bottom of the $34 faux bottle is also removable, providing a lockable compartment suitable for stashing keys, loose change, and whatever else you can cram into a receptacle that small. However, the one thing it can't hold is water. So if you were hoping to use the lock as some clever ruse to fool would-be thieves, they'll probably be tipped off by the second bottle you now have to carry. [Küat Racks Bottle Lock]

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Watching the Alphabet Animate Itself Is Way Too Much Fun [Video]

I've never had this much fun reading the alphabet since I was a kid and finally conquered the L, M, N, O stretch of my ABCs. But this video is way cooler—the letters actually animates itself to represent a word it begins with. It's so goddamn clever.

For example, B is for biscuit and it's actually a biscuit! D is for destruction and it actually gets destroyed! G is for grass and grass actually grows on the letter! You get the point. The video, called Alphabet 2, was made by Alessandro Novelli and even amidst all the fun of playing around with creatively oversized letters, the font is always made within Helvetica proportions. So, so cool. I'm going to watch this all day. [Vimeo]

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How RIM Could Save Itself [Rim]

RIM just reported earnings that were even more miserable than expected. We've already said why the company is cooked. But is there any way it can be salvaged? Well, just maybe there is.

You ready, RIM? It's time we had a talk.

You know who made BlackBerry popular? Companies, who valued the handsets' security and their keyboards and their messaging systems in a pre- and nascent-smartphone world. Then consumers started joining in on the fun, because employees and consumers are often the same people! But consumers have abandoned ship at an alarming rate, and even companies are realizing that if they just let their employees use their own smartphones for work they'll be off the hook for massive annual hardware buys and—more crucially—dozens/hundreds/thousands of data plans.

You know who else leaned on enterprise? Windows Mobile. And from that heaping trainwreck arose Windows Phone, one of the most promising developments in mobile in years. So get the consumers back, RIM. They're going to be the ones who lift you up.

It's not just phones, either. The BlackBerry PlayBook wanted so desperately to be the definitive enterprise tablet, but that's kind of like being the definitive Cracker Barrel sommelier; the two just don't go together. Not right now, anyway. Either give the PlayBook some consumer chops or let it die a graceful death.

Look, all respect to Mike Lazaridis for being one of a handful of tech CEOs left with serious engineering chops. That doesn't mean he's a good CEO.

And even if he and co-CEO Jim Balsillie had been doing everything right and just run up against some sheer dumb luck, there comes a time when you need a fresh set of eyes and brains on the problem. For RIM—which has been doing many things wrong!—that time was probably sometime in the middle of the BlackBerry 7 development process.

If anything, a change would help morale, which was already demostrably in the gutter even before those recently announced layoffs.

BlackBerry App World is like the sad broken-down amusement park your dad takes you to because when he was a kid it was the only place that had a log flume. You got behind with devs. You got beat. Get them back. Microsoft's doing it—slowly, surely—with Windows Phone, and you can too. It's going to take money, sure, but considering how many wasted investments you've been willing to make recently you might as well splurge on something useful.

You've got time before QNX makes its phone debut. Use that time to line up as many major devs as you can. Don't just make BlackBerry a QWERTY storefront for Android apps. We have that already. It's called Droid.

And honestly, there's no need to hit the Android panic button. You still shipped 10.6 million BlackBerries last quarter (although who can say how many you sold). Your QNX-based phones aren't going to be a game-changer, but they could get you back in the game, you know? But not if you rush it, and definitely not if you push it out without BES/BIS email/calendar support. That's like releasing a Twinkie with no gooey filling.

BlackBerry 7 is okay. It's fine. It's not great. We all know that. And you basically acknowledged on your earnings call today that it's a stopgap until QNX gets here. But it's a good enough stopgap that you can run with it for as long as you need to. You also just said that a year from now BlackBerry 7 would still represent the majority of your sales. Works for me! As long as QNX eventually gets a major splash.

You're going to tell us more about QNX plans in October, and we can wait until then. And I'll take you at your word today that you're waiting until everything's perfect to release it. Then again, you seem to think you did that with Torch, which, nope!

Seriously, what are you thinking? Did this cost you any money? Because you wasted all that money.

You know what, RIM? We like you. You're the underdog. You make some handsome hardware, the best QWERTY mobile keyboard out there. And there's no reason mobile shouldn't be a four-horse race. That benefits competition, which benefits everybody. Your phones are secure, they're reliable, they're reasonably priced. All that's great.

And hey, you're still making lots of money! Sure, you're not making it as fast as you used to, but $4 billion of revenue is a lot of Curves. And there was still $329 million of net income in there which, even though it's less than half the profits of last year's analogous quarter, is still enough to fund some solid R&D.

So you know what? Be RIM. Make BlackBerries. Don't make huge investments in shoddy tablets no one asked for, don't push out half-baked software no one likes, don't decide months too late to manufacture a music service no one needs. People don't go to the circus for the sideshow, they go to see the elephants. So give us some freaking elephants, already.

There's hope, RIM. A tiny little sliver of hope that you can turn this thing around and be, well, let's not say the company you once were. Let's say you could turn this thing around and survive. I certainly hope you do. But it's going to take whole lot more than you've been showing us.

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Google Arms Itself With 1000 Patents From IBM [Blip]

Google's on a patent buying spree to protect Android. The search giant recently grabbed Motorola, its hardware and 17,000 patents for a cool $12.5 billion and scooped up another 1,023 patents from IBM. Go, Go Green Robot. [Bloomberg]

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How NYC Is Protecting Itself from the Terror Threat This Weekend [Terrorism]

Federal officials are currently investigating a potential car bomb plot that Al Qaeda has planned for this weekend, the anniversary of 9/11. The car bomb plot is "credible" but not confirmed and is supposed to target bridges and tunnels.

According to information gathered by intelligence, the FBI are looking for a handful of men (one possibly being a US citizen) who've been ordered by Al Qaeda to blow up a vehicle filled with explosives. The NYPD, as you already know, has built up an impressive Counter Terrorism Unit since 2001 and they will be on full force trying to prevent anything from happening. What does that mean?

It's generally the same methods—police presence, surveillance—but with extra precautions. There'll be expanded vehicle searches, more bomb sniffing dogs, increased police officers on the street, police at subway turnstiles and stations, a constant monitoring of bridge and tunnels and NYPD officers will extend their shifts by four hours through September 12th (at least). Mayor Bloomberg said, according to Bloomberg News:

"We have threats all the time. Each time we increase our security, which obviously we had done for this. Are we increasing a little more? Yes, we're increasing a little more but there's a limit to how much you can have, just because you can't have a cop on every corner. But remember, a lot of the precautions we take, you don't see — undercover and cameras and radiation detectors, using technology and undercover."

Also, the NYPD will use their quasi-navy to help identify any threats. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has said that the NYPD has a small unmanned submarine that can check parts of suspicious boats that are submerged. That goes along with radiation detection boats and boats to transport heavy weapon officers. Compared to 2001, the NYPD is more prepared to act and react to terrorism.

Federal officials ask that we continue on with our lives and don't let the terror threat dampen the spirit of our freedom on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. But as they always say, if you see something, say something. [Bloomberg, MSNBC, Andrey Bayda / Shutterstock.com]

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HTC Arms Itself With Patents From Google, Strikes Back At Apple (Updated) [Android]

HTC isn't backing down in its legal battle with Apple. The Taiwanese handset maker obtained nine new patents from Google over the past few weeks and is using them in a new offensive against Apple.

Though these new mobile patents won't guarantee victory for HTC, it's nice to see Google stepping up to the plate and helping out its Android manufacturing partners.

Update: Google's originally said it transferred the patents to HTC and did not mention an exchange of money. But HTC told AllThingsD that it purchased these patents from Google for an undisclosed sum. Google is still helping out its Android partners, but it's likely receiving some cash in exchange. [FOSS Patents]

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How HP Tried to Sue Itself Over TouchPad Refunds [Hp]

The latest bit in the increasingly amusing Laurel and Hardy routine that is the HP TouchPad: HP just tried to sue itself for offering HP TouchPad refunds. No, seriously. This is a thing that happened.

The company got wind recently of a fraudulent "HP Refund Program" in Europe, targeting German TouchPad buyers looking to be refunded when that insano fire sale kicked off. The questionable site was asking for bank account information, which seemed shady! So HP mobilized its legal team, refusing to let such an affront stand. Except!

Except that the site in question was legit. Contracted by HP to handle the refund process. Totally benign. Oops?

Presumably HP has called off the hounds from... itself. Seriously, though, guys. I know things are weird over there these days; no need to make it worse by punching yourself in the face. [PreCentral]

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Spotify Wants to Bake Itself Into All Your iOS Apps [Spotify]

Spotify's been up for nearly two months, and it's shown amazing growth. Now it wants to find its way into everything else you do on your iPhone by handing developers and Premium users the new Spotify API.

Called libspotify 9, the code will allow the program to live inside any app developers can think of. Spotify sessions are already handled pretty well by iOS multitasking, but, as excellent as the app is, you tend to have to leave what you're doing to change playlists. By sticking the functionality into games, for instance, you won't have to jump out of what you're doing in the middle of a campaign. Pretty neat. [Spotify Blog via ReadWriteWeb]

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