After years of pleading, the fine folks over at Data Robotics finally gifted you with a Drobo NAS. They called it the Drobo FS , but we all know what the real skinny is. But is the five-bay, Ethernet-friendly storage robot really a dream come true? We’ve had nothing but success with it in our Time Machine setup , but as with pretty much any networked drive, we’ve heard reports here and there of frustrations and complications. For those who have sprung for the FS, we’re curious to hear what you’d change about the setup. Need more drive bays? Would you prefer a few extra interface…

With more than 200 deals since 2005, Y Combinator’s Paul Graham knows how to size up a young team of entrepreneurs. However, he didn’t get it right from day one. On Friday, we got a chance to talk to Graham after his morning panel with SV Angel’s Ron Conway . He discussed how his strategy has evolved over the past five years and why the balance of power is shifting in Silicon Valley. See videos ahead. CrunchBase Information Y Combinator Paul Graham Information provided by CrunchBase

Filed under: iPad Copyright 2010 The Omni Group. All rights reserved. Used with permission. With OmniFocus for iPad just now hitting the App Store, I haven’t yet had as much time as I would like to use the application to its fullest potential. My initial interaction has, however, been positive. Costing a rather steep $39.99, OmniFocus for iPad brings another professionally priced tool for professionals into the App …

It may be that not everyone finds old test patterns as entertaining as I do. I just love everything about them! I don’t know why! And yet — they wouldn’t really work with the aesthetic I’ve got going on my desk right now (black and metal (not black metal)), so it’s up to you guys to enjoy these for me. I wish the black and white one had the Indian — the color bars are just the way I like ‘em, though.

CNET Car Tech gets to take the Nissan Leaf electric car for a preview drive. Originally posted at The Car Tech blog

The annual Defcon conference usually brings with it a handful of suprises and cool hacks/devices. We’ve already seen the best conference badge design, but now we’re seeing a rather worrying release for anyone owning an Android smartphone. In a bid to highlight a security flaw in the Android OS, two attendees have released a rootkit that

Online monetization platform gWallet , which offers social gaming developers a variety of ways to monetize their apps and boost engagement, is looking to put its money where its mouth is: the company is launching a $20,000 cash guarantee to any social gaming publishers that don’t generate more revenue when they switch from their current monetization platform to gWallet. To participate, publishers are being asked to implement a simultaneous, head-to-head test over the span of thirty days (you can sign up starting today, with the 30 day window beginning August 1). At the end of that time period, if your revenues from gWallet aren’t higher than they are on you original implementation, then the service will pay out the guarantee. But you’ll have to be a pretty sizable game to participate: to qualify, …

This isn’t your regular run-of-the-mill computer game. It’s a motion-controlled program that teaches preteen girls how to resist peer pressure when it comes to sex. Subjects wear a motion capture-enabled hat and jacket in order to “jump into the character’s skin” and learn how to react when found in sexual situations. Interesting idea, but is it real or fake? Take the quiz

An image uploaded to the Chromium OS bug tracker shows a pre-release version of Gmail sporting a number of new features and changes to the layout. In total, we’ve spotted 8 differences compared to the Gmail we all use today. Here’s the list of differences we can see in the image (there may be more): Three new

There’s a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can’t cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web. David Fincher’s ‘The Social Network’ gets a full moody, 60-second TV spot, complete with a Kanye West score, champagne spraying and laptops a-smashing. [From: YouTube ] Two Brooklynites recently announced their…

We tend to go into full-on conjecture mode when we see an interesting FCC filing, but our instincts haven’t let us down in the past , so allow us to throw something out on the table. A new Motorola just hit the feds with 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 2Mbps HSUPA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands, quadband EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, AGPS, and a digital compass. In other words, this is definitely an Android set, and it could definitely …

With over 1 million applications being downloaded every day , it’s no surprise that RIM would want to give its highly trafficked BlackBerry App World an overhaul. Although the design will look familiar, it’s the tools that have been given a fresh reboot. For example, BlackBerry App World now accepts Visa and Mastercard for app purchases, along with the original payment system on PayPal. This opens up a whole new, ahem, “world” for BlackBerry users who don’t have a PayPal account to load up on apps. But that isn’t the only change in the BB App World. Hear about the other revisions after the jump.

For quite some time, rumor had it that RIM has been wanting to get into the tablet game, and who can blame it? Microsoft has had a long history in the market, Apple’s iPad has proven popular, and it seems that just about every other manufacturer is trying to cram Android into the form-factor. A couple of days ago, we heard that RIM had acquired Blackpad.com , and the world collectively cringed at what we hoped was a purely defensive move to keep domain squatters at bay. Now, according to Bloomberg, there is confirmation that RIM plans to call its 9.7-inch tablet the Blackpad . According to “people familiar with” the situation, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-capable device will be unveiled in November with front- and back-facing cameras. While there is…

Supersized panoramic photos of cities are the flavor of the season. After Prague and Dubai , it’s the turn of Budapest to get a detailed online photo that you can zoom in and out of and play around with–almost like Google Earth. The photo shot over four days has 70-gigapixels. If the finished picture is ever printed, it would make a a poster 156 meters (511 feet) long and 31 meters (101 feet) tall. The amount of paper it would take would cover two apartment blocks at least 10 floors tall. To shoot the photo, two 25-megapixel Sony A900 cameras were fitted with a 400mm Minolta lens and 1.4 X teleconverters and placed on a robotic camera mount. 20,000 test images later, the …

Last month, Gear Patrol was invited to be amongst the very first folks in North America to get keys to the brand new 2011 Mazda2. Naturally, we were keen to accept the offer where we sojourned to Montreal to get our hands, feet, and butts-in-seat on Mazda’s forthcoming compact – an award-winning vehicle that’s garnered almost 50 worldwide accolades including the 2008 World Car of the Year at the New York International Auto Show. …