Monster

Bad luck with Belkin

I like the Belkin company. I remember when Belkin was basically nothing but a cable company, and by that, I mean a company that makes electrical and optical cables. They made good cables, and still do.

But in recent years they have expanded into a wide variety of consumer products. I've always assumed Belkin's expansion was driven, at least in part, by the success of Monster Cable, which has made a lot of money selling expensive cables that (in my opinion, at least) are not always worth the price.

I imagine Belkin's engineering-oriented management deciding that selling … Read more

Where this weekend we're going waterboarding!

EPISODE 32

Today we talk about how Monster cables are overpriced (duh), how much Paris Hilton sucks, and how to "hack" T-Mobile. Plus, Comcast is covering its ass by amending the company's Terms of Service to allow for throttling of BitTorrent traffic.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Dr. Dre's 'Beats' headphones

As far as celebrity-branded products are concerned, at least this makes more sense than the J. Lo USB drive. Dr. Dre --never one to miss a marketing opportunity himself--is getting into audio gear with a pair of headphones made by Monster.

But we're not sure if his name alone will justify the $400 price of the "Beats" line when there are so many other high-end headphones on the market. And as MobileWhack says, it might help if there was something current by Dre to listen to.

CES: The anticable, no wires movement

The open assault on cables and wires was on particular display at CES. Apparently, wires clutter your life and cause you misery, or some vendors would have you think. Whether it's faster and faster Wi-Fi from Intel, streaming video from Slingbox, in-home HD distribution, Bluetooth home theater audio from Samsung at different parts of the radio spectrum, the trend is moving away from physical media and physical connections.

That said, I wondered how a leading wire cable company, Monster, would make themselves relevant in this anticable movement. Apart from having a sold-out Mary J. Blige concert, Monster has made … Read more

Big speakers, big sound, big price

If you're going to spend a ton of money, we always say, you might as well have something to show for it. And that's exactly what this speaker system provides, which is a tall order given that it costs $380,700.

We've actually seen larger and more expensive audio systems (try $1 million), but they often end up resembling something like sound walls more than anything else. The "Sph?ron Excalibur" from Germany's Acapella, however, truly looks the part: It's like a cross between an old-fashioned gramophone and Audrey, the gigantic man-eating plant … Read more

How to stick your camera to a tree

We've seen some innovative (weird) alternatives to the traditional tripod, ranging from sandbags and telescoping poles to bendable serpants. But the "Monster Pod" has got to be one of the strangest.

The camera attaches to its "patented viscoelastic polymer base," according to 7Gadgets, which in turn will affix to a "tree, pole, fence, rock, wall--almost anything." Somehow, we can't see trusting this to hold a $25,000 Hasselblad, but that's just us. On the other hand, it's probably safer than asking a stranger to take your picture in some parts … Read more

Virtual library helps outsource brainpower

I'd been intrigued by Delicious Library software ever since I saw the program featured on David Pogue's video blog. This Macintosh cataloging program allows you to create a virtual library of all your books, movies, music and video games. Then you can browse or search your collection, and keep track of books you lend to others. Best of all, you have all your books visually represented together in one place, regardless of where they are physically located.

This was the breakthrough for me. As a writer, I have over 1000 books on shelves all over the house. Along with the advantages of working at home comes the clutter of the office, ported into my own dining room. With Delicious Library, I could box up books I don't need very often and put them out of sight, but not out of mind.

The genius of Delicious Library is that you can quickly, automatically catalog entries for your media by scanning the bar code on each project. Delicious Library connects to Amazon.com to import each item's information and cover art.

Delicious Library worked really well with the optional Flic Wireless Laser Barcode Scanner--which is a necessity for creating a large library--but although this was a virtual project, I still had to deal with the question of how to organize, lug, and store over a thousand books. More on the reality of the project after the jump.… Read more

GamerLibrary launches video game loaner network

There's a new social network for gamers called GamerLibrary. The site takes the Delicious Library and Shelfari angle by letting users compile, and show off, their gaming collections, while at the same time adding a request feature to let members trade and borrow games among themselves. The idea is that you'll be able to join with your small collection of games and get others to loan you theirs, assuming they see something they like in your library. Together you build up a larger pool of shared games that can be borrowed or bought on the side.

Of course … Read more

Monster defends delay in notifying users of data breach

Patrick Manzo, Monster Worldwide's vice president of compliance and fraud prevention, today said going forward, the company is notifying all users in its active job-seeker database that their information may be compromised.

This announcement comes one day after Monster's CEO Sal Iannuzzi admitted the theft of contact information for job seekers in Monster's database may have been much greater than the 1.3 million individuals reported earlier this month.

Monster said it learned of the proverbial break-in when it was notified by security vendor Symantec. And Monster said it wanted to launch its own investigation to verify … Read more