UK-based Tech 21 have devised a real-life, mailable, flubber-esque gel that becomes rigid on impact. This substance dubbed "d30" is used to safeguard an iPhone or iPod Touch from owners with buttery fingers.
According to the product page, d30 cases can offer up to "150% more protection than other cases." Of course, that protection doesn't extend to the screen, which is probably your number one concern. [Tech 21 and Recombu via CrunchGear]
James May's Lego abode may be shaping up to be spectacular, but he's far from the first person to build a house out of something novel. Here are ten more amazing homes with, shall we say, unorthodox constituents.
It’s no secret that Apple’s App Store has been leaps and bounds more succesful than Android’s comparable Market, but it isn’t often we get concrete data that shows just how poorly Android’s store is faring in comparison. Today Android developer Larva Labs has posted some of the sales figures for its top applications, and the results are not impressive: Larva has two apps in Android’s top paid apps list called Battle For Mars and RetroDefense, ranking #5 and #12 respectively, and between them the company has raked in an average of $62.39 per day over the last month. Ouch.
Larva’s Matt Hall attributes this poor performance in part to Android’s shoddy App purchase flow. Unlike the iPhone’s integrated App Store, Android Market doesn’t have screenshots of apps, forces you into the browser at times, makes you use Google Checkout, has some unintuitive navigation issues, and a handful of other problems. These issues are widely known — you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the purchase process is as smooth as it is on the iPhone — but they’ve been around for quite a while.
Hall also points out the poor sales of the smash-hit iPhone game Trism, which pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars on the App Store. On Android, it has seen fewer than 500 downloads. Granted, there’s no guarantee that lighting will strike twice when there are many other games available for both markets, but that isn’t exactly an encouraging statistic.
Hall also writes that the rumored Android market size of $5 million a month (which still pales in comparison to the App Store’s) is likely an overestimate. He concludes that if Larva is considered an average developer, then half the other developers on the platform would have to be seeing similar sales figures to reach that figure, which isn’t likely.
This news comes at a time when many developers would be happy to leave Apple’s troubled App Store, with its ridiculous approval policies and poor treatment of developers, in favor of greener pastures. With a slew of new devices coming out this year and policies that are much friendlier to developers, Android has the opportunity to give these apps a new home — now it needs to build out a marketplace that gives the App Store a run for its money. Google has said improvements will be coming soon, likely with support for PayPal, credit cards, and carrier billing; let’s just hope these come sooner rather than later.
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Yazzem, the simple topic creator for Twitter or FriendFeed, has launched version 2 of their online service. Yazzem allows you to start topics about anything you want, basically creating a new way to interact with both Twitter and FriendFeed. Once the topics have been created, anyone can join your topic to connect and discuss about it in 140 characters or less. Yazzem launched in June 2008, and has picked up quite a user base for a very specific core audience.
Launching in version 2 of Yazzem is a redesign of the Yazzem site, themes that users can choose from for their page, and latest activity streams for all your friends. Also launching with this version is subscribers, which is similar to Twitter followers or FriendFeed subscribers. Another key feature that is launching is user stats, so now users will be able to see information like number of subscribers and activities a particular user has deciding whether or not to subscribe to them.
Yazzem also launched a new mobile version of Yazzem which is basically just a redesign of the old mobile version that fits much better for iPhone and iPod Touch users when browsing on the go.
It’s unclear how Yazzem will make money, but for such a young company, Yazzem does show some promising features and a future. Yazzem was started by Zachary Collins and Dustin Snider, who are both 14 years of age.
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Are you addicted to FriendFeed? Can't get enough of Robert Scoble's incessant posts? Want to keep up with them even when you're on the go? Are you praying to the heavens that Facebook doesn't screw up FriendFeed post-acquisition? Then Stir (iTunes link) might just be for you. Created by StructLab Stir is an iPhone app that allows you to get your fill of FriendFeed anytime, anywhere. You can use it in the bathroom at work (guilty), while watching a lame chick flick with your girlfriend (guilty) or if you're on the couch and don't want to walk the 10 feet to your desk (umm, yes, guilty).
Of course, it is hardly the first FriendFeed app for the iPhone, but it's the first one I've looked at and it's pretty damn good. Mind you, I only started using FriendFeed last week. Twitter is still my micro-blogging platform of choice, but I quickly noticed that FriendFeed has some obvious benefits. And Stir takes advantage of all of them.
We just wrote about the dominance of number of .com domains and we’ve also reported that .com domain registrations were starting to turn around again after a poor 2008. Today, another .com domain passed the million dollar mark, with Call.com selling for $1.1 million via domain brokerage Sedo to an undisclosed buyer.
The domain was sold by Live Current Media , which had sold, then reacquired the domain over the past years. Live Current apparently sold the domain as part of a package of domains including Makeup.com, Automobile.com, and Exercise.com. Part of the deal was that Live Current would get royalties from any revenue earned from the domains. The company ended up buying back Call.com in 2006, and nullified the royalty stipulation. According to Domain Name Wire, the value of the royalty stream was $250,000 in future revenue, which makes the $1.1 million sale a good bet. Live Current also recently sold Cricket.com for a cool $1.75 million. Last year, Live Current experienced some financial difficulties and was looking to raise cash to survive by liquidating its domain names.
On its iGoogle Developer Blog today Google issued a warning to developers: Optimize your gadgets for speed, or we’re labeling them as “slow” in the directory.
Starting in late September, Google says that any widget that doesn’t meet a speed requirement, will get a nice “slow” badge attached to its directory listing. The only detail it gives about the requirement is that it will get the badge if it’s “slow enough to cause speed-related user dissatisfaction.”
That sounds pretty arbitrary, and that it could lead to a lot of developers complaining that their apps aren’t really slow, but are labeled as such. But we all know how much Google loves speed, so this move isn’t all that surprising.
To make sure your gadget doesn’t get the Scarlett Letter, check out these optimization tips from Google.
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Looking to live fast and quite possibly die young? Got $2500 burning a hole in your pocket? Do I have a potentially badass obituary for you!
This homemade jetpack is being sold by some dude in Canada via a classified ad. How reputable!
Jet Pack — Jumps You 10' in the Air
Handcrafted by myself Using Car and Airplane parts. I spent 15 years as a mechanic. Can Use for 2 High Jumps 10 feet in the air with a safe landing before overheating, takes about an hour to cool down after that.
weighs 53lbs, approx Camping backback in size , dull grey in color.
serious buyers only can test out on my property and of course watch me first for safety reasons and training.
OK, let's break this down. Pros: it's a jetpack, it's very somewhat affordable, it looks cool. Cons: it might explode on your back, it only allows for 2 jumps per hour, may toss you into the side of a building.
I'll be honest, I would have thought I'd be a solid "no" on this. But part of me (the dumber part) is tempted. [Used Victoria via Geekologie]
NTT America announced today that it has leased a new 15,000 square foot data center in Santa Clara, CA. Big deal, you might think, a network provider expands its capacity. Except this network provider has a very high-profile client: Twitter.
Though Twitter is never actually mentioned in NTT’s press release, the blog Data Center Knowledge put two and two together, recalling a quote in June from NTT America COO Kazuhiro Gomi: “traffic generated by Twitter is getting so big, it’s basically eating up a lot of our data center network resources, especially the segment where Twitter is hosted. Other customers are riding on the same segment.”
NTT America’s name came up quite a bit recently during the DDoS attacks that crippled Twitter. As Twitter’s network partner, NTT put in place many of the safeguards that slowed the attack enough so that Twitter could get the service back up. You may recall that Twitter also worked closely with NTT to reschedule a planned maintenance in June to make sure that the Iranian protest messages could continue to flow over the service.
Eventually, if Twitter continues its rapid growth, you’d think they would want their own data centers, like Google and Facebook have. But the leasing of this large new data center would seem to indicate that Twitter will be onboard with them for the foreseeable future. Twitter has been with NTT America since early 2008, following widespread reliability issues.
The idea of Twitter going down in the event of a major earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area is occasionally brought up when the question of Twitter as a reliable form of communication is raised. NTT America says this new data center “meets seismic zone four specifications.” NTT also notes that the data center, “is equipped with redundant power feeds, and carrier-class uninterruptable and back-up power. Optimal systems performance is maintained by fully redundant water cooling systems coupled with advanced humidity and temperature controls. Continuous monitoring ensures that all systems are fully operational.”
“That’s right. That’s - that’s good. That’s good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you’re in trouble, huh?” - Ted (Ben Stiller), There’s Something About Mary
The more top level domains that are approved by ICANN, the less each of them is worth. People continue to flock to .com: 82 million of the 111 million non-country specific domains registered are .com. Everyone else splits what’s left, with .net and .org taking the bulk of the leftovers.
That means if you’re running the, say, .biz or .info domain registry businesses, with 5 million and 2 million domains registered, respectively, it’s time to come up with some marketing genius.
.Biz is first to market with, yes, one character domain names. These domains, previously reserved, will be auctioned off on September 23 at 12 noon EST via Sedo. A total of 36 domains will be sold (26 letters and 0-9). If you want to be the proud owner of 1.biz or whatever, the details are here.
“These domains are rare and potentially very valuable” says Neustar, which runs the .biz registry. Presumably whatever you pay in the auction is a one-time fee, and normal registrar rates of a few dollars a year will apply after that.
If you’re thinking of buying these to do a quick flip, think again. We hear .com will release one character domains within the year, too.
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The BucketVac snaps on to just about any standard 5 gallon bucket and converts it into a receptacle for whatever wet or dry crud you happen to be sucking out of your filthy car seats.
According to the product page, the vacuum weighs about 7 pounds and features a "commercial grade serviceable motor." If this kind of cleaning convenience sounds appealing to you, expect the BucketVac to hit store shelves sometime before the end of the 4Q of this year. [BucketVac via Red Ferret via OhGizmo]
I present to you the crappiest $106,414.89 computer in history. Plus $13.46 shipping. And no Amazon Prime either, what the hell? [Amazon, Thanks Rodrigo!]
A week ago I had a chance to sit down for a hour-long one on one interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. There were no rules, and the whole interview was on the record. Part of the interview was on video as well.
There’s so much material that we’ve broken the interview notes up into a few different subject areas. We’ll post separately with his thoughts on the future of search, books, news, mobile and more. Schmidt also spoke candidly about the Microsoft/Yahoo search alliance, Twitter (he mentioned them before I did!) and Facebook.
What Is Google?
I started the interview with a simple question: What is Google?
Most people think of Google as a search engine, a place to start and end the day. People also think of it as an advertising company. But Google is obviously more than that.
Google says its mission “is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” But that’s too much of a 50,000 foot view of the company - and it’s so vague it’s not very useful.
Schmidt describes Google:
I think of Google as a set of overlapping things. It’s a consumer platform, consumer phenomenon of which search is its fundamental activity, but there are many other things you can do than search…I think of Google as an advertising company who services the broader advertising industry in the ways that you know. And the first and the second are inter-related. The third is I think of us as a network of partners and infrastructure. I don’t know how many billions of dollars we hand to everybody. But by the time you look at the publishers, the use of AdSense and so forth, it’s literally billions of dollars going through Google and to other people which we hope fund additional software, additional web applications, additional content and so forth and we care a lot about that.
He also says Google has a certain way of doing things internally, a theme comes up repeatedly later in the interview. It involves the small cultural things, like free soft drinks, snacks and lava lamps. But he also says Google has always focused on solving big problems:
And then I also think of Google as a cultural phenomenon in and of itself, you know, the lava lamps and the way in which Google is run and so forth. That’s how I like to think about it. With respect to product buckets, we’ve always taken the position of we want to do things that matter to a large number of people at scale. So, we don’t define ourselves as search only or ads only or what have you. We sort of wait until something comes along which could actually affect, in a positive way, a lot of people. We don’t want to work on problems that only affect a small number of people.
Five years ago (about the time Google went public), Schmidt says, he sat down with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to talk about Google’s strategy:
And so, we had a - Larry and Sergey and I had a strategy meeting five years ago…I said, OK, well, let’s write down our strategy. We never really had a strategy. And so Sergey basically got up and said, our job is to do things that matter to the world at scale and it should just boom, boom, boom like that. And that became our strategy. And then Larry and I wrote down in detail some of the ideas that happened from that. But it’s not just a search company or not just an advertising company. It doesn’t even have to be just an Internet company, although obviously, the Internet is key.
More interesting conversation from the interview coming up in additional posts today and tomorrow. We’ll also update this post with links to those, too.
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The knife is the most essential kitchen gadget of all, yet people still buy those 25-in-one Ikea knife blocks. I called up Norman Weinstein, knife guru at New York's Institute of Culinary Education, to get some straight talk on knives.
On Choosing a Knife
Those all-in-one knife sets you can get at a department store are for suckers. "You really shouldn't buy a set with 42 knives," says Weinstein, "since you'll probably only need five or six." Here are the useful knives, in descending order of importance:
Chef's Knife: This is your all-purpose knife, so don't skimp on it—get a forged knife, which is molded through a process of pounding heated metal into shape and treating it, rather than stamped out of a sheet. Chef Weinstein suggests (mandates, really) a minimum of 8 inches, and preferably 10. Just because you have small hands or uncertain kitchen skills doesn't mean you should get a smaller knife, since all it'll do is decrease your leverage and "make the whole job much more difficult."
Buying a chef's knife can be difficult, but the key tip is to remember that this knife is all about weight and balance. "It shouldn't be blade heavy or handle heavy," says Weinstein.
Paring Knife: The paring knife is about 2 to 4 inches long and used for extremely delicate work (think small fruits like grapes and berries) as well as smaller items like shallots.
Bread Knife: Perhaps the last of the absolute essentials, this long, straight blade should be the only serrated knife in your collection. Use it for slicing bread and delicate or gooey produce like tomatoes.
Utility Knife: This knife has a smaller and thinner blade than the chef's knife, around 6 inches. Chef Weinstein notes that it's "the perfect fruit knife" but concedes that if you're on a budget, a paring knife can do the work of a utility knife.
Carving Knife: A long, thin blade, the carving knife is used to, well, carve thin slices of meat. It's extremely well-suited to this task, if this is a task you find yourself regularly performing.
Boning Knife: Like the carving knife, you may have no need for the boning knife, but if you are prone to buying whole chickens and other plucked or butchered fare, you'll find it invaluable. Boning knives have a thin and flexible blade and are used pretty much exclusively for boning.
Knife Upkeep
So you've bought a sweet new 10-inch forged chef's knife. How do you keep it in tip-top condition? There's nothing more dangerous than a dull knife, after all—not only do dull knives tend to slip more easily, but they require more force to cut through things. More force equals more danger. Chef Weinstein's tips:
Use a honing steel: A honing steel, which is that long cylindrical piece of metal all too often mistaken for a sharpener, is actually used to realign your knife's blade. Use it "practically every time you use your straight-edge knife," says Weinstein. "It should only take about 15 seconds, done properly." The key is to anchor the steel perpendicular to your countertop, and slice both sides of the knife across it at a 22-degree angle.
Avoid the dishwasher: Knives and cutting boards alike should be cleaned in the same way. Immediately after use, clean with soap, hot water and a non-abrasive scrubber (sponges are fine here). Never stick a good knife in the dishwasher: The force of the water can dull the blade, and it's never a good idea to have an extremely sharp pointy object rattling around a dishwasher. Knife handles could potentially warp, too, because of the heat.
Take your knives to a professional sharpener: Don't use a home sharpening machine unless you feel your knife has wronged you in some way and must be punished. Send your knives away to a professional sharpener about once a year to have your blade re-shaped.
On Cutting Boards
There's a lot of misunderstanding about cutting boards. Chef Weinstein says only one material will do: Wood. Not plastic ("It'll dull your knife"), not bamboo ("It's harder than wood and lousy for your knife"), and certainly nothing like stone ("Are you crazy?!").
Go for a nice hard maple board—it's just about the best investment you can make after a good chef's knife. "A good maple cutting board will go into your will," says Weinstein. Plus, if you're doing some hard cutting and you end up gouging the wood, a maple cutting board can simply be sanded down and re-seasoned with mineral oil and be good as new.
Just don't ever stick it in your dishwasher—wash it with warm soapy water immediately after use, and oil it up with mineral oil whenever it starts looking too dry.
How to Hold a Knife
Chef Weinstein's instruction for actually using a knife is all about relaxation. Keep your arms in a relaxed position and choke up on the knife: Your thumb and forefinger should be pinching the actual blade, not wrapped around the handle. It'll take some adjustment to hold the knife this way, but Weinstein reminds us, "You have to use the knife correctly before you can cut anything."
The actual motion of the blade is much more a sliding, fluid movement than a choppy-chop staccato rhythm. "It's all about relaxing and following through, just like golf or tennis," says Weinstein.
These tips are a good primer, but once you've got the basics down, you've still got to practice. Over and over again. Mince about a few hundred cloves of garlic, chop a couple dozen stalks of celery, and dice an army's worth of onions—more than anything else, repeated use of proper knife skills will save you time, keep your fingers safe, and improve your cooking. Thanks Chef!
For more than 20 years, Norman Weinstein, a chef-instructor at New York's Institute of Culinary Education, has taught everyone from enthusiastic amateur cooks (including our own Wilson Rothman) to professional chefs how to select and use knives. He is also the author ofMastering Knife Skills. He has been profiled in Wine Spectator and the New York Times Magazine, and has appeared on the Food Network. The 2003 honoree of the New York Association of Culinary Professionals, Weinstein lives in New York City.
Note: The images of knives above do not represent any particular brand endorsements by Chef Weinstein or Gizmodo. They are merely used to indicate general shapes of the discussed knives. Top image from Wikimedia Commons.
Taste Test is our weeklong tribute to the leaps that occur when technology meets cuisine, spanning everything from the historic breakthroughs that made food tastier and safer to the Earl-Grey-friendly replicators we impatiently await in the future.
Yahoo India has decided to shut down SpotM, the social network it launched less than a year ago in India. According to the site, SpotM. which never exited private beta, will be shut down on Sep. 1. Yahoo launched SpotM as a social network for the 16-24 age bracket in an attempt to capture the growing market in India.
It appeared that SpotM had potential to take off due the popularity of social networks in India and the addition of a few differentiating features. Yahoo said that SpotM would allow users to make friends with other users and if they wanted, to make those friends private so other users wouldn’t know about the relationship. SMS integration with anonymous chat would let users correspond via SMS without revealing their phone number.
But it appears that SpotM couldn’t compete with other social networks that are dominating in India. Google’s Orkut is the leader in the space, with 16 million unique visitors in July, according to comScore stats. Facebook, which is growing incredibly fast in India, reached a high of 7.5 million unique visits in India, according to July’s comScore numbers. In May, Facebook launched availability for several Indian languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. Perhaps Yahoo is planning to focus its social networking efforts in other parts of the world with the recently launched Yahoo Meme.
Of the 7 bookmarklets I have installed on my web browser, the Facebook Share one is the one I use the least. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of sharing stuff on Facebook, but the Share functionality is too slow and too clunky. Today, Facebook is trying to improve it — but it’s still won’t be as good as the functionality of the company it just bought, FriendFeed.
From what it has written on its Facebook Developers site today, it sounds like most of the Share changes will be happening functionality for buttons partners can install on their sites. If you have a Share button installed, for example, users should see a dialog box that pops up to post an item to their profile. The dialog box is said to be “more consistent with other forms of sharing on Facebook.”
The problem is that it’s still nowhere near as simple as it should be. For example, while it’s nice that it auto-pulls a thumbnail image, FriendFeed’s method of allowing you to click on any image on a page you are sharing is a much better way. Facebook’s thumbnail selector often pulls the wrong image and you’re stuck shuffling through random images on the page to find the one you want — as you can see in the preview image Facebook captured below, there are 17 possible images you can use.
Another nice feature of FriendFeed’s sharer is that it displays as an overlay on the web page you are on, rather than popping open a new small window (as Facebook’s does). FriendFeed’s functionality also makes it easy to send as a message to other users all from within the same screen, rather than having to click over to a separate window to send what you are sharing as a message to a user.
Facebook’s “What’s on your mind” comment area is also confusing. That would seem to imply that you should state what is on your mind (a status update) rather than comment on the item you are sharing. FriendFeed’s comment area simply has a comment icon and the note “Add a comment” — a subtle difference, but still nicer.
Finally, FriendFeed’s sharer gives you the ability to use it as a send-to-Twitter bookmarklet as well. Basically, if you select the “Cc: Twitter” box, it will send the item to both FriendFeed and Twitter (and it can link directly to the source rather than back to FriendFeed if you have that option set). Facebook, obviously, offers no such option.
The point is that if Facebook really wants to improve its Share functionality on sites outside of Facebook, it needs to make the process faster and cleaner. In other words, it needs to use its new acquired FriendFeed guys and get them to replicate their FriendFeed button. Facebook Connect is a very powerful pipeline from the web to Facebook, but that doesn’t matter if some of the pipes to and from it are clogged.
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I hope everyone had an awesome weekend, and welcome back to another week of Dealzmodo. We have great desktop and TV offers, be sure to take a look at the 55" LG if a big screen is what you're after.
The good news: Rockstar Games is bringing an installment of Grand Theft Auto to the iPhone. The possibly good, possibly terrible news, depending on your tastes: It's going to be a top-down affair. iPhone-owning GTA fans of various vintages, fight!
Devising a decent control scheme for a GTA3-style third-person on the iPhone sounds laughably hard, so I see the fact that GTA: Chinatown Wars will be a top-down shooter, a la the original 90s crime simulators we all fell in love with back in the late 90s, as a good thing. Plus, the DS version of this same game was pretty great, aside from the terrible graphics. The forthcoming PSP version, pictured above, looks way better, as should the iPhone's (no screens yet, oddly enough), which is due in "fall." [Rockstar Games]
Sure, Apple carved out a lot extra code, like printer drivers you don't need. But you're also seeing additional space where you didn't used to, because Snow Leopard calculates disk capacity differently than Leopard (or Windows, for that matter).
Previously, storage was calculated using binary (base 2), which is why you wound up with hard drives that the manufacturer said were 250GB looking like they had 232GB of space in your OS. Snow Leopard calculates disk space in base 10, so your 250GB hard drive actually shows up as having 250GB of space. Check out that shot by Gina of the same 4GB Cruzer drive in Leopard, then in Snow Leopard to see what I mean:
So, a good chunk at least part of that 20GB of extra space you got with Snow ain't magic people, it's just math. [Apple via ZDNet via Smarterware]
While Google Translate is certainly not perfect in many of its translations, the site is undoubtedly an incredibly useful tool when trying to interpret a word, phrase or entire site in a different language. Today, Google has added nine more languages to Google Translate: Afrikaans, Belarusian, Icelandic, Irish, Macedonian, Malay, Swahili, Welsh and Yiddish, bringing the number of languages that are supported up to 51.
Google says that with the latest addition, the site now supports all 23 of the official EU languages. And following the events in Iran during the elections, Google added Persian (Farsi) to Google Translate. Google warns users that quality of the translation for the new languages is still basic and may have some glitches.
Google has been integrating Google Translate into many of its other applications, most recently adding support for translation in Google Docs. You can also translate emails within Gmail, webpages using Google Toolbar, and RSS feeds in Google Reader. In June, Google launched the Google Translator Kit, which is a translation editor that lets translators make human edits within machine translations.
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It’s no secret that Apple’s App Store has been leaps and bounds more succesful than Android’s comparable Market, but it isn’t often we get concrete data that shows just how poorly Android’s store is faring in comparison. Today Android developer 
Are you addicted to 
On its iGoogle Developer Blog today Google issued a 
Looking to live fast and quite possibly die young? Got $2500 burning a hole in your pocket? Do I have a potentially badass obituary for you!
NTT America 
“That’s right. That’s - that’s good. That’s good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you’re in trouble, huh?” - Ted (Ben Stiller), There’s Something About Mary
A week ago I had a chance to sit down for a hour-long one on one interview with Google CEO 
Paring Knife: The paring knife is about 2 to 4 inches long and used for extremely delicate work (think small fruits like grapes and berries) as well as smaller items like shallots.
Bread Knife: Perhaps the last of the absolute essentials, this long, straight blade should be the only serrated knife in your collection. Use it for slicing bread and delicate or gooey produce like tomatoes.
Utility Knife: This knife has a smaller and thinner blade than the chef's knife, around 6 inches. Chef Weinstein notes that it's "the perfect fruit knife" but concedes that if you're on a budget, a paring knife can do the work of a utility knife.
Carving Knife: A long, thin blade, the carving knife is used to, well, carve thin slices of meat. It's extremely well-suited to this task, if this is a task you find yourself regularly performing.
Boning Knife: Like the carving knife, you may have no need for the boning knife, but if you are prone to buying whole chickens and other plucked or butchered fare, you'll find it invaluable. Boning knives have a thin and flexible blade and are used pretty much exclusively for boning.
The good news: 
