Instaprint service is the Polaroid of the Instagram generation, no shaking required (video)

Sure Polaroid brought its headline product into 2011 by teaming up with Lady Gaga, but most of us are just fine with using our phones to quickly capture memorable moments. Well, Instaprint aims to recreate the photo craze of yesteryear by tying it in to Instagram -- the wildly popular (and currently iOS-only) app that lets you apply various filters to your photos for quick sharing among friends. The Instaprinter (our term, not the company's) is essentially a modified Zink photo printer with internet connectivity and tie-ins to the Instagram API, that automatically prints items tagged with any hashtag you choose. As of now, the company is planning to rent Instaprint boxes and demo the service at SXSWi, targeting it as a novel way to capture all angles of whatever event you may be hosting -- which to us seems like a fun idea. That is, until someone starts abusing the system and tags a photo of their derriere with #GrandmasBirthday. You can try it out now by tagging your shots with #Instaprint, and see it printed live in the stream embedded after the break.

Live TV : Ustream

Motorola Xoom now available for purchase straight from Verizon, no data activation required (updated)

Oh yes, the world's first Android Honeycomb tablet really is here now. As Verizon announced earlier, you can snag a Motorola Xoom for $599.99 with a two-year contract, or splash out $799.99 for just the LTE-ready device. Alas, the WiFi-only version is nowhere to be seen just yet, but maybe some will show up in the stores later if not tomorrow, so hold on to your personal hotspot devices and keep believing. Either way, in case you're still indecisive over this 10-inch goodness, maybe our review will help.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Verizon's been in touch to inform us of a policy change: customers who purchase the off-contract Xoom will now no longer need to be on a month to month plan. That said, we still see "Month to Month" as a compulsory option at the time of updating this post.