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- Tokyo Game Show: A couple of gorgeous booth companions (photo gallery)
- Jabra, you got me good with the Stone headset teaser pack
- Super Mario Bros 3 USB HDD: awesome, or waste of a perfectly good NES cartridge?
- Who’s ‘right’ in the Net Neutrality debate?
- Public Service Announcement: The Zune HD is nigh unreadable in direct sunlight. Just sayin’.
- The coming tablet wars
| Tokyo Game Show: A couple of gorgeous booth companions (photo gallery) Posted: 27 Sep 2009 05:01 AM PDT
Sorry ladies, but I haven’t seen even one male booth companion at the Tokyo Game Show this year (or in 2008, for that matter). There were ladies only – and almost all of them were gorgeous. Here are some of them.
And here’s a short video (taken by a guy from Japan’s biggest blog Gigazine):
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| Jabra, you got me good with the Stone headset teaser pack Posted: 26 Sep 2009 01:32 PM PDT
So I got home a few minutes ago, grabbed the mail and sat down to watch Michigan sneak a win over Indiana. I noticed a small, black package in the mail, but I didn’t care about it until I was sure that Michigan was going to hold off Indiana. After all, I thought, it was probably just another flash drive with some random press release on it. After Michigan intercepted the ball – and the call was upheld – I opened it up only to find a small satchel and a card that clearly showed the Jabra Stone teaser image. Oh man, we’ve already seen what it’s supposed to look like but I didn’t think the Stone was suppose to come out for another couple of weeks, I thought. So I quickly opened the black pouch and was instantly disappointed. You suck, Jabra. The black pouch held a stone. It wasn’t the headset at all. It was an eff’n rock with a website address engraved on it. Clever? Yes, but it’s also mean to do that to a gadget blogger. Jabra has always been good to us here and I thought perhaps they sent us the headset for an early look. But nope, what they sent us could have been a lump of cool. Ah well, it’s not like Jabra is developing a vaccine for AIDs, the Stone is just another Bluetooth headset and the world already has enough options in that department.
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| Super Mario Bros 3 USB HDD: awesome, or waste of a perfectly good NES cartridge? Posted: 26 Sep 2009 01:05 PM PDT
But! On the other hand, this is a Super Mario Bros 3 cartridge. It’d be like desecrating the temple of my youth. I could have dragged out my old NES and played SMB3 all day. Of course, I’ve already got two copies of the game, but still — what if they break? Or are stolen and turned into hard drives? It’s available from French Etsy seller LilyPixelArtshop for $120, and… wait, is that a gold Zelda cartridge? Sacrilege! [via Geeksugar]
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| Who’s ‘right’ in the Net Neutrality debate? Posted: 26 Sep 2009 11:00 AM PDT
This past week saw the resurrection of Net Neutrality as a divisive issue. Some folks (people like Google, and, well, us) are in favor of Net Neutrality, while other folks (primarily the ISPs) are against it. Not long after the FCC announced its intentions, six Republican senators, three of which who received quite a lot of money from AT&T, proposed an amendment to a bill to stop the FCC in its tracks. The senators later rescinded their amendment, saying that they were now open to a "dialogue" with the FCC. Which brings up to today’s point: are there any angels in this debate? The Wall Street Journal recently, I guess, came to the defense of the ISPs: why should Google and whoever else be allowed to profit off the Internet Service Providers’ networks? Why should, say, Time Warner, subsidize Google’s online applications with its broadband network when it (Time Warner) doesn’t stand to make any money? That’s how the Wall Street Journal characterizes it, at least. The WSJ says that people like Google (I keep bringing up Google because it stands to benefit the most from an open Internet) want to maintain the status quo: it doesn’t want to have to pay Time Warner (or whoever) hand over fist just to keep it from shutting off access to Google Maps. The WSJ also brings up how one of Google’s top lobbyists, Andrew McLaughlin, recently got a job in the Obama Administration as deputy head of telecom policy. The scary implication, of course, is that now Google will get whatever the hell it wants because one of its former guys is now in a proper policy-making position. If only things were that easy. So, basically, I’ve just said nothing other than that this Net Neutrality business can get really complicated if you want to devote the time to it. I stand to benefit more from a Net Neutral world, so I’m in favor of that, which is only logical. You’re free to disagree, of course. In fact, I encourage it! More opinions expressed = a better chance of coming to a well-informed conclusion.
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| Public Service Announcement: The Zune HD is nigh unreadable in direct sunlight. Just sayin’. Posted: 26 Sep 2009 10:00 AM PDT
Sometime in the past two weeks I decided, with some thought being put into is, to buy a Zune HD. Why, I don’t know; I thought it looked neat, and I was thoroughly unimpressed with the new iPods Apple showed off at that Rock and Roll event. For the most part the Zune HD is, indeed, neat. Its user interface is miles ahead of the iPod’s, and, with a little forethought, can be used rather effectively with a dual-booting Mac. There’s just one small thing: you absolutely cannot read the display in direct sunlight. Don’t try to because you can’t. Photos probably can’t do this justice, but I can assure you that the Zune HD is fully turned out right here, showing a really colorful photo from the built-in photo library. This isn’t really a problem for me, since, again, I bought the Zune HD to listen to music, and not watch video or look at photos. I’m also not too often shuffling around the device trying to find a new song to play, since it’s either always playing a long playlist, or an album, or a podcast. Now, why is that? Is it because Microsoft went with an OLED screen, versus the iPhone’s plain ol’ backlit LCD? Maybe, probably. I’m not a scientist. But in essence, not being able to read the screen in direct sunlight isn’t huge deal for me, but I know it’ll strike a chord with some of you. Of course, indoors, this isn’t a problem at all (rubbish camera alert!):
Even given all of that, I’d still prefer a Zune HD to a boring ol’ iPod. That is all.
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| Posted: 26 Sep 2009 09:00 AM PDT
Come back with me to 2001. A young man got up on stage one afternoon in November to announce something new and amazing: an operating system dedicated to tablet computing. That young man was Microsoft’s Bill Gates and that operating system was Windows XP Tablet PC edition.
Chances are that is the first and last time you saw a working tablet computer. Laptops, then, were monsters. They were heavy – 10 pounds or more – had small, bad batteries, and WiFi was just a dream for most people. It seemed, in those dark years, that laptop manufacturers could shave off pounds and complexity by removing the keyboard and offer a pen-based OS. After all, this was a post-PalmOS era when handwriting recognition was an input option we all knew and understood. The thinking was this: if you can streamline applications – data entry applications being the target here – you could sell smaller, more expensive computers to medical and business clients. It didn’t work and Windows Tablet PC has been little more than a clever solution to a nonexistent problem. So what’s with all the tablet talk lately?
Note this new focus. Rather than trying to create a business machine, manufacturers understand people want bigger screens on which to consume web and media content. So what can we expect in the next year? Well, first we have the CrunchPad. When all the bugs are worked out, it will be an amazing device – I’ve seen it. And I’m not just saying that because I’ve been intimately involved in the design process, because I wasn’t – that gives me a bit of perspective. Expect the CrunchPad to be a excellent device for blogging – that’s what Mike made it for – and for web apps. Then there’s the iPad. This will eclipse the industry and for the rest of the year that’s all you’ll hear about. Trust me. Apple could require you to give this device three drops of blood every morning in order to satisfy the demonic hell-beast soul trapped inside it and we would, gladly. The release will be on par with the iPhone release and they’ll sell a million of them.
As for the rest of the devices, expect slow uptake by price conscious consumers and folks who don’t think it’s “cool” to own “name brand” technology and are real “hackers” (read: teenagers and European students). Archos, As for connectivity most of these will have a 3G option – although I doubt the iPad will have 3G built-in. WiFi is an obvious second-best. As for size, tablets, at least with capacitive screens, are weighed down by a huge hunk of metal that shields the electronics from the screen. This hunk of metal – and the glass – prevents us from getting a bigger iPod Touch and is what is keeping the iPad from coming out sooner. Once the world’s (i.e. China’s) scientists solve this problem we’ll get what we want. Until then it’s resistive all the way. So prepare yourselves for the coming tablet wars and sock away a little cash because things are going to get interesting in 2010.
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We have entered an era of the thin and light computer and, rather than worrying about power we’ve become obsessed with the concept of thinness. This is why Apple, in their wisdom, created the MacBook Air and the iPod Touch. This is the same reason we are all salivating over the thought of tablets thinner than an issue of BusinessWeek and this is why laptop manufacturers – 
The 
Then you have Microsoft’s 
for example, is doing a lot of good work in the tablet space but they’re an also-ran. They are going the Tablet OS route, which is no good. Creative has some devices planned and it’s also clear that ChromeOS could power a nice device – provided | You are subscribed to email updates from CrunchGear To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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