CrunchGear |  |
- Foxconn to make and ship Apple tablet PC, says boy who cried wolf
- Panasonic unveils Lithium-Ion battery module and home fuel cell cogeneration facility
- Live demo of Toshiba voice translation software
- Sony Flexible OLED display on display at CEATEC
- Daily Crunch: More Fish Edition
- Kindle 2 goes to $259, International GSM version coming October 19
- The Mountain Goats get a Colbert Bump and, interestingly, it creates a unique music marketing opportunity
- Flo TV gets official announcement and pricing
- Albatross-mounted cameras? Yes, we have arrived at the future
- Grizzly bear bean bag, for when you just need to hibernate
- Rumor: Nikon is releasing a clone of the Leica X1
- Motor your boat with a cordless drill
- Exclusive: Dell’s Android phone is coming to the U.S.
- Photo dialing, solar cellphones, and newspapers on TV: only in Japan
- Video: Some kid makes the PSP that Sony should have made 5 years ago
- Too big to fail: Using MMOs to study economics
- Verizon’s phone release list leaked. Maybe
- What’s the best company out there? Come on, guess.
- PSP Go? More like PSP [word that rhymes with ‘go’]!
- AT&T Greenlights VoIP For the iPhone. Too Bad Google Voice Isn’t VoIP.
| Foxconn to make and ship Apple tablet PC, says boy who cried wolf Posted: 07 Oct 2009 05:45 AM PDT
Blah, blah, blah. Apple tablet to come from here. Apple tablet going there. Apple tablet coming soon on the backs of unicorns. All the rumors are played out, but yet here’s another one, stating that sure ‘nough, the fabled Apple tablet is coming in the first quarter of 2010. We here go again. DigiTimes is reporting that Foxconn (insert inappropriate joke) is the manufacturer of the 10.6-inch slate and the initial shipment will be in the 300,000 to 400,000 range. The report also suggests that Apple is taking the tablet in a different, but logical, direction.
So is Digitimes to be believed? Is the Apple tablet really coming out sometime early next year? Hell if I know.
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| Panasonic unveils Lithium-Ion battery module and home fuel cell cogeneration facility Posted: 07 Oct 2009 05:30 AM PDT
If solar power is to sissy for you, maybe you’d be interested in the Panasonic Fuel Cell Cogeneration System, which “generates electricity and hot water simultaneously at home”?    
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| Live demo of Toshiba voice translation software Posted: 07 Oct 2009 04:30 AM PDT
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| Sony Flexible OLED display on display at CEATEC Posted: 07 Oct 2009 04:00 AM PDT
What might such a flexible OLED be used for? How about a single-surface multi-touch computer? No separate keyboard and screen, no hinge, and all sex appeal.   If that’s not enough for you, how about an all-touch Walkman, in the form of a bracelet? Or an all-touch eReader? This is a seriously good idea, and I hope Sony product-izes this tech soon.  
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| Daily Crunch: More Fish Edition Posted: 07 Oct 2009 12:00 AM PDT |
| Kindle 2 goes to $259, International GSM version coming October 19 Posted: 06 Oct 2009 09:20 PM PDT
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| Posted: 06 Oct 2009 09:12 PM PDT
In short, in the Venn diagram of TV you have Colbert Report watchers and Mountain Goats listeners. Many of us exist, obviously, but the confluence of these two audiences into one tasty streaming opportunity is quite cool. There are lots of services out there that allow for music discovery but this seems like a nice way to ensure that an obscure artist gets the attention he or she deserves while also winning over old and new fans of said artist. After all, guys like John Darnielle and Stephen Colbert bring something unreplaceable to each and every day although I won’t go as far as to say that we’re hearing the cogs all slipping at the same time.
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| Flo TV gets official announcement and pricing Posted: 06 Oct 2009 07:42 PM PDT
I used the LG Vu for a bit, and I have to say that instant-on portable TV was kind of fun to have, even though I’m not much of a TV watcher. Its selection was much more limited than the Flo TV’s, though. Qualcomm lists CNBC, Comedy Central, MSNBC, MTV, NBC, NBC 2Go, NBC News, NBC Sports and Nickelodeon as channels. You can check out the lineup here, and the program guide here.
Battery is rated at 5 hours of TV and 300 hours of standby. It remains to be seen how the picture is, of course, and how well the signal holds, but you leave that to us. The device itself costs $250, and the minimum subscription is $9. That’s not bad (less than a Peek), but of course, like regular TV you’ll have to pay for the good stuff. More info, as always, at their website.
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| Albatross-mounted cameras? Yes, we have arrived at the future Posted: 06 Oct 2009 07:00 PM PDT
Talk about a bird’s-eye-view. While these bird-mounted surveillance systems haven’t been deployed in cities yet, you can bet the Pentagon is taking notice. An interesting result of the study, which you can find in its entirety here, was that albatross, strong as they are, don’t simply fly around forever looking for random fish. They sometimes watch for whales and pick up the scraps left behind (an orca isn’t exactly a dainty eater). Smart birds, those albatrosses. You can see the whale in the bottom left, there, if you hadn’t spotted it already. Not that it’s inconspicuous. Plus there’s an arrow. Never mind. So how long before we get our own little life recorders? A tiny, wide-angle lens and sensor uploading a picture every five minutes via a 3G connection? Can’t be that hard. Get on it, Microsoft/Apple/Google/Everyone! [via Wired News]
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| Grizzly bear bean bag, for when you just need to hibernate Posted: 06 Oct 2009 06:30 PM PDT
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| Rumor: Nikon is releasing a clone of the Leica X1 Posted: 06 Oct 2009 06:00 PM PDT
Nikon Rumors has heard that the new Leica X1 is actually made by Nikon, so it make sense that the manufacturing and technology is already in place for building a clone – particularly when you see how popular the new Leicas have been. The new camera will reportedly use the same sensor as the D300, which would be a very good thing. The source also told the NR folks that the new camera may end up modeled after the old Coolpix, with the swivel display. I certainly hope not.
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| Motor your boat with a cordless drill Posted: 06 Oct 2009 05:30 PM PDT
Two questions: first, do you have a boat? Second, do you have a cordless drill? If you answered "yes" to both questions, you may be interested in the above video, which showcases a cordless drill being used to propel a boat.
You're not going to get awesome run-time or an insane top speed out of this little project but if you have the desire to cobble something like this together, then perhaps you'll be able to add some sort of extended battery to the mix. Either way, the total cost for the extra materials (minus the drill and the boat, of course) should settle in at under $50. [via Instructables]
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| Exclusive: Dell’s Android phone is coming to the U.S. Posted: 06 Oct 2009 05:23 PM PDT
Rumor has it that Dell will bring the Mini 3i to the U.S. in the next few months to compete with other Android phones coming down the pike from HTC, Samsung, and Motorola. The phone, presumably still in its Chinese trade dress, felt “cheap and plasticky, like the Pre,” according our tipster. He believes it will be upgraded for the American market. Interestingly, Dell is splintering the Android stack and shipping the phone with modified or missing Android libraries, making it a bit harder to program. The tipster reported that some apps won’t work on this version. Dell hasn’t sold a smartphone since the Axim X51, an ill-fated WinMo PDA-alike last sold in 2007. This return to the smartphone market seems to be a direct attack on the WinMo architecture as Dell could have easily gone with something like Windows Mobile 6.5. We’ll have photos of the new phone this week but we’ll add this to our Palm Pre and Pixi announcements as interesting new phones from ostensibly U.S.-based companies.
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| Photo dialing, solar cellphones, and newspapers on TV: only in Japan Posted: 06 Oct 2009 04:30 PM PDT
First up is this digital photo display which integrates a telephone and fax. You can see a visual address book, which allows you to dial recipients by picture. It can also display received faxes on screen, if you’re the faxing kind of person! Sharp is working to integrate Internet content into some of its AQUOS televisions, and is currently testing digital newspaper delivery. Rather than read a physical newspaper, some Japanese can read the day’s edition right on their AQUOS TV: And finally, solar powered cell phones. Not entirely solar powered, of course, but chargable through solar energy. Five minutes of sunlight provides one minute of talk time. That’s twelve minutes of talk time for an hour of solar charging. Not great, but not really terrible, either, if you’re the kind of person who consistently forgets to charge your phone. And as a bonus, I got to play with the Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1!
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| Video: Some kid makes the PSP that Sony should have made 5 years ago Posted: 06 Oct 2009 04:00 PM PDT
Sony would do well to hire the man who put this PSP mod together. It’s basically what the PSP should have been since Day One: a built-in camera, 32GB of flash memory, and a second analog stick. Well, you have to stretch the definition of analog stick here; it’s that nub thing. Who came up with this? JoblessPunk, who looks like every character in Kingdom Hearts, explains the whole damn thing. Yeah, the video is a little on the "you’re kidding, right?" side, but the PSP itself is commendable. And I have a question for anyone in high school right now: is the goth look still popular, or did it die? I don’t care either way, I’m just curious as to what’s going on with America’s youth.
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| Too big to fail: Using MMOs to study economics Posted: 06 Oct 2009 03:30 PM PDT
We all know that real world officials have used games like World of Warcraft to monitor the spread of infectious diseases, like trout flu. But what’s new to my eyes, broken pieces of junk that they are (I wouldn’t be able see Jupiter even if I were five feet away from it), is that researchers are using them to study economics. It’s simultaneously a bad and good idea. It’s good in that you’ve got a lot of people to study, all of whom are buying and selling goods on the Auction House (or your preferred game’s equivalent). But the thing is that not everyone is motivated by pure profit, which seems to be the case in the Real World. Someone could be trying to level up a skill (like, say, Leatherworking) just for the sake of leveling it up, and not trying to make any money on the transaction. So they’ll make a piece of armor, and sell it for next to nothing just because. Then you’ve got people who like to disrupt, selling items for way below the "real" value just to ruin the economy. My brother actually did that back in the early days of Star Wars Galaxies. One thing that researchers have already observed: when a new server opens up, or when it allows transfers to it, the flood of new players, with their new items in their knapsacks, be on the lookout for inflation. If, prior to the server opening up to new players, there was only 10 of Item X on sale, and now all of a sudden 100 items are on sale, say goodbye to your profit margins. So, yeah… happy Jocktober, everyone.
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| Verizon’s phone release list leaked. Maybe Posted: 06 Oct 2009 03:24 PM PDT
Looks like those guys over at Gizmodo managed to snag a list of some upcoming possible Verizon handset releases from a “reliable source”. Looks like the: Casio C731 Rock As far as Android devices: HTC Desire will all be available from Verizon before the end of November.
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| What’s the best company out there? Come on, guess. Posted: 06 Oct 2009 03:00 PM PDT
NINTENDO~! That’s right, according to A.T. Kearney, as seen in BusinessWeek, Nintendo tops the list of best companies. The list took into account like sales (in the year 2008) and international sales percentage. Basically, companies that dominate all over the world. Google is number two, and Apple is number three. That’s it. Tip your waitress. via Kotaku
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| PSP Go? More like PSP [word that rhymes with ‘go’]! Posted: 06 Oct 2009 02:30 PM PDT
Oh, dear. The first sales reports of the PSP Go started trickling out yesterday, and they were sorta so-so, let’s say. (It’s no PS3 Slim, that’s for sure!) More details have emerged today, and, again, the PSP Go isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire. An online retailer, ShopTo (I guess it’s big in the UK), has characterized the PSP Go’s start as "slow." You can’t get any more dire than that, I don’t think. What could be holding the PSP Go back? Well, for one, the reviews weren’t great, so perhaps people got scared off. Two, $250, really? (It’s even more in Europe.) Three, maybe people just aren’t prepared to drop their physical media yet? (The 802.11b connection doesn’t exactly help when you’re trying to download 1.00GB+ games.) Sony did ostensibly bundle the biggest PSP game ever, Gran Turismo, with the system in Europe, so it can’t be that. Or, maybe, the PSP, from Day One, back in 2004 or 2005, was never meant to be?
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| AT&T Greenlights VoIP For the iPhone. Too Bad Google Voice Isn’t VoIP. Posted: 06 Oct 2009 02:27 PM PDT  Yesterday, we saw a Vonage app hit the App Store, which seemed to go against Apple and AT&T's previous stance that VoIP apps that work over the 3G (and 2G) network would not be allowed in the App Store. Turns out there's been a policy change. AT&T has just announced that it will no longer restrict VoIP apps that use its network on the iPhone, a move which is long overdue considering that it was already allowing these on other phones. But don't be fooled. A rumor earlier today about the move suggested that AT&T was thinking about letting Google Voice on the iPhone alongside Skype, Vonage, and other VoIP apps. There's two problems here. First, Google Voice isn't actually a VoIP app. Second, AT&T did not have anything to do with the Google Voice rejection (or non-approval, whatever), that was all Apple.
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We still don’t know for certain what Nikon is up to on the 15th, but that whole 
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