CrunchGear |  |
- Secure your data with encrypted USB drives
- Hitachi develops eyeglass-free 3-D projection system
- Daily Crunch: Rain of Pumpkins Edition
- Apple’s Mighty Mouse Never Lived Up To Its Name. And Now It Can’t.
- Changing projector’s aspect ratio may violate copyright, according to manual
- Researchers creating a nuclear powered battery
- Dear friends: Please stop falling for phishing attacks
- Cocaine. There’s an app for that.
- Gigantic iPhone charger packs 3000mAh battery
- Sony’s new Vaios arrive on schedule
- New hard drives from A-DATA look pretty dang rugged
- Yes, Rock Band is coming to iPhone. Here’s proof.
- Valve has a censored, Australian version of Left 4 Dead 2 ready and waiting (in case it needs it)
- Congratulations, FIFA 10: You’re the fastest selling sports game of all time
- Nikon’s microscope accessory for your DSLR ruled fun, expensive
- Survey: Apple products totally popular with the rich kids
- Quick Look: Archos 5 Internet Tablet
- The Sarah Palin Xbox 360 is back on eBay with the same $1.1 million price
- Left 4 Dead 2 may be sold in Australia after all
- Blast off! “Telstar” on guitar and effects pedals
| Secure your data with encrypted USB drives Posted: 08 Oct 2009 04:30 AM PDT
Lexar is releasing their Jumpdrive S3000 FIPS, “the world's first smartcard-based Level-3 FIPS certified USB flash drive”. This means that the data you put onto the drive is encrypted in such a way as to pass the U.S. Government’s security standards. I’ve had a review model for a couple weeks now that I’ve been playing with, so expect a full review soon. Basically, a little shim application is run from the Jumpdrive itself which locks (encrypts) and unlocks (decrypts) the data for use. You assign a password upon initialization, and are thereafter prompted to enter that password in order to unlock the drive. After too many consecutive authentication failures, the data is automatically deleted from the drive. I don’t have the ability to perform a real cryptographic attack against this thing; but my experiences so far indicate that your data will be secure (and waterproof!).
Fujitsu has on display a CEATEC similar secure USB drives. The stand’s label is “Technology for Safely Transporting Sensitive Data Featuring Secure USB Memory”. There’s no indication that this is FIPS certified, and no specific encryption algorithm is mentioned; but the Fujitsu model does list a couple of other features that will be particularly useful in enterprise scenarios. You can limit transfer of data to or from the device to only authorized computers (presumably via some sort of software authentication mechanism). Data can be set to “expire” (read: automatically deleted) after a certain time. And the unit maintains a comprehensive log of operations for auditing purposes. Note that the Fujitsu website makes it pretty clear this is still in prototype stages, while Lexar’s Jumpdrive S3000 FIPS is a real product you’ll be able to buy.
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| Hitachi develops eyeglass-free 3-D projection system Posted: 08 Oct 2009 04:20 AM PDT
No pictures for this yet, but Hitachi has reportedly developed a 3D projection system that allows viewers to watch 3D images from any angle, and perhaps more importantly, without the need for eyeglasses. While the first feature makes sure a group of people can see 3D images at the same time on a single screen, I am aware the second one isn’t the first of its kind for a 3D system. Hitachi says another strong point of its technology is the high resolution of the 3D images produced. The company claims the quality is comparable to analog broadcasts, meaning the resolution is higher than in other eyeglass-free 3D systems developed so far. The Hitachi system consists of 16 projectors that project images from different angles to a transparent sheet that’s 20 x 23cm in size and consists of 300,000 lenses. 3D images “floating” in front of the sheet are produced by letting the light from the projectors pass through the lenses. Hitachi says a practical version should be ready by 2012. The company wants to target ad agencies, museums and medical institutions with the system (it could show stereoscopic images of body organs, for example), Via Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]
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| Daily Crunch: Rain of Pumpkins Edition Posted: 08 Oct 2009 12:00 AM PDT
Enormous pumpkin cannon fires squash at 600MPH for up to a mile
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| Apple’s Mighty Mouse Never Lived Up To Its Name. And Now It Can’t. Posted: 07 Oct 2009 07:20 PM PDT  It seems pretty clear at this point that Apple is getting ready to release a new mouse, probably with some kind of multi-touch capabilities, that is probably attached to some new iMacs. No one is happier about that than me, as I hate the current Mighty Mouse. But it looks like Apple may not have a chance to create a device that lives up to that name this time around, as someone else has won the trademark for the name "Mighty Mouse."
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| Changing projector’s aspect ratio may violate copyright, according to manual Posted: 07 Oct 2009 06:30 PM PDT
Seriously, that appears to be the case according to the manual for a projector, which warns against using the aspect ratio button if using the projector in any commercial circumstances. After all, if the original content is 4:3 and you show it in 16:9, you are technically modifying the work. There is some kind of logic there, but it’s kind of like a warning on a mask that it may be illegal to use this mask during a bank robbery. Technically they’re correct, but that’s not really the point. I don’t want to get into a discussion of the definition of fair use, since that’s not really the issue here. I’m not even sure what the issue really is. All I know is that when you’ve got a warning to this effect, something’s gone seriously wrong somewhere along the line. [via Boing to the Boing]
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| Researchers creating a nuclear powered battery Posted: 07 Oct 2009 06:00 PM PDT
To be fair, there are already a few nuclear batteries around, but the problem with them is they break down rather quickly. This is due to the obvious problem of radioactivity causing the semiconductor to break down. The current versions of the nuclear batteries are used in satellites and pacemakers. Where the innovation comes in, is the size and how it’s made. The researchers have stated that their goal is to create a battery that is the size of a penny, using a liquid instead of a solid semiconductor. The long term goal, is to take the technology even farther, and create a nuclear battery that is smaller then the thickness of a human hair. Sounds like a great idea to me. [via BoingBoing]
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| Dear friends: Please stop falling for phishing attacks Posted: 07 Oct 2009 05:31 PM PDT
Come on, people. You’re probably aware of the big Hotmail scandal going on right now, what with some 30,000 account names and passwords having been leaked over the past few days. And now Gmail and Yahoo! e-mail accounts appear to have been compromised. The thing is, these leaks aren’t the result of a software glitch or anything, but the result of successful phishing attacks. I have one question: what the heck is wrong with you people? Seriously, I don’t understand how, in the year 2009 (nearly 2010!) people can still fall victim to phishing attacks. Let’s make this clear: your bank, eBay, Google… NOBODY is going to ask you to "validate your account" or anything like that. If you ever see anything even like that, then yes, it’s a scam. (Phishing scams are pretty prevalent in World of Warcraft, too. You’ll get a message from a player saying something like, "You have won free gold from Blizzard! Just go to www.blizzard-free-gold-giveaway-us.com to claim your prize." Um… no, thank you.) Here’s a few tips I can think of off the top of my head: • Do you even have an account with these people? The other day I got a Pretty Real™ looking e-mail from "eBay" sent to my CrunchGear e-mail account. Now, the e-mail looked real—it even addressed me by my first name!—but for the slight problem that I do not have an eBay account set up with my CrunchGear e-mail account; it’s set up with my old NYU e-mail address. Still, credit to whomever drew up the e-mail, because, again, it looked Pretty Real™. • If, for whatever dumb reason, you do click on such an e-mail, be sure to check the URL. If it’s something like http://74.98.30.203/ebayaccountverify.php IT’S A SCAM! Same thing if it’s like http://ebay-verify.com: it’s more fake than your average WWE Diva’s breasts. Again, again, and again: NO ONE IS GOING TO ASK YOU TO VERIFY AN ACCOUNT, OR PROVIDE YOUR USERNAME/PASSWORD AS PART OF AN ANNUAL CHECKUP.
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| Cocaine. There’s an app for that. Posted: 07 Oct 2009 05:19 PM PDT
This device was found in the Netherlands. A digital scale that is slim enough to fit in your pocket (jacket/purse/bag of holding), yet with the cover on, it is indistinguishable from an activated iPhone. Well minus the fact that the buttons don’t actually work. It’s unfair to say that illicit drugs were the intent behind this device. Maybe the guy just liked weighing really small things. He had a penchant for mods, had a tiny, tiny kitchen and needed to measure spices accurately. I’ll just let you come to your own conclusion from the picture.
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| Gigantic iPhone charger packs 3000mAh battery Posted: 07 Oct 2009 05:10 PM PDT
Whoever manipulated the above image to make this humongous iPhone battery pack look relatively manageable ought to be given a raise. Conversely, whoever wrote "It is not bulky either as it just extends a little at the bottom" in the product description ought to immediately undergo a workplace evaluation. If it happens to be the same person who handled both the photo and the product description, then God help us all. Here's what the $60 "Super Charger for iPhone" looks like from the side.
It's big, I tell you. Big. That's okay, though, let's just call a spade a spade and move on. There are, believe it or not, people out there who would be willing to put up with this brick in order to squeeze almost 2.5 full recharge cycles out of it. Product Page [USBfever.com]
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| Sony’s new Vaios arrive on schedule Posted: 07 Oct 2009 04:59 PM PDT
The less said about the CW series, the better. The specs are nothing to write home about, although the inclusion of Blu-ray (in the most expensive model only) is nice. The best thing about them is the price: $800 to start, $920 at maximum. Decent all-purpose machines, but they’re not particularly sleek or portable, nor will they excel at HD or gaming. Still, the price is right. Sony is showing a good deal of value in these offerings; Vaio has traditionally been a rather expensive brand, but bringing it down essentially to ultrathin territory with this Atom-based X-series is probably a good move. People buying Vaio aren’t buying for the bits, but for the whole package. We’ll see how this touchscreen PC works out; that picture doesn’t really make it look comfortable and I think people will find desktop PCs aren’t the best thing to mix with touchscreens. Tablets, I tells ya! You can be sure that Sony will have a Vaio tablet by this time next year. In the mean time, these aren’t bad buys. Read the full press releases here if you’re into that kind of thing.
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| New hard drives from A-DATA look pretty dang rugged Posted: 07 Oct 2009 04:00 PM PDT
That’s right, now you can take your drive into the shower with you. It’s really more that you don’t have to worry about losing all your backups if you spill coffee on it, but the limitations are good to know anyway. Personally, my advice is to have your regular in-PC hard drive, a large backup or two that stay on your desk, and then a 2.5″ drive to carry around with you. And if you’re going to be carrying it around, may as well make it a rugged one, right? They’re available in 250, 320, 500, and 640GB versions, but there’s no pricing info yet. I’d guess you’re looking at at least a $50 premium on similarly-sized drives. I’ll see what I can do about reviewing one of these suckers. [via GearLive]
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| Yes, Rock Band is coming to iPhone. Here’s proof. Posted: 07 Oct 2009 03:38 PM PDT  A few weeks back, we got a press release from EA's PR company. It was tucked within an attachment titled "Rock Band Verizon iPhone Fact Sheet_V3.docx". As if seeing "iPhone" behind "Verizon" wasn't strange enough, the rest of the press release made absolutely no reference to an iPhone release. The folks we talked to denied that an iPhone port existed, and we chalked it up as a really, really strange typo. Looks like it was more of a Freudian slip.
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| Valve has a censored, Australian version of Left 4 Dead 2 ready and waiting (in case it needs it) Posted: 07 Oct 2009 03:30 PM PDT
Australia’s crazy anti-violent video game restrictions strike again! Valve submitted Left 4 Dead 2 (aren’t we boycotting that game?) to whatever board is in charge of rating video games down there, and the board replied with this: yeah, this game is too violent for anyone under the age of 18. Of course, since Valve is, you know, interested in making money, it really can’t have a game out there that’s only playable by the over-18 crowd. To that effect Valve has re-submitted the game with some tweaks here and there in an effort to get passed the censor. But there’s more! It seems that Valve anticipated this scenario, and has developed a special, Australia-only version of the game. You have to imagine that this version is way toned down, and may not be an accurate representation of the "real" game. So if Valve can’t get the censor to approve the slightly tweaked version of the game, then it’ll activate Plan B: selling the Australian version. My guess is that, should the Australian version end up being released, then you’ll see plenty of Australians buy that version (in order to support Valve), but then download the cracked American version. That’s probably what I would do, to be honest.
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| Congratulations, FIFA 10: You’re the fastest selling sports game of all time Posted: 07 Oct 2009 03:00 PM PDT
My fellow Americans! I just wanted to let you know that, yes, there are other countries in the world (WHAT?!), and none of them give a damn about the Madden franchise. EA just revealed that FIFA 10 (which I haven’t played, but that’s OK; I hear it’s good) is the fastest selling sports game of all time! So says a fancy e-mail we just received. Olé-lé, olá-lá, ser del Barça és el millor que hi ha! EA sold 1.7 million copies of the game since its launch last week, no doubt 100 percent because of that Wayne Rooney commercial. During peak hours, there was more than 150,000 players playing online simultaneously. That’s bigger than the population of SOME CITY! Maybe this year I should give FIFA a go instead of my beloved Pro Evolution Soccer? I bought last year’s PES and did a season with Barça (undefeated, normal mode!), but I haven’t played FIFA since FIFA 2007, with Ronaldinho on the cover. You know, when Ronaldinho was good, lol! (Man alive, did he fall off the planet or what?)
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| Nikon’s microscope accessory for your DSLR ruled fun, expensive Posted: 07 Oct 2009 02:30 PM PDT
It’s far from a professional product, but like so many other photo accessories and peripherals, it’s most of the functionality you need at a fraction of the price of the pro version. This one compromises on build quality and attachment, but as you can see in the review, it takes perfectly excellent pictures. Magnification is limited to 66x (if you have a cropped sensor), though that’s plenty for most stuff. It is mighty expensive, though — and since it’s a Japanese product you have to get it from an importer, which raises the price by nearly 50%. Still, if you must see your sweat glands up close, this is a great way to do it.
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| Survey: Apple products totally popular with the rich kids Posted: 07 Oct 2009 02:00 PM PDT
Growing up, was there anything worse than being called a rich kid? Granted, it was probably just a case of petty jealousy—I wish I had a power wheel!—but man oh man did the rich kid win no friends. Fast-forward a few years, and the rich kid isn’t just flaunting his new lunchbox and Spider-Man sneakers, no sir: he’s driving a brand new car and checking his Facebook on his shiny, new iPhone 3G S. Or, a long way of say the obvious: Apple products are popular with kids from wealthy parents. Such is the conclusion of the 18th annual~! Piper Jeffery Teen Survey. The survey asks kids All Sorts of Stuff, but what concerns us right now is the fact that, yeah, Apple products do really well with teens of wealthy parents. That’s not surprising: compare the price of a entry level laptop made by Apple and one made by any other manufacturer. Considering that, at most, the average teen is just using a laptop to browse the Web, write a report or two, and maybe kill a few hours playing The Sims or whatever, then yeah: perhaps $999 is a bit much to spend. Hard numbers: • 15 percent of all teens own an iPhone (last year it was 8 percent) • 22 percent plan to buy an iPhone in the next 22 months • 87 percent own iPods (at this point, who doesn’t own an iPod of some sort, unless you’re diamtricaly opposed to the device—if you can, give the Zune HD a shot. I cannot say enough nice things about it, other than it totally killed my book-buying budget last month!) • 40 percent legally buy music online (which means that the other 60 percent are either still buying CDs and ripping them, or they all use BitTorrent to grab entire artist catalogues in seconds), and of those 40 percent 93 percent use iTunes. What, no love for Amazon MP3? (Not that this matters, since Spotify will all but eliminate desktop music piracy unless the record labels kill it with too many ads.) To paraphrase Grandpa Simpson, I was a lot of things growing up: a nerd, a cry baby, a scardy cat, a halfway decent Little Leaguer (but who wasn’t at age 13?) a Communist for some reason, but I was not a rich kid. The big thing for us (my two younger brothers and I) was the occasional video game, like for a birthday present or for Christmas. Granted, cellphones didn’t really exist in the 1990s, so what do I know? (Nothing, thank you.)
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| Quick Look: Archos 5 Internet Tablet Posted: 07 Oct 2009 01:30 PM PDT
The Fedex man (his name is Gary) dropped off the Android-powered Archos 5 Internet Tablet this morning. I, in turn, opened the box and took photos of the aforementioned device.
Specs (complete list here):
Size The tablet is about 5.5 inches wide, 3 inches tall, and .25 inches thick. It feels solid, but not too heavy. Kind of like a big smartphone. It'd definitely fit in a roomy pants pocket.
There's a kickstand built into the back of the tablet, allowing you to set it on a desk.
Screen The 800×480-resolution screen works well for watching video clips and navigating the Android interface, although you'll need to do some side-scrolling on web pages. There's a built-in accelerometer that orients the screen horizontally or vertically.
Software There's a built-in app store with Free, Search, and Update tabs along the top. Selection seems a bit limited and I was unable to find any for-pay apps but I need to play around more.
The video player works okay with locally-saved videos but I had some trouble with certain YouTube clips. One time I just got sound and no video and a few other times the player would start loading a clip and never end up playing it. The tablet uses a YouTube player – it doesn't directly play YouTube Flash videos embedded in the web browser.
Music playback is handled via standard 3.5mm audio jack or using the built-in speaker.
The GPS software features overhead maps and voice guidance. It seemed to work well but I haven't actually tested it in a car yet..
Other Info
I'll have a full review up in the coming weeks. Please leave any questions in the comments section below and I'll try to address as many as I can.
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| The Sarah Palin Xbox 360 is back on eBay with the same $1.1 million price Posted: 07 Oct 2009 01:00 PM PDT
From the eBay listing,
I don’t how I feel about this. On one hand I would like to see this guy profit off of some crazy right-wing nutjob, but on the other hand it sickens me to think someone has $1.1 million to blow like that. Who knows, maybe after my spot on NCIS last night, my signature is worth something. Maybe I should sign my old iBook and list it for $500k. Any takers?
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| Left 4 Dead 2 may be sold in Australia after all Posted: 07 Oct 2009 12:30 PM PDT
No surprise really, as Australia is a rather large market, and it would be a shame for Valve to miss out on all those gaming dollars. So what they (Valve) are doing is first appealing the decision, and then, if they fail the appeal, Valve has stated that they will release a version that has been toned down to meet the requirements of the ratings people. So rejoice, citizens of Australia. The game developer has your back, and you too will be able to enjoy the zombie killing goodness that will be Left 4 Dead 2.
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| Blast off! “Telstar” on guitar and effects pedals Posted: 07 Oct 2009 12:24 PM PDT The Clavioline was one of the first electronic synths in existence. Built in 1947 by Constant Martin it was featured in the song “Telstar” in 1962. That’s what you’re about to hear, recreated with a guitar, amps, and EHX gear. You can read more about it on Bill Ruppert’s EHX post but it’s still fun to hear yesterdays high tech recreated with, essentially, today’s retro tech.
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Man has long been on a quest for a better battery. This has resulted in some less then ideal solutions, such as the potato battery (it was half baked) and the onion battery (too smelly). Finally, researchers at the University of Missouri have developed a smaller, more efficient, and hopefully radiation free nuclear battery.
There are some modders out there whom I would accuse of having 
The X-series ultra-thin laptops are something we’ve been hearing about for a while. At 1.6lb and half an inch in thickness, they’re some of the sveltest out there, although 
The L-series is meant as a media hub, and optionally will have a TV card, HDMI-in, and DVR capabilities. It’s got a 24-inch 1920×1080 screen and the design looks chunky and solid. 
Good news everyone! Turns out that Left 4 Dead 2 will most likely be sold in Australia after all. If you remember, | 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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