CrunchGear |  |
- Japan’s 11 newest cell phones from KDDI au (photo gallery)
- Daily Crunch: Weather Report Edition
- Android Avalanche: A Complete List Of The Android Phones So Far
- DropCam: Another fire-and-forget camera system
- Happy Birthday, Devin
- The Flurry Alarm Clock is a luddite’s Chumby
- Mega Man Drum Kit = Awesome
- “This is OnStar, can I assist your high-speed pursuit?”
- Dell updates the Adamo Desire
- Robot arms demonstrate their physical aptitude again, this time with Fanta
- Children’s Miracle Network has announced the three winning hospitals of the Gameroom Giveaway
- The Barnes & Noble Nook reader to be revealed and available tomorrow for $259
- Cool IT shows off liquid cooling kit for AMD
- Apple: the rest of you are still catching up to the first iPhone
- It’s a netbook! It’s an e-reader! It’s the enTourage eDGe!
- Video: Dungeons and Dragons on the Microsoft Surface
- Peter Moore: Yeah, disc-based games will go the way of the [insert extinct animal here]
- Blu-ray player sales up 13%, which is modest, I guess
- Shock: TV association complaining about possible new California green regulations
- Apple Q4 Results: Another Big Quarter, More Macs And iPhones Sold Than Ever Before
| Japan’s 11 newest cell phones from KDDI au (photo gallery) Posted: 20 Oct 2009 01:24 AM PDT  Japan's second biggest mobile phone carrier KDDI au showed their new cell phones [JP] for this winter. The first of the eleven models will be available in Japan as early as this month. Complete line-up after the jump.
|
| Daily Crunch: Weather Report Edition Posted: 20 Oct 2009 12:00 AM PDT |
| Android Avalanche: A Complete List Of The Android Phones So Far Posted: 19 Oct 2009 10:56 PM PDT  Google CEO Erick Schmidt stated emphatically during Google's most recent earnings call that "Android adoption is about to explode." We agree - despite developer hiccups, Android is about to have its moment in the sun. An avalanche of new devices are hitting worldwide markets, and some of them are serious contenders. Our bet is that the upcoming Motorola Droid will be the breakout winner from this batch of phones. But here's the complete list of officially announced Android phones, as well as stuff that's just rumored at this point. Bookmark this post, and keep a lookout for updates. Here are the Android contenders:
|
| DropCam: Another fire-and-forget camera system Posted: 19 Oct 2009 10:43 PM PDT
The kit allows for multiple cameras to be connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet or WiFi. You simply set it up, plug it in, and start streaming. The system records video at 320×240 pixels at 15 frames/sec. The cameras weigh 3 ounces and are about an inch thick. The camera, unlike the Vue, must be plugged into a power outlet, a potentially limiting factor for some installations. However, that is the only cable it needs when you have it connected via Wi-Fi. The basic camera costs $239 which includes a six month subscription to DropCam’s service. After that service costs $9 per month.They are also running private betas for a Baby service for watching kids during the day and even at night in low light as well as a more DVR-oriented Pro service for business complete with activity sensing systems. The system has built-in notification systems and they’re working on upgrading the system to support notifications via email and text message. It has 100 hours of rolling DVR capability per camera, ensuring you don’t miss a thing. The company is seed funded primarily by Mitch Kapor, 15 Angels (Bessemer’s angel group), and Bay Partners. They are shipping the product right now. The founder, Greg Duffy, was the 2nd employee and Principal Software Engineer of Xobni. The company’s co-founder is Aamir Virani, also an ex-Xobni employee.
|
| Posted: 19 Oct 2009 10:28 PM PDT
|
| The Flurry Alarm Clock is a luddite’s Chumby Posted: 19 Oct 2009 10:04 PM PDT
You know the Chumby, right? It’s that bedside clock/alarm/radio/YouTube & Flickr open source thingamabob. It’s hella cool, but it’s also kind of complicated for the non-techy and requires WiFi to work. I say blah to that! Really the only extra info you need to know in the morning besides the time is the weather anyway. That’s where the Flurry Alarm Clock from Ambient Devices comes in. This little alarm clock sports the standard alarm clock functions, but adds weather info to the mix. The AccuWeather 2-day forecast is piped in via Ambient’s free InfoCast wireless network. This means that you really could give this as a Christmas gift to your technically-challenged mother and she could use all of it’s functions with ease. I mean, look at it, there’s nothing complicated or overwhelming about it. But there’s one little thing, it’s $129 at Best Buy, which means your mom probably won’t get one for Christmas.
|
| Posted: 19 Oct 2009 09:32 PM PDT
What are you doing reading the text?! Look at the picture! It’s a frakkin’ Mega Man drum kit! Those rings light up and everything! This thing is almost as cool as those Star Wars guitars back in 2002. [VIDEO]
|
| “This is OnStar, can I assist your high-speed pursuit?” Posted: 19 Oct 2009 06:30 PM PDT
A quick call later and OnStar was informing the pursuing vehicles that the car would be stopping soon. They pressed a button, the gas pedal was disconnected, and the car coasted to a stop. After a short foot race, the guy was apprehended and the car returned. That’s all well and good, but isn’t the potential for abuse pretty high? And in a Minority Report/Enemy of the State/The Net situation, even Will Smith wouldn’t be able to get out of there scot-free. [via Reddit]
|
| Posted: 19 Oct 2009 06:30 PM PDT
|
| Robot arms demonstrate their physical aptitude again, this time with Fanta Posted: 19 Oct 2009 06:00 PM PDT
These feats are child’s play for a robot designed for precision maneuvers. Just picture this, now: instead of a six-pack, it’s navigating the smoking rubble of one of humanity’s underground hiding places — you know, after the Robocalypse. A fraction of a second after it bursts into the room, it inputs the locations of all the faces, programs a path for its rapid-fire laser cannon, and…. boom, headshots.
|
| Children’s Miracle Network has announced the three winning hospitals of the Gameroom Giveaway Posted: 19 Oct 2009 05:30 PM PDT
According to the official website, Hurley Medical Center in Flint, MI (that’s my local hospital, btw) came in first followed by the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital and The Blair E. Batson Hospital for Children at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Hopefully this giveaway spurred more donations and other kids will ultimately benefit even though they didn’t get a $10,000 gameroom from Microsoft. Congrats, everyone and let the Xbox-assisted healing begin.
|
| The Barnes & Noble Nook reader to be revealed and available tomorrow for $259 Posted: 19 Oct 2009 05:03 PM PDT
That’s no fun. Barnes & Noble was probably expecting to get all the attention tomorrow with its fancy-pants press conference, but the Wall Street Journal had to go ruin all the fun by letting the Nook ebook reader out of the bag today. Yeah, that’s the name. Nook. All this info is coming from an ad that the Journal apparently saw in the New York Times Book Review section that’s dated Sunday, October 25. This ad states that the wireless, dual touchscreen reader – e-ink up top with color on the bottom – will be available Tuesday for a reasonable price of $259 and will enable it’s users to “Lend eBooks to friends.” The rest of the details will likely be revealed either when Nook.com goes live or at tomorrow’s press conference. Either way, check back tomorrow for a hands-on look at the Nook. Idk, I kind of like the name. Nook.
|
| Cool IT shows off liquid cooling kit for AMD Posted: 19 Oct 2009 04:30 PM PDT
AMD has made a comeback recently with their new cards, and manufacturers are starting to notice. Cool IT announced their new OMNI liqud cooling device today for AMD video cards. The OMNI cooler is designed to be installed on your current generation video card, and requires no maintenance, however installing it will void your warranty. No word on pricing or availability, but you can probably expect it to be out before the holiday season.
|
| Apple: the rest of you are still catching up to the first iPhone Posted: 19 Oct 2009 04:07 PM PDT  During Apple's Q4 earnings call today, a question was asked about how Apple viewed its increased competition for the iPhone in the coming holiday season. In particular, it was asked how Apple views all the new Android phones coming out. Apple COO Tim Cook made Apple's stance very clear: They're still catching up with the first iPhone. Yes, Apple views the smartphone market as still being behind the first phone they released over two years ago. "We've moved beyond that," Cook noted.
|
| It’s a netbook! It’s an e-reader! It’s the enTourage eDGe! Posted: 19 Oct 2009 04:00 PM PDT
This Frankenstein handheld is half 9.7″ 1200 x 825 e-reader, half 10.1″ 1024 x 600 netbook. It runs Android, has a touchscreen display, WiFi networking, 3GB of usable memory, a six hour battery life, etc etc. Unlike the Amazon Kindle, cellular networking is not supported internally, but it can be accessed with the help of an external modem.
This thing ships February 2010, but you can pre-order now! It’s $490 USD for the midnight blue model, shown above. An extra $40 will fetch the sporty Ruby Red, Glacier White, or Ice Blue colors.
|
| Video: Dungeons and Dragons on the Microsoft Surface Posted: 19 Oct 2009 03:30 PM PDT One more quick video before I head out the door and battle the dumb crowds in dumb New York City. It’s Microsoft Surface, yes, but one where you play Dungeons and Dragons. Now, I’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons so I really have no idea what this guy is talking about, but I can appreciate the tech behind it. In other, completely unrelated news: Shane McMahon is leaving WWE. How crazy is that?
|
| Peter Moore: Yeah, disc-based games will go the way of the [insert extinct animal here] Posted: 19 Oct 2009 03:00 PM PDT
Looks like EA finally understands what we’ve been talking about for a while now: that, in just a few years’ time, we’ll look back at disc-based media (here, video games) and be all, "Man, how quaint." Peter Moore, who’s the president of EA Sports (no minor position, that), called the disc-based distribution model a "burning platform," and that companies are either staring in the face of "probable" death or "certain" death, depending on how they want to go about things. Moore was speaking at a digital media conference when he said what he said. And that’s what makes the PSP Go such a punch in the gut. Had Sony ponied up for a proper Wi-Fi connection (802.11g or higher) then you’d have a mean little system there. Well, a potentially mean little system, provided the software was there. (I’m not saying that it’s not there, just that it needs to keep being there. Yeah.) But maybe Sony was looking at it as just something to test the waters with, what do I know? The fact is, it’ll soon make zero sense to want to go to the store (or wait for the UPS man to bring you your Amazon order) when you can just download (or stream) all your junk. That’s the idea, of course. Who knows what forces will see to it that the distribution model fails.
|
| Blu-ray player sales up 13%, which is modest, I guess Posted: 19 Oct 2009 02:30 PM PDT
Surprise, surprise, more people are buying Blu-ray players this year over last year. I guess that’s to be expected. In all, retailers have ordered 13 percent more Blu-ray players this year. That’s 3.3 million for those keeping track. So this brings the total amount of Blu-ray players – including PS3s – in American households to a whopping 11.7 million and in nearly 25% of homes that own an HDTV when considering that 45 million US homes have high-def sets. Yeah, that’s cool. But I still don’t want a Blu-ray player. There was a time when I was totally in the HD DVD camp. I was yelling its virtues from atop a mountain. It was going to revolutionize home-based HD viewing. But then I got fed up with the whole HD DVD vs Blu-ray thing. Why in the world would I invest money into equipment and discs that might be obsolete one day. The day I came to that conclusion was the day physical media died for me. Sure, some folks will still buy Blu-ray players and I won’t try to stop them. It’s the only way to get the very best HD audio and video at home. Hell, most of the time it can be a better picture than from your local cinema. But I’m totally content with the HD picture that streaming media services like Netflix and Vudu offer. The point and click convenience is so much more satisfying that a higher quality picture to me. So while Mom and Pops will still buy Blu-ray players from slightly pushy Best Buy salesmen, the rest of us will probably be just fine without a Blu-ray player at this point. Maybe, just maybe, if the players and titles drop in price even more, I’ll pick one up just because. Maybe.
|
| Shock: TV association complaining about possible new California green regulations Posted: 19 Oct 2009 02:00 PM PDT
This California TV regulation thing isn’t going to happen without a fight, no sir. Even though a bunch of LCD makers have said that they wouldn’t have too much of a problem complying with whatever the California commission comes up with, the LCD TV Association has just applied the brakes, saying that any such regulation will ultimately result in "TVs that have fewer features." Of course, I don’t live in California—doesn’t the state have bigger things to worry about?—but such regulation could spread across the country. Plus, then TV makers would have to produce California models of their TVs. Again, not my concern, I just don’t want y’all to thing I’m pro-one thing or anti-another. The argument is the same as we’ve noted: a few TV makers (most notably Vizio) say they’d be able to comply with any new environmental regulations; other companies have balked at the idea, saying that being forced to change their TVs by the BIG BAD GOVERNMENT it will raise prices, and then consumers will have to bear the brunt of these costs. This latest development shows that maybe these new regulations are being railroaded through without any real debate. A Panasonic exec claimed that the California commission, at a hearing last week, selected people to testify based on their pre-existing support of any regulation, and not a totally random person, as was required. (Because that’s what you want, to drag people who have no idea what’s going on, bombard them with information, then ask them to come to some sort of conclusion. It’s ludicrous, but whatever.) In any event, I look forward to more developments. Maybe we should ban TV while we’re at it; what good has it done for us lately?
|
| Apple Q4 Results: Another Big Quarter, More Macs And iPhones Sold Than Ever Before Posted: 19 Oct 2009 01:53 PM PDT  The Q4 numbers are in for Apple and they're good. Quite good. Really good. The company posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share. Apple's own earnings projections for Q4 were $1.23 a share, but they always put them laughably low. Analysts' projections expected them to be around $1.42 a share, but some were looking for numbers as high as $1.60 a share. Apple beat all of those, easily. Apple sold 3.05 million Macs in the quarter, up 17 percent from a year ago. They also sold 7.4 million iPhones in the quarter, a 7 percent growth from a year ago. Both of those are record sales numbers, CEO Steve Jobs notes.
|
Right now Devin is probably doing Everclear shots and dancing the Macarena with an old woman in a pantsuit because it’s his birthday! That’s right, our own 
Water cooling is where it’s at, currently. Any gamer will tell you that keeping your PC cool is critical for making sure you computer runs smoothly and effectively. The issue is, it’s a pain in the butt to set up. It looks like Cool IT intends to help us with that problem.
| You are subscribed to email updates from CrunchGear To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment