CrunchGear |  |
- Now in more colors: Pig-shaped earphones
- Daily Crunch: Showdown Edition
- CrunchDeals: Two months of Usenet access for $1 per month to celebrate thirty years of Usenet
- $150 Spy pen is probably good enough for “Mission: Impossible”
- Can’t afford a scanning electron microscope? Here, borrow ours!
- Blockbuster wants you to rent your movies on SD cards now
- Mouse and keyboard vs. Console controller: Let’s bury the hatchet
- Google puts free Wi-Fi in 47 airports for the holidays (plus they’re matching charitable donations)
- CrunchDeals: $20 off $100 BestBuy.com purchase with PayPal
- Razer’s new Abyssus mouse ain’t fancy, but you wouldn’t guess that from the price
- It’s very easy to win a Tekken art book from us!
- First review of New Super Mario Bros. Wii gives the game a 9.2 (and guess from who that number’s from!)
- Thank you, Columbus, Ohio!
- An AppleScript trick turns any NAS device into a Time Machine drive
- Things to do today that have nothing to do with Modern Warfare 2
- Test Driving The World’s Fastest Golf Cart
- NASA wants everyone to know the world will not end in 2012, m’kay?
- Introducing the $1,500 Intel e-book reader
- Review: Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android
- Happy Day My Love: I will give you a free copy of Armored Core 3 for the PSP?
| Now in more colors: Pig-shaped earphones Posted: 11 Nov 2009 01:20 AM PST
Some Japanese gadget freaks do have a penchant for weird earphones, that’s for sure, meaning these things actually seem to sell. I doubt that otherwise, Tokyo-based accessory maker Greenhouse would have updated the buta (piggy) earphones they gave us in June 2008. It’s not a technical update but the same earphones are available in purple and orange now (see the picture on the left). You can still get the first series, available in black, white and pink, too (pictured below). The idea remains the same: Stick one half of a pig into your right ear and the other half into the left ear. You can still choose between ear pieces in 3 different sizes (small, medium and large).
Greenhouse plans to start selling the pig earphones in Japan next week for $15 each. I suggest you contact the Japan Trend Shop, Geek Stuff 4 U or Rinkya in case you live outside Japan and you're interested in getting one.
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| Daily Crunch: Showdown Edition Posted: 11 Nov 2009 12:00 AM PST
It's very easy to win a Tekken art book from us!
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| CrunchDeals: Two months of Usenet access for $1 per month to celebrate thirty years of Usenet Posted: 10 Nov 2009 08:59 PM PST
In more interesting news, they’ve also unearthed the original memo from Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis about the foundation of Usenet. It begins:
They also have a great little interview with some of the greats of Usenet. Check it out.
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| $150 Spy pen is probably good enough for “Mission: Impossible” Posted: 10 Nov 2009 08:35 PM PST
The pen has a pinhole camera, as you can see, which shoots at 640×480. The monitor is actually a fully functioning PMP, with support for a million formats (the controls are on the side; it’s not a touchscreen device) and has an SD slot and built-in speaker. I’m assuming it can record the video from the pen-cam, though that’s not specifically stated. I know, I know, there are lots of these sorts of things. But this one looks solid, and $150 is a pretty good deal. Brando’s got lots of great stuff like that.
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| Can’t afford a scanning electron microscope? Here, borrow ours! Posted: 10 Nov 2009 08:00 PM PST
Well, send ‘em on in. If they can take Pharyngula’s traffic, they can take ours too. Follow the guidelines, please. You do have to fill out forms and stuff.
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| Blockbuster wants you to rent your movies on SD cards now Posted: 10 Nov 2009 07:37 PM PST
SD cards are everywhere, indeed, but there are precious few DVD players, TVs, and personal media players that support them. Your computer has an SD card reader, or else you’ve bought one by now, but I don’t think people want to rent things to play them on their computers if they can stream them so incredibly easily. Sure, working out how to get an SD card’s content onto your TV may be easy for tech-oriented people like you and me, but for the people grabbing a movie on the way out of the grocery store… not so much. With luck, Blockbuster will wise up and allow a USB drive to be plugged in. I mean, why didn’t they do that first thing? Everybody has those sitting around. And not that many people have high-capacity SD cards. If the movies are over 2GB, a lot of people are sunk because they only have the card that came with their camera (likely 512MB or thereabouts). Oh well, it’s a step in the right direction. Although I guarantee you’ll see a Blockbuster DRM-stripping app out there within a few weeks of these hitting the street.
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| Mouse and keyboard vs. Console controller: Let’s bury the hatchet Posted: 10 Nov 2009 05:43 PM PST
The thing is, I would probably ruin you in Counter-Strike or Team Fortress 2. In fact, it seems to me that every time I read about a PC team going up against a console team in the same game, the console team gets manhandled. Why is that? Well, probably because a mouse and keyboard is a better way of controlling a first-person shooter. You know it, I know it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. Look, making a big game is a nightmare. A studio needs to get a return on a huge investment, and where are the sales? In the piracy-ridden, heterogenous PC market, where you have to cater to every possible hardware configuration? No, but the game will probably be at its best on a high-end PC, so you kind of want to hit that anyway. But the main thing is to get a game onto the PS3 and 360 in as playable a form as possible. That way you have a guaranteed base of 40 or 50 million units that will all run it perfectly and work together just the way they’re designed to. Maybe they won’t have a mouse, but so what? So you get AAA FPS titles like Modern Warfare 2 on a console, where people can play the game just fine against each other and enjoy the full experience — with a dual shock. Is the PC version the “definitive” version of the game? With MW2 I would suggest not, but with others it may be the case (GTA4 for instance). To make a blanket statement on this would be to commit a pretty foolish error. At the same time, don’t take someone to task for saying that Borderlands is better on the PC. I mean, what? It is!
Besides, I don’t think it’s an insult against console gamers or their games to say that a mouse and keyboard is the better control method. It’s like saying a wheel controller with pedals is a better controller for racing games. It just is! It doesn’t mean that everyone sucks without one, or that games that don’t support wheels are garbage. It’s just presenting an ideal. Can there be great FPSes on consoles? Sure! But let’s be honest about it and qualify that by saying that there’s auto-aim, the enemies shoot slower, and they generally have a more horizontally-orientated environment. It just makes it a better game on the console. They switch it up for the PC version, if they make one; if I can get headshots 90% of the time in Gears on PC, versus 10% on console, they better damn sure make it so that doesn’t break the game. The console versus PC debate, which is what the mouse vs. controller thing is really about, ends up being a kind of silly one. There are fantastic games on both platforms, and some just work better on one or the other. Platformers are best with a specific controller, joystick sensitivity, and button layout. Real-time strategy demands a level of versatility, precision, and resolution that’s only available on PCs. And if we’re honest, so do FPSes in their ideal format. But that’s not always possible; the convenience and standard hardware of consoles often means a better deal for developers, and sometimes a better game for the consumer. I may never be good at GoldenEye, but I could never say that game sucked. So let’s stop being such prideful bastards about our games and just agree to say “whatever works for you.”
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| Google puts free Wi-Fi in 47 airports for the holidays (plus they’re matching charitable donations) Posted: 10 Nov 2009 04:34 PM PST
They’ve just announced that they’re going to be extending the free Wi-Fi to 47 entire airports. And not only that, but there’s a raft of giveaways, charity matching, and other nonsense in the bargain as well. I’m starting to think that it’s not “Don’t be evil” so much as “Give away enough stuff that people forget about the evil.” Maybe that’s disingenuous. In fact, I’m sure it is. Oh well, ’tis the season for moral ambiguity.
Sounds good to me. If anyone finds a catch, let us know, but I think it’s pretty straightforward. More info at the Free Holiday WiFi page, if you’re interested or feeling FAQ-y. Also, as commenter Harold points out, Yahoo! will be providing Times Square with Wi-Fi for a whole damn year, and Microsoft is partnering with JiWire to put Bing-sponsored free Wi-Fi in “hotels and airports.” [via LA Times and Black Book, and The P-I for that last bit]
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| CrunchDeals: $20 off $100 BestBuy.com purchase with PayPal Posted: 10 Nov 2009 02:39 PM PST
Damn you, Best Buy and double damn you, PayPal. Why must you tempt me so? If you have a PayPal account and you use it to make a purchase of $100 or more at BestBuy.com, you'll get $20 loaded back into your PayPal account "2-3 weeks after the end of the promotion." Think of it as a lazy man's rebate. The promotion ends next Monday, November 16th. So long, money. I hardly knew ye. Use PayPal at BestBuy.com and get $20 cash back on a purchase of $100 or more [BestBuy.com]
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| Razer’s new Abyssus mouse ain’t fancy, but you wouldn’t guess that from the price Posted: 10 Nov 2009 02:30 PM PST
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| It’s very easy to win a Tekken art book from us! Posted: 10 Nov 2009 02:00 PM PST
Remember a few days ago when I hinted at some exciting Tekken news? No? Well, today I can reveal what I was talking about: thanks to the fine folks at Namco Bandai (its publicists, to be exact) we now have three Tekken art books to give away. You can win one! This will be a very easy contest, believe me.
What do you have to do to win the art book? Just leave a comment right here in this post. I’m running this contest, so I’m not going to make you do anything ridiculous. The contest will run through the weekend, and I’ll announce the winners on Monday. So to recap: • You can win one of three Tekken art books. That means three people will win. Each book contains drawings, sketches, etc. of the game’s characters. You know, an art book. • Leave a comment IN THIS POST to be considered. I’ll run the comments through a random number generator on Monday (comment number one is 1, comment number two is 2, etc.) to select the winners. Presumably we’ll have more than three entrants. • The contest runs till Monday, November 16 at noon EST. • You need to be a U.S. resident. I’m not paying $8 million dollars to ship this stuff to Manila or Curitiba. Sorry.
I hope I’ve made this clear. Good luck~!
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| Posted: 10 Nov 2009 01:30 PM PST
Super Mario Bros. Wii doesn’t come out here in North America for another five days, but, for whatever reason, it comes out in Australia in two days! That explains why you can find the world’s first review (nearest I can tell) on IGN Australia. The Web site gave the game a 9.2 (I swear, these decimal point reviews are 100 percent absurd), but I think it’s safe to conclude that the game is, indeed, fun, which is really all you can ask for. As is customary from my "oh here’s a review!" posts, I’ll merely highlight the nut graph, which is the wrong phrase to use here but whatever, but I’ll also encourage you to read the whole thing. It’s only two pages (you’ll recall that IGN’s GTA IV review was seven pages long) so get to it.
I can only add that I played the game for, oh, 15 minutes about a month ago, and it struck like Smash Bros does: it’s fun on its own merits, yes, but the more people you play with, the better. Or, simply, if you own a Wii, you’ll probably want this under your Christmas tree (or whatever) this year.
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| Posted: 10 Nov 2009 01:00 PM PST
When the TwitterPeek’s battery ran out, John became very sad: Nerd-a-thon! That guy was doing live speed tests of the phones in front of him. We had a great time meeting everyone, and we hope those that joined us had as much fun as we did. Let’s do it again soon, Columbus!
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| An AppleScript trick turns any NAS device into a Time Machine drive Posted: 10 Nov 2009 12:30 PM PST
Simply download this app package and drag your drive onto it. The script adds the drive as a Time Machine capable device and then you can simply add it under Time Machine System Preferences. The full script is right here if you want to roll your own:
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1" with administrator privileges do shell script "sudo hdiutil create -size " & theSize & " -type SPARSEBUNDLE -nospotlight -volname \"Backup of " & hostName & "\" -fs \"Journaled HFS+\" ~/" & hostName & "_" & macAddress & ".sparsebundle" with administrator privileges tell application "Finder" to eject volumeName tell application "System Preferences" tell application "System Events" end open
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| Things to do today that have nothing to do with Modern Warfare 2 Posted: 10 Nov 2009 12:00 PM PST
I know that there’s a certain of percentage of people who want nothing to do with Modern Warfare 2. It’s all meatheads and explosions, right? I’m inclined to agree to a degree—Opie and Anthony were talking about the game this morning, and a real life member of the military called in and complained, "If you want to play war, why not join the Army?"—but no matter. There’s plenty of things to do today that have nothing to do with the game. Let’s take a look! • Real Madrid attempt to overcome a 5-0 deficit against Segunda Dvivisión B team Alcorcón in the Copa del Rey. It airs this afternoon on GolTV and your friendly neighborhood Internet stream. • Maybe you want to see a good movie? Star-Trek is now out on Blu-ray, and you can find—wink, wink!—a Blu-ray rip of Public Enemies online. Pretty good movie, and it totally makes you want to rob a bank. That was the point, right? Also keep your eyes peeled for the movie Moon, which has a very Solyaris feel to it. • Do you read books still, either of the paper variety or using one of those new-fangled e-book devices? I’ll go ahead and recommend Viral Loop by my old professor Adam Penenberg. It’s about how businesses grow on the Internet. If you read TechCrunch for pleasure then you’ll probably like it. If you’re into sports at all, you may want to track down a copy of Brett Hart’s autobiography, My Life Inside The Cartoon World of Wrestling. The paperback version came out a few days ago, and I’m waiting for the UPS man to deliver it. I’m very excited. • Sort of on the same topic of books, download the game Fatale for $7. It’s an interactive version of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome. • Start making appointments for CES. Oh, wait, that’s us~! • Download and watch every single Fedor Emelianenko fight from Usenet. (Thank God for alt.binaries.mma!) I recommend his fights with Antônio Rodrigo Noguiera and Mirko Cro Cop. Oh, Pride, how I miss thee. • Fire up Silent Hill 2 and lament to yourself, "Why hasn’t a game been able to convey sheer and utter hopelessness like this game did eight years ago?" • Download Microsoft COFEE for the sole reason of saying to your friends, "Dude, I just downloaded Microsoft COFEE. I have no idea what it does, and I have no idea how to use it, but it’s so great." • Download the Sirius XM App for the iPhone (and iPod touch), then leave it on channel 202 The Virus. Let’s face it: Opie & Anthony and Ron & Fez are the only reason to pay for Sirius XM these days. • Take the push-up challenge, and become a reasonable facsimile of a fit person. • Do some Christmas ( or whatever holiday you celebrate) shopping. Only a couple of weeks left! • Write my Razer Naga review for me, so I can concentrate on farming for Honor in Arathi Basin. (I think I won six matches last night. It rocked.) • Read the latest issue of Figure 4 Weekly, or read an exciting back issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. See, there’s plenty of stuff to do today if you want nothing to do with Modern Warfare 2. It’s a big world out there, tiger, and it’s up to you to make the most of it. Unlike me~!
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| Test Driving The World’s Fastest Golf Cart Posted: 10 Nov 2009 11:39 AM PST  Last week Tesla asked me if I'd like to take the new Tesla Roadster Sport for a day to see what I thought. This is the newer Tesla Roadster that shaves 2/10 of a second off the 0-60 time, and the car is a couple of inches bigger than the original (making it possible for me to fit my 6′4 frame into into it comfortably). I agreed immediately. The only rules were that only I could drive it (some nonsense about insurance), and I had to have it back by 6 pm. I did return the vehicle on time, but as you can see from the video just about everyone from the office and most of my friends came by to take it for a spin, too. I've been in a Tesla before but this is the first time i've driven one. With no gears and a silent motor, the experience is like driving a golf cart. At least it would be if golf carts could hit 100 mph on the freeway on ramp and hugged the road like it was glued there. Thanks Tesla. Sorry about that scratch in the bumper. Video is below:
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| NASA wants everyone to know the world will not end in 2012, m’kay? Posted: 10 Nov 2009 11:30 AM PST
Add this to the previous reports by noted scientists claiming that the whole thing is just an Internet hoax. Kind of like bonsai kittens except with a lot more death and destruction.
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| Introducing the $1,500 Intel e-book reader Posted: 10 Nov 2009 11:00 AM PST
From the VentureBeat review:
Can the Kindle or Nook help a vision-impaired individual order from the menu at a restaurant? I think not. The ability to scan and read custom text makes the Intel Reader something very different from the current offerings of e-book readers. This is clearly a multi-purpose device designed to enrich the life of its user, not just be a portal to selling electronic books. The Reader can speak the menus aloud to the user, and the instruction manual comes as an audio CD, making this extremely friendly to visually impaired individuals. An optional book scanning system, the Intel Portable Capture Station, can be purchased, to allow home users to digitize books with ease. A lot of time and effort has gone into researching the ergonomics of the Reader and its accessories, since the target audience isn’t your normal fully-abled young-to-middle aged person. The Intel Reader boasts some custom made parts, but is otherwise fairly run-of-the-mill in terms of capacity and performance:
Here’s a video of the Intel Reader in action: I think this is a terrific use of technology, and it demonstrates an impressive commitment from Intel in terms of research spending. I think this will create a lot of opportunities for the people who can afford to purchase it, and Intel deserves a lot of praise for cooking this thing up. But I think that we, the general Internet population, can do a lot more. Listening to books read aloud by crappy digitized computer voices doesn’t really do justice to a lot of printed materials — especially novels. When I read a book, I hear in my mind’s ear distinct voices for each character. I read faster during tense or exciting scenes. I experience the story in a way that the monotonous drone of a computer voice can never reproduce. Something like Project LibriVox can breathe real life into stories. We, the general Internet population, can donate a couple of hours of our leisure time to read a chapter — or a complete work — of a book so that others can enjoy the story in the dramatic manner in which it was intended. It’s a lot of work, I know: I recorded Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. But it’s also a lot of fun, and a very rewarding experience.
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| Review: Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android Posted: 10 Nov 2009 10:30 AM PST
Short Version: After a handful of rapid-fire firmware updates, the Android-infused Archos 5 Internet Tablet has turned out to be quite a compelling device. The snappy web browser, marathon battery life, and nearly endless list of features and functions make Archos' latest couch companion a worthwhile option if you're shopping for portables. If you're drawn to the Archos 5 Internet Tablet purely based on the fact that it's running Android, though, you'll likely come away disappointed as there's no access to the popular Android Market.
Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Review: I've been playing with the Archos 5 Internet Tablet for about a month now. I have the 32GB flash version, which is a gorgeous slab of electronics sized small enough to fit in a roomy pocket but large enough to keep next to your favorite armchair in lieu of a full size laptop. While the aesthetic appeal of previous Archos devices has traditionally been the subject of great debate, most would agree that this new one looks pretty nice inside and out.
To say that the first couple weeks I spent with the device were worrisome would be putting it lightly. The UI was slow and clunky, the battery drained even when the tablet was in standby mode, and the web browser crashed out to the main screen during periods of moderate use. Then came a firmware update. Then another. And another. And suddenly everything worked.
I'm now happy to report that the tablet is much more stable, the battery life has greatly improved, and surfing the web and navigating the interface is sufficiently slick. I'm using firmware version 1.2.15 (Android 1.5) at the time of this review. The Archos 5 Internet Tablet does many things and, as with most portable media players, the big question is whether or not it can do each one of those things well. Basic Audio and Video Playback For audio and video playback, the device handles everything with ease. Videos look great on the crisp 4.8-inch screen and the 800×480 resolution renders downscaled HD videos and standard-definition videos phenomenally. Archos has really nailed down the core functionality of its portable media players. Music and videos come first, everything else comes second. I was skeptical of Archos' claim of 7-hour battery life for video playback, so I set a playlist up to repeat indefinitely at 25% brightness and 25% volume just to see how close we'd get to that number. To my surprise, the tablet hit 6 hours and 15 minutes before petering out. That's not too bad at all, especially considering I left the Wi-Fi connected the entire time. Audio playback is handled via a simple interface that displays album artwork. I found the built-in speaker to be too tinny to listen to anything other than spoken-word podcasts – playing actual music sounds much better through a pair of decent headphones. Battery life for music playback is pegged at 22 hours and, again, those claims held up pretty well. I managed about 20 hours and 30 minutes with volume at 25% and Wi-Fi turned on. And finally, just for good measure, here’s where I complain about Archos charging people $40 to unlock 720p WMV and MP4 playback. That functionality should always be included at no extra charge but Archos has been charging people for it for a long time now, so I give up.
Web Browsing The built-in web browser is quick and responsive, thanks in large part to the 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU that powers the tablet. The 800×480 screen renders full versions of web sites relatively faithfully, although the browser will default to the mobile version of most sites if there’s one available. Trying to use the Archos 5 Internet Tablet for web videos is, unfortunately, too hit-or-miss right now if one of your big goals is to watch YouTube videos all day. YouTube apparently tweaked their API recently, which caused videos handed off from the browser to Archos' built-in video player to just freeze the tablet, requiring a reboot.
There's a standalone Dailymotion player included, and I'm currently having trouble getting those videos to work as well. There's loose talk of a Flash 10 update coming to the device sometime but until then, browser-based Flash video is still pretty rough around the edges. Not to say that YouTube videos never worked on the device – they used to, at least. They even played back in HD (see this post on ArchosFans.com for proof). So if you’re planning on using the web browser for basic, straightforward stuff then you’ll like it just fine. It’s quick, the keyboard works great, and pages render nicely on the 4.8-inch LCD. Battery life is pretty solid as well. Under heavy testing (a website auto-refreshing every minute and a different site simultaneously scrolling through RSS feeds like a news ticker), the tablet managed to stay alive for five hours. Software And now for the Archos 5 Internet Tablet's Achilles heel: software. Part of the allure of an Android device is access to the thousands of great free and for-pay applications found in the Android Market. Unfortunately, though, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet's 800×480 screen resolution and lack of dedicated Home and Back hardware buttons place it outside the list of compatible devices for the current version of Android (1.5) that it's running. That’s not to say that you’re completely out of luck. Archos has built its own app store into the device, called AppsLib. It's a pretty clunky, slow-loading (sometimes freezing), repository with a mere handful of available applications (listed here) – a far cry from what's available in the Android Market. There's no Google Maps here, no Qik, no SportsTap, none of that stuff.
That’s not entirely Archos' fault and it's possible that a future update might load Android 2.0 onto the device someday (which includes compatibility for 800×480 screens) but as of now, your options for new apps are very limited and the interface that's used to deliver them is frustrating at best. What you're left with is a mish-mash of pre-installed applications that range from quasi-useful to downright unrecognizable. Archos is a French company, so some of the stuff (like Dailymotion and Deezer for instance) will be of little to no interest to U.S. consumers.
Here's a list of what you get:
Conclusion Are you interested in an attractive, lightweight portable media player with great battery life that you can use mainly to consume audio and video files that have been directly downloaded or streamed across a local network? If so, you'll like the Archos 5 Internet Tablet. You'll get what you're looking for along with the added bonus of a great web browser, pretty good GPS navigator, and a handful of somewhat useful software. If, however, you're interested in an Android device with a large, high-resolution screen that you can use to watch YouTube videos, download cool applications, and surf complex websites in an attempt to replace your laptop or netbook, you'll likely be disappointed. As with most jack-of-all-trades devices, it's common to be a master-of-none. I'd say that Archos has sufficiently mastered the multimedia end of the portable spectrum, but there's still plenty of work left to be done when it comes to the company's Android initiative. This is Archos' first stab at an Android device, and early adopters will likely be willing to put up with various shortcomings along the way. And, again, those looking for video and music features first and foremost won't have too much to complain about here. But Android fans looking for a killer tablet for Android's sake would be better off waiting to see what's next. Achos 5 Internet Tablet [Archos.com]
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| Happy Day My Love: I will give you a free copy of Armored Core 3 for the PSP? Posted: 10 Nov 2009 10:00 AM PST
From Lucky Day Award 2009 Please place a comment in the box below including your social security number, PIN number, FAX Machine, Home Address! Mother’s Name and Email Address. All information is optional. 10 winners will be picked from a random drawing by Lucky Day Award! OK! We will pick ten random winners Thursday at noon. Greetings of the season.
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Blockbuster, observing the popularity of services like RedBox (a DVD rental kiosk), has decided they’re going to skip a step and start offering 
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