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Sony shows 280-inch 3D display

Posted: 20 Nov 2009 05:20 AM PST

sony_3d_tv_280

Sony just recently said they want to get serious with 3D displays this fiscal year, and they seem to stick to their plan. Following the professional 3D camera that shoots video at 240fps and a futuristic 3D stereoscopic display the company introduced last month, we now get to see a 3D display sized at no less than 280 inches.

The so-called “3D LED Wall” consists of 70 LED screens (28 inches each) and is sized at an impressive 6.4m in width and 3.4m in height. It lets users switch back and forth between 2D and 3D images. Unfortunately, you’ll still need to wear special glasses to be able to view the latter.

Sony is currently showcasing the technology at the International Broadcast Equipment Exhibition (Inter BEE) in Chiba, Japan.

Via Tech On

Sharp’s chocolate cell phone (video)

Posted: 20 Nov 2009 05:00 AM PST

You know when a given country, in this case the nation of Japan, is over-saturated with cell phones when you get to see something like this: A cell phone that's supposed to be similar in shape to a chocolate bar, available in two versions: Melty Bitter (brown) and Melty Strawberry (pink). The Sharp SH-04B [JP] is part of NTT Docomo's winter line-up of new handsets for the Japanese market (unveiled ten days ago).


Bioshock 2 coming in a special edition

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 10:30 PM PST

bioshock2seSo it’s official: there will be a Bioshock 2 special edition. With the upcoming release of Bioshock 2 there’s been much speculation and guesswork about if there would be a special edition, and more importantly, what would be in it. Well, the wait is over.

The official announcement came out today on The Cult of Rapture. The special edition will come in a 13×13″ premium package with special art on the slipcase and the cover of the box. Inside the box, you’ll find three posters featuring vintage ads from Rapture, a LP with the orchestral score from the original Bioshock, a CD with the Bioshock 2 score, an 164 page hardbound artbook, and the Bioshock 2 game.

The special edition will be released on February 9th, 2010 for $99.00 on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The PC version will be $89.00. All three versions will be limited to a single production run.

Clock-sheet lets you tell the time without opening your eyes

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 08:00 PM PST

bdclick
Now, it’s not that I don’t want to tell the time when I wake up in the morning. It’s that I don’t want it spelled out in macaroni where I usually put my head.

Now, for a blind person, this might be excellent, although the designers could stand to reduce the size of the letters. As for the sighted, I don’t know about all you guys, but generally I sleep with my head sideways on my pillow, and could see my alarm clock clearly if I had one. I think it would wake me more to have to reach over and trace out each digit individually.

bdclock

And what, sir, if I happen to wake up next to a woman of quality? What then, sir? If my arm is pinned, I won’t know what time it is until the lady wakes. If there’s an appointment to be made or work to be done, I’d have to chew my arm off just to tell whether or not it’s time to get up. Unacceptable.

[via Unpluggd]

Lexar announces new line of “Gamer” SDHC cards

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 07:30 PM PST

LSD4GBGSBNA_largeLexar announced their new “gaming” memory cards today. I”m curious what exactly makes these cards specifically for gamers? Do they drink Mountain Dew? Do they call other memory cards ‘Bro’ while giving them dead leg?

Lexar Gaming Memory cards are ideal for gaming enthusiasts using Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) and Nintendo Wii systems. It allows you to capture gaming data, multimedia, and more.

Okay… Other then labeling, I’m not sure what else makes these gamer level memory cards special. They come in 4GB and 8GB capacities, but don’t have special transfer rates or anything else that stands out.

Available as an M2 or SDHC format, the cards start at $25 and go up from there, depending on the size and format. Currently you can only buy them on the company website, but I’m sure that’ll change soon so they can try and sell them to people who don’t know any better.

Twilight USB drive jumps on the marketing bandwagon

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 07:00 PM PST

TextHeads up, Twilight fans. Now you too can own a piece of the Cullen family empire. Specialty USB drive makers Tymemachines have produced a Twilight product for your purchasing pleasure.

The perfect gift for the tween on your shopping list, this Cullen Crest USB drive is ideal for storing school work, bad poetry, and slashfic stories about your favorite Twilight characters.

Available in 4, 8, or 16GB capacity, this precious keepsake will cost between $34.99 to $54.99 depending on the size you buy.

It’s… a self-rolling ball

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 06:30 PM PST


I’ll tell you what. Fill a city with these things, and I’ll move there. I can’t think of a greater source of childish delight than a playground full of these things, haphazardly zipping around the asphalt, attracting the attention of every bird, dog, and blogger that passes by.

What’s happening is there’s a solar cell in there that charges a small battery. When the battery achieves a certain level of power, it discharges, driving the wheels and rolling the ball. A clever layout of rods and rollers inside ensures that the solar panel is always pointing upwards.

It serves as little purpose as anything I’ve ever seen, yet now I can’t imagine a happy world without it. And I love the fact that if suddenly all humans were eliminated from the earth, these little guys would keep on rolling until the sun exploded.

Hackintoshers, rejoice: Atom support returns to 10.6.2

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 05:25 PM PST

figure-a
Apple has a history of spoiling hackers’ fun. In fact, they’ve almost made a business model out of it. But hackers won’t be kept down, and a little netbook running OS X is too tempting a gadget to give up on. So when Apple nixed Atom support in an recent update (strictly out of spite), the coders set to work. And in typical fashion, a short time later a solution is released. It’s pretty rough, but in another week there should be a more user-friendly tool.

As usual, the above figure applies.

[via TUAW and Macworld]

The DuinoTagger and Talcapult

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 04:58 PM PST

Like a ’70s cop team – one is the goodie two shoes and the other one is the drunk – the DuinoTagger and Talcapult allow you to shoot things and make smoke appear. The gun uses an Arduino board to control a tiny catapult that blows out a little puff of smoke.

The instructions are pretty detailed but you can see how it works here if you’re so inclined.

Gift Guide 2009: Wireless E-book Readers

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 03:30 PM PST

Intro

We’re only about five weeks away from Christmas, so now’s as good a time as any to talk about (drum roll, please) e-books. Amazon kick-started the e-book market (with apologies to earlier e-book readers) with the introduction of the Kindle in the fall of 2007. Two years later, Barnes and Noble, IREX, and Sony announced new or updated e-book readers of their own.

The question becomes, which e-book reader is right for you? The truth is, they’re all very similar, so it should come down to what books their compatible book stores carry. Oh, and price, of course.

Amazon Kindlekindle

Amazon Kindle: Starting at $259 (Amazon.com)

The elder statesman of the current crop of e-book readers, the Amazon Kindle is now in its second iteration (putting aside for a moment the Kindle DX, which isn’t exactly a "traditional" e-book reader, if such a thing even exists). As the name suggests, it has the full backing of Amazon—you may have heard of it—which should ensure that it’ll stick around for a while. You can find it on Amazon.

Features:

• Compatible with e-books (and magazines and newspaper) purchased from Amazon. There’s some 360,000 books available, so odds are you’ll find something you like.

• 6-inch, non-touchscreen E Ink display. Very legible, believe me.

• Free 3G wireless data access. That means you don’t have to be tethered to a computer to add new books to your device.

• It now works in more than 100 countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Australia, and Brazil.

• Holds up to 1,500 books simultaneously.

Product Page

Barnes & Noble nooknook

Barnes & Noble nook: $259 (BarnesandNoble.com)

Yes, the nook is written in all lowercase letters, so accept no substitutes. It, along with the Kindle, is destined to become one of the two biggest e-book readers available. It’s backed by the enormity of Barnes & Noble, and all that that entails, has a color scroll bar at the bottom (color = huge when it comes to e-books), and seems to do just about everything right… It’ll be available in a few days (currently scheduled for a November 30 release) from the Barnes & Noble Web site and brick-and-mortar stores.

• 6-inch E Ink display, with color touchscreen navigation bar along the bottom. Note that the screen itself isn’t in color, just that navigation bar.

• Free 3G and Wi-Fi.

• Works with the Barnes & Noble e-book store, which has "thousands" of books.

• Enough storage space to hold around 1,500 books, plus a microSD card slot in case you need more space.

Product Page

Sony Reader Daily Editionsony

Sony Reader Daily Edition: $399.99 (SonyStyle.com)

Sony has been in the e-book business for a while now, but the Daily, as it’s called when brevity is an issue, is the company’s latest attempt to make these things finally "click." As of this writing (November 19, 2009) it’s not actually available yet, but Sony says it will ship in time for Christmas. (It’s available for pre-order right now.) The following is based on what Sony has already publicly announced.

• Compatible with more than 40,000 books from places like the New York Public Library and overdrive.com. (Interestingly, not all of Sony’s partners have been revealed yet.)

• 7-inch, touchscreen E Ink display.

• Free 3G wireless data access. Again, no having to be tethered to a computer to download new content.

• Supports a whole host of file formats, including Adobe PDFs (hello, alt.binaries.books!), Microsoft Word documents, and MP3/AAC audio.

• Thanks to the touchscreen, you can take notes on it like you would a regular notebook. Might be handy.

Product Page

IREX DR800SGirex

IREX DR800SG: $399.99 (IREXReader.com)

This little guy was the first e-book reader announced to include support for the Barnes & Noble e-book store. It has the biggest screen of the lot, and manages to check all the right boxes. Its name is woeful. Like the Sony Daily, it’s not available yet, but will be at Best Buy and online in a few weeks.

• 8.1-inch, touchscreen E-Ink display (but it uses a stylus, so…)

• Compatible with the Barnes & Noble e-book store, along with Newspaper Direct and LibreDigital.

• Free 3G wireless, plus Wi-Fi.

• Unique navigation via left-hand side bar.

• If you want to support the future, IREX has already said that it’s working on a full-color e-book reader that it intends to launch next year. It’s the only manufacturer to commit to releasing a color reader just yet.

Product Page

Starcraft II Story Mode on video; it looks fantastic

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 02:53 PM PST


Even though Starcraft II was playable more than a year ago, Blizzard is still extremely selective about the assets they release. This latest video shows off the “Story Mode,” also known as the game, in which you can see a few characters driving the story, directing the flow of the game, and so on. The graphics, as we know, are very reminiscent of the original, yet polished and in high resolution; the added depth of 3D makes that Yamato Battle Cruiser look way meaner than it did in Starcraft. And the environment seems way more dynamic with the emphasis on high/low ground. How about that lava?

laaava

Can’t wait, though I do suck at the game.

Android-powered Motorola Motus caught on film, apparently in the middle of an earthquake

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 02:32 PM PST

There seems to be an unspoken style guideline amongst spy shot shooters: find the worst lighting possible, ditch the flash, and down 3-4 cups of coffee before snapping away. Unfortunately, the spy behind this shot of the Android-powered Motorola Motus played by all the rules.


CEA & NAB: TVs could be interfering with antenna reception

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 02:30 PM PST

Hot Girl and Rabbit Ears
Here’s a public service announcement from the friendly Consumer Electronics Association and National Association of Broadcasters: Move your TV antenna way from the TV for prime DTV reception.

The two organizations are both stating that this should improve reception, especially in urban areas on channels 2-13. It is sort of ironic that TVs themselves can cause interference but apparently they do just like other electronics. The CEA and NAB both recommend moving the antenna as far away from the TV as possible and to use a VHF/UHF type.

It’s definitely worth a try, but if you TV signals are coming in just fine and the antenna is chilling on top, leave it alone.

Best Buy drops everyday price of 40-inch 1080p TV to $500, 32-inch 720p to $300

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 02:00 PM PST

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If you prefer warm, indoor shopping to cold, outdoor, middle-of-the-night Black Friday shopping, then you may be happy to hear that Best Buy "is bringing the excitement of Black Friday a week early this holiday season." How is this possible? How can one retail store bend the fabric of the time-space continuum in such a way?

According to a recent press release:

Effective November 19, 2009, Best Buy will move the everyday low price on all entry level 32-inch Dynex LCD HDTV's to $299.99 and 40-inch Dynex 1080p to $499.99. Best Buy will be offering Black Friday pricing on a variety of popular Samsung models, including a 32-inch 720p LCD HDTV for $397.99 , as well as a 50-inch plasma 720p HDTV for $697.99 starting Sunday, November 22, 2009.

So it looks like $500 is going to be the new sweet spot for big TVs. Unless you count $300 being the new sweet spot for slightly less big (but still big) TVs. Either way, prices are moving in the right direction.

Full press release:

Why Wait in Line? — Black Friday DealsCome Early to Best Buy This Year

$299.99 32-inch Dynex and $499.99 40-inch Dynex 1080p flat panel TV's lead offerings for value-conscious consumers

MINNEAPOLIS, November 19, 2009 – Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), is bringing the excitement of Black Friday a week early this holiday season. Starting today, Best Buy will offer Black Friday pricing on certain models of flat panel televisions as well as other top brand home theater products.

With the most robust and largest selection of televisions of any retailer in the country, Best Buy is the destination for home theater needs this holiday season whether customers are getting a gift for a loved one or making a purchase for the whole family to enjoy.

"Best Buy is committed to continuing to offer a superior shopping experience this holiday season," says Josh Will, vice president of Home Theater, Best Buy. "Customers can be confident that they are getting some of the best prices in the industry, as well as the convenience of being able to shop when and where they want either in store or online."

Effective November 19, 2009, Best Buy will move the everyday low price on all entry level 32-inch Dynex LCD HDTV's to $299.99 and 40-inch Dynex 1080p to $499.99. Best Buy will be offering Black Friday pricing on a variety of popular Samsung models, including a 32-inch 720p LCD HDTV for $397.99 , as well as a 50-inch plasma 720p HDTV for $697.99 starting Sunday, November 22, 2009.

To learn more about more special offers, visit a Best Buy near you or visit www.bestbuy.com

Privacy versus power: smart grids are the new battlefield

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 01:30 PM PST

smart-grid-01
I think we can all agree that protecting our own personal privacy is a generally good idea. There are an enormous number of ways that our privacy can be encroached in a given day. Some of them are “for our own good”, or “just the cost of doing business” in the modern age. Some of the ways our privacy may be violated are extremely esoteric and not very likely (hard drive activity LEDs, for example! PDF: Information Leakage from Optical Emanations). Generally speaking, what I do in my own home is largely my own business, and not the business of anyone else. But the technology behind so-called “smart grids” for delivering electricity to appliances in a way that maximizes efficiency may leak a lot of personal information about you and your domestic habits.

ReadWriteWeb ponders the question are smart grids undermining user privacy? The story observes that “the energy fluctuations of home appliances are so unique that a smart grid can tell the make and model of a user’s refrigerator.” Maybe that’s not a big deal to you, but it’s not too hard to extrapolate from there to a variety of more Orwellian possibilities.

The issue at hand currently is that there are no clear guidelines on how to collect user data in a smart grid. Left to their own devices, history suggests that companies involved with smart grid technology will not necessarily keep the privacy of consumers in mind as they pursue their business objectives. But maybe this is all much ado about nothing, and end-user privacy will in some way be sanctified and protected as more and more people become aware of the issue. What do you think?

This season, crazy monkey shoes are the new hotness at the Chrome OS event

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 01:16 PM PST

scaled.2009-11-19 11.15.44

Velcome, darling! Look what we have for you! Sergey Brin wearing VFF KSOs, CrunchGear’s favorite, as Greg calls them, “crazy monkey shoes.” I’m personally a VFF convert and I’m very impressed that Sergey is willing to walk around in these.

For those not in the know, Vibram Five Fingers are ultralight running/sports shoes with separate pockets for each toe. I wear them running and love them – they fixed quite a few of my running issues after a number of years of abuse. They were popularized by Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run but they’ve been around for a few years. They essentially teach your body how to run barefoot again, just as your ancestors once ran freely through the sylvan woodlands of New Jersey, long, long ago.

My review is here.

They definitely make you look like a freak. However, I suspect the sting of scorn and ridicule is dampened a bit by the fact that the man has billions and billions of dollars. In my case, people just laugh at me when I run and I cry. The sweat hides the tears.

Picture 1

Worlds Collide: iMo digital photo frame features built-in printer

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 01:00 PM PST

cbaf_imo_photo_frame_printer

If you thought that the whole point of the common digital photo frame was to make old-school photos a thing of the past, it looks like you were wrong. I was wrong too, so let’s take comfort together in our wrongness. If the folks at iMo have their way, we'll look at a digital photo on their digital frame and say to ourselves "I want that photo on some sort of card stock and I’ll stop at nothing to get it!"

So here we have the iMo Photo Frame Printer – an 8-inch 800×600 digital photo frame that prints out 4×6 photos pulled off of memory cards and USB sticks.

If you had one of these in your house and some guests came over for dinner, they’d probably spend some time looking at the photos on the frame while you’re cutting up vegetables. After you bring the vegetable platter into the living room and set it down on the coffee table, you could say, "Oh, wanna see something cool? It prints them out too." And probably eight out of 10 people would go some form of ape-shit, then remark how far along technology has come.

You’ll eventually need to break the news to them that the frame costs $200 and the ink cartridges cost $20 apiece for 36 printouts, which means each printed photo costs almost two dollars. But tell them that as they’re going out the door. Don’t tell them that before dinner. They'd spend the entire night wondering how much you get paid because, man, that's an expensive printing frame.

iMo Photo Frame Printer [ThinkGeek]

Verizon’s data network is having issues – is it working for you?

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:58 PM PST

We're not sure how wide spread it is, but I'm seeing a whole lot of reports that Verizon's 3G data network is down in various parts of the country. The majority of the reports seem to be coming out of the SF Bay Area and South Bay. While the handsets are reporting full 3G signal, no data seems to be piping in our out. Might the success of the Droid in the Silicon Valley have tipped things over, a la AT&T's iPhone woes?


California approves new TV energy regulation: Energy consumption to be cut in half by 2012

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:30 PM PST

californiatv

Looks like California approved the new energy standards for televisions. The Consumer Electronics Association is predictably upset, whinging on about "constraining" innovation and choice, while environmental groups are predictably thrilled. The state’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, hailed the decision, and said that it will make California a "world-leader" in "the fight against climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

The new regulations will require television manufacturers to cut the amount of power that TVs use by one-third by 2011, and by just less than half by 2013. That’s right: in just around three years all TVs sold in California will have to be 49 percent more energy efficient.

Consumers stand to benefit in the sense that, since their TVs will now use less electricity, they’ll be spending less money going forward. It’s not a huge amount—you’re looking at saving around $30 per year when the 2013 regulations kick in—but the main push behind the new regulations was more altruistic and not necessarily thrift.

As for the CEA, which represents TV manufacturers and the like (it also organizes CES every January), it says the new regulations will cost the state some 4,000 jobs and siphon off $46 million in taxes. It hasn’t ruled out filing a lawsuit, so we may well be in for many more stories in the future.

Flickr

What ChromeOS Means For Netbooks And Why Microsoft Needs To Be Scared

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:12 PM PST

JuggernautWhile you won’t be able to sense it at first, expect to feel a high frequency buzz from the direction of Redmond in the next few months. That’s the Windows 7 and Office group fearing the rise of a new juggernaut on low-cost computing hardware, ChromeOS.

ChromeOS may not be powerful, it may not play Far Cry and it may not run Microsoft Office but it’s a game changer. The underpowered laptops that limped along under Vista, XP, or 7 will fly under a new ChromeOS regime and thin-and-light laptops will fall below the vaunted $199 mark as the so-called “Microsoft Tax” – basically the small cost manufacturers pay for OEM licenses – disappears.

I’ve been saying for most of this year that Android will replace Windows Mobile as the “default” smartphone operating system. Thus far, if a manufacturer didn’t have their own OS or wasn’t in bed with a certain provider, they chose Windows Mobile. That operating system is still popular with a certain subset of user, namely users with lazy IT departments or computer owners cursed with the inability to download and install odd syncing software. Android will change all that.

The same will come to pass for lower-end hardware solutions, solutions where Windows or Windows CE were once standard.

My prediction is this: netbooks, as we know them, will come with ChromeOS as a boot option. Ultrathin laptops (think the Dell Adamo or the HP Envy 13) will come with Windows 7. Netbook configuration, then, will consist of entering your IMAP and SMTP info, a few social media credentials, and maybe uploading a picture of your dog as a background image. The rest – installing apps, buying games (other than Android/ChromeOS games), and running Microsoft Office – will be gone, thrust into the cloud.

I’m usually a pessimist. I’m not when it comes to something like ChromeOS. This is just what Asian OEMs are looking for – a respected software stack for their underpowered hardware.
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