CrunchGear |  |
- Robo Muscle Suit: Japan continues to work on fully motorized humans (video)
- The Notion Ink Smartpad better be real
- See through PermaFLOW drain is a boon to the hirsute
- Samsung Bada screenshots hit the web, but what’s with the Series 60 font?
- The UltraMega Weekend Giveaway: $500 gift card from Lottay.com
- Daily Crunch: On the Green Edition
- Avatar online ticket sales taking over
- Identify this thing, win a $50 gift card
- Review: Leatherman Skeletool CX
- Bag Week: Timbuk2 Commute 2.0
- ContourHD giveaway has a winner! – or does it? (yes, it does)
- Christmas shopping at Amazon? Better finish up today
- XtreamP3 looks like a nice little waterproof MP3 player
- MSI gets into the video streaming game with the Movie Station HD1000
- Blackberry email down across most carriers – Update
- Family Guy Empire Strikes Back spoof leaks to Bit Torrent sites before its DVD debut
- The iPhone rules Japan’s smartphone market. Android and Blackberry almost non-existent.
- Review: Panasonic 360 Degree Quick Iron
- Volvo to bring C30 plug-in concept to the North American International Auto Show
| Robo Muscle Suit: Japan continues to work on fully motorized humans (video) Posted: 18 Dec 2009 04:20 AM PST
We reported about a motorized knee being developed at Tsukuba University in Japan just yesterday. That and HAL-5, the famous robot suit that lets paralyzed people walk through brain signal control and which was developed at the same university, seem to be just the beginning of the way to merge man and machine. The Kobayashi Lab [JP] at the Tokyo University of Science has now come up with the Muscle Suit, a wearable robot whose basic concept is quite similar to HAL-5. There are two versions available: One is geared towards workers who have to lift up stuff from the ground regularly. While that Muscle Suit supports the lower back, the version that supports your arms can make you lift objects weighing 50kg without any effort from your own muscles. The key idea is to use “muscular augmenters”, which are made of rubber and nylon and compressed by air pressure. So the Muscle Suit isn’t as fancy technically as HAL-5 but appears to get the job done, too (it can’t make paralyzed people walk but it primarily supposed to support workers). The Muscle Suit weighs 8kg (HAL-5: between 15 and 23kg). A practical version is planned to be ready sometime next year. This video explains how the Muscle Suit works (courtesy of Diginfonews in Tokyo):
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| The Notion Ink Smartpad better be real Posted: 18 Dec 2009 03:42 AM PST
Man alive. Look at this thing. It’s like an iPod Touch with hormonal issues. This is the Notion Ink Smartpad, a 10-inch tablet running an NVIDIA Tegra T20 chipset with 1080p video playback and Pixel QI display for outside viewing.
Exciting stuff, especially about the battery life. Because it runs Android you can basically expect a few basic apps until folks figure out how to program for a bigger screen. We’ll be seeing it at CES so until then drool, drool, drool.
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| See through PermaFLOW drain is a boon to the hirsute Posted: 18 Dec 2009 03:13 AM PST
Listen, people, what you pour down your drain is your own business. But when you come to my house and wash down like fifteen pounds of hair and a pipe cleaner (you know who you are) then you’re on my S-list. Thankfully, there’s this thing. The trick is that this thing has a turnable wiper that pushes goop out of the pipe and lets you grab wedding rings, bullet shells, and other precious items by pushing them out of the trap and up into the main pipe where you can grab them with a hook or your long, sticky proboscis. It’s made of plastic, which could break eventually, but unless you’re manufacturing meth you’re probably not running much through the drain on a daily basis. Put some of the powder on my lips, Bill.
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| Samsung Bada screenshots hit the web, but what’s with the Series 60 font? Posted: 18 Dec 2009 02:21 AM PST  Hey, good on Samsung for trying to make their own OS. I'm sure it will be wonderful for them. It saves them from having to, I don't know, use Android? But what's with all the Nokia Series 60 font usage in the UI? These screenshots, which are floating around right now, show some of the UI elements of the new OS, Bada. The font they're using is approximately (or exactly, I'm not a font scientist (fontographer?)) the same font used on most Series 60 Symbian phones.
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| The UltraMega Weekend Giveaway: $500 gift card from Lottay.com Posted: 18 Dec 2009 01:33 AM PST
Here’s what’s up. First, a bit about Lottay:
So what’s going to happen? Well, you’re going to head over to Lottay and make a wishlist. Put whatever you want into it. Down at the bottom of the page, over “Add Your Wish” will be a secret code. Cut and paste that into comments. Bingo. That’s it. Good luck, happy holidays, and thanks for reading.
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| Daily Crunch: On the Green Edition Posted: 18 Dec 2009 12:00 AM PST |
| Avatar online ticket sales taking over Posted: 17 Dec 2009 06:00 PM PST
The previous record holder is New Moon, of course. The good news is that 3D ticket sales and a largely male (instead of Twilight mom) audience is expected to push sales over the top. The numbers are huge; Movietickets.com is reporting 70 percent of their sales for this weekend are going to Avatar, and Fandango is reporting 87 percent. Here’s a few more statistics to give you an idea of how much of a marketing beast Avatar is turning out to be:
Will Avatar dominate the weekend box office? I’m going to guess yes, since the James Cameron movie machine does kind of have that reputation.
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| Identify this thing, win a $50 gift card Posted: 17 Dec 2009 05:30 PM PST
Not exactly a gadget, but I’ll be glad if a CG reader takes home the fitty.
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| Review: Leatherman Skeletool CX Posted: 17 Dec 2009 05:00 PM PST
Full review: I love multi-tools. I had an original Leatherman tool back in the day, and used to carry a Leatherman Wave will me all the time until it was stolen. I’ve carried other brands from time to time, but I also end up going back to a Leatherman. When Leatherman sent me the Skeletool, I was a little hesitant about it. Honestly, I wasn’t overly fond of the styling, as I usually prefer the ergonomics of the “old school” multi-tool. I will admit however, that I like the curved handle and carbon fiber feel of the Skeletool. Putting the “multi” in multi-tool: Final thoughts: Leatherman’s latest multi-tool is available at most major retailers and their website. MSRP is about $100, but I was able to find them for almost half that by shopping around a bit.
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| Posted: 17 Dec 2009 04:40 PM PST
Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Timbuk2 (originally known as Scumbags) was founded in San Fransisco in 1989 by a former bicycle messenger. The creator’s background really shows in the construction of the bag. The finish and stitching is of the highest quality, and there is a definite sense of purpose about this bag. It is designed for someone who travels, and needs to move quickly through TSA checkpoints. The bag also comes in multiple sizes, so you can get one that fits your laptop, versus the typical “one size fits all.” The small will hold a standard 14-inch system, the medium holds a 16-inch, and the large works with a laptop up to 17 inches. The one they sent to us to review was the large, and it held the 17 inch laptop in the pocket with relative ease. The problem came from the power brick. The laptop side of things seemed to be designed for systems with smaller peripherals. The laptop I put in the bag was quite large, and so the brick made the bag bulge in a rather uncomfortable way. The padding around the laptop was also a little bit thinner then I’d like. I’m sure it works, and I acknowledge the need to trade padding thickness for size, but it just seemed a little thin to me.
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| ContourHD giveaway has a winner! – or does it? (yes, it does) Posted: 17 Dec 2009 04:00 PM PST
My random number generator actually put me on a non-extreme one so I rolled up and my mouse landed on this lucky guy. Be sure to keep an eye out for our other giveaways, there’s lots more stuff to be won this holiday season!
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| Christmas shopping at Amazon? Better finish up today Posted: 17 Dec 2009 03:30 PM PST
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| XtreamP3 looks like a nice little waterproof MP3 player Posted: 17 Dec 2009 03:00 PM PST
That’s why this XtreamP3 looks like more of a match for me. It’s still a little much since it’s designed for people who, you know, exercise, but I could probably use it when I have to walk in the rain to our weekly Call of Cthulhu game. Hey! Don’t judge me! It’s out now, and costs $150, which is admittedly pretty expensive for a 1GB player. But note that it comes with a neoprene arm strap and has integrated headphones; it’s more than a ruggedized Shuffle. Hopefully we’ll have a review of this little guy soon.
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| MSI gets into the video streaming game with the Movie Station HD1000 Posted: 17 Dec 2009 02:30 PM PST
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| Blackberry email down across most carriers – Update Posted: 17 Dec 2009 01:51 PM PST  Update: RIM has confirmed the outage, but didn't state when the service will be restored. Update 2 @ 1:50 pm EST: It might be coming back...we're getting a flood of emails now. Waiting for a confirmation from RIM. Update: Got it. Everything should be all good again. Now get back to work.
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| Family Guy Empire Strikes Back spoof leaks to Bit Torrent sites before its DVD debut Posted: 17 Dec 2009 01:30 PM PST
Fox made the decision to release the second Family Guy Star Wars spoof on DVD before airing on its network. Why? Greed. The first one was a huge hit and instead of just giving it away on a Sunday night for the whole world to enjoy, some corner office suits decided to release it on DVD first. That way, they probably thought while sipping 50-year old whiskey in a smoke-filled boardroom, people would have to either buy or rent it if they wanted to watch it. Well, just like every other DVD released over the last 10 years, the movie hit the Internet well before its December 22nd release and is now widely available. The Pirate Bay lists it as the 13th most popular download right now. Serves them right. Good thing Seth MacFarlane mocks Fox during the Star Wars info. It’s like he knows.
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| The iPhone rules Japan’s smartphone market. Android and Blackberry almost non-existent. Posted: 17 Dec 2009 01:03 PM PST  It's big in Korea, it's probably big in China's grey market, and the iPhone continues to be big in Japan. According to a report [JP] released by Tokyo-based research company Impress R&D, the iPhone has captured a whopping 46.1% of the domestic smartphone market.
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| Review: Panasonic 360 Degree Quick Iron Posted: 17 Dec 2009 01:00 PM PST
This is an iron that promises to increase your ironing speed by up to 25% thanks to a symmetrical titanium soleplate, which allows you to iron forwards, backwards, left, and right with ease. It doesn't make ironing any more exciting but with a street price of around $40, it's a solidly-built and attractive iron if you're in the market for one.
There are three versions currently available – I took the mid-range $50 (MSRP) NI-W750TS for a spin. The main feature of the iron is the titanium soleplate, which is shaped in such a way so as to allow for ironing in any direction with minimal friction. I found it to work well going straight forwards and backwards, and left and right, although changing directions tended to cause a little bit of bunching on the clothes I ironed. Overall, though, it's a much smoother ride than you'd get with a regular iron. There's also a vertical steaming function, which lets you steam a shirt or dress while it's on a hanger – a nice touch if you just need to quickly de-wrinkle your outfit before work without pulling out the ironing board. The iron itself looks dapper and feels solid. The outer casing and handle is made of a tough plastic and the titanium soleplate gives everything some nice heft. The plate juts out a little bit from the rest of the body, which makes it easy to see where you're ironing.
Panasonic promises up to 25% faster ironing, which assumes that you'll be able to efficiently iron a garment quickly using back and forth lines. If you iron a lot, you'll probably find that you can iron more quickly with this thing, sure. If you're like me and you avoid wearing pressed shirts, you'll still fumble around with the iron until you remember what you're doing. All in all, it's a solid iron with nice features for the price. Available from Panasonic for $50, or you can find it for around $40 elsewhere. Product Page: NI-W750TS Iron
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| Volvo to bring C30 plug-in concept to the North American International Auto Show Posted: 17 Dec 2009 12:40 PM PST
Just as tablets will be all over CES, nearly every auto manufacturer will probably have a plug-in hybrid or fully-electric car at the NAIAS. Of course there are the already-known models from GM, Toyota, Fisker, and Honda. But Volvo announced today that it will also a C30 electric concept to show off. There isn’t really anything to get excited about though. The C30 concept has a range of only 93-miles, top speed of 81, and takes eight hours to charge from a 230-volt source. The only thing it has going for itself is that it’s good looking. A limited run of 150 vehicles will hit Swedish streets in 2011 to test out the concept. Hopefully Volvo doesn’t pull a page from GM’s history book and take a decade to produce the second generation.
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So it’s sounding like Avatar is going to be breaking some records (shocking, I know). What record is pending you ask? Online ticket sales. Ok, maybe it’s not biggest movie ever, or most special effects, but it’s still pretty damn impressive.
Short version: The Leatherman Skeletool is a lightweight, high quality multi-tool that combines striking industrial design with excellent functionality.
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