CrunchGear

CrunchGear Week in Review: Link Nook Edition
CrunchDeals: Buy an Olive 4 or 4 HD and get Beatles Remastered
Avatar has hit telesync, but by all reports you should just pay your money
HP webcams are racist
B&N confirms Nook shipment delay, says only “very small percentage” affected
Music video games, they are dying
Accessory turns iPhone into a universal remote

CrunchGear Week in Review: Link Nook Edition

Posted: 20 Dec 2009 03:00 AM PST

Here are some stories from CrunchGear this past week.

Bag Week, People!
This dude made a Zelda game in C++. What did you do this year?
Bad Ideas, vol. CMXVII: Xylophone Table
"Butterfly Touch" from Packard bell sounds weak but looks sweet
B&N confirms Nook shipment delay, says only "very small percentage" affected

CrunchDeals: Buy an Olive 4 or 4 HD and get Beatles Remastered

Posted: 20 Dec 2009 01:09 AM PST

So the guys at Olive really like you. We gave our free one away to Reader Fares but you guys can pick one up alongside a full 17-disc collection of Beatles hits just as quick as two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Here’s what’s going on:

Buy any Olive 4 or Olive 4 HD by Monday, December 28th and get the remarkable, remastered Beatles 17-Disc collection FREE! This is the Beatles Collection you’ve been waiting for. Every song in the Beatles catalog, every album from Please Please Me to Let it Be remastered to today’s highest standards. A $200 value – it’s yours FREE with your purchase of an Olive 4.

Pop over here to pick up your unit. Happy holidays.

Avatar has hit telesync, but by all reports you should just pay your money

Posted: 20 Dec 2009 12:52 AM PST

Imagine this in 3D. With like aliens popping out onto your lap. This telesync won’t be like that.

Avatar is now a telesync, in English, but it seems the aliens in the copy are gray and everyone – I mean everyone – says to go see it in the theaters. If you can’t wait and/or you live in Central Europe where it’s coming out on December 24, you might as well whet your appetite with this CAMELOT release.

Says scnsrc:

Here is a nice telesync from CAMELOT, the sound is good and the video is a bit blurry but this is in english. However I recomand the iMAX, definitely worths it.

HP webcams are racist

Posted: 19 Dec 2009 11:29 AM PST

“As soon as my blackness enters the frame…” Listen, HP, this is the 21st century. Obama is in the White House. This needs to be fixed STAT.

B&N confirms Nook shipment delay, says only “very small percentage” affected

Posted: 19 Dec 2009 11:11 AM PST

The Barnes & Noble Senior VP of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, Mary Ellen Keating, just confirmed to us that indeed some Nook orders were pushed back again. She claims that only a very small percentage of customers will not receive their Nook before Christmas though. B&N apparently offered affected customers both a holiday certificate in case the Nook was a gift and the $100 BN.com gift card we learned about from a commenter yesterday.

It’s hard to feel sympathetic to B&N. The bookseller obviously misjudged customer demand from the start, but inventory and supply management should have seen this latest shipping problem a lot earlier. Our tipster ordered his Nook back on November 12th and saw his order constantly pushed back at the last minute, which was no doubt a ploy by B&N to keep cancellations down to a minimum. All it takes to keep most consumers happy is timely, honest communication, not emails days after the delay is obvious.

The vast majority of customers who pre-ordered nooks and were given a pre-holiday estimated shipping date should receive their devices in time for the holidays. We are working very hard to keep up with the demand and to get all nook orders out the door and to customers on or before Dec. 24. Unfortunately, there may be a very small percentage of customers who may not receive their nooks before the holiday. We communicated with this handful of customers yesterday, offering our sincere apologies and providing them with the following: 1. A nook Holiday Certificate, in case they ordered nook as a gift and 2. A BN.com gift certificate that can be used online.

Any customer who has not yet received their device but whose ship date prior to the holidays has changed in any way should have received an email yesterday from Barnes & Noble with updated timing. They can also check their order status or contact a customer service representative (1 800 THE BOOK) if, for some reason, they did not receive the email."

Mary Ellen Keating

Spokesperson

Barnes & Noble

Music video games, they are dying

Posted: 19 Dec 2009 08:00 AM PST

The NPD Group is reporting that the sale of music games like DJ Hero, Band Hero, Oboe Hero, and Violin Concerto Band are falling with a bullet, leading analysts to expect the category to crash this year.

The report finds that the Rock Band: The Beatles sold 800,000 units, missing its 1 million forecast and that Guitar Hero 5 sold 500,000 units in its first month of sales, down from 1.4 million for GH3.

Analysts blame “too much music in too short a time,” saying that the games just filled up the player’s heart with so much value that they could handle it. However, I suspect that the average gamer has room only for one or two freaking drum set ups in their living rooms and those with enough floor space have already filled it up with bongs and electric ATVs this winter, leaving little space for George Harrison’s RB:B flute attachment.

These games are great for parties but at some point you tell your host, no, you don’t want to play them anymore. Maybe you play New Super Mario Brothers or maybe you just drink beers and wrestle instead. However, the comet that was the “band game” is passed, friends. It’s sad but true.

Accessory turns iPhone into a universal remote

Posted: 19 Dec 2009 05:43 AM PST

A company called New Kinetix is unveiling an attachment that turns your iPhone or Touch into a Universal Remote. Useful? Nah, since most of us don’t want to leave the iPhone lying around on the coffee table and then poke at it with Cheeto powdered hands while we watch Dr. Who. There a reason why standalone universal remotes exists. It’s because remotes get beaten up and broken.

We’ll see more of this at CES, but I’m not dancing a jig just yet. Besides, the RedEye from ThinkFlood seems like a more complete solution.

via ChipChick