FROM GAMERTELL - Walmart’s sale ad for December 20-24, 2009 offers some last minute sales on gift items. Select Wii games will be reduced to $40 and 8gb iPod nanos will come with $50 iTunes gift cards. MORE »
The amount of storage available on laptop-sized 2.5 inch drives seem to be continually increasing to almost ridiculous amounts given the size. With those increases in storage we’ve also seen a great decrease in the cost per gigabyte. The only way to really go anywhere in the external drive market with these drives is to make the storage size the least important factor.
That’s what LaCie is doing with its new Rikiki drives. The drives lay claim to being the most compact on the market. The drives are only 110 mm long, and 13.5 mm tall, covered entirely with brushed aluminum. The drives come complete with USB Boost software to make them 33% faster on Windows computers, as well as simple backup software. The Rikiki starts at 250 GB of storage for $75, which isn’t a bad price by any means.
The new LaCie drives do look nice, and won’t attract fingerprints like the Western Digital Passport, another popular 2.5 inch external. However, with the small size and brushed aluminum, you could be sacrificing storage space for the price. It is all a personal choice, but a WD drive can run $80 for 320 GB, 70 GB more for only $5 more. That doesn’t make the LaCie any less desirable, though. For a nice looking drive that can easily be thrown into a bag, requires only a USB connection and can store more data than an average netbook, $75 is not a bad asking price. Of course, the Rikiki does go up to 640 GB, which will double the price to $150, or a median of 500 GB for $110, all with the same compact size.
FROM GAMERTELL - Ric Turner created a fully playable Christmas Light Hero display for Christmas 2009. You can pick up a guitar controller and play through “Cliffs of Dover” by watching the lights streaming on the garage door. MORE »
FROM GAMERTELL - Between December 18, 2009 and January 7, 2010, every Big Mac sold at McDonalds will include a Big Mac Thrill Card. The Big Mac Thrill Card features one of eight different Avatar images and gives people access to three Avatar themed online games. MORE »
In what I can only imagine as being something along the lines of ‘you get what you pay for’ CherryPal has announced a $99 netbook. The netbook is going by the name of Africa, its the CherryPal Africa and just like the low price the specs are equally low.
To begin with, it is powered by a 400MHz processor and is sporting a 7-inch display with a resolution of 800 x 480. Additionally it has 256MB of RAM, 2GB of flash storage and will come with either Linux or Windows CE installed. Yup, Windows CE, you are not even getting the now outdated XP. And to top that off, you will get a lithium battery that is said to give upwards of four hours of use time.
But on the positive side, “everyone who has tried it has absolutely loved it!” Of course, that is according to their own press release. Now, if the specs have not yet scared you away and you are still looking to make a purchase then hit the product link below and visit the CherryPal Store.
FROM APPLETELL - The Tenqa SP-109 is an excellent introduction to that market, handily allowing the separation of your music source from the speakers on which you listen to it. MORE »
FROM APPLETELL - According to AdWeekMedia, Apple has come out on top of 2 of the 33 “Best of 2000s” awards that stretch across four categories, including media, agency, creative, and brand. MORE »
Apps are the hit of 2009. Possessing the ability to turn your mobile device into anything from a gaming system to a GPS navigation device to a wine connoisseur, apps are everything to a phone OS. Android rolled past the 20,000 app total and now rests at 20,003.
Though Apple still reigns supreme in total app count, 100,000; Google’s Android OS seems to be on roll with big releases on major carriers. The Verizon Droid by Motorola is seen by many as the flagship Android phone, that is until the Nexus One by Google in a partnership with HTC comes along. Google looks intent on making Android as big a player as the mighty iPhone.
The 20,000 app mark shows that developers are showing an interest in the platform. Research over at AndroLib says almost 38% of available apps are paid. Paid apps are a good thing for an OS as it encourages developers to code for an OS with the incentive of earning dollars. The more popular an OS, the more developers will code for it and it becomes a self-sustaining system.
Verizon’s deal with Google to bring the Droid onto the market clearly helps Android. Phones featuring the Android OS are expected on AT&T in the near future as the carrier widens it’s already impressive smartphone offering.
Just in case you happened to be looking for a geeky way to countdown to the New Year, you may want to head on over to Google.com and hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.
Yup, Google has once again given us a little easter egg of sorts. Once you hit the button, you will see the time appear in big blue numbers below. This of course, is showing the amount of seconds left in 2009. Happy New Year.
While we have certainly seen quite a bit of the Android-based Nexus One over the past few days there is one important item that has to happen before it will reach the hands of the public—stop by and get a certification from the FCC. And thankfully, it looks like that has happened, and with it comes just a few details about the phone itself.
As we already knew, the phone is being manufactured by HTC, Additionally, it is also carrying the model name of PB99100 with the codename of NEXUSONE. The other part here is that it has been confirmed to have support for HSPA 900 / 1700 / 2100 and quadband EDGE, which in reality means it will have support for T-Mobile 3G. In other words, that is a little bit of bad news for anyone hoping to see this land with, or at least support AT&T 3G. Other details from the FCC listing include the more basic such as the support for microSD cards, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g.
Finally, just in case looking at the FCC label was not as exciting as you had hoped, we also have a short video of the boot animation from the Nexus One. I have to say, it does look pretty familiar, at least in terms of coloring.
Just in case you have not yet had your fill of information and images of the Google Nexus One, we have come across two more images. One of which is the standard style showing off the front of the handset, but the other (seen above) is giving us a good look at just how thin the Nexus One is. And for those unfamiliar, the other phone in the shot offering the comparison is a t-Mobile G1. It would appear as if the Nexus One is about half as thick. Pretty nice looking, and I have to say that I agree fully when BGR noted that, “thin is in, folks.”
FROM APPLETELL - If you love the perennial holiday classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas, we’ve got two iPhone apps that come without packages, boxes or bags. MORE »
Today has been one crazy day as far as URL shorteners go. First, Facebook decides to give it a go with their on fb.me links. Then, Google comes out of nowhere, implementing their very own goo.gl shortener on Feedburner and Google toolbar. Low and behold, right when I think that bit.ly is down for the count, they have to go and prove me wrong.
Now Bit.ly has released a professional version of their shortening service called, well, “bit.ly pro.” The new service will allow Web Publishers to send out shortened links with their own brand names. For example, tcrn.ch will the TechCrunch’s bit.ly pro link. This of course comes packaged with an analytics software on steroids for the publishers to have at their disposal.
Surprisingly, Bit.ly is not charging for this service so far. However, I would not be surprised to see that changed after bit.ly pro comes out of beta.
This is a fantastic idea by bit.ly to make some cash (potentially) and actually cure one of the problems that plagues shortened URL’s. There are so many things, security wise, wrong with the shortened URL. You never know where you will actually be taken when you click on a link. With this service, these links will be verified.
FROM GAMERTELL - Not sure what to get the gamer on your holiday gift list? Never fear, Gamertell is here to help with lists packed full of pixelated goodness, suggestions and reviews of stuff you might want to consider gifting… MORE »
Twitter has been brewing up a new feature for their API. This time, it is a feature the Twitter employees call ‘Contributers.’ The basic idea behind the new feature is to allow businesses to have multiple people behind their Twitter account. This way, anytime a business tweets out some information, you know the individual behind the tweet.
Here is a quote from the official release of the beta information:
“The feature we are beta testing is called ‘Contributors’ – it enables users to engage in more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account. The feature appends the contributor’s username to the tweet byline, making the business to consumer communication more personal; e.g. if @Twitter invites @Biz to tweet on its behalf, then a tweet from @Twitter would include @Biz in the byline so that users know more about the real people behind organizations.”
The new feature is still in development and is only in beta testing. At this point, Twitter says they are just looking for feedback from both businesses and users. Once it does come out of beta, however, Twitter business apps, such as CoTweet and Hootsuite.
FROM GAMERTELL - Nintendo will release pink and blue Wii remotes on February 14, 2010. The remotes will come bundled with white MotionPlus peripheral units and clear remote jackets. MORE »
In what I can only imagine as being something along the lines of ‘you get what you pay for’ CherryPal has announced a $99 netbook. The netbook is going by the name of Africa, its the CherryPal Africa and just like the low price the specs are equally low. 
While we have certainly seen quite a bit of the Android-based Nexus One over the past few days there is one important item that has to happen before it will reach the hands of the public—stop by and get a certification from the FCC. And thankfully, it looks like that has happened, and with it comes just a few details about the phone itself.
Today has been one crazy day as far as URL shorteners go. First, Facebook decides to give it a go with their on fb.me links. Then, Google comes out of nowhere, implementing their very own goo.gl shortener on Feedburner and Google toolbar. Low and behold, right when I think that bit.ly is down for the count, they have to go and prove me wrong.
Twitter has been brewing up a new feature for their API. This time, it is a feature the Twitter employees call ‘Contributers.’ The basic idea behind the new feature is to allow businesses to have multiple people behind their Twitter account. This way, anytime a business tweets out some information, you know the individual behind the tweet.
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