CrunchGear |  |
- 199mm: Panasonic to release the world’s “shortest” Blu-ray player
- Your daily dose of WTF: The credit card grappling hook
- Did you know? You can make furniture out of wood chips and resin!
- Introducing a program to produce all valid Ikea Train set configurations
- Vibrating hearing aid being developed
- Review: Palm Mobile HotSpot For Pre Plus and Pixi Plus
- SSD sales up last year, despite recession
- VHS tape external HDDs from Etsy. That is all
- Solar power making huge difference in Haiti
- Incredibly detailed man-sized fighter jet model actually flies using jet engines
- Water oven makes slow cookin’ that roast a breeze
- Clamshell home projector cheap, probably of poor quality
- OXO leaves the kitchen, aims for your desk
- What should I ask the guy who made Mass Effect 2?
- Review: Ceramic Speakers by Joey Roth
- Yeah, Google, good luck trying to boss China around
- Shock study: Kids spend a lot of time online, using their phones
- Star Wars Death Star Fathead coming in February for $100
- Video: HP has itself a Wall of Touch
- CrunchDeals: Buy two, get one free Xbox 360 Platinum Hits at Best Buy
| 199mm: Panasonic to release the world’s “shortest” Blu-ray player Posted: 21 Jan 2010 03:04 AM PST
Panasonic has announced [JP] a new Blu-ray player for the Japanese market today, the DMP-BD60. The device is sized at just 430×49x199mm, with the 199mm depth making it the “shortest” Blu-ray player available so far. Spec-wise, the main selling point is the integrated Wi-Fi and web connectivity (for example to YouTube). You’ll also get DLNA support, BD Live, 1080/24p and 1080/60p video, AVCHD and AVCREC support, Deep Color (12bit), Dolby True HD/Digital Plus and DTS-HD Master Audio support. The player features a USB port, an HDMI port and also accepts those new SDXC cards through its SD card slot. Apart from Blu-rays, DVDs and music CDs, you can also view DivX files on the device. The DMP-BD65 will go on sale in Japan on February 15 with a $440 price tag.
|
| Your daily dose of WTF: The credit card grappling hook Posted: 20 Jan 2010 08:25 PM PST
Do you have a credit card? A bobbin of fishing line? A bolt? A drill? Tape? Then do yourself a favor and make yourself a credit card grappling hook. What else are you doing at midnight on a Wednesday? The full instructions are right here but it should be fairly obvious from the picture how to do it.
|
| Did you know? You can make furniture out of wood chips and resin! Posted: 20 Jan 2010 08:00 PM PST
Obviously this isn’t really a project for mere dabblers — consult your local carpenter or crafty person if this sounds cool to you. The materials, however, are pretty easy to come by. I mean, I sprinkle a new layer of sawdust on my apartment every week instead of cleaning. Saves so much time!
|
| Introducing a program to produce all valid Ikea Train set configurations Posted: 20 Jan 2010 07:30 PM PST
If you’re a parent, you know that kids love them some wooden tracks. I’m serious. Kids could would totally spend hours whining about tracks and then, when they get them, refuse to play with them. That’s why I love Ikea’s wooden train set which costs like $10 and can make a few nice configurations. But how many configurations can you make? According to this dude you can make nine permutations, shown above. In fact, with four extra curved pieces you could create 130 permutations which is quite a treat. Here are the instructions for building each version. Amazing stuff.
|
| Vibrating hearing aid being developed Posted: 20 Jan 2010 07:00 PM PST
Details are a bit sketchy at this point, but the concept is good: create a device that turns sound into vibration, enabling a person to “feel” when something happens around them. The device will work by registering different kinds of sounds and lowering the frequency to a range that can be felt through the skin. This means that someone who couldn’t hear previously will be able to tell if someone is speaking, if a telephone is ringing, or even make it so they can “hear” birdsong. The technology is experimental, however the engineer developing it has had good results in initial trials. To read the entire press release, click here. [via Shiny Shiny]
|
| Review: Palm Mobile HotSpot For Pre Plus and Pixi Plus Posted: 20 Jan 2010 06:37 PM PST  By the time Palm announced the Pixi Plus and Pre Plus at CES earlier this month, there wasn't a whole lot left to reveal. From the names, to the specs, all the way down to the carrier the handsets would launch on -- just about everything had made it into the realm of public knowledge by way of the rumor mill. However, there was at least one feature that Palm managed to keep hidden up their sleeve: Mobile HotSpot. With the flick of a switch, the Mobile Hotspot application turns the Pre Plus or Pixi Plus into a WiFi router for up to 5 users simultaneously, fueled by Verizon's 3G network. We've spent the last few hours tinkering with a pre-release copy of Mobile HotSpot - read on for our impressions.
|
| SSD sales up last year, despite recession Posted: 20 Jan 2010 06:30 PM PST
The study was conducted by IDC, and the outlook is good. Here’s some of the positive things that they had to say:
If you want to read the whole thing, you’ll have to pay of course, but I think we get the idea. [via Storage Review]
|
| VHS tape external HDDs from Etsy. That is all Posted: 20 Jan 2010 05:54 PM PST
[via The Daily What and Technabob]
|
| Solar power making huge difference in Haiti Posted: 20 Jan 2010 05:30 PM PST
The solar powered lights are being placed in hospitals, enabling doctors to continue to work after dark, and the solar panels are being used to power water pumps used in the water purification process. In addition to water and light, a Dutch company is donating solar powered cell phones in order to help with communications. Last but not least, another American company is shipping solar powered ovens, which will allow people to cook without use of charcoal or other fuels. [via Green Tech]
|
| Incredibly detailed man-sized fighter jet model actually flies using jet engines Posted: 20 Jan 2010 05:00 PM PST
As far as I can tell, he just got the manual for making a real SU-27 and just divided everything by 6. Every little rivet and hatch is accurately represented. There’s even a little guy in the cockpit! And by the way, I can’t be the only who who thought that the little kid in the pictures was actually going to grow up and go to college while this thing was being built. And here’s the video of its certification flight. I think it was being certified as “the most awesome thing ever.” Anyway. Not exactly news, but buddy, this is worth sharing. [via Reddit]
|
| Water oven makes slow cookin’ that roast a breeze Posted: 20 Jan 2010 04:30 PM PST
The SousVide Supreme Water Oven is a slow-cooker’s fantasy, and as long as your food doesn’t need to get too much past 200°F. The vacuum sealing is, of course, terribly eco-unfriendly, but it does make the meat, or apples, or whatever you put in there, stew in nothing but its own juices.
One caveat: without a hot pan, grill, or oven, and with the food basting itself, there is a side effect. According to a New York Times review:
Very appetizing! Well, the proof of the pudding is in the taste, they say, and apparently the taste is insanely good. Too bad this thing costs $449 and you’ll need a vacuum sealer to do the job correctly as well. [via RedFerret]
|
| Clamshell home projector cheap, probably of poor quality Posted: 20 Jan 2010 04:00 PM PST
Perhaps I’m being too quick to judge. The site that has it for sale states that the black and white colors combine to be “glittering and translucent”, and it will also “give out special charms and life taste.” I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds tempting, to be sure. [via Red Ferret]
|
| OXO leaves the kitchen, aims for your desk Posted: 20 Jan 2010 03:30 PM PST
It’s die-cast zinc with a nonslip base, useful for keeping a couple USB cords available on your desk without having them slip back behind it. Should be available in your neighborhood next month.
|
| What should I ask the guy who made Mass Effect 2? Posted: 20 Jan 2010 03:26 PM PST
I’ll be doing a live interview with Lead Programmer Casey Hudson I’ll be streaming the interview live thanks to Livestream and you can ask questions in comments, below, or you can ask questions live by Tweeting to CrunchGear with the hash tag #biowareqs. I hope you’re as excited about this opportunity as we are.
|
| Review: Ceramic Speakers by Joey Roth Posted: 20 Jan 2010 02:00 PM PST
Pros:
Cons:
Full review:
I reported these speakers way back when they were still in deep pre-production. Joey Roth, the designer, contacted me some time ago about reviewing them, and I’ve been using the speakers now for 3 weeks or so. I thought I’d better give them some time, since I have been using the same (great) Logitech speakers for some years now. Delicious
Before everything, I should address these speakers’ design. Personally, I think they look fantastic. The amp especially, with the exposed brass, smooth-sliding felted wood volume knob, and understated metal finish. But beware: they are very distinctive looking and may not work with your sense of decor! Also, the wires are pink — pink like strawberry ice cream. I guess I could have done without that, but it has its charm. The first thing I found was that the speakers are much bigger than I thought they’d be. From the pictures I imagined them to be about the size of a juice glass, but the cone is really more the size of a cereal bowl. They sit on little wood stands which you assemble yourself, and the cables are serious 16-gauge stuff, connecting to a derivative of the digital T-amp that made such a splash a couple years ago. The banana plugs gave me a little trouble, but all that really did was make me understand that this was a serious piece of audio hardware, not a mass-produced plastic box with a loose 3.5mm jack stuck into it, as I am sorry to say my Logitechs’ puck is.
A lengthy warm-up period is recommended, so I left them on at medium volume all day and worked from a cafe nearby. It was a little while before I felt comfortable really pushing the speakers, since in my mind ceramic=breakable and designer=not built to last. Wrong. It should have occurred to me immediately that the driver units are fully twice as wide as those in my Logitech system, which could really belt it out. The limit Your mind is probably lingering, as mine did, on the 70Hz frequency floor. Most speaker sets, because they include a subwoofer, have a 20Hz floor. That’s great, guys, but it doesn’t mean much without real frequency response data: where does the subwoofer take over from the tweeters? Am I going to hear everything under 300Hz come from under my desk? — or perhaps the poor tweeters are overworking themselves, trying to push out 150Hz with some amount of power, and it’s leading to distortion? What a speaker maker needs to guarantee is that there is a smooth response all the way from the top to the bottom, and that’s what we’ve got here with Roth’s ceramic speakers. Over the last few weeks I’ve tested it out on just about every kind of music you might want to play, plus in addition to that some movies, shows, and games of various description. They sound great with everything, with a few notable exceptions: songs that truly rely on very low frequencies. I’m not talking about hip hop, or the bass in a jazz quartet or rock song — I’ve listened to plenty of those and they sound great. The truth is that the 20Hz is in the tail end of the bass spectrum, and instruments that produce it only produce it as a part of their sound. I’m sorry to lose out on it, sure, but it’s far less noticeable than you’d think. I’ve only found a couple songs that are actually broken by the lack of that frequency range, but it’s only fair to say that if you listen to a lot of heavy, low beats (some hip hop and techno artists aim at this), these aren’t the speakers for you. For the rest of us, they’re excellent. There is a clarity to them compared with my old set that reminds me of when I started using high-end in-ears instead of traditional headphones or earbuds. The tone and sound is reminiscent of the Klipsch X5s, which similarly de-emphasized the very low end and focused instead on complete and balanced sound. There’s plenty of low end to go around, and what matters is that it sounds great. The lowest lows are still punchy and strong; they don’t peter out or distort.
And yes, they get loud. Yesterday I queued up a few loud songs and turned it up higher than I’d dared to before. Sounded great. And an added bonus is that, without a subwoofer, your risk of A: washing out the sound with poorly balanced bass, and B: making enemies of your neighbors, is substantially lowered. There is, however, a directionality to the speakers that creates a pretty serious “sweet spot,” although unlike, say, flat-panel speakers, the sound is still complete elsewhere, just not as loud or exact. They actually work very well for gaming as well — I’d still put on a surround-sound headset if I wanted the full experience, but the ceramic speakers produced more than enough power and stereo separation to make my second playthrough of Borderlands a joy. The directionality of the speakers means that for the best stereo cues you should make sure you’re right between the two cones. Also, if you switch between speakers and headphones a lot (if you have a roommate, say), be aware that there is no integrated headphone jack, as there often is with desktop speakers. The rise of USB-based audio makes this less of a nuisance, but it’s worth mentioning. I should add that I also tested these on my record player with a pre-amp, but I don’t trust my old needle or the aging cables to give the full range of clarity. They sounded fine, but I didn’t think I should draw any serious conclusions. Conclusion The part I haven’t mentioned, of course, is the price. These speakers cost $500. Now, some of you probably hissed in disappointment, and others scoffed, saying “why, that’s how much I paid for my cables!” That makes these speakers kind of a hard sell, since they’re too expensive for those of us used to paying $150 for speakers, but not quite boomy or multi-channel enough for audiophiles or home theater guys. But the truth is that I see these as the perfect speaker system for the enlightened apartment dweller. Loud, clear, and suitable for most purposes, as well as being beautiful and interesting objects. In fact, you know what these are? They’re for the person who has everything. Because they certainly don’t have anything like these.
|
| Yeah, Google, good luck trying to boss China around Posted: 20 Jan 2010 01:30 PM PST
What more can be said of this Google-China feud? Google wants to run its local search engine, google.cn, there without having to deal with Chinese censorship. China is like, really? Why should we give a damn what you want, Google? Google phones have been delayed, bitter words have been exchanged, and now Google’s other, non-search activities in China may be threatened by its saber-rattling, to use a metaphor that’s not really relevant. Here’s a new one: Google v. China could be seen as yet another chapter in the expected United States of America v. China feud, one that could determine which country will be the top dog this century. The basic gist of it is this: China doesn’t play games with anyone. Yes, its paramount interest is making money, but you’ll have no luck trying to change its human rights record, or, say, how it deals with censorship. So if you’re someone like Google, you have two options: run in China (and make money within the system that’s currently in place), or try to make a stand and demand that China change its ways while trying to argue that a free and open China is in everyone’s best interests (plus, you can sell more ads on unrestricted searches). So far, China’s reaction seems to be, “Dear Google. Thank you for your concern. Play by the rules or get out. Toodles!” Is that an oversimplification? Maybe, but that’s the gist of it. And really, what would China gain by giving Google free reign there? What would it lose? The perception that nobody is going to boss it around, for one. The idea that the current regime completely and ruthlessly (I mean that in a good way) runs the show. Do you think the notion that an American company can boss around the regime is going to fly? And for what, so Google can maintain an office on the mainland? As if China is hurting for search engines… I will say, and this is lil ol’ me talking, but who does Google think it is? Do you think the American government is going to change its laws because some company merely asks? (That’s a lobbying joke, by the way.) The nerve of Google to demand anything of China. Insane, all of this.
|
| Shock study: Kids spend a lot of time online, using their phones Posted: 20 Jan 2010 12:30 PM PST
It was only five years ago that kids between the ages of 8 and 18 “only” spent 6.5 hours online. Today, these same kids (well, the same age group) now spend some 7.5 hours online per day between the computer and their mobile. That may not sound like a much until you ask: where did these kids find an entire extra hour to mess around online? It’s even crazier when you consider that many of these hours are spent multi-tasking—watching YouTube while listening to iTunes, for example. If you think of it like that, then you can say that kids today are cramming 11 hours of media consumption per day into that 7.5-hour window. Remember: it was only a few years ago that these same kids would have been working in the textile factories of Manchester, so let’s not feel too bad for them. So the study, conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and entitled Generation M2 (not the failed Matsushita video game console, to make an obscure reference for no particular reason): Media in the Lives of 8-to-18-Year-Olds, followed more than 2,000 kids from October 2008 to May 2009, effectively an entire school year. (You’ll note that this time frame was before Twitter really exploded, so its representation in the study is simply not there. QQ.) It found that, among other things, kids consume an extraordinary amount of media per day. In fact, the New York Times story quotes a pedidtrician who all but threw his hands in the air, saying that arguing that kids shouldn’t use/consume so much media is now akin to complaining that kids breathe oxygen. The genie is out of the bottle, and he’s surfing YouTube on his smart phone. The ramifications for this are sorta unexciting. I mean, 47 percent of the most media-consumey kids did poorly in school (Cs or lower), but who’s to say that, years ago, these same kids wouldn’t have gotten poor grades because they were playing stickball in the streets? Or maybe they’re just dumb kids? Not every horse is a thoroughbred. One kid quoted in the story, from the BX Boro, said he gets something like 500 text messages per day. He’s 14-years-old! And a word of caution to so-called “old media,” a phrase without equal in terms of silliness: kids aren’t consuming you anymore. Well, maybe that’s an overstatement, but the amount of plain ol’ television that kids watch is going down. Rather, kids will catch “TV Show” on something like Hulu. Now, in and of itself that isn’t bad—people are still watching—but the way they’re watching is changing to a degree that you don’t seem prepared for. This whole Conan-Leno-NBC mess? Do you think that, in 5-10 years, people will still have it programmed into their schedule to watch whomever hosts The Tonight Show, day in, day out? Will the show even be relevant anymore, a host telling a few topical jokes, then interviewing whatever celebrity happens to have a movie coming out that week? Seems to me that that idea is just old, much like Leno fans themselves. Presumably kids don’t read anymore, unless they’re told to.
|
| Star Wars Death Star Fathead coming in February for $100 Posted: 20 Jan 2010 11:30 AM PST
There you go, right on the living room wall. A big, fat Death Star. I'd personally cut off all the fluff at the bottom there. It's the Death Star. Not the Death Star, sponsored by Star Wars and a couple Fathead logos. It's not some stadium with naming rights and all that. The dimensions of the "high-grade vinyl" decal are a whopping 4′2″W x 4′2″H. And if your living room looks like that – nice furniture, etc. – and you actually stick this thing up on the wall in there then you, my friend, are someone I'd park myself next to at a dinner party. And if you're married, well, hold on to that spouse of yours as if you're waterskiing barefoot. Death Star Fathead Wall Graphic [StarWarsShop.com via OhGizmo!]
|
| Video: HP has itself a Wall of Touch Posted: 20 Jan 2010 11:00 AM PST What to make of HP’s “Wall of Touch”? The Wall Street Journal has a nifty little write-up of the technology, and comes away like it just shook hands with Brock Lesnar’s doctors. “Thank you so much, doctor!” The fact is, despite the fact that you don’t actually touch the Wall of Touch, the idea of touchscreen interfaces is no longer foreign and exotic. We’re several years after Jeff Han’s big demonstration, plus there was that iPhone thing. The video explains what’s going on here. HP took a series of displays, stitched them together, then overlaid a “touch” technology, um, overlay. It works using cameras, sorta like Microsoft’s Project Natal. Don’t expect to see one of these in your living room any time soon. For now, HP is aiming the wall at places of business, like airports, where they could use a big, hulking touch display. Here’s a thought: which technology will Hollywood embrace more, 3D or touch? Imagine being able to “touch” the fabric of a character’s jacket and have them react, etc. No, I can’t imagine, stop trying to make me.
|
| CrunchDeals: Buy two, get one free Xbox 360 Platinum Hits at Best Buy Posted: 20 Jan 2010 10:30 AM PST
Included:
Enjoy, please. [via Major Nelson on Twitter]
|
A new product being developed in London will help the deaf to hear, using vibrations which can be felt through the skin. While the technology is still rudimentary, it has exciting potential for people who are completely deaf or deaf and blind. 
So it wasn’t all bleak last year, SSD manufacturers experienced a 14% increase in sales, along with a total of over 11 million drives sold. That’s a whole lot of memory chips.
Sounds like technology is making a difference in the 
File this under “sounds too good to be true”. A Chinese artist has designed a projector into a clamshell, with a built in speaker. The unbelievable part? It’s only $50. I question what type of quality you are going to get from a projector that only costs $50.
Fresh off the Twitter… um… trolley. Sphere? Obelisk? River? Whatever it is that carries twats around. Best Buy is running a buy two, get one free deal on Xbox 360 Platinum Hits games. | You are subscribed to email updates from CrunchGear To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment