CrunchGear |  |
- Watch the PSP Go unassembled and reassemble itself
- RetroCrunch: The Bloc-Alarm door stop
- Twin Video: pocket camera for the narcissist
- Luxury Blu-ray player is actually an Oppo one that has been placed whole inside a larger case
- For Sony, “planned obsolescence” is a serious PR threat
- It’s a bit sad when promotional de-makes of games are better than the games themselves
- The “ultimate” Android ringtone
- Don’t forget to watch Conan tonight
- The Apple Tablet rumors the other blogs are afraid to publish
- Myst, Riven mad cheap on GoG this weekend
- EA sticking with Tiger Woods for PGA Tour 11 game due out in June
- More pics of the Asus e-reader
- IFPI claims that music piracy is right up there with climate change. At least they’re not being melodramatic about it.
- Internet: Theres been an OTA Droid Update! Motorola: Uh, no there hasn’t.
- T-Mobile myTouch with a 3.5mm jack caught on camera
- Do you want to place an iPhone into a Game Boy Advance? You can!
- Churches (and others) will have to upgrade their mics right quick or the FCC will be very angry
- Why is the “home” icon a little house?
- Breath-based glucose sensor developed (and why it may never make it to market)
- Look, up in the sky. It’s 3 more Iranian satellites.
| Watch the PSP Go unassembled and reassemble itself Posted: 23 Jan 2010 04:12 AM PST
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| RetroCrunch: The Bloc-Alarm door stop Posted: 22 Jan 2010 06:00 PM PST
Now the lovely copper one pictured is the vintage version, but this product is still available online if you need one. Simple and inexpensive, this is a great example of old school tech that never gets old. Sure, you can get a robot and train it to watch the door and sound an alert if someone enters, or set up your own laser grid to warn you of intruders, but this little gizmo will cost you $9.00 (plus shipping) from Amazon. [via Retro Thing] P.S. If you like the concept of us talking about retro gadgets and their modern equivalents, let me know in the comments.
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| Twin Video: pocket camera for the narcissist Posted: 22 Jan 2010 06:00 PM PST Ion Audio’s latest creation in a rather unique take on the pocket camcorder. The Twin Video has two cameras in it, allowing you to record not just what you are seeing, but what your reaction is to what you are seeing. I don’t really see the point behind having two cameras built in the device, other than for the “2 girls one cup” style reaction shots. We saw this camera at CES, and if you were watching our coverage, you saw that they were showing the camera to someone else when we stopped by their booth. They told us all about it, including the expected retail price of $249. Hopefully you’ll have better ideas on how to use this thing then I do. It’s reportedly going to arrive sometime during 2Q2010, and while the MSRP isn’t official, the company rep told us at CES they expected it to be priced at $249.
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| Luxury Blu-ray player is actually an Oppo one that has been placed whole inside a larger case Posted: 22 Jan 2010 05:24 PM PST
Of course, it’s still a perfectly good player — they tested it against its Oppo twin and found absolutely no difference, and the Oppo BDP-83 is one of their favorite players. In a last little joke, the Lexicon is THX-certified while the Oppo isn’t, despite their being the exact same device. Now, if they had put it in a nicer case, even the way they’ve done it here, and charged an extra hundred bucks, I don’t think anyone would have batted an eye. But three thousand dollars more! Jesus Christ! So remember the name, people: LEXICON. Stay far, far away from these swindlers. [via Wired]
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| For Sony, “planned obsolescence” is a serious PR threat Posted: 22 Jan 2010 05:00 PM PST
It seems that in 2006, several million Sony-branded batteries in Dell laptops all failed at the same time, and rumors began circulating that it was, in fact, a Sony “kill switch” that had malfunctioned and prematurely executed the laptops. Sounds silly to us, but apparently it’s really affecting sales over there, mainly of Vaio laptops and some other stuff. I guess we have our own consumer myths, not just Pop Rocks and Coke but ideas like the Apple Tax, or that Compaq PCs are garbage, that kind of thing. But this Sony kill switch conspiracy theory was just too fun not to share.
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| It’s a bit sad when promotional de-makes of games are better than the games themselves Posted: 22 Jan 2010 04:28 PM PST
I mean, the “modern” Mega Man franchise, for instance, is stagnating in weird semi-RPGs for the DS. And then some developers throw down the mega-retro Mega Man 9, and it’s freaking amazing, as well as shockingly difficult. Bionic Commando: Rearmed was a great remake of one of my favorite NES games, mimicking level layout to the last detail but improving graphics and adding extra features. But they managed not to mess that up, which is more than one can say about the game it was ostensibly a teaser for. I was excited about that one, too. And now we have Dark Void Zero, apparently a totally awesome prequel to Dark Void, which just received a 5.0 from IGN. Come on, people! It’s not that it’s just easier to make a good game of the NES type — god knows there were plenty of terrible ones back in the day. I think that developers are losing track of what makes a game good, instead focusing on realistic physics, or meaningless new features, or of course the ever-escalating graphical arms race. But when a team gets really knocked down to the basics, which is to say two dimensions and a bunch of sprites and tiles, they remember why it is they make games in the first place. Fun. I say, bring ‘em on. Excitebike World Rally is out there, and of course New Super Mario Bros Wii is around as well — unabashed, straightforward fun. When did we start losing track of that?
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| The “ultimate” Android ringtone Posted: 22 Jan 2010 04:00 PM PST |
| Don’t forget to watch Conan tonight Posted: 22 Jan 2010 03:00 PM PST
This is it. Tonight’s edition of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien will be the last one starring Coco. Come March 1, Mr. Bland himself, Jay Leno, re-takes the show, placating NBC’s affiliates and his elderly fans. We’re all Team Conan here, till the bitter end, so you’d better not miss it tonight. Watch it live, DVR it, watch it on Hulu, grab it off some torrent site… just watch it. Conan shall rise again~!
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| The Apple Tablet rumors the other blogs are afraid to publish Posted: 22 Jan 2010 02:10 PM PST
But now and then our vast intelligence network brings in news of such inestimable importance that we must share it with our readers, no matter what empires it may topple. Apple’s event on the 27th is whipping the internet into a foaming frenzy, but I think you’ll agree that the rumors so far have been pretty tame. 3G? Front-facing camera? Aluminum casing? You people underestimate Apple’s dedication to bucking expectations. We’ve heard things that will curl your toes, and now, after much deliberation (and fortification of the shrine against the agents of Apple) we’ve decided to share some — not all — of these mind-blowing rumor-nuggets. For instance, did you know that the Apple Tablet will not be constructed from aluminum, but from ostrich ivory? Our sources, who are in a position close to the company (to be precise, in its air ducts), have confirmed this. And what’s more:
All of this is told to you, reader, in strictest confidence. Tell no one.
And of course we’ll be liveblogging the event. We’ll be sure let you know first thing about the Slap Chop. [Update: added unicorn]
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| Myst, Riven mad cheap on GoG this weekend Posted: 22 Jan 2010 01:30 PM PST
This is just a friendly heads up for all the gamers in the audience. Good Old Games, a video game download service (think Steam, but less intrusive) created by the people who developed The Witcher, has a sale this weekend on games developed by Cyan, Inc. Oh, shiny~! Most notably, that includes Myst and Riven. That means the games cost only $5.99 each. If you’re never heard of these, let alone played them, please hand in your gamer card. Devin will collect them on your way out. Thank you.
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| EA sticking with Tiger Woods for PGA Tour 11 game due out in June Posted: 22 Jan 2010 01:00 PM PST
After Tiger Woods' personal indiscretions became public, the championship golfer found himself suddenly devoid of most major sponsorship deals. One of the last big holdouts has been Electronic Arts, makers of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series of golf games. It's now been revealed that the company will definitely be standing by Woods, with the next version of the console game to be called "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11." Said EA Sports President Peter Moore:
Woods still retains a sponsor relationship with Nike, as well. EA tees off on Tiger Woods console game in June [Reuters]
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| More pics of the Asus e-reader Posted: 22 Jan 2010 12:30 PM PST
While this will probably look primitive as heck in a few days, it’s fun to see Asus giving it their all in the ebook market. After all, we all need a 9-inch e-reader with a touchscreen in the end.
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| Posted: 22 Jan 2010 12:00 PM PST
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is sorta like a worldwide RIAA, representing record labels, artists, and musicians to make sure their agenda is always out there. That, of course, makes it pure evil. It just published its Digital Music Report 2010, which tries to detail the situation vis-à-vis digital music, piracy, and so on. The big, scary headline: music piracy is right up there with climate change as an issue of monumental, worldwide importance. Sure, OK. Before we get into the IFPI’s claims, a little anecdote: people steal our stuff all the time! Do you know how many Web sites are set up that merely take our posts, and publish them verbatim on their own site? Copyright infringement, and theoretically lost revnue. Do we care? I certainly don’t. And here’s another one: there was, and maybe still is, a dead trees publication called The Printed Blog. This bright idea was to take certain really good blog posts, and put them together in a paper publication. Get it, The Printed Blog! Now, why on Earth you’d want to print blog posts is beyond me (most aren’t worth the plain text they’re written in, my stuff included, obviously), but so be it. So it turns out that one of my posts was used in this publication, completely without my permission, or the permission of the CG bigwigs. They just took it! Infringed it, if you will. I didn’t even get a copy of the damn magazine, and my stuff is in there. So, no pay and no magazine. Do I care? Not really, no, largely because The Printed Blog strikes me as a bit of a joke and I’d prefer to have no relationship with it altogether. The point is: your friendly neighborhood CrunchGear writers are victims of copyright infringement all the time, and you don’t hear us whinging about it every waking hour. Back to the IFPI. The report this year is a little more nuanced in its verbiage, admitting that big-time music pirates also happen to be big-time legitimate buyers of music. Go figure. And how many people are pirates out there? Around 15 percent of European Internet users admit to infringing copyright regularly. But piracy is still as important as climate change! Other highlights include the fact that the international music business is now one-third smaller than it was in 2004. It should be noted that, since 2004, sales of legal digital downloads have increased quite a bit. Digital downloads are generally cheaper than CDs were. Keep in mind that CDs were notoriously overpriced, too, so complaining about lower sales doesn’t make too much sense. Like, are you upset that the value of your home has gone down in the past year or so? Well, what you thought your house was worth was actually incredibly inflated. You know what I mean. The IFPI hopes that as so-called three-strikes policies go into effect, piracy will decline. (Three-strikes refers to plans, like those in France, that kick people off the Internet for committing copyright infringement three times. I look forward to being kicked off the Internet, by the way. It’s just not fun anymore.) You will recall that we had totally fixed the music industry’s problems a few months ago: ban music altogether. Maybe we should publish a report? via Ars Technica
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| Internet: Theres been an OTA Droid Update! Motorola: Uh, no there hasn’t. Posted: 22 Jan 2010 11:59 AM PST  Over the past day or so, reports have been pouring in from around the Internet that Motorola Droid users were suddenly seeing a surprise over-the-air update hit their handsets. "Better battery life!" they said, "And Facebook bugs have been fixed!" This wasn't an isolated reported, by any means. Dozens upon dozens of forumgoers proclaimed that they'd received it, and a few other blogs confirmed it. And yet..
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| T-Mobile myTouch with a 3.5mm jack caught on camera Posted: 22 Jan 2010 11:58 AM PST  Not too long ago, HTC announced -- much to our excitement -- that they would be putting 3.5mm jacks in all of their handsets. In non-geek speak, that means that you wouldn't need some annoying little one inch, easy-to-lose cable adapter just to be able to use your own headphones. One of the last phones to sneak out with a non-3.5mm jack was the HTC T-Mobile myTouch. It was actually a pretty decent handset -- but that useless jack really killed our buzz when we reviewed it. Fortunately, it looks like HTC and T-Mobile are going back to fix the error in their ways.
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| Do you want to place an iPhone into a Game Boy Advance? You can! Posted: 22 Jan 2010 11:30 AM PST
Video after the jump.
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| Churches (and others) will have to upgrade their mics right quick or the FCC will be very angry Posted: 22 Jan 2010 11:00 AM PST
The absurdity of this issue, I swear. Get this: churches (and other deals like outdoor events) have been using microphones that operate on the 700MHz spectrum since, like, forever. It turns out that that part of the spectrum, 700MHz, is to be set aside for over-the-air digital TV broadcasts. You see where this is going: churches all over the country are going to have to upgrade their microphones, sound systems, etc. lest they run afoul of the law come June, 2010. You’d think God would have warned them about this. It seems churches have known about the issue for some time, but have chosen to ignore it. A blasé attitude, if you will. “The FCC can’t be serious about this, can they?” Yes. Yes it is. Well, kinda. Since no records were kept on items using the 700MHz space, the FCC has no real reason of knowing who’s operating there. But don’t worry! Wireless microphone makers—companies like Shure and Sennheiser—have rebate programs to help get rid of your old, 700MHz equipment and into new, FCC-friendly equipment. It’s not just churches that are affected, but other areas like schools, plays, and sporting events. I tell ya, this has to be the single most boring story I’ve ever been exposed to. Let’s talk about piracy some more or something.
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| Why is the “home” icon a little house? Posted: 22 Jan 2010 10:30 AM PST
While a lot of this stuff is “Well, Duh,” there’s still more than enough interesting commentary in Lukas Mathis’ fascinating examination of realism in UIs.
The goal in UI design is to decide what needs to be stripped down and what needs to remain realistic. Great Friday reading.
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| Breath-based glucose sensor developed (and why it may never make it to market) Posted: 22 Jan 2010 10:00 AM PST
Okay, I'm back. Eggheads at the University of Florida have developed a tiny sensor that can detect blood sugar levels based solely on breath. A guy like me would simply breathe into a little tube and five seconds later – boom, blood sugar levels. It'd theoretically replace finger-poking blood tests, and all at a one-time price of around $40. I say "theoretically" because the powers-that-be at Big Pharma (TM) can't really make any money off of something like this compared to what they make selling glucose testing strips – little, disposable pieces of plastic that sell for around 50 cents apiece (if you don't have health insurance) and are rendered useless each time you test your blood sugar. Since I have health insurance, the price drops to around 25 cents apiece for me. My insurance, Blue Cross, only covers one brand of strips, a brand that’s incompatible with the built-in glucose monitor found in the insulin pump I use. Fun. I don't mean to be so negative. It's just that I've had this disease for almost 30 years and every year since the mid-1980's I've been told that a cure is only five years away or that a new life-changing device is about to come out. New devices come out, yes, but only ones that carry a subscription-type model for revenue generation have ever made it to market. Insulin pumps are grand. Absolutely. But a pumping system costs thousands of dollars for the device itself, plus the life-saving vials of insulin that can cost almost $100 each for the uninsured, plus disposable tubing and adhesives and other supplies that are necessary for the pumps to work. Insulin pumping has changed the way people live with diabetes for the better, for sure. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the old way – manual injections via relatively inexpensive syringes – has now been replaced by insanely expensive equipment and supplies. No wonder it's been embraced by the pharmaceutical companies. Glucose testing machines can be had for free, but you'll need to keep purchasing the aforementioned testing strips forever. A machine that tests glucose an unlimited number of times and carries a one-time cost of only $40 is in nobody's best interests – except diabetics, that is. Oh, and the same little $40 machine could also be used to test for breast cancer, too. Professor of chemical engineering, Fan Ren, along with a team of engineers at the University of Florida have been working on the technology. According to the school's press release:
If this device actually makes it to market – this device whose "manufacturing techniques are already widely available" and costs less than half of what I spend per month on diabetic supplies (even with health insurance) — I'll be the first in line to buy it. I'll camp out longer than the most ridiculous Black Friday sale campers you've ever seen. And I suspect that just about every other diabetic would do the exact same thing. My guess is that it'll get tied up in the FDA approval process for years and ultimately emerge as a completely different system where, for instance, the sensor has to be replaced constantly. That, or one of the "several companies" that are interested in the research will buy the technology and sit on it indefinitely while they keep selling pumps and testing strips. Imagine if someone developed a cell phone that was twice as good as the best cell phone available, had a one-time price of $50, and worked all over the world. Plus, it’d work on a network that’s twice as fast and reliable as any existing network and there’d be no monthly service charges. What would that do to the wireless industry and to what lengths would existing wireless companies go to make sure that such a device never made it to market? Engineers: New sensor could help treat, combat diabetes, other diseases [University of Florida News via medGadget]
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| Look, up in the sky. It’s 3 more Iranian satellites. Posted: 22 Jan 2010 09:30 AM PST
It’s your daily space (Space?) update. The subject today: Iran, a country we in the United States are programmed to hate (I’ve never met an Iranian, but I’m sure they’re friendly people), may well launch three new satellites in the near future. Be afraid, I guess. The satellites, named Toloo, Ya Mahdi, and Mesbah-2, were confirmed to be in development by the country’s communications minister, will be launched in February. The second one I mentioned, Ya Mahdi, is an experimental satellite. It’s going to be used to test cameras and other communications equipment. You may remember that Iran launched a satellite last year, and it’s caused people to freak out because, you know, can’t let other people have access to a technology that may or may not be used for less than noble means. Incidentally, we’re going to be launching a satellite our of own into space. It’s called J-BIGGS 1.
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Going to try something a bit different today, and talk about some retro technology. Here’s a rather simple gadget called a Bloc-Alarm. Intended for the cheapskate who doesn’t want to actually pay for an alarm service, or for someone that is staying in a hotel, the Bloc-Alarm is basically a wedge shaped door block that triggers if someone tries to open a door.
Over the last year or so we’ve seen quite a few throwbacks to the old school NES-style game in the form of Mega Man 9 & 10, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and most recently Dark Void Zero. Meanwhile, the “real” games these have been intended as mere adjuncts to have been almost universally panned. Seems a bit weird, doesn’t it?
I guess since I'm the resident diabetic at CrunchGear that I should write all the diabetes-related stories. Good old diabetic Doug. He's got the sweet blood, let's pass this one on to him. Hope he doesn't go into diabetic retardation while he's writing it. That's what it's called, right? Coma? What is it? He said to help him if he starts acting weird but HE'S ALWAYS ACTING WEIRD. Thanks for the tip, jerk.
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