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X-Tube: Hanwa’s USB dongle makes PCs DTS-compatible

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 01:01 AM PST

Vacuum tubes are usually used in tube or valve amplifiers (electronic amplifiers) to boost the power of a signal. The technology has been around for decades, and vacuum tubes seem to be pretty enough for Hanwa Japan to announce [JP] the X-Tube today, a USB dongle that looks like one of those tubes and allows you to upgrade your computer with DTS sound.

Also dubbed AS301DTS, the dongle glows in blue when in use (see above). You’ll need two more things to enjoy DTS sound on your computer: “DTS Headphone Deck” (a piece of software) and DTS-compatible headphones (AH-516), but Hanwa throws in both items when you buy the dongle. Option-wise, there’s music or movie mode, voice clarification, and bass enhancement.

The X-Tube can only be used with Windows machines (XP, Vista or 7). It went on sale in Japan today for $45 (including the headphones), but you can ask import/export specialists Geek Stuff 4 U if they can ship one to you if you live outside Japan.

Daily Crunch: Shock Stop Edition

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 12:00 AM PST

HP labs develops super sensitive accelerometer, shakes things up

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 09:45 PM PST

HP Labs just announced the development of a new accelerometer sensor that is 1,000 more sensitive then the current mass-produced technology.

HP Labs is also using the sensors as part of their CeNSE project, which is intended to track changes in and on the Earth, and how those changes impact the environment.

Shell Oil on the other hand, will be using the sensors to detect underground oil reserves. HP is also expecting to use the sensors on a smaller scale, including projects with the hope that "awareness could revolutionize human interaction with the Earth as profoundly as the Internet has revolutionized personal and business interactions today".

[via Slashgear]

Smart as hell: “Outlet Regulator” ejects plugs when they’re done charging things

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 08:16 PM PST


Now this is a power outlet mod I can get behind (not all are good). I’m sure you guys know that when you leave your phone or laptop plugged in to charge, it’ll continue to draw some power even when the battery has reached 100%. Not a lot, but if you’re concerned about power consumption or simply conscientious, then this invention is for you. The Outlet Regulator, called the “leech plug” by the vulgar, monitors the electric throughput and physically disconnects itself when the device being charged is full.

It’s really a very good idea; and like so many good ideas, it seems so obvious when you consider it. Why wouldn’t plugs implement this, perhaps in a less dramatic fashion, like a simple switch inside the adapter? No clue. But I guarantee you’ll be seeing these around in a little while.

The Outlet Regulator is a project by Conor Klein, a design student at RISD. Let’s hope he gets these things to production.

[via No Smarties, Technabob, and others]

Mattel’s clever Bigfoot Robot

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 07:07 PM PST

Who doesn’t like Bigfoot. Nobody, that’s who. I got a chance to look at Mattel’s singing, dancing, and rolling Bigfoot robot. He can even throw balls at you and sleeps when he gets tired. Very, very cute.

Fisher-Price(R) Imaginext(R) BIGFOOT The Monster: A Discovery of Legendary Proportions on Display in Mattel Showroom at New York Toy Fair

EAST AURORA, N.Y., Feb 09, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — It all began a few years ago, when BIGFOOT sightings started popping up just beyond the world headquarters of Fisher-Price, Inc. (a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. NASDAQ:MAT) in East Aurora, N.Y. Although the scientific community considers BIGFOOT to be a combination of folklore and myths, that didn’t stop toy designers from setting out to capture the legendary, elusive creature. Fisher-Price found BIGFOOT and brought him back to its world-renowned Play Laboratory where designers unfolded the complicated, misunderstood monster who, surprisingly, wooed them with his charm. After years of intense research (and a few laughs) with BIGFOOT, Fisher-Price is ready to share his engaging personality with the world by introducing Imaginext(R) BIGFOOT The Monster at New York Toy Fair, Feb. 14 – Feb. 17.

“BIGFOOT The Monster is completely on-trend for 2010. Fisher-Price has interpreted a classic play pattern for contemporary kids,” says Chris Byrne, content director for TimetoPlayMag.com, aka The Toy Guy(R). “Inspired by the legendary ‘BIGFOOT,’ Fisher-Price scores again with a toy that effectively combines the fun and engagement of R/C robotic play with technology that’s easy and engaging for preschoolers to use. BIGFOOT is feature-rich, offers long-lasting play value and reflects a preschooler’s sense of humor, all of which deliver on the value consumers are looking for this year. ”

BIGFOOT continues to roam freely and eyewitness reports persist, generating public scrutiny and misconceived perceptions of the obscure monster. With New York Toy Fair approaching, Fisher-Price is prepared to show the world the true persona behind the myth…but it doesn’t stop there.

Rumor has it that Fisher-Price will continue to work with the friendly monster throughout the year, with special character appearances and brunches at national zoo events including San Diego Zoo, Zoo Atlanta, Brookfield Zoo, Tampa’s Lowery Park Zoo, Toledo Zoo and San Francisco Zoo. To track Big Foot sightings until then, parents and children can log onto www.fisher-price.com/bigfoottoyfair for updates.

Unlike the legendary BIGFOOT, the Imaginext(R) BIGFOOT The Monster from Fisher-Price is a life-like remote controlled monster friend for kids three to eight, with lots of personality, fun facial expressions and interactive phrases like “Wanna Play?” and much more. Featuring over 80 actions and phrases, BIGFOOT comes to life with a kid-friendly foot shaped remote control that has easy-to-use, icon-driven buttons. With the simple touch of the remote, preschoolers can make BIGFOOT walk forward and backwards, elicit happy or angry emotions, fall asleep, throw a ball, exercise and even do a forward somersault and a backwards roll! BIGFOOT also features interactive touch points on his belly and mouth that will make him laugh or eat a leaf that evokes fun chomping and burping sound effects. Although the legendary BIGFOOT has mainly been spotted in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, the Imaginext(R) BIGFOOT The Monster will be available at retailers nationwide in June for approximately $99.99.

Mitsubishi now wants to upscale your HD to 4K

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 06:51 PM PST


As a guy who likes his image quality, I have to say I am shocked, shocked at this ridiculous trend. I think the manufacturers of TVs and Blu-ray players are preying on consumers’ ignorance with the whole upscaling thing. Sure, it’s good to have a little sharpening algorithm in there so edges don’t get too blurry when you blow it up, but honestly. Blowing up 1080p to 4K?

I guess technically it’s no worse than saying your’e going to upscale DVD resolution (480i) to 1080p. Hmm, in fact, it’s not even as bad as that. But with a 100″ 4K display like the one pictured, you’re going to see every little weirdo artifact that results from over-sharpening, motion blur reduction, and that sort of thing.

It’s all a moot point right now, though, since affordable 4K displays are still really far off. Most people don’t even know the difference between Blu-ray and regular DVDs.

[via Akihabara News]

Talkatoo: Tell your kids every little thing’s going to be alright

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 06:03 PM PST

I just got back from the New York Toy Fair and saw quite a few great items, including this clever little thing called the Talkatoo. It’s a little tag that can record your voice and then attach to your wee one’s backpack or bag. When your kid is upset at Day Care or on a five year journey in the Antarctic, they can simply press the button and hear your soothing voice.

The devices are $17.99 each and come in multiple styles. While it may not seem that cool to us experience gadget nerds, parents who have kiddies with attachment issues will find it a helpful little tool for getting Junior to stop screaming at the door.

Tweens can also use it to share notes with each other when they get too old for love notes from Mommy – as if that could ever happen.

Adesso’s new HTPC keyboard plays well with others

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 04:45 PM PST

Check out the latest from Adesso, it’s a combination of a regular keyboard and a laptop touch-pad, making it almost ideal for home theater or limited space applications. Now we’ve seen this before, the idea is nothing new, but this particular product has one little feature we haven’t seen before.

It’s not a huge deal, but it could be an important one in some applications: you can use multiple keyboards in the same room. Normally, if you tried to use more then one wireless keyboard at a time, they interfere with each other and cause serious issues. These keyboards use a wireless ID system that prevents that issue. The keyboard runs off of two AAA batteries, and has a sleep mode designed to conserve power when you’re not using. Retail is a quite acceptable $120, and it’s available now.

[Via Electronista]

The retro game revival continues with Sonic 4: leaked screens and video

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 04:00 PM PST


It wasn’t too long ago that I whined that these days, old-school de-makes of games are better than the new-school re-makes they’re meant to promote. It’s not really a problem, since these old-style games are fun as hell, but it’s kind of embarrassing for the industry. As far as I’m concerned, the more retro throwbacks the better. That’s why I was pumped to hear that they’re doing a Sonic the Hedgehog 4, totally in the old style.


There was a video a little while back, but it didn’t show much. This one is much more revealing. There’s more info over at 1up.

Unemployed Ohioan builds 4-room igloo complete with flat-screen TV equipped man cave

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 02:00 PM PST

What’s a guy supposed to do when he’s out of work and forced to shovel his parents’ driveway? Build a huge igloo of course. The whole 25×25 structure took over two months to build and required extra truck loads of snow from neighbors. But it was totally worth it. After all it got him featured on CrunchGear! [via Asylum]


Tosvet CS79: Monstrous yet strangely alluring

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 02:00 PM PST

You guys ready to look at some massive watches? Tsovet’s Ronda Quartz-powered CS79 is quite intriguing even if the 10 – actually a 0? – is a bit off-putting. This monster watch costs $425 and is cased in PVD-coated steel on a leather band.

They have a few other interesting models – most are, sadly, quartz – and this is the first I’ve seen of them. They all cost under $500, which is great for a fashion watch.


DVRs, more mature Internet will prevent TNA from re-igniting the Monday Night Wars against WWE

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 01:39 PM PST

The best numbers I could find suggest that 30 percent of homes in the U.S. have access to a DVR. That doesn’t seem like a lot, no, but it’s already had an undeniable impact on the way TV studios evaluate their shows. Lost, The Office, and The Ultimate Fighter all saw their final ratings boosted after taking into account delayed DVR viewings. That means that just because a show doesn’t have killer overnight ratings doesn’t mean plenty of people aren’t watching—they’re just watching a little while later.

This brings us to professional wrestling, or "sports entertainment" if you subscribe to WWE’s way of thinking. Rival promotion TNA Wrestling, which recently brought Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and Eric Bischoff on board, announced yesterday that it would be moving its weekly TV show, TNA Impact, from Thursday nights to Monday nights starting on March 8. It will go head to head against WWE Monday Night Raw, Impact on Spike TV and Monday Night Raw on USA. It’s a big deal in the wrestling world because it marks the first time WWE has had direct competition since it purchased WCW in March, 2001. You could argue that WWE has never really recovered since then, sorta producing a bland product that hasn’t been nearly as exciting as it was in the days of Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Rock. TNA, for a certain number of people, represents the best chance of seeing "good" wrestling on TV again (aside from smaller promotions like Dragon Gate USA or Ring of Honor, as made famous by the movie The Wrestler), whether within TNA itself, or by forcing WWE to up its game. After all, if WWE doesn’t improve, people will now have the option to see what TNA is up to.

The thing is, this isn’t going to be another Monday Night War. (The Monday Night Wars refers to the period of time when the then-WWF went head to head against WCW on Monday nights, Raw vs. Nitro.) What typified the Wars was that people would often actively, and constantly, change the channel, going from Raw to Nitro when Raw hit a dull moment, and going from Nitro to Raw when Nitro hit a dull moment. The DVR, clever thing that it is, makes "changing the channel" seem so quaint. It’s right up there with turning a crank to start your car.

Look at it this way: say you’re a casual professional wrestling fan and you have a DVR. You’ve heard of TNA and wouldn’t mind giving it a shot. But why should you give up your habit of watching Monday Night Raw live to try out this new, plucky little promotion in TNA? What you’d do, of course, is watch WWE live while DVRing TNA. Then, the next day after work or school, you come home and watch TNA on the DVR, fast-forwarding through the silly parts. (There will be plenty of silly parts.)

The DVR makes changing back and forth between the shows completely unnecessary.

"But why didn’t people then tape shows back in 1998 with a VCR? It’s not like the DVR invented TV recording."

For one, because many DVRs out there are capable of recording one channel while you’re viewing another one. There’s no voodoo involved in making that happen: it just works. So, watch one show while recording the other, then watch the other on you own time. Setting up a DVR is also much easier than it ever was to set up a VCD. Not having to juggle a library of blank videotapes is such a blessing.

It should also be noted that not every episode of TNA Impact will be live. That means you’d be able to look up the results of the show before it airs on TV.

That’s another knock against the idea of TNA re-creating the Monday Night Wars: the Internet has matured a whole heck of a lot since then. People will essentially be "live Tweeting" both shows throughout, so you’ll instantly be able to look up what’s happening as you check your laptop while getting a nice, healthy snack from the kitchen.

So good luck to TNA with moving to Monday nights, but I don’t know how fully it’s going to recapture the "magic" of the Monday Night Wars. (And isn’t that the point of moving to Monday nights?) We’re several years past the point where the only way to follow the action is by tuning in live.

Please note that I haven’t seen an episode of Raw since, like, 2002, so take this for what it’s worth: not much.


Wired’s iPad tablet app: lookin’ good

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 01:30 PM PST

Although the iPad was a disappointment to us as far as what we were expecting, I’m still excited to try one out because I know it will be one of the devices that really helps introduce and popularize the tablet computer. And one consequence of this is the kind of app Wired is making, an alternative to print and perhaps a superior one. There are issues that will have to be worked out, but I can definitely see myself reading a periodical or paper on this thing.

Whether the iPad uptake rate will justify the R&D and the enormous amount of designer hours that goes into every issue — well, that’s still up in the air. But the truth is that most magazines were going to have to make this shift at some point anyway, so they may as well do it right, which Wired appears to have done.

I have some qualms about the interface, and its obsession with corners and edges, though: capacitive screens have bad edges! It’s just a fact. And furthermore, the “hot spots” for putting your fingers are no longer the corners, as they are with mice and such. I wrote this up at length a while ago and feel pretty strongly about it; moving into a truly new interface is going to require that we throw away some of the UI elements we have been relying on for years. Long, thin scroll bars and corner- and edge-based navigation are an artifact of mouse-based UI and should be expunged. Isn’t half the fun of making a new interface throwing away the old one with no regrets?

You know there’s a better way, and it’s up to the designers to find it. They talk about natural gestures, but half their UI is still based around the idea of an indirectly controlled cursor. Get creative!

The screen, while it’s hard to tell from this video, may also be an issue. At 160ppi and 1024×768, the resolution isn’t really a problem, since our monitors were about at that level five or six years ago. You’re definitely going to get a lot of eye fatigue if you choose to read longer items on this thing, though. Also, while in the e-book application you can change the typeface and font size, it doesn’t appear that’s the case with the Wired app. Homogenizing look and feel, and guaranteeing readability, are things that Apple will probably be setting their hand to personally.

And the prize quote from the video:

At the bottom we have what we call the scrubber. And it’s got a little thumb that you can browse through and you can see every page in the issue…and the advertising.

It really lets you know what it’s all about. I mean, I don’t blame the man, he has to pay the bills, but you do get an idea of just how many guns are being pointed at him from off camera. I can imagine if they let the camera roll a little longer he might have added: “Now please – let my wife and children go!” Well. It’s probably not quite that desperate, but they do spend as much time showing off the ads as they do the content.

After all, let’s not fool ourselves, media has always been a vessel for advertising, and here we have the newest vessel of all. Personally, I look forward to the next generation of advertising, but until that happens, I’ll just have to ignore advertisements using the same natural gestures I used in the real Wired.

Update: I neglected to mention that the demo video is in fact running in Adobe AIR, which does not run natively in the iPad environment. So strictly speaking it’s a tablet app, not an iPad one, though from the timing it’s clear they wanted the two associated. Besides, the iPad is the only credible outlet for this kind of app at the moment, though that may not be true in six months. Whether it can be successfully ported over is a matter for the engineers, but we would be remiss not to mention the ongoing spat between Adobe and Apple, which could have an effect on the creation of apps like this. Adobe is really pushing their presence in the video, obviously, though they will have less to do with the software you might actually get for your iPad (they have a conversion tool but I suspect it will be insufficient).


It’s just four days until International Pipe Smoking Day! Are you ready?

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 01:00 PM PST


Hey, college kids and older men who need an affectation (I’ve never seen a 20-40 year old pipe smoker, interestingly), February 20 is International Pipe Smoking Day. The mission is to “foster links across the globe in honor of friendship, benevolence, and tranquility; and to celebrate the fraternity of pipe-smokers across all borders” but I think this is really about getting more people into the pipe smoking club.

I have some of my dad’s pipes here at the house and they’re definitely nice to have lying around but I don’t think I’ve been able to stomach a pipe since freshman year in college when I lounged around smoking Balkan Sobranie in my weird, lonely student apartment. As for fraternity – dude, you’re smoking a pipe. Unless your fraternity involves steampunk and sly witticisms involving Satre, you’re pretty much on your own.

I’m actually curious: how many of you smoke a pipe?


T-Mobile gives an HTC HD2 reminder, now with more fun!

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 12:45 PM PST

Last week, T-Mobile teased us all with a little jab on Twitter about the HTC HD2 that it will be shipping soon. It was exciting and, to be frank, it made me a little antsy. As promised, T-Mobile announced new features for the HD2 at Mobile World Congress today and I’ve gotta say, it isn’t all that thrilling.

Read the rest of this entry at MobileCrunch>>


What’s up with Australia’s planned Internet filter?

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 12:30 PM PST

Man, what’s up with Australia? I think we’ve touched on the country’s plan to block all sorts of unwanted content from reaching the country’s computers, but now Google and Yahoo have officially come out against it. Surely Google knows a thing or two about battling state-sponsored Internet censorship.

First, a little background information. There appears to be an effort going down in Australia to, I don’t know, rid the country of vice and sin. Games, movies, magazines, and whatnot are under attack by certain groups there looking to make life safe and pure for children, despite the fact that life itself is not safe or pure to begin with. Still, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with wanting to prevent small children from being exposed to hardcore pornography and graphic violence. (Note: Do whatever you want, kids, just don’t bother me in the process.) But rather than teaching kids what’s right and wrong, or parents actually doing a little parenting every now and then, groups there have started to pressure the country’s politicians to start banning all Refused Classification media from being accessed via the Internet. Anything that’s Refused Classification down there is already banned—you’ll recall that Left 4 Dead 2 was banned—so going above and beyond the call of duty by extending this ban to Internet-accessed material…

That could be the worst paragraph I’ve ever written here, but I hope the main point got across: people in Australia want all Classification Refused media banned from being accessed via the Internet.

This, I think you’ll agree, is crazy. The government’s plan is to filter whole genres of material from ever reaching the country in the first place. It’s sorta like, you know how you can’t search for Tieneman Square from inside China, you wouldn’t be able to search for, I don’t know, “ladies dressed provocatively” from within Australia.

The issue becomes that these filters are rubbish. Here’s a crude example: you’re reaching breast cancer, but the filter only sees “breast,” so it prevents you from your research.

And if the government is truly interested in blocking “bad” material, it does realize that this material is pretty much impossible to trace, right? Lord knows what’s being traded in obscure IRC rooms all over the world—you can’t patrol that.

This filter sounds like a giant waste of time, and it’s so weird to hear a Western country dabble with outright censorship.


MugStir is a spoon that hangs on a mug

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 12:00 PM PST

mugstir

Crowdsourcing. It's so hot right now. Case in point, this crowdsourced spoon. It's called the MugStir and you can pre-order three for $7.50. Developed by the Quirky community, it's the 28th product from the crowdsourcing site.

The main idea is "to replace those nasty communal spoons, or to avoid wasting a new plastic spoon every time you need to stir a beverage." If you've ever worked for a medium- to large-sized company, you've probably had a run-in with the communal spoon drawer.

The spoon itself features a rubber coated handle to prevent burns and is contorted to hang on your favorite coffee mug. Pre-order three for $7.50 or pay $12.99 later.

MugStir [Quirky]


This Windows Media Center Boxee plug-in is a must-have

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 11:30 AM PST

Both Boxee and Windows Media Center are amazing and among the most popular media playback programs. However, they don’t really work together as they are both more platforms than anything else. You have to close out of one program to start the other and that’s not an easy task if you’re controlling your HTPC with just a remote from your couch. Enter Boxee Windows 7 Media Center Integration 1.0 plug-in.

This plug-in is so simple. It inserts a Boxee icon into Windows Media Center that when pressed, runs a script that closes WMC and starts Boxee full screen. When you close Boxee, WMC starts back up. Genius! It’s the next best thing instead of a true Boxee Windows Media Center app. [BoxeeWMC via Lifehacker]


Hardware anti-virus patent awarded to Russian lab

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 11:00 AM PST

The Russian Kaspersky Lab has itself a shiny, new U.S. patent for a “hardware-based anti-virus system.” The basic idea is to run an anti-virus mechanism at a level lower than what a rootkit can penetrate.

The full patent description is as follows (hey, it’s one less click!):

An anti-virus (AV) system based on a hardware-implemented AV module for curing infected computer systems and a method for updating AV databases for effective curing of the computer system. The hardware-based AV system is located between a PC and a disk device. The hardware-based AV system can be implemented as a separate device or it can be integrated into a disk controller. An update method of the AV databases uses a two-phase approach. First, the updates are transferred to from a trusted utility to an update sector of the AV system. Then, the updates are verified within the AV system and the AV databases are updated. The AV system has its own CPU and memory and can be used in combination with AV application.

Notice anything missing in there, like, say, network access? A hardware anti-virus seems like a fine idea, but without the ability to update it it’s fairly worthless. That implies that it’s not a completely hardware-based system. Well, it is, but if I were to sell you an anti-virus widget today, what use would it be one year from now? You know what I mean.

At some point, at least as I read the patent description, there has to be a software component merely to keep the little guy current.

This reminds me—I think AVG is set to scan in just a few minutes. Can’t wait till my entire system freaks out. Bring on the hardware-based anti-virus.

via http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2010/02/kaspersky_patents_hardware_ant.php


MSI rolls-out four mundane but still competent C Series notebooks

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 10:30 AM PST


Just last week MSI announced Core i5 and i3 additions to its Classic Series. Today, the company announced four more affordable additions to that line with one packing a Core i5, two with Core i3s and one with just a lowly Dual-Core Pentium.

With the excpetion of the Dual-Core model, they all come equipped with 4GB of ram, Intel’s GMA HD GPU, and 15.6-inch WXGA screens. The high-end model, however, rocks the Core i5 430M CPU along with a 500GB SATA hard drive. The two Core i3s and the Dual-Core have 320GB drives instead. Interestingly, the $699 Core i3 model has a Blu-ray combo drive while the $729 Core i5 only packs a DVD super drive.

All four models are available now with the CR620-033US ($699) and CR620-031US ($729) selling at Newegg and the CR620-030US ($679) and CR600-234US ($579) shipping directly from MSI.


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