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Japan gets slew of new USB 3.0 external HDDs

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 04:41 AM PST

Computer equipment maker Buffalo is pretty bullish about USB 3.0. The company today announced a total of five new USB 3.0 HDDs for the Japanese market, namely two “compact models” [JP] (81×130×16mm) and three bigger (45×175×156mm) devices [JP]. The HD-PEU3-BK (pictured above), the compact type, will be available in a version that holds 500 GB (price: $200) and another one with 640GB ($250).

Buffalo also presented three more conventional HDDs with 1TB ($230), 1.5TB ($300) and 2GB ($420), respectively (pictured below). Just like the compact models, these drives from the HD-HXU3 series are compatible with Windows XP/7/Vista and Mac OSX 10.4. All of these devices are backwards compatible to USB 2.0.

Buffalo says they will start selling all five new HDDs in Japan at the beginning of next month. The company does sell hardware outside Japan, too, so you can expect the devies to go on sale outside this country some day as well.

Custom Skullcandy headphones look, sound great

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 08:30 PM PST

So Skullcandy headphones sound good, that’s pretty much a given. And while the styling is cool and everything, they seem a bit.. generic. Don’t worry though, you can get your awesome cans and be individual too. One crafty DIY person is selling customized Skullcandy SK-Pro headphones – but you better hurry, she/he is only making three pairs.

So take a plain old pair of SK-Pro’s, add some custom artwork, hand sculpted stitches, and military insignia, and you’ll have a pair of cans like only two other people in the whole world. And not only do you get a sweet pair of headphones, but the seller is also including an 8″ Lily Black customized toy to hold them. Buying these custom headphones will set you back $279.99, but what price individuality?


Don’t worry, they’ll sell iPads at Best Buy

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 08:00 PM PST


Allergic to Apple Stores, like me? Not to worry. Tim Cook, COO at Apple, has said (though there is no direct quote at the moment) that Apple will indeed be selling the iPad at places like Best Buy and other partners. This will likely follow a period of Apple Store-only availability, as the sales process is more fully fleshed out and the world becomes more familiar with the device. This isn’t too much of a surprise; after all, they sell other Apple products at Best Buy. The iPad may be Apple’s baby now, but after a little time on the market it’ll be well-understood enough to have a big yellow tag under it.

If you’re curious about the other stuff the man said in this little Q&A, there’s a sort of rough paraphrase over at SAI that’s worth checking out. Nothing should be taken as gospel until a real transcription comes out, but there’s nothing life-changing in there. Just good news for those of us that get creeped out by Apple Stores.

Not that Best Buy is a hell of a lot better, but you know what I mean, right? All those Apple people, smiling at you? Goosebumps.

Kaufladen $500 fruit stands for kids

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 07:30 PM PST


These clever little German kids toys from Kaufladen cost about $400 and are pretty silly but I think the best part is when DaddyTypes writes:

Kids in the US get play kitchens. Kids in Germany get play sales kiosks. Which country has a childhood obesity problem and which one has already pulled out of the recession? That’s what I thought.

Amen, brother.

LG reveals new XNOTE ultralight, accidentally leaks its HDTV plans

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 06:30 PM PST


So we’ve got some official news from LG and some, shall we say, unofficial news. First, they’ve put out a nice-looking little CULV-based 11.6-inch ultralight laptop. You can get it with a Core2 Duo as well, but I’m thinking they offer CULV for a reason: battery life. At any rate, now you’ve got one more lappy to choose from. Specs below.

Also, someone accidentally hit the “share” button on a Google Docs spreadsheet, where a few interesting little tidbits were revealed. Actually, pretty predictable tidbits, but if you’re an HDTV fanatic, they’ll be nice to know. First, the TVs we saw at CES are coming out in the March-April time frame, which was kind of what was expected. You’re also going to get 3D versions of the top-shelf TVs along with 3D-compatible Blu-ray stuff in May. Just long enough that you can’t return the one you bought in March. Future damn!

One of the big things with this round of HDTVs was that they’re going to support 720p Skype. And of course, LG is going to be providing their own webcam accessory soon. That was leaked too. Then there are the 47-inch, 480Hz LEX8 and LEX9 models, which are whispered to be about a quarter of an inch thick. Not that it makes that much difference from those TVs that were a third of an inch think last year, but hey, why not?

I believe CNET found the leak but the link from Electronista seems to be dead… I think the black LG helicopters got to them. But I shall post without fear. It’s all for the greater good, or something.

Oh – those laptop specs! Right, here you are: 2GB of RAM, a 320GB or 500GB hard drive for the CULV and Core2 versions respectively, and the usual complement of USB ports, Wi-Fi capability and so on. They’re Korea-only for now, and cost the equivalent of 1000 United States Dollars, sir. Not too exciting, but choice is good.

[via Electronista]

Ecolok’s flat-pack furniture will be handy in our dark, overcrowded future

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 06:00 PM PST


In the future, when overpopulation has forced us all to live in 6×6-foot pods, flat pack furniture will be indispensable. You’ll wake up, collapse your bed, and pop open a chair and coffee table for your morning bowl of nutrient gel. The hidden Illuminati of the world are already planning for this and hoarding them, which explains why you can’t order anything from Ecolok, a company which produces tasteful and practical flat-pack stuff.

These tables are made of quality wood and are “relatively” light weight, not that it matters much with a piece of furniture that size. And I guess you can order stuff, it’s just that they want you to tell them what you want! What, I can’t pick from nine muted colors of the same particle board bookcase like at Ikea? So inconvenient! God!

Wait, maybe they can make that Tetrad storage unit I’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford…

[via Treehugger]

Need a stethoscope? There’s an app for that

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 05:30 PM PST

Here’s a great concept, take an electronic stethoscope, combine it with an iPod/iPhone, and what do you get? A diagnosis tool that’s portable, and (relatively) cheap. The expensive part is the iPhone and the stethoscope (it’s $279.99), the app is cheap at $69.99.

It is a cool app though, you can display the heartbeat as a spectrograph or waveform in real time, save a recorded sound, and then email the sound clip as needed. Definitely a niche product, but very neat to see the convergence of technology. I’m definitely going to mention this to my doctor next time I see him. You can check out the stethoscope here, and the read more about the app here.

[Via MedGadget]

Contest: Vuzix is ready to give it all away

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 05:00 PM PST


By “all” I mean one Vuzix Wrap310 and by “give” I mean “give away in a contest.” What is a Wrap 310? It’s a 16:9 widescreen set of high resolution glasses that you can connect right to your iPhone or iPod touch, allowing you to look totally like Geordi LaForge on the plane. How do you win?

Just comment. That’s it. We’ll pick a winner on Friday.

Recycling may save, but trash can power your home

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 04:30 PM PST

If you live in Spain that is. University of Zaragoza researchers have been looking into using various forms of solid waste to generate electricity for the nation, up to as much as 7%. What is it lately with all this decaying matter being useful?

The process involves all sorts of big, scientific sounding words like incineration, degasification, and anaerobic digestion. But the general idea is that it involves burning solid waste before it gets thrown in the landfill. This not only reduces the size and inherent risks of landfills, it can generate anywhere between 8.13 and 20.95 TWh (terawatt hours). You can find a more detailed and better explained depiction at the link below.

This research push is in response to the European Union’s 2020 20-20-20 plan. For those ignorant of the 2020 20-20-20 plan (myself included), it is as follows:

Substitute 20% of the total energy consumed in Spain for energy from renewable resources, reduce CO2 emissions by 20% in comparison with 1990 figures, increase biofuels used in transport by 10%, and achieve energy savings of 20%. All by the year 2020.

Sounds like a perfectly acceptable goal to reach for. I just want to say it one more time. 2020 20-20-20.

[EurekAlert]

Sigma’s SD15 DSLR gets spec’d

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 03:34 PM PST


Sigma seems to be releasing cameras the way Google releases software: put out something that’s blatantly incomplete and then revise it until it’s competitive (or more than competitive) with the rest of the market. The DP1 is approaching its third revision, the DP2 its second, and the SD15 DSLR is just about to make its debut — and I’ll give you three guesses which is the most attractive to yours truly. If can’t get it, I’ll be very disappointed.

The three cameras share the same sensor and image processor, but the DP1 has a much faster and wider lens — it’d be my choice in a heartbeat. But the SD15 might be interesting once they’ve brought it up to speed.

It’s got 14 megapixels on the famous Foveon stacked silicon sensor, a 3-inch LCD, and an extremely durable shutter — 100,000 exposures anybody? I think my Canon is rated at 10,000. Its ISO ranges from 100-1600, and can be extended to 50 or 3200, but I’m guessing that has an adverse effect on image quality. It’s got a real pentaprism viewfinder, too, which makes what you see much closer to what you get.

Unfortunately, not all its specs are impressive. 3FPS in RAW is nothing to crow about, though a big buffer means you can keep that up for 21 shots. And it’s only got 5-point autofocus, which is weak as hell. I mean, personally I only use the center AF point, but for any kind of active photography where you can’t be bothered to compose your shots carefully, a robust AF system is highly useful.

Who knows, maybe its image quality, given some good glass, might make up for its lack of features. We’ll soon see, but in the meantime I still have a soft spot for the DP1x.

[SD15 microsite, via DPReview]

Video: Butterfinger makes fun of iPhone Apps, actually makes us laugh

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 02:33 PM PST

Its been nearly 2 years since Apple launched the App Store. In that time, would-be comedians around the Internet have successfully extracted just two jokes from it. “Fart apps and tip calculators!” Hah! “There’s an app for that!” Hah hah. Hah. Hah. Little did we know, there was still one untapped source of hilarity involving the app store left: physical humor.

Read the rest and see the video at MobileCrunch >>

Is the Nexus One’s display inferior to the iPhone’s?

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 02:01 PM PST


Well – not entirely. After all, it’s bright, responsive, and has a much higher resolution. But there is a lot more to making a good screen, and under a detailed analysis it’s far from a rout when you pit HTC’s bleeding-edge OLED screen against the old-school LCD of the iPhone.

Here is the basic list of complaints, which seem to be backed up by pretty credible evidence.

Read the rest of this post on MobileCrunch…

TSA orders some full body scanners, to be delivered some time

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 01:30 PM PST


L3 Communications has been awarded a $165 million contract from the Transportation Security Administration for the indefinite delivery of an indefinite number of their ProVision millimeter wave security scanners. So, the TSA is sure that they’re going to get some of these, but they don’t know how many, or when. More than 200 ProVision scanners are currently deployed around the world, despite myriad privacy concerns. L3 had more than fifteen billion in sales in 2009, so this agreement doesn’t seem like that big a deal, financially.

Of course, no story about full body scanners would be complete without the requisite discussion of how they work to protect our privacy:

L-3's ProVision offers multiple levels of privacy protection that can be customized to support customer-specific operational procedures. Security analysts see a 3-D black and white silhouette that makes it virtually impossible to determine the identity of the scanned individual. Also, images are viewed in remote locations separate from the checkpoint, so that analysts cannot see the passenger being scanned. Privacy is further ensured with options that allow for blurring of facial features.

Via BusinessWire

HTC Desire headed for AT&T, Sprint picks up Legend (as Hero2)?

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 01:23 PM PST

HTC seemed pretty confident that the HTC Desire and HTC Legend weren’t US-bound when we talked to them at Mobile World Congress. But hey, things change — right? Boy Genius Report has just received word that the two handsets are bound for this side of the ocean, along with details on which carriers might be nabbing them.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch

Planespotters arrested in India

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 01:00 PM PST


Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a room overlooking an airport runway so you can note the planes arriving and taking off in your special notebook.

Two Britons, Stephen Hampton and Steven Ayres, were released on bail after being caught with binoculars and radios. Their crime? Planespotting.

They’ve been released on bail but can’t leave the country until this dreadful mess is cleared up.

In a very telling quote, Hampton’s sainted mother, Eileen, says that her boy, 46, photographs planes all over the world.

Do any of you guys planespot? Why?
via BBC

Lensbaby turns 6 and you get the presents

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 12:30 PM PST


Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear Lensbaby!
Happy birthday to you!

Cake, ice cream, and a prize raffle will take place as soon as you all calm down. There are seven ways you can get a ticket to the Lensbaby prize raffle:

Good luck!

If Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch isn’t the greatest thing of all time, it’s really really close

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 12:00 PM PST


Apparently this has been in development for quite some time, as a mod for a modern port of Doom called Skulltag. It allows you to play as any of the 48 robot masters from the first six Mega Man games. Unfortunately, while you’ll fire the weapons associated with the boss (metal blades, cut boomerangs, etc), they won’t have their respective effects on other guys — they’re all just the basic arm cannon with some modifications. That’s disappointing, but if this blows up (it’s slated for a free 2010 release) maybe we can get it expanded on.

[via TIGSource]

Printed coupons are from New Jersey, online coupons are from New York

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 11:34 AM PST


RetailMeNot.com, “a top consumer destination for coupons, discounts and promotional codes for merchandise, groceries, travel and services”, shared some interesting statistics about consumer coupon use for the first month of 2010. New Jersey loves printing off coupons for use in brick-and-mortar stores, while New York prefers online coupon codes. Almost 15 million people visited RetailMeNot.com in January and saved over eight million dollars with online and printed coupons.

Free shipping from Kohl’s was the most popular online coupon in January, while a 20% off coupon for The Gap was the most printed coupon. The whole report is available online.

Top 10 most searched stores in online coupons in January:

1. Victoria’s Secret
2. Amazon
3. Domino's
4. Kohl's
5. JCPenney
6. Macy's
7. Papa John's
8. Bath & Body Works
9. Best Buy
10. Barnes & Noble

Top 10 most searched brands in printable coupons in January:

1. Fantastic Sams
2. Dave and Buster's
3. Kentucky Fried Chicken
4. IHOP
5. Mellow Mushroom
6. Stanley Steemer
7. Moe’s Southwest Grill
8. Sport Clips
9. Cost Cutters
10. Dick's Sporting Goods

Top 10 most searched categories in printable coupons in January:

1. Food
2. Apparel
3. Restaurant
4. Clothing
5. Oil + Change
6. Car + Wash
7. Hair + Salon
8. Sit-down + Restaurant
9. Haircut
10. Dining

Top 10 states using online coupons in January:

1. New York
2. Massachusetts
3. New Jersey
4. Connecticut
5. Virginia
6. Maryland
7. Rhode Island
8. Illinois
9. New Hampshire
10. Missouri

Top 10 states using printable coupons in January:

1. New Jersey
2. Minnesota
3. New York
4. Illinois
5. Pennsylvania
6. Connecticut
7. Georgia
8. Delaware
9. Arizona
10. Florida

Via BusinessWire

Bone Marrow Aspiration and Biopsy? There’s an app for that

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 10:50 AM PST

Procedures: Hospital Collection, where have you been all my life? I remember back at Webelos camp in grade school when I needed to do an Arterial Line Placement to get my “Arterial Line Placement” badge and if I had had this charming, $19.99 app I would have been able to blow in that arterial line without anyone getting hurt (sorry, Frankie!)

This app is clearly for professional doctors, not diletantes like myself, but 80 minutes of video plus plenty of images and diagrams make this quite a steal.

Apparently there are quite a few of these sorts of apps out there but this one is apparently the cheapest and uses the best clip art.

Here’s a video for your edification, but if you don’t think you need this app, you probably don’t.

via MedGadget

Surprise! AT&T might just have the best 3G network in the US

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 10:42 AM PST

We may give AT&T a bit of grief for the fact that their network essentially curled up into a ball and cried for two years after the launch of the first iPhone, but they’ve been dumping a ton of change into improving things over the last 8 months — and it looks like its helped.

A lot.

Read the rest of this at MobileCrunch >>
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