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- Pre-order your iPad right now
- The Apple Store is down! The Apple Store is down! The Apple Store is down!
- Wheelie: Toshiba’s new robot is cute, autonomous and maybe even useful (video)
- Daily Crunch: Light Capture Edition
- Instant film isn’t dead – it’s just weird and expensive
- The Playstation Move: Everything old is new again, if you ask Sony
- Sony shows off the Alpha concept camera menus and screenshots
- Intel’s new Gulftown i7-980X CPU reviews well
- Guitar/headphone interface for iPhone
- New addition to Creative Lab’s Aurvana series
- Pioneer DJM-2000. Turntables are out, touchscreen is in
- Review: AVerMedia AVerTV HD DVR video capture card
- Conan O’Brien goes on the road to make people laugh, Leno asks ‘What’s laughter?’
- HP begins rebranding campaign with “Let’s Do Amazing” ads
- 57% of workers use their smartphones in the bathroom. Also, 57% of workers are nasty.
- PSA: Use your computer’s SPDIF connection if it has one
- FIFA explains why it’s so anti-technology: Wants to keep things equal, maintain human element
- You know what’s fun? Napoleon: Total War
- Stargate Universe season 1.5 trailer
- Leaked: HTC Incredible caught in its Verizon colors, specs confirmed
| Posted: 12 Mar 2010 05:30 AM PST
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| The Apple Store is down! The Apple Store is down! The Apple Store is down! Posted: 12 Mar 2010 04:20 AM PST |
| Wheelie: Toshiba’s new robot is cute, autonomous and maybe even useful (video) Posted: 12 Mar 2010 02:20 AM PST
Toshiba is a huge company, but it’s not necessarily known as a maker of robots. Their “Wheelie” for indoor use is an autonomous, 2-wheeled robot, which is still in prototype stage and somehow reminiscent of a Segway in its basic design. Technical details are scare right now, but the main purpose of the robot is to one day help families out with daily chores, for example by serving food. For that you need to place plates and glasses on top of the little guy’s head and he will do the rest by himself. And the way Wheelie can balance out differences in height is pretty impressive (skip to 1.50 in the video below). Here’s a demo clip: Via Plastic Pals
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| Daily Crunch: Light Capture Edition Posted: 12 Mar 2010 12:00 AM PST
Disney turns its Monorail into huge Tron light cycles
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| Instant film isn’t dead – it’s just weird and expensive Posted: 11 Mar 2010 07:00 PM PST
They keep saying they’re coming back, but I’ll believe it when I see it. In the mean time, your options for instant film are depressingly limited, and it’ll cost you a bundle — but it’s not like it disappeared completely. The main rival for Polaroid was Fujifilm, which also makes digital cameras and lots of other films and media. Among their many products is Instax film, which is still manufactured and comes in cartridges of 10 exposures. It ends up costing ~75¢ per shot, which is technically infinity percent more than a digital, so understandably not too many people go for it. Add in the fact that the Instax 200 camera is the size of a bear, and you could forgive the general public for thinking instant film is more or less dead. What reminded me of all this was, first, this hands-on with a new, smaller (weirder) Instax format camera, and also the relatively recent marriage of Lomo cameras with the reduced-size Instax Mini film.
The LC-A+ I wrote up is a bit expensive, however, at around $300 for the camera and Instax back. I’ll have a review soon of the Diana+ and its instant back, which is much more affordable, but still very cool. Depending on how that goes, I’ll be able to tell you with a little more conviction, but it seems to me that if instant is really what you want, you’ve got a couple ways of going about it. Just don’t count on Polaroid just yet.
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| The Playstation Move: Everything old is new again, if you ask Sony Posted: 11 Mar 2010 06:26 PM PST
I mean, it’s used in the exact same way as a Wiimote. It lends itself to the same control schemes as the Wiimote. It’s the same size and shape as the Wiimote. Its method of determining motion and position is similar to the Wiimote’s. Tell me what is possible with the Move that is not possible with the Wiimote? Gizmodo notes that multiplayer is a little gimped. Yeah, a bit, but no more than the Wii, I think. I’d say that the “sweet spot” that exists for the Move is more limiting to multiplayer than anything else. I’m not sure of the Eye’s field of view, but can four people really fit in it comfortably while flailing around? The benefit of the Wii method is that the “eye” is in the controller, meaning as long as you’re pointing at the TV, you’re good. I was pumped for the Move until I figured out (a couple months ago) that it wasn’t going to actually offer anything new to developers. Maybe there will be a few cool hardcore games that wouldn’t fit graphically or tonewise on the Wii, but they’re not opening up any new horizons. Let’s hope Natal doesn’t disappoint. I understand Microsoft is going to be leaning on it as a whole new control method for its whole lineup, so we can probably expect some pretty good stuff. And of course there’s Razer and Sixense’s sweet-looking magnet thing. Until then I’ll be sticking with my SNES.
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| Sony shows off the Alpha concept camera menus and screenshots Posted: 11 Mar 2010 06:00 PM PST
It appears that Sony is taking menuing way beyond the basic face detection and background templates. Instead, how about being able to adjust the depth of field from the LCD? How about using a touch screen to adjust all this stuff, and using it to be able to make adjustments to the white balance, or color hues? Sound interesting? Of course, you’ll have the typical picture modes and such, but it’s looking like the menuing system will definitely be where it’s at. And keep in mind, this an EVIL class camera, so you can expect quite a bit more of it then you would from your basic point and shoot. [via Geeky Gadgets]
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| Intel’s new Gulftown i7-980X CPU reviews well Posted: 11 Mar 2010 05:30 PM PST
The reviews are looking good too. There’s just one little problem. There’s no software out there that can really take advantage of the new processor threading yet. See, the i7-980X supports up to 6 cores, which means it’s a multi-threading monster, but if the software doesn’t support it, you end up spending a grand on future proofing. Not a terrible idea, I mean it’s not like it’s worthless, but don’t expect the your brand new smoking CPU to be all it can be until the software can take advantage of it. Don’t take my word for it, I haven’t actually seen one of these bad boys yet, but all the reviews out there are pretty much saying the same thing.
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| Guitar/headphone interface for iPhone Posted: 11 Mar 2010 05:00 PM PST
The slew of music recording / creation apps for the iPhone all share the same weakness. They rely on the internal microphone, and a recording quality microphone it is not. The Guitarbud from PRS Guitars gives you a direct input into your iDevice without taking away headphone capability.
It’s a simple, yet effective little cord. All that happens is the signal from your guitar (or bass, if you’re into that sort of thing) replaces the microphone input. Since it’s all analog, the Guitarbud works with pretty much any guitar-related app available. $30 will get you 6 feet of cable that if you have any soldering know-how, could jury-rig up yourself. You’ll need either an iPhone with OS 3.0 or later, or a 2nd-gen iPod Touch running OS 3.0.
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| New addition to Creative Lab’s Aurvana series Posted: 11 Mar 2010 04:30 PM PST
I don’t completely understand this fascination with in-ear headphones. Are regular headphones just so bulky and inconvenient that its worth the hassle and lower audio quality? Especially considering that in order to start getting decent sound, you need to drop at least $100. However, for those of who enjoy these marvels of miniaturization, Creative Labs has a new addition to their Aurvana line on the way. The very aptly named In-Ear2.
There’s not a whole lot to suggest how these are different from their predecessors. One of the biggest draws are the hypoallergenic eartips. They utilize super-fancy AuraSeal™ noise-isolation technology to eliminate 95% of background noise. Probably the most important factor of in-ears, as in plays into both getting decent bass response and keeping your volume at safe listening levels. The rest of the tech specs are below. These things are currently available at $149 a pop.
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| Pioneer DJM-2000. Turntables are out, touchscreen is in Posted: 11 Mar 2010 04:00 PM PST DJ gear is unique in audio in that more than any other equipment, it has to be flashy and able to take a pounding. Usually in the form of spilt beer. My main concern with Pioneer’s new DJM-2000 is how the touchscreen will react to the rough-and-tumble world of house music and ecstasy. But it still looks gorgeous. And you can hook in up to 4 CDJ turntables. 4! Unless you spontaneously grew extra limbs, I’m not sure why you would need that kind of power. Specifications after the jump.
[via Gizmodo]
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| Review: AVerMedia AVerTV HD DVR video capture card Posted: 11 Mar 2010 03:30 PM PST
Short Version: The AVerMedia MTVHDDVRR is a PCI Express video capture card with HDMI, component, S-Video, and composite inputs. The card retails for around $100 (you can find it for close to $90 online) and is capable of capturing up to 1080i video.
Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Review: The AVerMedia AVerTV HD DVR video capture card (model number MTVHDDVRR) is for people who want to digitize footage of some type. Be it old VHS movies or camcorder tapes, video game console gameplay, or grabbing shows off of a DVR, the card handles most recording tasks pretty well. Setup is easy, provided you've cracked open a desktop and installed something before. The card face has two slots; one's an HDMI port and the other is used for the included 10-in-1 AV cable that's got component, S-video, and composite connectors. You can plug a bunch of different sources in at the same time and then switch between them using AVer MediaCenter.
The included AVer MediaCenter looks and feels like very early DVR software. It's got TV, Video, Audio, and Photo functions but you'll just use the TV function to record stuff. The video player, audio player, and photo viewer are just fluff. Recording works well over anything but HDMI, which was a total crapshoot depending upon which device was hooked up. My Comcast DVR box caused the software to crash every time without fail (see photo below), my Xbox 360 would sometimes only record the sound but no picture, and a Gateway notebook with HDMI output worked fine every time. For reference, I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, the latest 64-bit Beta drivers for the card, and latest AVer Media Center software. I used the latest stable, non-Beta version of the card's drivers for a while, too, and experienced similar results.
Anything hooked up via component, composite, or S-video recorded just fine without any problems. So it's likely an issue with HDMI's digital handshake and could also have something to do with the whole copy protection thing (HDCP). After a while, I just stopped trying to hook things up via HDMI. Here's a video of HDMI video capture that actually worked—a Gateway notebook playing a 720p video recorded at 720p by the card. Download the full-size original MPEG-2 file… Your format options for capturing HD video are MPEG-2 and… well, that's it. You've also got H.264 and "iPod" settings but they max out at 720×480. The maximum HD resolution is 1080i, so plan accordingly. Conclusion: I can't broadly recommend this product due to how poorly the included software handles HDMI connections, but if you're patient enough to wait for AVerMedia to get all the kinks worked out and you're content to only use the component, composite, and S-video connections, then you'll find everything to work relatively well aside from the HDMI input. On the whole, though, there are more stable options out there right now. AVerTV HD DVR [AVerMedia-USA.com]
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Conan O’Brien goes on the road to make people laugh, Leno asks ‘What’s laughter?’ Posted: 11 Mar 2010 03:00 PM PST
A little update on Conan O’Brien, seeing as though we spent a couple of days there talking about his every move. The man is taking his show on the road, bringing the funny to a city near you in the coming weeks! It’s the called “The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour,” and I’m sure it’ll be wonderful. Conan made the announcement on Twitter a few hours ago, but there’s really not a whole lot of info. Presumably it’ll be the things you know and love from the show, but in a Broadway-like setting. The show begins touring in April, kicking off in Eugene, Oregon, which could be the strangest place to kick off a tour I’ve ever seen. Good for Coco. They’re in New York on June 1 and June 2. Do I go or not go?
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| HP begins rebranding campaign with “Let’s Do Amazing” ads Posted: 11 Mar 2010 02:31 PM PST
It’s not much of a time investment: a few 30-second spots with Flight of the Conchords‘ Rhys Darby bumbling around some professionals who appreciate what HP does. Won’t you join me for a look? It reminds one not of the consumer-oriented (and also HP-centric) Laptop Hunters ads from Microsoft, but of more generalized stuff like ads from GE and HTC. Healthymagination, another linguistically questionable series, strives to show how GE is everywhere, working with everyone. HTC modestly states they are “Quietly brilliant,” which suggests that you just don’t know how awesome HTC is because they haven’t told you. “Let’s Do Amazing” suggests that marketing couldn’t think of anything specific that only HP does.
The tagline thing is, I think, a misguided trend, since the taglines never last more than a single ad campaign and the most important part, the product and the company that makes it, are often deliberately sidelined so the “concept” can show through. Remember the Seinfeld/Gates ads? All anyone remembers is Gates wiggling his bum. Apple’s Mac/PC ads, while conceptual, at least focus on features, however misrepresented. The take-away is easy. What is the take-away from these HP ads? “All these people use HP for stuff I never see or use.” Does HP want to place themselves in the meta-technology sector, like IBM? Then why advertise with a popular actor and people like Dr. Dre? HP used to make crappy PCs and tons of printers. Now they make decent PCs, tablets and touchscreens, and are doing seriously good things with AMD in the mid-range/ultraportable sector — but we don’t really see that, or anything really, in these ads. They grab your attention but fail to advance their case in any way with the viewer. Still, it’s nice to see HP pushing back; we can probably expect a few more like these, and maybe even catch a glimpse of something somebody might be able to buy. Update: Eh, maybe I’m crazy about the name. I thought everyone called them “Hewlett-Packard” until like 2000. Maybe not.
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| 57% of workers use their smartphones in the bathroom. Also, 57% of workers are nasty. Posted: 11 Mar 2010 02:24 PM PST
So — Are you mysophobic? No? Well, you might be after reading this. Because it’s naaasty. CareerBuilders did a survey of 5,200 mobile workers (that is, people who primarily work on the road), and found that their cell phone habits are generally dangerous, a bit rude, and pretty friggin’ gross.
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| PSA: Use your computer’s SPDIF connection if it has one Posted: 11 Mar 2010 02:00 PM PST
I’ll just come out and say it. I’m dumb. Clearly. I’ve been listening to music from my computer for ages. Longer than some of you have surfing the Internet, but I’ve never used a computer’s SPDIF connection before. It’s been on my last few primary computers, too. Instead, I’ve just been using a simple L/R Y-cable to pipe the audio into an Onkyo receiver and out to a wonderful set of Polk Audio RTi150’s. I was always satisfied with the sound. I mean, it was nothing to write a post about. But then I added a 12 foot mini optical cable to a recent Monoprice order on a whim because it was only $3.43 and my whole world changed. Forever. Okay, maybe that’s a bit much. My whole world didn’t really change, but this cable forced me to go back through some of my favorite albums and give them another go. It’s astonishing how much difference the cable made. See, clearly I’m dumb. What’s even worse is that I’m an A/V junkie. I have three complete home theater setups in my house and even one in my garage. John Biggs has his watches and I have my speakers. All those systems use the very best digital or analog connections and yet I’ve been listening to my FLAC collection all this time with a weak link. No matter. Hopefully you’ll learn from my mistake and jump over to Monoprice to place your order right now. Trust me, you’ll want to listen to The Beatles mono FLAC release all over again once you upgrade your connection. That is, of course, if you computer has a SPDIF connection. Most do these days and it usually built-into the headphone jack. Sometimes it’s labeled and sometimes it isn’t. You might want to consult Google.
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| FIFA explains why it’s so anti-technology: Wants to keep things equal, maintain human element Posted: 11 Mar 2010 01:30 PM PST
Sepp Blatter (left), the FIFA president, has explained why there won’t be goal-line technology at this year’s World Cup, saying he wants the sport to maintain a “human element” and that all levels of soccer, from 6-year-old kids to open-goal-missing Gonzalo HiguaÃn of Real Madrid, need to be played with the same rules. Whatever you say, Sepp. I hope for your sake a Spain or Italy or Brazil don’t get knocked out of the tournament because of a controversial goal; you won’t hear the end of it. So mighty Sepp, who’s apparently one of the most powerful men on Earth according to someone who appeared on World Football Daily the other day (again, a fine podcast, well worth the $5/month I pay), had this to say:
I love how we’re praising the idea of debating outright wrongheaded decision because it makes the sport exciting. What’s so wrong with wanting to see the right decisions being made, even if it’s at the “expense” of post-match pub debates? But whatever, I’ve already written quite a bit about the subject.
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| You know what’s fun? Napoleon: Total War Posted: 11 Mar 2010 01:00 PM PST
An idea of how much I enjoyed playing The Creative Assembly’s, by way of Sega, Napoleon: Total War pretty much all weekend long: I just ordered all four parts of Max Gallo’s biography of Napoleon from Amazon France. I don’t even speak French! (Well, a very little bit, but certainly not enough to read a four-volume biography written by someone who’s a member of L’Academie française.) That’s a pretty big endorsement: the game re-kindled my interest in Napoleon so much that I bought books that I can’t even read. Wild. It’s such a computer game. The game is the sequel to last year’s Empire: Total War, which was one of the best PC games released last year, but rather than take an on entire era, from every country’s perspective, Napoleon focuses on the many awesome campaigns of the greatest man to ever walk the planet. There’s a reason why Bender Bending Rodriguez styles himself after Le Petit Corporal. I’m terrible at the game. Like, my idea of military strategy can best be described as Russian: throw bodies at my enemies until I’ve exhausted their supplies. Thankfully, Napoleonic France had the biggest population of all the European countries (yes, even slightly bigger than Russia’s), so it’s pretty easy to recruit infantry to make up for my strategic failures. Outside of the battle scenes, which look terrific on my recently built PC, I’m over here managing my country’s resources. We’re nearing bankruptcy! The workers in Milan have gone on strike! Our cannons in Turin have been attacked by a bunch of Juventus fans! If nothing else, I’d make a very good bureaucrat. It’s so fun to steer the ship of state, balancing income with expenditures, as my troops sweep across the Continent. Get out of my way, Austria! It’ll be a cold day in Hell before I bow before some corrupt Viennese prince! The game is fun, in other words.
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| Stargate Universe season 1.5 trailer Posted: 11 Mar 2010 12:30 PM PST I’m still in shock that the beings above are apparently going to let Smallville surpass SG-1’s record. Oh well. But here’s the trailer for the second half of Stargate Universe’s first season. Here’s hoping that the second half is a bit more like the Stargate of old. Too bad I’ll end up watching it even it’s more of the same crap.
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| Leaked: HTC Incredible caught in its Verizon colors, specs confirmed Posted: 11 Mar 2010 12:17 PM PST
Verizon’s not going to be too happy about this one. From everyone we’ve spoken to, they really wanted to keep details surrounding the Android-powered HTC Incredible underwraps for a while longer. That’s understandable, given that the Incredible blows their current flagship Android device, the Motorola Droid, to smithereens on just about every count. Alas, all it takes is one device to slip into the wrong hands — and fortunately for us, it has! A bunch of new shots of the HTC Incredible (with brand new, Verizon-brand-friendly colors) have just leaked out, and a gaggle of spec details came with it. Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>
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Intel cut loose some benchmarking samples of their new, top of the line CPU, the i7-980X Extreme Edition. This is not a CPU intended for the causal use, but rather aim directly at the gaming market. MSRP for the CPU all by itself is a jaw-dropping $999, and rumors are already circulating that the OEMs are already looking at coming out with systems that utilize the new processors.
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