CrunchGear |  |
- Buffalo announces “women-only” USB sticks
- .canon: Canon wants to establish its own top-level domain
- Android 2.1 to hit the Motorola Droid very, very soon
- Latest WD My Passport external HDDs are almost completely featureless
- CrunchDeals: Rosewill gigabit NIC and switch for $30
- John Grisham, king of paperbacks, agrees to get his e-book on
- SXSWi 2010: Q&A with Foursquare Co-Founder Naveen Selvadurai
- No copy-paste for Windows Phone 7 Series
- First look: InFocus SP8602 home theater projector
- Canon 5D mk II update is live
- EA removes SecuROM DRM from Battlefield: Bad Company 2
- SXSWi 2010: Stickybits. Real world bookmarking.
- 40% of BlackBerry users: “Yeah, I’d trade in for an iPhone”
- Essential Gear for the Outdoor Photographer
- Gimped “Avatar” Blu-ray coming soon
- You probably ought to download Donkey Kong Country 2: Serious Monkey Business
- A Historical Recreation of a Copy
- Is Wikileaks trying to destroy America? (No.)
- A tale of God of War
- Moshi Moshi: Native Union makes Skype/iPhone headsets fun again
| Buffalo announces “women-only” USB sticks Posted: 17 Mar 2010 04:41 AM PDT
Are you a woman? Are you sick of seeing all those manly USB sticks around you every day? Then these four new models announced [JP] by Buffalo in Japan today might be right for you. Aimed specifically at “mature women”, each model is available with 4GB or 8GB of storage. Color-wise, buyers can choose between Rich Brown, Shiny Coral, Royal White and the inevitable Glossy Pink.
Buffalo plans to start selling the pretty sticks in Japan at the beginning of April. The 4GB version will cost $28, while the 8GB sticks will go for $40. Buffalo is active outside Japan, too, but didn’t say anything about international sales. If you’re interested, I'd suggest contacting import/export specialists Japan Trend Shop, Geek Stuff 4 U or Rinkya.
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| .canon: Canon wants to establish its own top-level domain Posted: 17 Mar 2010 02:41 AM PDT
Megalomania or genius marketing move? Canon seriously takes aim at becoming the world’s first company with its own generic top-level domain (gTLD), namely “.canon”. The new domain would join the likes of .com, .edu, .gov, .org, etc. (Wikipedia has the full list). The Japanese electronics giant announced [press release in English] its plan to acquire the rights for the domain from ICANN today. Canon says they “will make full use of the new domain name to increase the convenience and effectiveness of its online communications” and expects the new domain to be in place sometime after 2011. ICANN used to strictly control and restrict gTLDs until the organization decided to liberalize its policy in 2008. Basically anyone can apply for a gTLD – as long as they’re ready to spend a few hundred thousand dollars for registration and other procedures. Apparently not too big a problem for Canon, which generated revenues worth $35 billion in fiscal 2009.
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| Android 2.1 to hit the Motorola Droid very, very soon Posted: 16 Mar 2010 07:43 PM PDT
When it rains, its pours. We just found out yesterday that Android 2.1 hitting the Moto Droid sometime in March was a pretty sure thing, and now we’ve got an exact date. And the best news of all: It’s really, really soon. Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>
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| Latest WD My Passport external HDDs are almost completely featureless Posted: 16 Mar 2010 07:30 PM PDT
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| CrunchDeals: Rosewill gigabit NIC and switch for $30 Posted: 16 Mar 2010 07:25 PM PDT
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| John Grisham, king of paperbacks, agrees to get his e-book on Posted: 16 Mar 2010 06:00 PM PDT
Grisham has spoken out against e-books before, or rather spoken skeptically of them; he is concerned that it will be difficult for smaller authors to get published, but I simply don’t agree with him there. Without the bulk of distribution and publishing houses looking to take a piece, book production can start off in a new direction and maybe even adopt an iTunes model.
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| SXSWi 2010: Q&A with Foursquare Co-Founder Naveen Selvadurai Posted: 16 Mar 2010 05:54 PM PDT
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| No copy-paste for Windows Phone 7 Series Posted: 16 Mar 2010 05:22 PM PDT |
| First look: InFocus SP8602 home theater projector Posted: 16 Mar 2010 04:45 PM PDT
Pros
Cons
Stay tuned for the full review. Any suggestions for test material?
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| Posted: 16 Mar 2010 04:15 PM PDT
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| EA removes SecuROM DRM from Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Posted: 16 Mar 2010 04:00 PM PDT
Since we’re your go-to source for complaining about DRM (now on CNN!), I figure we should mention the latest development regarding EA’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Dice, the game’s developer’s, have removed SecuROM DRM from both the retail version of the game as well as the digitally distributed one (i.e. Steam). Why a Steam game even needs SecuROM in the first place (it’s merely a disc check, so…) is a question I cannot answer. It’s probably like a contractual thing or something. This comes by way of the game’s latest patch, which went live for the retail version—the Steam version is still on the way. Other things of note? Not really, just the average bug-fixes and UI fine tuning. In other news, yes, Inter beat Chelsea! That made my day, for real.
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| SXSWi 2010: Stickybits. Real world bookmarking. Posted: 16 Mar 2010 03:53 PM PDT
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| 40% of BlackBerry users: “Yeah, I’d trade in for an iPhone” Posted: 16 Mar 2010 03:40 PM PDT
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| Essential Gear for the Outdoor Photographer Posted: 16 Mar 2010 03:00 PM PDT
Now that winter is drawing to a close in most of the country (it’s still snowing here in the Sierra Nevadas), it’s time to think about getting out and taking more pictures. As a photography enthusiast, I know there’s a few things that I consider critical whenever I’m out shooting, things are I don’t leave home without.
Strap: The best camera strap I’ve ever found is the Black Rapid R-Strap. I learned the hard way not to depend on the factory strap, and getting my camera off from around my neck was one of the best things I ever did. Black Rapid has also improved the attachment system between the strap and the camera so you don’t need to depend on a small piece of plastic to keep your camera secure anymore. Bag: Being outside, you need to travel light. The best way to carry your gear (like that tripod, or extra lenses) is in a camera bag. Since you’re going to be outside shooting, I’d say travel light and go with something like the Domke J-5XC. I had a chance to try one out recently, and I found that it’s the ideal size for shooting in the outdoors. It’s also got the best strap I’ve ever seen on a camera bag. The J-5XC is one of Domke’s smaller bags, but you want to travel light when you’re shooting outdoors. I recommend a shoulder bag because in my experience, a backpack is more of a pain in the butt then it’s worth. You have to try and find somewhere to put everything down, remove the backpack, get at your gear, put the pack back on, etc. With a shoulder bag it’s easy access, and I’ve actually rested my camera on my gear bag more then once in order to stabilize for a shot.
Of course, the biggest thing is to get out there. You can’t take pictures of that sunset if you are at home sitting on the couch, and you’ll never get that great sunrise shot if you are still in bed. It doesn’t matter what camera you use, what matters is that you have a camera with you. So what gear do you carry? What do you consider to be essential for when you leave the house?
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| Gimped “Avatar” Blu-ray coming soon Posted: 16 Mar 2010 02:15 PM PDT
Everyone’s favorite Dances With Wolves remake, Avatar, is coming soon to Blu-ray and DVD. Just don’t expect many extras. Or 3-D. As reported by the great TheDigitalBits.com, 20th Century Fox will shortly announce a 4/22 release date for Avatar on Blu-ray and DVD. But be aware that if you want some bonus features, or 3D, you might have to double or even triple dip. According to the article: Personally, I’m hoping for a Kevin Costner audio commentary. He’s not too busy these days, and I think he’d probably do it for a hot sandwich at this point. Image from here, but I don’t know what it is.
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| You probably ought to download Donkey Kong Country 2: Serious Monkey Business Posted: 16 Mar 2010 02:00 PM PDT An outstanding e-mail showed up in my inbox a few moments ago promoting the release of Donkey Kong Country 2: Serious Monkey Business. It’s a remix album from OC ReMix, the people who are famous for, you know, remixing video game soundtracks. (I used one of their Street Fighter remixes in a video review about a year ago.) But, yeah, Serious Monkey Business! The album is totally free to download, and it totally brings me back to 1995/1996, perhaps the last year I was legitimately happy. That there video is a preview of what you can expect. I don’t know, I figured at least a few of you would get a kick out of it.
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| A Historical Recreation of a Copy Posted: 16 Mar 2010 01:59 PM PDT
But what if Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong hadn’t worn Omegas at all? What if they had worn copies? And Omega knew that the men weren’t checking their timepieces, but rather an off-brand in space all those years ago. Does the big historical release make sense? What if Porsche released a recreation of the famous convertible that James Dean perished in, but in reality, he had been killed driving a kit car? What if Paul Newman didn’t really wear a Rolex, but the firm released a tribute to a knockoff on the famous actor’s wrist? Guitar manufacturer Gibson is navigating similar waters with their decision to issue a recreation of a copy.
The firm has released a number of celebrity signature models over the last couple of years. Some of the instruments have proven to be very successful, while others (like the Buckethead model) have been a bit more questionable. One of the undeniably successful ventures was collaboration with former Guns n’ Roses axe slinger Slash that produced several interesting models ranging from the couple-a-hundred-buck Epiphone to an aged-replica instrument that was an exact duplicate of the guitarist’s own instrument (all the way down to the scuffs and cigarette burns) that ran about ten grand. Late last week, Gibson made a big splash by announcing the newest model, The Slash Appetite Les Paul. Branded as the “the axe that launched a thousand riffs,” the instrument is described as an exact recreation of the axe Slash wielded on 1988’s landmark Appetite for Destruction record, all the way down to the capacitors and the pots. Weird thing is, Slash didn’t play a Gibson Les Paul on that record. The comment gallery was all over the Gibson website when this news was released. As many others have pointed out, Slash in fact played a copy of a Les Paul on Appetite for Destruction. In Slash’s 2007 best-selling memoir (co-authored by Anthony Bozza), he writes, “It was made by the late Jim Foot, who owned Music Works in Redondo Beach. He made about fifty of those Les Paul replicas entirely by hand with no detail overlooked” (page 172). In other sources, a luthier named Chris Derrig is credited with creating the instrument. Regardless, it wasn’t Gibson. All of this raises interesting questions about the psychology of collectors and the purchasing influence of a iconic association. True Slash fans know that his LP wasn’t a Gibson, so they’re not going to be fooled. They’ll judge the new Appetite model on it’s own merits. Or, they know it’s kind of a weird duck in the lineage perspective, but it’s got their beloved tone and they don’t care about anything else. And what of the more general fans? It’s hard to accuse Gibson of trying to dupe consumers because surely if you’re going to plop down the $4,728 MSRP on the Appetite model, aren’t you going to do a little homework first? And if mom and dad are rich enough to spend 5k simply because Junior likes Slash’s top hat, then there’s not much hope for them. And then when you start thinking about the fact that the Les Paul is, by very definition, a celebrity signature guitar and that now you’ve got signature versions of copied signature version and so forth, then your head might just explode. It all gets very meta.
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| Is Wikileaks trying to destroy America? (No.) Posted: 16 Mar 2010 01:30 PM PDT
Just hilarious. Apparently the U.S. intelligence community thought Wikileaks so odious that it labeled it a “potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the US Army.” Good ol’ Wikileaks, bringing down the U.S. government. You can read the report [PDF!], and I do believe this qualifies as “irony,” on Wikileaks. You really only need to read the first paragraph to understand what’s going on. So, here you go!
Never let it be said that CrunchGear is above copy-pasting a paragraph so you don’t have to download an icky PDF. Now, I don’t know how familiar y’all are with Wikileaks, but it’s probably one of the more important Web sites on the Internet—much more so than fun, silly things like FourSquare or Chatroulette. It’s a centralizied location where people can leak information that’s of value to the public. The U.S. military has been embarrassed by Wikileaks leaks in the past, including the publication of details about the battle of Fallujah and the possible violation of the Chemical Warfare Convention Treaty, also in Iraq. Lots of bad stuff about Iraq, it seems. The intelligence community tried—all of this went down about two years ago—to target Wikileaks but creating a calculated attack on the site’s credibility. Clearly it didn’t work~!
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| Posted: 16 Mar 2010 01:00 PM PDT
I’ve always considered myself to be a hardcore gamer — up on the big new releases, aware of what’s going on in the industry — but for some reason, I completely missed out on God of War and God of War II. I have no idea why. I hadn’t really slacked off in my gaming at all. (Maybe I was still collecting all those dumb shards in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. That took forever.) Yet I didn’t buy them when they were first released, and I didn’t really know anything about them. Anyway, sometime in 2007, the Wii was my current system of choice, and I was making my way through Paper Mario. It was alright: It controlled well, it looked nice, and it was cute. But I’d continually be asking myself, “Am I having fun?” I really was becoming jaded and disinterested in games at that point, I’d realized. All hyperbole aside, I was truly blown away. I’d never seen anything like God of War — the music, the graphics, the scale, and the sheer fun of it all. The brilliance of Kratos’ weaponry, combos, and pace gaining new powers. I thought about Paper Mario — and not to throw Nintendo under the bus, because I truly love that company and its games — but this was way ahead of anything the competition was doing, especially something like Paper Mario. And I wasn’t impressed by just the game; the bonus making-of documentary was fascinating and, most importantly, brutally honest. Kudos to Sony for including it. Overall, the experience completely reinvigorated my love of gaming and led me to rethink the possibilities of the medium. I bought God of War II the day after finishing God of War. It was also quite excellent, if slightly weaker and sloppy in the story department, but was still a great entertainment. So yes, I’m excited for God of War III. But if you, like I once was, are unaware of the God of War franchise or what all the hubbub is about, trust me. Pick up the God of War Collection (an HD remastered package of the first two games) for PS3. It’s a great way to get up to speed, and you will be amazed; if you care about games or gaming history — or just want to experince Greek mythology on steroids — it’s essential.
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| Moshi Moshi: Native Union makes Skype/iPhone headsets fun again Posted: 16 Mar 2010 12:46 PM PDT
Moshi Moshi! I’m not a huge headset fan but these are some of the coolest accessories I’ve seen in a while. All of these devices, the 04i, the 03, and the 02, connect to PCs or iPhones either via Bluetooth or 3.5mm cable. The 04i acts as a stereo Bluetooth speaker as well as a speaker phone. This model doesn’t support iPhone/Touch charging, but future models will. It costs $199 and is clad in soft touch plastic and has a front panel made of aluminium. You actually pick it up to talk and make calls. Sure it looks a little odd, but the audio is great and it’s quite fun. Probably best for the kitchen. The 03 is a Bluetooth kit that allows you to pair with a phone or connect to a PC or laptop and make a call just like you would with a regular phone. When calls come in you press a button and the audio is routed through the mic/speaker combo. It costs $129. Finally, there’s the 02. This is direct cable connection to your iPhone or MacBook and just makes it easier to talk without keeping the phone close to your face. It costs $59. The devices will be available in May. I got to play with all of them and the 04i is really the coolest. You can pair with your iPhone to play music and when a call comes in pick up the speaker to talk. Look for our full review shortly.
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We’re not going to report every instance of a famous writer agreeing to distribute via 
The Q&A format surrounding mobile, location based social networking continues here at 
Tripod: If you are concerned about taking tack sharp pictures, don’t trust the vibration reduction on your lens. Personally, I use a travel sized tripod (like the 
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Incidental Gear: There’s a few things your should carry just for general purposes. Personally, I wear a 
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