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Gluvi, the remote control condom

Posted: 24 Mar 2010 05:51 AM PDT

Are you disgusted by humanity? Do you find human contact repulsive? Are other people, in a very Sartrean sense, hell? Then you need the Gluvi.

While the vast majority of humanity writhes in its own excrement, the Gluvi will allow you, the chosen one, to knock the hotel remote off the bed without fear. The Gluvi is, in fact, a remote control condom. To use it you don your own pair of gloves, slide it on, and then press the buttons with a pencil. Then you get on the computer “to check email” and end up surfing to that weird site you like, the one with the midgets, and you furtively pleasure yourself while crying, trying all the while to imagine your grandma is watching you, just like they said you should in that self-help book you read on the plane, but it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because grandma turns away and you’re forced to take the dark supernova of pleasure and twist it into pain. You’re a very successful person, you tell yourself, you’re happy in life. Your furniture isn’t Ikea. It’s mostly West Elm. You have a home to go back to after you make this sales call in Kansas City but these swine won’t let up. They give you dirty everything. Everything. Dirty door knobs, dirty bedsheets. People can come into your cold room and steal you and your things. People break in. There’s SARS, here, there are loathsome, diseased sub-humans who purport to take your luggage up to your room and proceed to spread their horrible seed on the canvas of your overnight luggage.

And, as you fight the urge to scream, to burn this whole place down, you can grab the remote – fearlessly, mind you, thanks to Gluvi – and turn on MSNBC and the urge falters and flickers out, like a broken fluorescent. And then you’ll sleep. Goodnight swine. Goodnight voices. Goodnight swine.

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AS-iP70: Kenwood’s iPhone/iPod-compatibe 7-inch “multimedia system”

Posted: 24 Mar 2010 04:00 AM PDT

Kenwood Japan has announced [JP] the AS-iP70 today, a swiss army knife of sorts for various media. The device serves as a dock for your iPhone or iPod but can also be used as an AM/FM radio, music player, alarm clock, and a digital picture frame – thanks to its 7-inch LCD screen.

Kenwood says the 800g-device supports the iPod touch/classic/nano and the iPhone 3G and 3GS. It features speakers (1.5W×2ch at 8Ω), a TFT display with 800×480 resolution and 15:9 (not 16:9) aspect ratio, a USB 2.0 port and an SD/SDHC card slot. It’s compatible with JPEG/MP3/WMA/WAV formats (meaning it won’t display videos).

The AS-iP70 will go on sale in Japan at the end of next month (price: $275). Kenwood hasn’t said anything about international sales plans yet.

Via AV Watch [JP]

Nintendo 3DS: New details leak in Japan

Posted: 24 Mar 2010 02:22 AM PDT

Nintendo’s announcement of its new portable 3D gamimg device 3DS was very brief, prompting us to speculate about possible features and implications for the way people will play games in the future. But today the Nikkei, Japan’s Wall Street Journal, is offering a bit more insight (and the Nikkei is usually a very reliable source).

As a reminder, what we know so far is that the new hardware won’t require any glasses for users to see the 3D images, will be backwards compatible to DS and DSi games, make its debut between April 2010 and March 2011, and make its debut at the E3 gaming conference in Los Angeles in June.

Here are all new details the Nikkei was able to dig up:

- Nintendo says the 3DS will be the first device of its kind.

- It will be sold, probably in Japan first, in the latter half of this year.

- Nintendo considers giving the 3DS a 3D joystick, force feedback and an accelerometer.

- The company already secured patents for several 3DS-related technologies last year.

- Compared to its 2D-based predecessors, the new device will feature improved wireless communications speed and battery life.

- The screen will be not be larger than four inches (the DSi XL’s screen is 4.2 inches).

Another interesting thing to note is that Nintendo shares traded above 30,000 yen ($330) for the first time in over 11 months Wednesday (30,850 yen, which is 2,880 yen above Tuesday’s close). Investors have big expectations for 3D, it seems.

Via The Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]

Daily Crunch: 3D Club Edition

Posted: 24 Mar 2010 12:00 AM PDT

The HP EliteBook 8740w: DreamScreen and Core i7 and USB 3.0, oh my

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 09:01 PM PDT

The HP EliteBooks have always been, well, elite and the new 17-inch 8740w cements that claim even more. Graphic designers, CAD users, video dudes, HP made this one for professionals like you.

An array of Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs are available with the 1.73GHz 820QM as the top-tier option while either a 1GB  Nvidia Quadro and ATI FirePro handles just about any graphics so-called professionals can throw at it. If that’s not enough power, buyers can opt for up to 16GB of RAM over the 2 or 4GB standard along with various 7200 RPM hard drives. (What, no SSD option, HP?)

The real treat, however, is the 1920 x 1080 HP DreamColor LED-backlit screen. Of course it comes at a price, however, and isn’t even standard on the decked-out $3,899 pre-built model. But that’s too be expected as DreamWorks helped design the screen back in 2008.

HP is staying ahead of the curve with the 8740w and included two USB 3.0 ports, along with standard issue eSATA, VGA, RJ45, Firewire, optional 2MP webcam. It also curiously has only a DisplayPort jack and no HDMI. There’s also a docking station available for those locked down to a desk occasionally and mobile broadband powered by Gobi for those who aren’t.

These models aren’t cheap but you probably gathered that already. Prices start out at $1,999 for a basic, but still capable, Core i5 model with pre-built solutions fetching as much as $3,899. The price can climb even higher once the right option boxes are selected.

You may want to keep that credit card in your wallet until we see some reviews comparing the HP 8740w verses Dell’s professional monster, the M6500. They seem close spec wise although for a pretty penny the Dell offers the Core i7 920XM Extreme CPU option. The Dell also has three hard drive bays vs the 8740w two with one shared with the optical drive. The HP is slightly cheaper and a tad smaller, but when you’re talking about buying a 17-inch powerhouse notebook that costs more than most used cars, what’s a couple of extra dollars and pounds for a better platform?

Watch the world’s tallest robot Tsutenkaku in action (weird video)

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 08:19 PM PDT

We’ve covered Tsutenkaku, a Japanese robot that looks like a tower to promote tourism in the city of Osaka, just last week. Standing 170cm tall, his makers claim Tsutenkaku [JP] is the tallest robot in the world. And now he finally showed himself in the public, during a street festival that took place over the weekend in Osaka’s shopping district of Nipponbashi.

Verdict: Tsutenkaku is a very weird robot. I just wonder how the handful of companies from Osaka that made it think about Hajime, another tall robot from Japan that stands even 210cm tall.

Just look at the way he “talks” and moves in the (Japanese) video below:

Via Nico Nico Douga [JP/registration required]

Turn up the mic, I can’t see

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 08:00 PM PDT


No, I’m not confused. This light is. Is it a microphone or a lamp? Well, quite clearly, it’s a lamp. But it does look like an SM58, kind of. I can see why you might have been confused. Or why you might have thought I was. But yeah, it’s a light. Of course I’m sure!

Available, like everything else worth having, at Supermarket.

[via 7gadgets]

Need a secondary display for that laptop? Got you covered.

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 07:30 PM PDT


When I’m working from home, I have a dual-monitor setup for my PC. Very useful on busy days or for keeping an eye on RSS feeds while watching a movie. On the road (or when my internet craps out, like this morning) I take my MacBook Pro, and while multiple desktops are handy, I sometimes wish I had a second screen for that thing, too. Yeah, it’d be pretty weird to set up a 13-inch LED-backlit secondary screen at a coffee shop — almost as weird as this thing — but anything to get the job done, right? Right.

Made by MEDL Technologies, it’s called simply “The Panel” and it’s exactly what it says it is: a secondary screen that uses USB as its display link. There are smaller solutions, of course, but this is the biggest standalone monitor I’ve seen that just runs off USB. It’s also battery-powered, and will run for five hours, which… is good, I guess, but it isn’t clear whether it’s charged by the USB or not. If not… why not?

It weighs just over 2 pounds, and at a 1280×800 resolution, it’s just big enough for HD stuff. One really handy use I can think of is if you have kids, you just hook this sucker up, put a few cartoons into a playlist, and put the screen facing away from you so the kids can watch while you work. Handy for airports and vacations.

Unfortunately it’s not a touchscreen. That would have been a really nice feature, but I guess we’ll have to wait for “The Touch Panel.”

[via Gadget Lab]

Bulova introduces the most accurate watch in the world, the Precisionist

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 06:24 PM PDT

Bulova just announced the Precisionist “technology platform,” a quartz movement with sweep hand that was created alongside Bulova’s parent company, Citizen.

With Precisionist, Bulova has added a third prong to a standard two prong quartz crystal creating a torsional resonator. This innovation results in eight times the vibration frequency of a traditional quartz watch resulting in the most accurate watch with a continuously sweeping second hand. The aesthetic movement of the second hand becomes the symbol to the consumer of Bulova Precisionist and signals a watch with accuracy so exceptional, you can see it. The technology is accurate to 10 seconds per year as compared to most other quartz watches, which are accurate to fifteen seconds per month.

I’m trying to grab a photo, but it’s a pretty cool way to get a little more granularity out of a standard quartz movement.

IN PURSUIT OF THE ULTIMATE ACCURACY IN TIMEKEEPING, BULOVA INTRODUCES PRECISIONIST
New York, March 17, 2010 – Today at BaselWorld, the watch world and jewelry show, Bulova Corporation introduced its newest technology platform, Bulova Precisionist, the world's most accurate watch with a continuous sweeping second hand. With the launch of Precisionist, Bulova blends technology, design and style; utilizing the sweeping second hand as a visual symbol for the movement's extraordinary precision, a watch that is, in fact, designed to be noticed.
"Bulova is committed to upholding an extraordinary legacy of excellence in design, style and technology and is proud to introduce its newest technology platform, Precisionist," stated Dennis W. Perry, Bulova Corporation President." He continues, "The importance of accurate time measurement cannot be understated. In horseracing, a horse wins by the tip of a nose, in swimming, the slightest touch of a fingertip ahead of a competitor can earn a gold medal. In timekeeping, absolute accuracy has long been viewed as an important measure of the quality of a timepiece."
Precision Is In The Details
Precisionist was developed by Bulova in cooperation with its parent company, the Citizen Watch Company, in response to Bulova-led research which paved the way for the development of a technology that supports the company's goal of providing distinctive and beautifully designed watches.
With Precisionist, Bulova has added a third prong to a standard two prong quartz crystal creating a torsional resonator. This innovation results in eight times the vibration frequency of a traditional quartz watch resulting in the most accurate watch with a continuously sweeping second hand. The aesthetic movement of the second hand becomes the symbol to the consumer of Bulova Precisionist and signals a watch with accuracy so exceptional, you can see it. The technology is accurate to 10 seconds per year as compared to most other quartz watches, which are accurate to fifteen seconds per month.
A History of Innovation
Bulova has been an innovator in timekeeping since the company's founding in 1875. The company strives to provide consumers with premier technology and design. In the 1950s, NASA turned to Bulova for its Accutron technology, then under development and not yet commercially available, to accomplish its progress toward the first lunar landing. In 1960, Bulova debuted Accutron commercially. It was the most spectacular breakthrough in timekeeping technology in 300 years and the most accurate technology then available.
- more -
As with the introduction of the ground-breaking Accutron technology 50 years ago, Bulova has continued to strive for perfection in accuracy combined with unique design. Fifty years later, the company continues its legacy with the introduction of Precisionist. Featured in a tightly focused and distinctively designed collection of watches, Bulova Precisionist is set to debut at BaselWorld in March 2010 and will be available at retail starting Fall 2010. The collection will retail at a suggested price range of $299 to just under $1,000.

Video unboxing of the Nintendo DSi XL

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 06:21 PM PDT

Excuse our enthusiasm, but here’s the DSi XL unboxed for all and sundry. Enjoy!

GameCrush lets you pay to teleconference with cute girls while they game (seriously (truly))

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 06:14 PM PDT


There’s no shortage of creepy nerd-related stuff out there. I mean, while Japan’s notorious rape simulators are pretty much the pinnacle of gaming-related perversion, there’s still a lot of weird stuff out there. Remember this sleazy contest? Now, some enterprising person looked at the internet a little while ago and said to himself (surely himself), “Well now. We have gaming girls like the Frag Dolls, and we have desperate gamers with disposable incomes. And we have cam girls. How can I make these pieces fit together?” Simple. Make a site where desperate gamers pay to watch/play with gamer cam girls! It fits the timeless formula:

1. Put cute girls on internet-connected cameras
2. Profit

I’m not convinced this will be anything less than a complete boondoggle, of course. I mean, how can… where will they… how do they expect… oh, forget it. As Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz says in Inglourious Basterds, “What tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.” Or maybe it’s just a way for some girls to put away a few bucks. GameCrush should be launching any second now, so go try it out. Only for the 360, at the moment – pity!

[via Crave]

Happy 20th birthday, iRobot!

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 05:48 PM PDT


iRobot, perhaps best known for having created the Roomba, turns 20 today. Let’s give them a virtual high five for helping so much in bringing roboticism into the home. Sure, in the end, it might be the death of us all, but in the mean time, it’s nice not having to vacuum so much, am I right?

Contest: Hardees/Carl’s Jr. and CrunchGear love you and want you to be happy

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 05:26 PM PDT

Like the owner of a Hattori Hanzō sword, should the Hardees/Carl’s Jr. Grilled Cheese Bacon Thickburger encounter God, God will enjoy a nice burger. Now you, too, can enjoy a nice burger and – seriously – a Hardee’s Slanket.

So anyway, here’s what’s going on. Hardee’s wrote: “We'd like to offer one of your lucky readers the opportunity to win a limited edition Hardee's Happy Star Slanket, as well as some free Grilled Cheese Bacon Thickburger coupons” and I’m like “Lucky?” But I’ll bite, and I’m sure you will too if you win such a wonderful prize. How do you win? Comment below. One lucky commenter gets some coupons and the Slanket. This is so freaking random that I don’t have anything else to say. I’ll pick a winner on Thursday.

Forget hearing aids. We’re talking about brain aids, people

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 05:00 PM PDT

Needing assistance with your most basic of senses is never something anyone wants to advertise. Thus we’ve come up with handy ways of making them socially acceptable. Enough nerdy kids like myself needed glasses that they’ve become fashion accessories in and of themselves. And modern hearing aids usually focus on being tiny and out of sight. But Oticon out of Denmark has something new on the market. The Agil may not be the stealthiest of assistive listening devices, but it holds a new sound processing algorithm designed to reproduce sounds much more realistically.

This handy little things is designed to:

“Minimize the cognitive energy expended in typical listening environments without compromising sound quality and speech understanding.”

So what does that mean you ask?

It essentially does your brain’s work for it. Capturing sound, deciding what’s important (separating speech from other sounds), and keeping track of it in your current environment. This frees up your brain’s functionality much like a streamlined piece of software frees up your CPU.

But wait, there’s more!

Some handy technology dubbed Speech Guard, allows users to “lock on” to a certain speaker in their current environment. By picking out subtle speech cues and patterns, the Agil makes that target easier to hear despite extraneous noise. And if both speakers are using the Agil, the devices will wirelessly sync with each other, both optimizing to the environment.

And it gets even better.

The Agil will link to your phone, MP3 player, or what have you allowing you to stream music to the headphones you never take off. Fascinating, what we can do now days, isn’t it?

via [MedGadget]

Is the Nintendo 3DS going to work? Are you kidding, of course it is!

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 04:20 PM PDT


The announcement from Nintendo this morning came like a bolt out of the blue. We all have been expecting some new hardware from Nintendo, seeing as the Wii and DS platforms are getting pretty long in the tooth (despite refreshes for the DS), but a 3D handheld? This is madness! No – this is Iwata!

Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto are two men who know what they’re doing when it comes to making games. While a few of their ideas (Vitality Sensor, Wii Music) may seem a bit bizarre to us, there’s no question that everything they do is in the name of making fun games. And you know that they wouldn’t be doing the 3D thing unless they felt they could make it fun.

There are a number of questions out there. How will the 3D be effected? Will it be faux-3D, as Kotaku wonders? Will it be lenticular lens technology, used for (eye-breaking) glasses-less 3D TVs? After all, the Wii is something less than the perfect 1:1 movement detection they wanted us to think it was. Even the newest motion control technologies are barely approaching that level. Will Nintendo just give us a “good enough” version of 3D?

We’ll find out for sure in June, and I’m guessing it’s not going to actually blow everyone’s minds. I mean, you can play tons of games in 3D right now with the right hardware, and it seems likely that the traditional control scheme (analog stick and buttons) is going to make for rather traditional games. You can’t snatch coins out of the air with your hand, or have Mario mimic your limbs’ positions exactly.

But remember when the DS came out, and everyone said the second screen was just going to be an anchor around the neck of developers? All they wanted was more power, like the PSP, people said. A second screen, who can even think of a use for it? Well, a hundred million units later, I think we ought to have a little faith in both Nintendo and the developers. Off the top of my head, I can think about a few uses for 3D in a single-player, small-screen device, but I’m guessing that there are developers out there covering whiteboard after whiteboard with sweet handheld 3D concepts. Don’t forget, you’ve got the cameras on there, too.

Nintendo is very picky about its hardware, too. The reason, I feel, why they are behind in terms of graphics, is like the reason of the Luddites: it’s not that they don’t like or want technology, but they want to weigh its potential fully before adopting it. So it is with Nintendo, who will I’m sure eventually make possible the photorealistic graphics of the 360 and PS3, but in the meantime seems to be doing just fine with the, let’s be honest, rather meager capabilities of the Wii and DSi. Likewise with the motion control system: they were pitched with the progenitor for Project Natal, and deemed it not ready for prime time, which three years ago it certainly was not (and which remains to be seen). They may have improved the Wiimote with the MotionPlus add-on, but the motion control fidelity on the Wii has been good enough to sell like hotcakes, and I’m guessing that’s about the level they’re aiming for with the 3DS.

So whatever technology it uses (and we all know it will be mocked by fanboys no matter what), we know it is at least approved by a couple guys who probably know pretty well what’s good and what isn’t. They led the charge on motion control, and now they’re starting up the “only in 3D” variety of development. And you better believe there’s going to throw a bitching Mario game into the deal. Get excited.

The Tiniest Press Release In The World Contest Winner: Nintendo DSi XL

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 03:32 PM PDT


We have a great hands on up but did you know the DSi XL came with the tiniest press kit in the world?

The kit includes all the specs but is written on little sheets of paper about 2 inches by 3 inches. There’s even a mini business card! Say what you want about PR people and press releases, but I’m smitten.

Gates and Toshiba to put billions into 100-year reactor

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 03:30 PM PDT


If it turns out that Gates really is an evil genius, we’re all screwed. I mean, first he’ll unleash a plague of hurricanes on the coasts of the world, then he’ll release clouds of mosquitoes all over the newly marshy world, and then he’ll tell all the Windows-running reactors to shut down and he’ll be only power source, running for 100 years off depleted uranium.

But if he’s not… well, then we’re all in for a treat. Because the guy is tackling some seriously heavy issues. The latest is a project with Toshiba and Terrapower to create a nuclear reactor that can run for 100 years on a single charge of fuel. There are currently projects underway to create compact reactors that will run for 30 years, but 50-100 is the goal of the new “traveling-wave” style.

Gates is said to be putting a lot of his own money on the line, and the project should run into the hundreds of billions of yen, which is to say billions of dollars at least. I mean, developing a new breed of nuclear reactor isn’t a thing one does lightly. Well, guys, if this isn’t part of some master plan to rule the world, good job.

Parametric Generators could power your watch with street noise

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 03:00 PM PDT


We’ve heard of wind harvesting, wi-fi harvesting, and even corpse harvesting, but who would have thought to harvest the energy from traffic noise and all the other ever-present vibrations of the city?

Some researchers at the University of Michigan are putting together a variety of battery that gets its power from irregular, low-frequency vibrations — a person walking up stairs, for instance, or the vibration of a moving car. Since the generator isn’t keyed to a specific frequency, it can harvest power from a variety of sources.

Not a lot of power, of course — current yield is about half a milliwatt. But that’s plenty of power for small devices like watches, or pacemakers, replacing the battery of which can be a serious problem. I doubt you and I will see too much of this technology in our day to day lives, but you can be sure it’ll benefit quite a few people down the line.

First Look: Nintendo DSi XL

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 02:48 PM PDT

Just got another care package from Nintendo, and it’s a big one — literally. Nintendo sent us one of its new DSi XL units, and color me impressed. The screens look great, and games look like they should have been on a screen this size in the first place. I don’t even need my reading glasses to play any more!

First impressions: It feels larger then a PSP. The screen is clear, and the games really don’t feel stretched out, which was my concern. Web browsing is actually reasonable to do, the experience feels much like the iPod Touch, with the upper screen magnifier helping out for details.

As I said before, I haven’t really had a chance to play with it much, but I’m going to make time this evening and tomorrow. It’ll be nice to get a chance to play with the DSi XL, after reading all the reviews.

It also comes with the twee-est press release in the world.

SPLORT FART: DIY Atari noises

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 02:44 PM PDT

Dear pre-teens: Want to piss off your parents? Buy and build this thing. It’s a mini Atari-esque noise generator that fits inside an Altoids tin (not included.) While it makes noises like the Atari 2600 used to, it does not make “sounds” per se, in that said sounds could be pleasing to the ear. These are definitely not.

It’s only $25 and it’s totally DIY. It also sounds like you’re squeezing a gerbil through a clothes press.
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