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Jon Stewart stands up for Gizmodo, calls Apple ‘Appholes’

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 05:07 AM PDT

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Appholes
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Wow. It’s like Jon is in our head. Just watch and be amused as Jon nails every detail about the Apple 4g saga. It’s great.

Daily Crunch: Endless Thread Edition

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Sweet Canon AE-1 hack makes this classic film SLR all-digital

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 10:03 PM PDT


Greatest thing of all time? It’s at least in the running. Some very dedicated Canon lover (and DIYer) has put the guts from a modern Canon digital into the a hollowed-out AE-1, one of the wonderful old metal bodies from the early 80s. I learned to shoot on its elder sibling, the FTb, and I still love to just hold it my hands as a reminder of how things were once built. If only I could have both… like this thing.

It seems that pretty much all the dials have been replaced with the digital ones (otherwise you wouldn’t be able to operate the camera), and there’s a d-pad looking rather out of place on the back. I love that the film advance, wind, and ASA knobs are still there. I mean, why take them off? Woah, and take a look at that lens, what the hell?! 10mm F/1.4 pancake? WANT.

The video says it has 9 megapixels, but what model he might have cannibalized to create this thing isn’t coming to mind. Some point and shoot from around two years back, I’d guess… but from the d-pad styling it doesn’t look like a G-series (update: Looks like a Powershot SD870 or something like it).

This thing is cool as hell and I want it so bad. More pictures over at the DP Review forums.

[via Canon Rumors]

Japanese emoticon stamp is too cute for \(^o^)/

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 08:00 PM PDT

This is one of those products that I look at and cringe. I do realize though, that some people just can’t live without this type of thing. If that describes you, you can get an emoticon stamp to “share your emotion to your lover in real world with a secret”. Apparently this is a “Kaoiro” which means facial expression, and you can buy one in Japan or order one online for 2,700yen. Each one is hand made, and has seven belts which enable you to make over 2000 different combinations.

[via Today and Tomorrow, and thanks to Ashley for the tip]

German site lets you pre-order unreleased HP Mini 210

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 07:15 PM PDT

Oops! Looks like someone spilled the news about HP’s new Mini 210 netbook. The new netbook (if the site is to be believed) will be running the new Intel N455 chipset, the successor to the N450. The N455 runs at 1.55GHz, and is expected to support the newer DDR3 RAM.

The Mini 210 is listed at $464, and comes with Windows 7 Starter, a 250GB hard drive, and 1GB of RAM. The bad news is, there’s not pictures, and no delivery date listed. Oh well, at least we found something out about the new machine. You can pre-order from Amazon.de, but I have no idea if they’ll ship to the US.

[via ComputerWorld]

MSI announces new GE600 gaming notebook

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 06:30 PM PDT

MSI just announced their latest, the GE600 gaming notebook, is now available for purchase. Built around an Intel Core i5 processor and the ATI Radeon HD5730 GPU, the GE600 is billed at MSI’s lightest gaming notebook yet at 5.9 lbs, and this latest addition to their stable is also DirectX11 capable.

The GE600 comes standard with Windows 7, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB SATA drive. The new machine is currently for sale at Newegg, and you’ll be able to pick it up for $899, today.

From the press release:

CITY OF INDUSTRY, CA – April 28, 2010 – MSI Computer Corp., a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, is proud to announce the availability of the stylish new GE600 gaming notebook. Weighing in at just 5.9 lbs, the GE600 is MSI's lightest 16-inch gaming notebook to date, but still packs quite a punch with Intel's powerful new Core i5 processor and ATI Radeon 5730 graphics card — all for under $900.

The GE600's new ATI Radeon HD5730 GPU supports DirectX 11 graphics, making the notebook compatible with the rapidly approaching next generation of games and 3D graphics. Its new Core i5 processor improves battery life by as much a 15% and Intel's new Turbo Boost technology can increase overall performance by 30%.

"The new GE600 is a powerful mobile gaming station that delivers everything a gamer needs to emerge from battle victorious in a lightweight affordable package," said Andy Tung, Vice President of Sales, MSI North America.

The notebook's handsome new design features a durable scratch resistant chassis, glossy black exterior and a sand accented interior with illuminated touch sensitive hotkeys. The GE600's raised chiclet keyboard and wide touchpad increase both accuracy and comfort while typing or gaming.

The newest addition to the G-Series family of gaming notebooks also ships with a 16-inch LCD screen with 1366×768 resolution, 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 320GB hard drive 7200rpm, a 6-cell battery, Bluetooth connectivity and Microsoft's Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

Wind-powered knitting machine produces infinite scarf

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 05:30 PM PDT


Another headline for the ages. This… I don’t know what it is exactly, but it creates a tube scarf as long as you’ve got wind and yarn. It’ll keep on going as long as both hold out, producing (potentially) a scarf long enough to keep the moon warm. The creator noticed that in cul de sacs, the wind tended to blow only in one direction, and decided to make a machine that would take advantage of that.

But instead of making something that, say, charged batteries or spun a fan inside, it was decided he would make it knit a scarf autonomously. I guess when inspiration strikes, you just have to go with it.

Well, however weird it is, it’s really freaking cool. Get the rest of the story here and watch a video of the machine in action here.

[via knitgrrl, Craft, and Make]

Vectron Wave UFO is a tiny copter-drone for your kids

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 04:30 PM PDT


It ain’t that new, but this thing looks like fun. They call it “motion-controlled,” but unlike the (far more expensive) Parrot AR Drone, it doesn’t use a remote motion sensor. No, you control the Vectron by using your hand to change the way its thrust goes. The closer your hand to the bottom, the more resistance the rotors get, and it rises up to equalize the… well, just watch the video.

I imagine it runs through its six AA batteries pretty quickly, but there’s a lot of fun to be had before that happens. Although Dave just told me that he bought one and it’s not as fun as it looks. I say he is the one that is not fun. Anyone else have one of these?

Well, for $30 it’s not much of an investment. If nothing else you can DIY a little camera onto there and make it your very own remote camera.

[video courtesy of Gearlog]

Review: Harman/Kardon HKTS 20BQ 5.1 speaker system

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 04:23 PM PDT

Short version: Harman/Kardon makes great speakers, and this set is no exception. If you’re looking for a relatively inexpensive home-theater speaker system, you can definitely do much worse then the HKTS 20BQ. This is a complete 5.1 system in a box, and includes everything you need to get your system rocking. The speakers have great response throughout the range, and the 8 inch powered subwoofer will definitely shake things up.

Features:

  • Complete 5.1 home-theater speaker system
  • Eight-inch, 200-watt, powered subwoofer
  • Four identical, video-shielded, two-way satellite speakers
  • Voice-matched, video-shielded, two-way dual-driver center speaker
  • Includes all cables, satellite table stands and wall brackets for satellites and center
  • MSRP: $699

Pros:

  • Small speakers give off big sound
  • All 5 speakers are voice matched and shielded
  • Easy to set up and connect wires

Cons:

  • Mounting brackets are a bit fiddly
  • Includes wall mounting brackets, but not the floor stands
  • Wires too short for some applications


Product page

Full Review: I want to start this out by saying that I’m not an audiophile. I don’t sit and obsess over frequency range, and until recently I didn’t even have a receiver that supported DTS. I do however love to watch movies and play games, and when I do I like to be able to hear everything that’s going on the way the audio engineer intended me to. I feel that the H/K’s definitely reproduce that sound quality. Of course, to test, I couldn’t just be scientific about it, the first thing I did was plug in the Blu-ray version of The Dark Knight, and ran it through the “Trip to County” scene. Absolutely stunning. The tonal range is perfect, and the balance between the four satellite and one center speaker is perfect. There are no obvious levels missing, and the subwoofer provided just the right amount of subtle bass tones.

For the not so subtle sound, I dropped Battlefield: Bad Company 2 into my Xbox 360. Again, the sound was what I expected from a company like Harmon/Kardon. Explosions were suitably window shaking, and the high tones from when a grenade explodes near your head are faithfully reproduced. The sound experience while gaming was excellent as well.

Music reproduction was good as well. There was no distortion at either end of the range, and the speakers performed well playing either Carmina Burana or Jump Around by House of Pain. All in all, no matter what the volume level, the sound reproduction was perfect. I’d say the only point that was really disappointing about the speakers was the wall mounts. Ideally, you want to point the rear channels at your optimum viewing location, and because of the way the speaker wire feeds into the bracket, that’s very difficult. It can be done, but expect to spend a little time thinking about how to mount the brackets.

Conclusion: Is the HKTS 20BQ worth the money? Well, I’m notoriously cheap, and I’m seriously considering buying a set of these for my house. The sound quality is amazing, and the speakers work well no matter if you are listening to music, playing games, or listening to your favorite explosion laden movie. MSRP is $799, but a saavy shopper can find them for $699 online.


Custom stand actually holds your microphones in place

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 04:00 PM PDT

Any band can buy a regular mic stand. But getting one custom molded as cool as this? That’s a whole new level of awesome some seriously deep pockets.

This stand is a construction of stainless steel with a brass quick-release from Artist Chris Conte. Commissioned by Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace, the build sounds quite involved.

The band wanted a left arm and the original was a right. I suggested we take molds and make casts from the original. I first needed to sacrifice the original arm and reverse-engineer it into a left arm. I also needed to construct it in such a way where it could be broken down into sub-assemblies that were practical for mold-making and casting. Eleven separate silicone molds were taken from the master to create the wax models needed for the casting process.

As cool as they are, I don’t really see how these stands fit into the Three Days Grace aesthetic. At least ZZ Top and their truck exhaust pipe stands make more sense. But my hat goes off to Conte for a very good looking build. Now he just needs to integrate a shock mount into the wrist somehow, and I’ll exclusively use these stands in my studio. When I have a studio.

via [Wired]

Let’s welcome Palm to the land of the living dead

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 03:25 PM PDT


I’ve been bearish on Palm as a standalone platform since they launched last May and today the sadness-tinged chickens have come home to roost: Palm is now part of HP and, like the iPaq before it, the Pre and Pixi will slowly be subsumed into the company’s line-up.

In fact, I couldn’t be happier for Palm. A recent perusal of HP’s line-up including their new Envy line of laptops show that, unlike Dell, they can produce a beautiful and powerful product at a nice price. Palm, in short, needed out of the hardware business and this gave them that chance.

It’s hard to run a standalone hardware company these days. Name one product besides TiVo that has mass appeal and adoption and is produced by a company whose sole purpose is the production of that product. The boutique model of hardware manufacturing is dead and the big guys – the Dells, the Apples, the HPs – are the only ones with the scale and energy to propel products into the market. In a world where Sony can barely make a sale anymore, how many Palms did they think they’d move?

Fanboys will rage and claim their beloved WebOS will live on – and maybe it will in HP’s portable line – but one course of action I could see is the WebOS UI being HP’s equivalent of HTC’s Sense but with a built-in kernel and underlying OS.

Don’t cry for Palm. They had a good run and they caught the world’s attention. This HP acquisition will change Palm irretrievably and probably for the good.

The top 5 HP products we would like to see, post-Palm buyout

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 03:12 PM PDT

HP didn’t just drop $1.2 billion on Palm to simply sit on the assets. There have to be major plans in the works to leverage webOS and slam out some killer consumer devices. This could be huge for not only both companies, but for you and me.

Yup, a webOS tablet


Of course a webOS tablet makes sense. The OS is already optimized for web content and can run on nearly any hardware right now. All HP engineers would need to do is, well, install it. WebOS could lead to some legitimate iPad contenders with Flash support natively built into the slick OS that already has an established developer’s channel.

Lots more webOS phones

HP doesn’t do small. It thinks huge, so expect multiple webOS phones targeting the high, mid, and low price points. The company has the manufacturing might and cash to even release loss-leaders in order to leverage the brand and build upon the webOS customer base quickly. HP doesn’t need an instant best seller in order to eventually be a major player in the arena.

Media players

The PMP market might not be what it used to be, but connected players like the iPod touch and Zune HD are still selling well. There’s nothing stopping HP from stripping away the cellular goods and outing a sexy media player — or two.

A webOS DreamScreen

The DreamScreen launched last year to lots of criticism partly because of the lame UI. webOS could change that. HP could even market it as a baby-slate or something less than a tablet but slightly more than a digital photo frame.

webOS in the corporate world

HP is a huge presence in the corporate world and currently uses Windows Mobile on many of their connected devices. However, webOS is a much more modern operating system and while some companies might scoff at the huge upfront cost of either switching totally over or running both systems, it could pay dividends later on. Plus let’s not forget that Microsoft is moving onto Windows Mobile 7 and will not support 6.xx forever.

Sneak Peek: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 03:00 PM PDT

If you enjoyed taking your favorite Italian plumber into space the first time around, you’ll have even more fun with the sequel. Scheduled to be released May 23rd, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is anything but a rehash of the original. Nintendo was kind enough to give us a demo of some of the new goodies you can expect. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.

First and foremost is the addition of Yoshi to the line-up. Along with the classic maneuver of eating your enemies, you’ll be able to utilize Yoshi’s tongue as a grappling hook to traverse worlds, and feed him various treats that transform his abilities. Why should Mario and his mushrooms get all the fun? The Blimp Fruit will inflate Yoshi like, well, a blimp, allowing you to soar up to new heights, while the Dash Pepper sets him off running at speeds only having your mouth on fire can achieve. This is only the third 3D Mario title to have Yoshi as a playable character, so its nice to see him making an appearance.

Mario gets his own share of power-ups too. The Spin Drill lets you drill straight through a planet to the other side, leading to all sorts of creative puzzles and boss fights. Or the Cloud Suit which allows you to create makeshift, smiling platforms in mid-air.

Gravity plays a bigger, if more temperamental role in this game. Levels range from upside-down, side-scrolling, to being on a planetary scale.

The soundtrack is no less impressive than the award winning original. It keeps the symphony orchestra instrumentation, with some 8-bit tracks from earlier Mario titles mixed in.

A two-player mode gives our protagonist a small orange Luma as an assistant. The second player can attack enemies, collect items, or in the case of my demo partner, throw star bits at everything in sight.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is scheduled for release in just under a month at $49.99.

Red Faction movie coming to a SyFy channel near you

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 02:30 PM PDT


PC gamers will remember the original Red Faction, and console gamers will remember its disappointing sequel. Then everybody will remember Red Faction: Guerrilla, its awesome threequel. Well, it looks like the franchise is expanding its tentacles (or rather, it is entangling its tentacles with SyFy’s) and going into the motion picture business. Sure, it’s just a made-for-TV movie right now, but it could turn into a series, and Red Faction is just the first of a big SyFy push into the games world.

SyFy and THQ are bosom buddies, and a new agreement between the two means that they’ll be sharing content — a Battlestar Galactica MMO here, a de Blob kid’s show there — and SyFy is relaunching its games section with a new focus:

Going forward, it will be a mix of games and properties that are advertiser-supported, those that are based on micro-transactions, subscriptions and virtual currency; there will be a lot of choices.

Micro-transactions and virtual currency, just what gamers love!

Here’s hoping the Red Faction movie will be decent, although story-telling wasn’t ever really the series’ focus. More blowing stuff up, I’d say. Makes for good movies too, I suppose.

[via DigitalTrends]

Plex for Mac OS X adds hardware h.264 video decoding

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 02:00 PM PDT

Exciting news from Plex, the media center for Mac OS X that won my heart a long time ago. The devs have announced that they’ve integrated Apple’s new video decode acceleration framework into the latest build. In English, that means all h.264-encoded video—and there’s a lot of it out there—can be sent to your GPU for decoding, giving your CPU a bit more breathing room. It should make for significantly better 1080p video performance.

There’s a few hardware and software requirements. You’ll need a Mac with an Nvidia 9400M or GT320/330M GPU, and you need to be running the latest version of Snow Leopard. If either of these don’t apply to you, well, sorry about your luck. (But I’m in the same boat, so no worries!)

You should note that Plex is the first such media center for Mac OS X to offer hardware-assisted h.264 decoding, so well done to the Plex devs.

HP To Buy Palm for $1.2 Billion

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 01:16 PM PDT

Breaking news, fresh off of the wire: HP just finalized agreements to buy Palm for $1.2 billion dollars. HP's $1.2 billion dollar purchase breaks down to roughly $5.70 per share of common stock. While this is spot on with the $1.2-$1.3 billion pricetag Palm was rumored to be shopping around as of late, it's still a mammoth difference from what Palm was trading at just months ago. In October 2009, Palm was worth about $17.46 per share; by January of this year, that was down to $13.41. It has, unfortunately, been a downward spiral ever since.


Is this leaked E3 lineup legit?

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 01:00 PM PDT

Here we have what is allegedly a “confirmed” E3 lineup. Let’s see… Guitar Hero 6, big surprise there… Call of Duty: MMO… KI3, maybe that’s Killer Instinct 3? And what’s Mass Effect 3 doing under the Sony heading?

Needless to say, the list is fairly suspicious. Like, what is “Project Xfree”? I doubt Microsoft is bringing XFree86 to the 360.

One other thing that stands out is a new Twisted Metal game. The last one, Twisted Metal: Black, came out for the PS2 back in 2001, so it’s been a while.

I wouldn’t lose sleep over this list.


Yup, that’s a Louis Vutton iPad case

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 12:30 PM PDT

I’m not sure what this says about the iPad or Louis Vuitton. On one hand it speaks volumes about the iPad’s culturally significance that just weeks after its launch, trendy leather goods maker Louis Vuitton feels confident about the device to announces cases. But then what does it say about Louis Vuitton who is clearly willing to jump on bandwagons right away. Then again, what the hell do I know about Louis Vuitton or trendy culture?

No matter, pop stars and wannabes will be able to pick up their own Louis Vuitton iPad cases sometime next year for only $366. That’s not bad when you consider all the craftsmanship and design that went into a sleeve constructed out of two pieces of leather joined together with one stitch. [GQ via BornRich

The Sapphire 5970 4G Toxic Edition is the fastest video card on Planet Earth

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 12:00 PM PDT

Damn you, Sapphire. Three weeks ago I bought your vanilla Radeon 5970, and now you release the Radeon 5970 4G TOXIC Edition? What a load of bunk. Fastest video card on the planet, you say? Well I say FE$%Fxtgredth.

I’m not hating on the technology of the card itself. I mean, how can you get mad at 4GB of on-board memory and a 900MHz core, plus a special Arctic Cooling cooler? My card has 2GB of memory and a 725 MHz core—it might as well be some mud and sticks in there.

It’s basically a beefed up ATI Radeon 5970, benchmarks of which are all over the Internet. Spoiler: it’s really fast.

No word on how much it’ll cost, but you’ve got to be looking at at least $650.

Confirmed: Apple Buys Virtual Personal Assistant Startup Siri

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 11:38 AM PDT

On the heels of the report that Apple purchased chip maker Intrinsity, Apple appears to have made another purchase: Siri, a personal assistant for the iPhone. According to a pre-merger notification released by the Federal Trade Commission, and first noticed by Robert Scoble, the transaction will not be held up by any antitrust reviews. The deal was likely small from Apple's perspective. Siri is a small startup that has raised $24 million in funding. Update: Siri board member Gary Morganthaler confirmed the transaction. Siri brings a conversational interface to the iPhone which allows you to ask it to perform tasks for you such as find a French restaurant nearby and book a table, look up movie listings, order a taxi, or look up the phone number and address of a local business.You can read our full review of the app here.


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