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Wanna see what a microwaved iPad looks like

Posted: 04 May 2010 05:52 AM PDT

Of course you do. That’s the whole point of the Internet, right? To watch weirdos do all sorts of dumb and pointless acts. Well then, click through for the video in which a 32GB 3G iPad gets nuked.

Videos: Super-mobile rescue robot Quince

Posted: 04 May 2010 02:22 AM PDT

This is one of the coolest rescue robots I’ve ever seen. Meet Quince, jointly developed by Japan’s International Rescue System Institute, Tohoku University and the Chiba Institute Of Technology. The eight-wheeled robot may not look like much, but it’s actually very impressive when you see it in action.

Quince is supposed to help humans during “CBRN”-type emergencies (it can be used in the case of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear disasters). The robot is sized at 655mmx481mmx225mm, weighs 26.4kg and can move as fast as 1.6m/s.

It’s equipped with a set of cameras, mics, speakers, a PSD sensor, a laser range finder, Wi-Fi, a door opener, and an infrared thermography camera. Quince is the follow-up to Kenaf, another super-advanced rescue robot we covered two years ago.

This video serves as a good summary of what Quince is capable of:

This video shows the robot moving over rubble in more detail:

And this video is probably the most spectacular one, showing how Quince goes up stairs:

Via Node [JP]

SIGVerse simulates cooperation between humans and robots in virtual space

Posted: 04 May 2010 01:01 AM PDT

Japan’s National Institute of Informatics (NII) has developed SIGVerse, a piece of software that makes it possible to simulate how human beings and “intelligent” robots cooperate in a virtual space. The goal is to assess how robots can be “trained” to better work together with humans one day – without actually having to build robot prototypes in real life.

SIGVerse is supposedly the first software of its kind. The current version of the simulator system enables a virtual robot and a human being to work on simple tasks, such as baking a savory pancake, together. SIGVerse is supposed to make it easier to study how that robot converses with the human or how it behaves, while a real person can assume the role of the avatar.

For example, a virtual robot that doesn’t talk when being asked a question during the simulation can hardly be called cooperative and thus would need to be reprogrammed (in C++). SIGVerse can also be used to determine non-verbal communication skills, for example by examining how a robot turns its look when interacting with a human.

The NII plans to make SIGVerse available for everybody to use for free soon (it’s completely open-source).

Daily Crunch: Lightning Dust Edition

Posted: 04 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Official Eee Keyboard specs revealed

Posted: 03 May 2010 10:30 PM PDT

After over a year of delays, promises, and waiting, we finally know what’s going to be in the Eee Keyboard. Has it been too long? Is it too late for the poor keyboard that every wanted, but no one could get? Do we still care? I’ll admit, I like it, but I may be in the minority.

Asus put the Keeeyboard on their site this weekend, with the retail price set at $599. It’s not bad, consider it for what it is and you can see where the trade off is. It comes down to this; the Eee Keyboard is a essentially a netbook in a new form factor, with a touch screen. Right down to the Intel Atom N270 keyboard, 945GE chipset, 1GB of on board memory, and the choice between a 16GB or 32GB SSD. Battery life is around 4 hours (we’ll see). There’s two USB ports, one HDMI port, VGA, gigabit LAN, and headphone and microphone out, all located on the back.

So what do you think? Is the form factor worth the premium? I don’t know, I’d have to have a pretty compelling use to buy one. The touch screen is a great concept as well, but without a “killer app” I don’t see it going far.

[via Tom's Hardware]

Hands-on with the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide

Posted: 03 May 2010 09:01 PM PDT

In a perfect world, every phone would be like the T-Mobile MyTouch Slide. It's small, it's light, it has a keyboard, and it's easy enough for almost everyone to use even if it's running one of the most powerful mobile OSes out there. Built by HTC to T-Mobile's specifications, the MyTouch Slide with full QWERTY keyboard is, in actuallity, one of the best feature phones I've seen in a long time.


Compostable pen, sure, but the price isn’t right yet

Posted: 03 May 2010 08:30 PM PDT


Although we are moving towards a paperless society, that dream is still a long ways off, and a lot of Bics are going to be employed before it arrives. The pens we take for granted sell for a hundred a dollar in bulk, and they’re worth every penny. They also get thrown away, and I’m guessing from the price that high recyclability and sustainability aren’t really primary goals of the Bic corporation. This DBA Pen is the other way round: it’s designed to be thrown away — but in a different way.

Here’s their little statement:

The DBA Pen is the only 98% biodegradable pen in the world. It's also the only pen to use ink composed of simple, environmentally responsible ingredients. Produced at a wind-powered facility in the United States, it was designed as a responsible alternative to the wasteful and often toxic pens we use almost every day.

The only bits of the pen that aren’t compostable are the nib and nib holder, which they used noncompostable materials for in order to create a better writing experience. And there’s a catch: the pens won’t compost in landfills, only in dedicated compost facility. You can send the pens back to them and they’ll take care of it too.

The problem is that a price of 3 pens for $8, there’s no way these will be adopted in bulk. See, sustainability isn’t high on a lot of other corporations’ lists, period. Ah well. Small steps.

[via Gizmag]

Hot or not? Meccaniche Veloci Quattro Valvole quad-face wristwatch

Posted: 03 May 2010 07:30 PM PDT


We’re having a disagreement. I think this watch is awesome in its symmetry and simultaneous yet paradoxical over-stimulation and use of blank space. John and Dave, the self-styled watch guys here, think it’s butt-ugly.

What say you, readers?

Doesn’t really matter, actually, since the watch costs like $4000. Hmm. They couldn’t get more than $75 from me, but that’s like two months of a blogger’s salary so it’s really a compliment.

[via The Awesomer]

Future storage to be nanodots by the gazillion?

Posted: 03 May 2010 07:00 PM PDT

We’re no strangers to grand promises of storage and speed here at CrunchGear. Holographic is a term used almost without break as scientists and engineers pitch giants like 3M and GE with technologies that won’t be consumer-ready for a decade. And of course, there’s the always-popular “nano.” In this case, it’s nanodots, or quantum dots, so-called because at 6-10nm across, they’re small enough that quantum effects need to be consulted when working with them. …that’s what she said.

The dots themselves are actually “single, defect-free crystals” acting as magnetic switches, somehow, and they can be packed in with incredible density, resulting in chips where an area of about 3×3cm would store a terabyte. Now, to be honest, that’s more impressive than incredible; the promises of holographic tech are much more insane, due to the fact that the data is not limited to a flat plane.

Will we ever see this technology in practice? Well, the inventor says five years or less. So we’ll check back in five years, and see where the goalposts have moved to.

[via Tom's Hardware]

College Humor takes on GoldenEye N64-version

Posted: 03 May 2010 07:00 PM PDT

Classic.

Laser-powered rain: sounds too awesome to be true

Posted: 03 May 2010 06:30 PM PDT


Here in Seattle (welcome!) we have no problem getting enough rain. Lasers are not necessary. But this international project studying the effect of high-power lasers on mistifying the atmosphere could still help a lot of areas where rainclouds are shy. The effect, which has no cool name yet, comes from the fact that high-energy beams like terawatt lasers and cosmic rays will knock electrons off water molecules, which end up lopsided chargewise and glom together, forming the rudiments of a raindrop.

Now, don’t go expecting a personal raincloud device in SkyMall any time soon: the power required for such a beam is immense, and of course if you pointed it in your eye… well, we’ve seen what lasers can do. The technology is still totally just a lab thing right now, and of course there’s more to making it rain than just making water molecules stick together. It helps to be smug, for instance, which is probably why it’s so wet here in the Northwest.

DIY: the laser jacket

Posted: 03 May 2010 05:30 PM PDT

So somehow, you’ve ended up with 200 laser pointers. What on earth do you do with 200 laser diodes? Well, you could combine them all into one super laser and write your name on the moon. Or you could find 200 sharks and.. never mind. Or, you could wire them all together into a jacket, and wear it to the mall. That’s it!

All joking aside, this is a DIY project from Wie-Chieh Shih, and while the details are spotty, the concept is insane. I’m assuming it’s being made for the Japanese rapper Sushi K, because I can’t really think of what else this could be used for. All we really have are some cool photos of the build on Flickr.

[via Make]

And here comes Steam for Linux

Posted: 03 May 2010 05:00 PM PDT


I get the feeling that there’s a whole team of people at Valve whose job is to just do “like, what if” stuff, or “you know, while we’re at it” stuff. Like, “what if” we just made an awesome comic book to send out gratis to users? Or “what if” we made a Mac version just because, and “while we’re at it” just keep on working and bring that sucker over to Linux as well?

D-Pad Hero 2 coming May 16th

Posted: 03 May 2010 04:30 PM PDT

Remember those halcyon days of February 2009? D-Pad Hero had just come out, and rhythm game players all over the world were enjoying the flush of old school meets new school in a 256k ROM.

Get ready to experience that joy once again, since the sequel (don’t these games always have a sequel) is coming this month. Definitely worth your time to check it out.

[via Boing Boing]

Gadgets of days gone by: Samsung Trace, spinphone

Posted: 03 May 2010 04:00 PM PDT


This week at CrunchGear, we’re looking back at some of our favorite gadgets from the not-so-distant past — old phones, computers, media players, toys… those devices that still stand out in our memories despite their obsolescence. Feel free to contribute some of your own nostalgia.

The Samsung Trace, or SGH-T519, was not an especially capable phone. Oh, it had its little feature-phone games and a bright screen and all that, but it really only had two things going for it. One: sucker was (and still is) so thin you’d forget it was in your pocket, and two: you could spin that mother.

Look, there’s no other way to explain it, just watch the video.

See? I don’t have any other device, save perhaps a yoyo or top, that will spin like that. It’s because the highest point on the phone when it’s face-up is the little circular “OK” button, which also happens to be exactly in the center of the phone. And the phone just happens to be perfectly balanced so it doesn’t drag on one side.

Yeah, it’s kind of a weird reason to love a device, but it’s little things like this that breed affection with our devices — not the apps, not the firmware upgrades or storage capacity. The best features of many devices often aren’t listed.

AigoPad re-revealed, sports 7-inch screen, Tegra 2, and Android 2.1

Posted: 03 May 2010 03:00 PM PDT


This is the second Android-and-ARM-based tablet to hit just today. At this rate, we’ll be buried in them. This one is called the Aigo N700, and although it looks completely different from the AigoPad we saw announced a couple months back, I’m guessing that they just decided to redo the shell. There are also 5-inch and 4-inch versions coming, but I really don’t see the point. Content is big enough and accessible enough that a larger screen is actually worthwhile now, though a couple years ago 5″ was enough.

The specs! Cortex A9 dual-core, Tegra 2 graphics, 512MB DDR2 RAM at 667MHz, USB, HDMI, up to 32GB internal storage… the rest are over here, but it certainly beats the iPad on sheer power. As we know, however, sheer power is only a medium-size chunk of the whole experience, so let’s not get our hopes up. Android tablets are going to be a dime a dozen soon (I mean, they practically are already), so just chill. Chill, I said!

[via SlashGear]

StarCraft II official release date has been set: July 27, 2010

Posted: 03 May 2010 02:24 PM PDT

Hold onto your knickers, everyone, for Blizzard has announced, via fancy e-mail, the release date for StarCraft II: July 27, 2010. So, slightly less than three months from now. You may freak out now.

Black Wii pre-order topping the charts at Amazon

Posted: 03 May 2010 02:00 PM PDT


Nintendo made the black Wii official here in the states this morning and of course Amazon is johnny-on-the-spot with a pre-order. Apparently people want this system, too. The black bundle is currently on top of the Video Games Movers and Shakers list and number five on the Video Games Bestsellers list. See, Nintendo, we should have had this option a lot soon. Then again, you probably knew that it would help spur sales when they cooled down. Well played.

Canon 5D mk III rumored to ship in 2011

Posted: 03 May 2010 01:30 PM PDT


It looks like the popularity of Canon’s full-frame DSLR (and powerful, but flawed video camera) is enough to warrant another sequel. While some would say that cheaper, but equally capable cropped-sensor cameras like the 7D represent a better value, the 5D has its own charm and I’m sure Canon will be capitalizing on that — next year, if Vincent Laforet is to be believed.

At an workshop over the weekend, the well-known photographer suggested that Canon might be putting out a successor to the mk II in 2011. It would likely get a megapixel boost and a much more sensitive sensor.That seems to jive with other murmurs, but it’s a long ways off so discretion is the best policy for now. Canon is extremely tight-lipped about these things, so don’t expect a comment. Laforet, on the other hand, can probably expect a stern reprimand for blabbing, although it’s possible he was just speculating like the rest of us.

A year from now, though… I wonder if the new 5D might even sport 3K resolution? That would make it more attractive to filmmakers who don’t want to do effects and color correcting at the resolution they’re distributing at. Of course, if they’re thinking that far ahead they’re not shooting 5D at all, since H.264 isn’t really the best editing codec.

[via Electronista]

Gadgets of days gone by: iRiver SlimX MP3-CD player

Posted: 03 May 2010 01:00 PM PDT


This week at CrunchGear, we’re looking back at some of our favorite gadgets from the not-so-distant past — old phones, computers, media players, toys… those devices that still stand out in our memories despite their obsolescence. Feel free to contribute some of your own nostalgia.

It was 2001, I think, when I got the predecessor to this brilliant piece of electronics. During high school I’d sported a tape player and later a rather nice portable CD player, picked up on a road trip to Yellowstone. I saw the iRiver CD-MP3 player on a forum, and the idea of having 800 minutes of music per CD instead of 80 prompted me to buy one of the earlier models, perhaps even a RioVolt. I had it for a short time and it made little impression because its cheap construction led to an early demise after only a couple months. And that’s when I saw this little number.

The bulbous plastic of the old model had given way, permanently as it would turn out, for a slick, ultra-thin metal case (or perhaps merely metallic plastic, either way it was nicer), and now the display was on the remote instead of the player itself. I had the iMP-350, which was the luxury one at the time and cost somewhere around $150. It was a revelation.

I used it straight for at least two, maybe three years, and to this day I don’t feel the need to back up my MP3 collection quite so much because I made so many MP3 CDs — themed, backups, all one artist, all singles, these CDs were playlists before playlists became so common that we don’t even make them ourselves any more.

There were controls on the player itself, but the entire thing could be managed by the little in-line remote, which had a 2-line display, multi-purpose rocker switch, modifier and playback buttons. iRiver later took the design and made it a complete player, which you see at right. The remote was small and durable, and had a long cord and snap on it so you could keep the player in your backpack and attach the controls to your jacket or bag. I became intimately familiar with the layout of my favorite CDs, and knew that “OK Computer” was up one directory and down two items from “Amnesiac” on my Radiohead CD, so I could switch without looking, while riding my bike. If you took the time to look at it, it had a custom display with time, ID3 tags, format, bitrate, and everything. Just fantastic.

Problems? Well, it used a custom “gum stick” rechargeable battery, and after a while they did get kind of depleted. Luckily, an included accessory is a little external battery pack, extending its life by a considerable amount. Other than that it was pretty much flawless.

The iMP-350 was a classic, and I considered it much more useful at the time than the first iPods, which were only just beginning to gain popularity. The incredibly slim profile, solid construction, and convenient controls made this thing perhaps my favorite media player of the last 10 years.
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