CrunchGear |  |
- Here’s how you turn an iPad into a skateboard
- Videos: Watch Japanese soccer robots scoring “spectacular” goals
- The Razer Abyssus Mirror Special Edition is pretty and shinny
- Flash seen running on a Google Tablet prototype
- Samsung S-Pad coming in August?
- HP announces updates to the Envy 14, Envy 17
- HP releases new Pavilion notebooks
- Three JPEG moon T-shirt: meta meta meta ironic
- Quick Look: Seagate launches the FreeAgent GoFlex system
- Mocca Pearl concept: espresso in the wilderness
- A few things to know about electric bikes
- Ellen DeGeneres humbles herself before Apple following parody ad
- “Omni-focus” camera can focus on near and far objects simultaneously
- Gadgets Of Days Gone By
- Sony offers extended warranties for PS3, PSP
- Boba Fett helmet for your Star Wars-loving mom
- Gadgets of Days Gone By: A very mighty VCR tape collection
- Contest: Win a year of LiveBooks
- Katy Perry rocks a CuteCircuit (‘wearable technology’) LED dress
- Review: LiveBooks photo site
| Here’s how you turn an iPad into a skateboard Posted: 05 May 2010 05:28 AM PDT Yesterday’s microwave iPad experiment left a lot of you feeling empty and maybe a bit sick that someone would waste at least $500 when there are starving kids in the world that desperately could use a Happy Meal. Like all they did was put the iPad in the microwave and turn it one. That’s a truly waste, a stunt designed to get a bit of Internet attention. Well, today’s video is so much better. An iPad is put to good use. The two fellows in the video truly want to know if the iPad is Shred-able. That’s a legitamet question in my book. And so they set out to create a rideable iPad. You’re going to wanna see this. [Fuel TV via Recombu via Gizmodo]
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| Videos: Watch Japanese soccer robots scoring “spectacular” goals Posted: 05 May 2010 05:21 AM PDT
Remember the soccer-playing humanoid we’ve shown you Monday? Well, the "RoboCup Japan Open 2010″ [JP] he was taking part in during the last few days ended yesterday, but not before the yet to be named robot showed off his (limited) skills as a goalkeeper. And he faced an (apparently) stronger adversary. We have two videos showing that adversary scoring goals against other robots. And yes, it seems the road to a team of humanoids defeating a team of human soccer players (the main goal of the RoboCup organizers) is still long. Very, very long. This video shows our robot from Monday as a goalkeeper, (unsuccessfully) trying to stop his robotic adversary: Watch that attacker score another goal here: Via Robonable [JP]
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| The Razer Abyssus Mirror Special Edition is pretty and shinny Posted: 05 May 2010 05:18 AM PDT
Inside the Abyssus Mirror Special Edition rests a 3.5G 3500dpi infrared sensor that’s surely good enough to compensate at least slightly at your lackluster FPS skills. Up top is the same two button and a scroll wheel configuration with a glowing Razer logo on the palm rest. Maybe it’s the mirror finish, but this edition seems a bit more worth of its $50 price tag when it launches sometime this month. Still, our original point remains in that $50 +/- can snag you a feature-packed mouse from multiple online retailers.
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| Flash seen running on a Google Tablet prototype Posted: 05 May 2010 12:45 AM PDT
Max the blogger knew what he’d spotted right away, and managed to get quite a plethora of video and still picture of the device. While retail details are of course being kept fairly quiet, it seems that Adobe is expecting there to quite a number of Android based tablets coming at the end of this year. That fits what we’re seeing, and it should be interesting to watch how things shake down in the whole Android vs. iPad war. It’s certainly worth your time to hit Max’s site to check out the video he shot of the various Adobe AIR applications running on the tablet.
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| Samsung S-Pad coming in August? Posted: 05 May 2010 12:15 AM PDT
Word is, Samsung is making a 7-inch AMOLED tablet, expect to launch in South Korea in August. Like the iPad, it’ll sport 3G and Wi-fi, but it’ll also have USB and access to Samsung’s Apps. No word on pricing, we’ll let you know if we hear anything more. [via Unwired View]
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| HP announces updates to the Envy 14, Envy 17 Posted: 04 May 2010 09:01 PM PDT
Both systems feature Beats Audio, ATI Mobility Radeon discrete graphics, and all the bells and whistles in wireless connectivity. To get down to specifics, the Envy 14 features the new Quad Core i7 CPU, and HP’s HD Radiance display. The Envy 14 is available this coming June 27th starting at $999.99. The Envy 17 rocks a 17.3 inch screen, up to 2TB or storage, and you can choose between the i7 Quad Core, or Dual Core i5 or i3. The Envy 17 also has ATI’s EyeFinity technology for multiple displays, and is available the 19th. MSRP starts at $1399.99 at HPDirect.com
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| HP releases new Pavilion notebooks Posted: 04 May 2010 09:01 PM PDT
If there’s anything better than consumer grade sub-$800 notebooks, God kept it for himself. HP just announced the dm4, dv5, dv6, and dv7 notebooks. All are running the latest processors and the dm4 and dv7 support discrete graphics. The dv6 is a touchscreen laptop, which is great for people who like to touch their screens. Not much more to say on these except that they’re clad in handsome metal and plastic and have an aesthetic based on HP’s MUSE style described thusly:
So that’s nice. Anyway, all available May 19. Head over to the shops.
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| Three JPEG moon T-shirt: meta meta meta ironic Posted: 04 May 2010 07:00 PM PDT
Yes, it’s another clever little shirt from the chaps whose entire business is clever little shirts. Get yours here. [via Waxy, Nerdcore, Gearfuse]
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| Quick Look: Seagate launches the FreeAgent GoFlex system Posted: 04 May 2010 06:29 PM PDT
It’s an endless battle: a new transport protocol replaces an old one and all of the drives based on the older system are completely obsolete. Well, Seagate thought long and hard and created the GoFlex system, a drive with removable transport hardware that can turn a standard SATA drive into a USB 2.0/3.0 drive, a Firewire storage device, or even a powered eSATA device. When you’re ready to swap, you simply buy a new adapter rather than a new drive.
Click through for a video and the monstrous press release.
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| Mocca Pearl concept: espresso in the wilderness Posted: 04 May 2010 06:00 PM PDT
There’s actually a sketch at the bottom of the concept’s page that shows some sort of handle — but it looks a little bit wishful, you know what I’m saying? And to be fair, picking it up is also the hard part if you take your Moka Express camping. It is a promising idea, though, and if they manage to get the logistics straight (another problem: it would make a tiny amount of coffee) I might even buy one. The tripod thing just does it for me, couldn’t say why. [via Gizmodo]
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| A few things to know about electric bikes Posted: 04 May 2010 05:30 PM PDT
If you’re thinking about getting one, maybe to simplify a short 3-or-4-mile commute, there are some things you should know. This little post does a good job summing up the basics so you don’t get taken in down at ye olde electricke bi-cycle shoppe. The main things you’ll run into are battery type and size, and engine wattage. Beyond that the trim level seems to be largely — well, not superficial differences, but you always get diminishing returns as the price goes up.
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| Ellen DeGeneres humbles herself before Apple following parody ad Posted: 04 May 2010 05:00 PM PDT Seriously now. If Apple really complained, then what a bunch of whiners they are! You’d think they’d be thanking the show for putting their product on the screen for free! If this was Microsoft, calling someone to take back a video poking fun at Windows, the whole internet would be embroiled in controversy. [via X17 and Gear Diary]
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| “Omni-focus” camera can focus on near and far objects simultaneously Posted: 04 May 2010 03:44 PM PDT
Traditional cameras could make it happen using an extremely small aperture. At F/22, a common minimum aperture value, you’re essentially getting a pinhole image, and the way the light is bent and re-bent results in the entire image being in one focal plane. I doubt this new device is simply a pinhole camera, though. They call it a “Divergence-ratio Axi-vision Camera,” or Divcam for short. Not a lot of clues there except perhaps for an optics expert. I would guess, though, that a complete and flat image is created via a polarized and flat “lens” (for lack of a better term) and the light is sent in parallel back to a high-sensitivity sensor. The images you see, notice, have an extremely narrow field of view, which supports my theory, as a rounded lens would produce both a larger field of view and divergent light rays within the device, and that would make the images we see impossible. The full frame crop here also suggests a large, low-resolution sensor and parallel rays:
See how the edge of the finger is sort of all-or-nothing pixellation? There’s absolutely no overlap between the light coming from the doll and the light coming from the finger, suggesting the camera/sensor is only accepting light that is coming straight at it. I’m not sure if I’m explaining it correctly but it makes sense to me. Whatever the case, they think they can apply it to the video world in general, and I hope they do. It looks interesting. In the mean time, though, I think a lot of consumers are just starting to discover depth of field in their video as they start shooting with cameras like the T2i. We’ll keep you posted on this new technology. Update: Nope, I’m totally wrong. I thought it was a pretty good guess, though. I should have known, that pixel occlusion pattern is totally the result of a software “magic wand” — plus, the ability to determine distance implies some form of stereoscopy.
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| Posted: 04 May 2010 03:00 PM PDT
So this week at CrunchGear we’re taking a little time to remember and celebrate some of the gadgets and technologies that have held a special place in our hearts, whether they were simple and reliable or just really fun to spin. We’ll be adding reminiscences all week, and we encourage you to add your own memories.
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| Sony offers extended warranties for PS3, PSP Posted: 04 May 2010 02:30 PM PDT
Looks like Sony now offers extended warranties for the PS3 and PSP. It’s not free, of course, but it’s not like the prices outrageous either, with prices ranging from $30 to $60. Not too much to digest here: a one-year PSP warranty is $30, while a two-year warranty is $40. There’s a $10 premium for accidental damage. For the PS3, it’s $45 for a one-year warranty and $60 for a two-year warranty. That covers both the old PS3 design and the PS3 Slim. You should note that the warranty doesn’t cover your data, meaning that if your hard drive explodes and you lose your Uncharted 2 game saves that’s not Sony’s problem. They’ll replace the hard drive, of course, but the actual data on there isn’t covered. I mean, I don’t see how the data could ever be covered under a warranty, so I’m not even sure why I brought it up. But, an extra option for you nonetheless.
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| Boba Fett helmet for your Star Wars-loving mom Posted: 04 May 2010 02:00 PM PDT
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| Gadgets of Days Gone By: A very mighty VCR tape collection Posted: 04 May 2010 01:30 PM PDT
So it’s blast from the past week or whatever here at CrunchGear, and I decided to highlight my very fancy VCR tape collection. Boy oh boy did I tape a lot of stuff as a youngster!
The video, which I nearly died in the production of, explains that my collection is basically a bunch of old pro-wrestling tapes. I had a VCR connected to my 13-inch TV, and I’d use it to record all sorts of stuff, including episodes of The Simpsons, Futurama, Seinfeld, Rocko’s Modern Life, Late Night With Conan O’Brien, Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn, and WWE (WWF at the time). The dumb thing is that nearly half the videos aren’t labeled at all. Let me tell you, the frustration of wanting to see SummerSlam 2001 when you’ve accidentally popped SummerSlam 2002 into the VCR is right up there with having 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife. I literally just laughed out loud writing that. I am high on life. So yeah, I’d write more, but that entirely defeats the purpose of creating a video. It’s a long one, but there’s a special surprise at the end… VCR, you’re the man! (I should point out that I mistakenly said that WWF No Mercy was based on No Mercy 2000, when it was in fact based on No Mercy 1999. In fact, everything I described refers to No Mercy 1999 and not No Mercy 2000. I regret the error.)
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| Contest: Win a year of LiveBooks Posted: 04 May 2010 01:15 PM PDT
We’re going to make it easy this time. To win a free year of service on the LiveBooks website, all you have to do is go to their their site, pick out your favorite template, and then tweet the name of that template (along with a link to this contest) to #LiveCrunch. The contest ends on Thursday at 5:00pm Pacific time, and we’ll contact you via Twitter to let you know that you’ve won.
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| Katy Perry rocks a CuteCircuit (‘wearable technology’) LED dress Posted: 04 May 2010 01:00 PM PDT
And the winner of best use of LEDs in a dress goes to… Katy Perry! Katy Perry is a famous American pop star. On the aggregate, I’d say she’s far more listenable than Lady Gaga, but that’s not the issue right now. No, for the issue is that she wore a dress at some fancy even in New York that had built-in LEDs. The dress, designed by, CuteCircuit, lit up as she strutted around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. CuteCircuit, for the unawares, sells “wearable technology.” In addition to the dress that Perry wore, there’s the Twinkle T-Shirt, which is all filled up with LEDs, and the Kinetic Dress, which “display[s] the wearer's mood to the audience and creat[es] a magic halo around her.” Is there, like, a male version of CuteCircuit I’m not aware of? Why can’t I wear a hoodie with glowy-glow LEDs? Instant geek cred.
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| Posted: 04 May 2010 12:30 PM PDT
Features:
Pros:
Cons:
There’s no shortage of websites out there designed for photographers. The problem is, most of them aren’t that good, or are intended for the mom & pop crowd. For example: Flickr. Nice site, but it’s not exactly for pros, and you have to pay for what pro functionality it has. Picasa albums aren’t as popular as Flickr, and certainly don’t have the same sense of community. Smugmug, on the other hand, is considered to be one of the best. The problem with SmugMug is that it requires a little too much tweaking. Sure, you can set it up to look really nice, but that requires a knowledge of coding and can be quite complicated. LiveBooks however has a really elegant interface that’s easy to use, easy to customize, and easy to manage.
Setting up a site is easy: just go to LiveBooks, and then select the type of website you want to set up. There is a myriad of templates to choose from, broken down into different themes. Each template has its own style, and can be customized for an additional fee. You can browse through the templates based on vocation, thumbnail type, color scheme, or name. The initial trial period is for 14 days, and during that period you can easily change themes. After that 14 day period, however, you must contact customer support in order to get your theme changed, so make sure you’re happy with your site. Once the theme is selected, you can customize the text about your company, yourself, and the galleries and titles that you want for specific pages. It sounds complicated, but LiveBooks made it pretty simple to populate all this information. Once you get the information populated, it’s time to upload your images. LiveBooks uses a lightbox style interface for organizing your photos, and that’s where things start to get a little less then ideal. It’s important to remember that LiveBooks is intended as a virtual portfolio, and not a high resolution web album. Where sites like Flickr make it easy to share multiple sized high resolution images, the LiveBooks sites emphasize a sales sample, instead of a product the client can print out for free at home. Be aware that depending on the template you choose, you are somewhat limited in the size of the files that you can display. You can resize your images manually, or allow the uploader to do it, which unfortunately can result in image quality issues. Once you get your images uploaded, however, the end user interface works extremely well. It’s fast, smooth, and does exactly what it’s supposed to do. Another point worth mentioning is that LiveBooks recently announced that they will be rolling out a new interface that will work with the iPad. As a photographer myself, I can’t help but think that this an ideal use of the iPad, and I’m looking forward to seeing the product in action.
One of the things that really sets LiveBooks apart is their search engine optimization. The site that the end user sees is Flash based, and extremely elegant. While this is great for the end user experience, it cripples your search engine optimization. LiveBooks has come up with an effective solution to this, by cloning your site into standard HTML to allow web crawlers to keyword your site. I was also very impressed by the level of support provided on the LiveBooks site. They have an extensive area dedicated to everything from customizing your site to the best way to optimize your Google juice. I moved my personal site over to their hosting, just to see how long it took. LiveBooks contacted my domain registry company for me and updated the DNS information. The entire process took about 8 hours (excluding the normal propagation time). Conclusion: LiveBooks is a significant step up from sites like Flickr and Picasa albums. It’s not as significant a step up from sites like Smugmug, but the interface and theme design make it a more practical choice for the photography professional, or the “enthusiastic amateur” like myself. At $39 a month, it’s not cheap, but when you consider the quality of the site and the level of support, it’s worth it.
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A sharp eyed blogger at the Web 2.0 Expo in SF spotted something rather interesting today at the Adobe booth. Apparently, there is a Google Tablet out there somewhere, and it’s running Android (duh). Not only that, but it seems that Flash runs pretty much seamlessly on prototype. 
Well, we’re apparently in the time of the tablets. First it was the netbooks, then the e-book readers, and now the big thing is everyone has to have a tablet to peddle. Samsung is doing things a little differently, but I don’t know if it’ll be different enough to make an impact in the (soon to be) flooded market. 
HP gave up the details on their updated Envy today. Nothing too terribly exciting, they’re sporting the latest in the Dual Core CPU, discreet graphic chipset and motherboards. More details after the jump.
We all know what the Three Wolf Moon shirt looks like, so I won’t link it here. But did you know that it was actually made up of not one, but four separate images? True fact is true!
We like electric vehicles here at CrunchGear, from the 
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to 
Short version: LiveBooks is a website designed to provide a platform for photographers and other artists to display and sell their work online. It’s an interesting alternative to the other sites out there in that it’s relatively easy to use, and the standard design templates are extremely well done.
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