CrunchGear

CrunchGear

Link to CrunchGear

Review Round-up: Custom in-ear headphones

Posted: 06 May 2010 07:00 PM PDT

There are a few ways to to get excellent audio out of a pair of headphones. You can have excellent components or a tight, close fit or special electronics. Or, better yet, you can have all three. I was lucky enough to be able to try three types of custom earphones/earbuds and am please to report that if you have the cash they’re definitely a great way to listen to music.

I tested three distinct models from JH Audio, Ultimate Ears, and Etymotic. All of these buds were custom molded for my ear, a process that is, at the very least, undeniably weird.

First a note on these headphones: they’re definitely not cheap. Not only do you have to pay for the headphones, you also have to pay for a licensed audiologist to take a mold of your ear. The mold is then used to create a custom-fitted earbud that fits you, presumably, less like a glove and more like a custom sports mouth guard.

These earbuds are not for everyone but they are amazing bits of audio gear. I chose three different types, ranging from almost $1200 to about $400. If you love music and have a great deal of high quality or lossless content, this is certainly an option to consider. Full disclosure: Obviously these companies squirted gunk into my ears and made these headphones for the review.

Here’s how the earbuds are usually made. Obviously you’d go to a doctor’s office and not my dining room:

A quick note on durability: I’ve used the Ultimate Ears 5 Pro for almost eight years now and they only this year did they begin to break down and require repair by the company – a process that cost me a mere $168. In short, when you make the investment in these earbuds, expect a life of about ten years on these if you treat them well.

Also a note on audio quality: these buds sound great with great files. If you’re listening to compressed MP3s, you won’t get a benefit. These earbuds are designed for folks on stage who want to hear the mix but don’t want to depend on monitors. They are “professional” in that they offer excellent sound reproduction in a noise-isolating case.

JH Audio 16 Pro – $1149
These earbuds are incredible. They have a frequency response from 10Hz to 20kHz along with -26db noise isolation. The buds contain 8 discrete drivers per side w/ 4-way crossovers, which translates to each earbud containing eight tiny speakers, each handling a certain frequency range.

What does this mean in terms of audio? Well, for one you have eminently comfortable noise isolation in loud environments and these also offer amazing performance with the right content. I listened to a number of pieces of lossless music and heard more detail than you’ll ever year in a pair of stock earbuds. “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd sounded like the band and that coughing guy was in the room with me while music by TV on the Radio and Portishead was a layered soundscape of amazing clarity.

I talked to our buddy, Mike Kobrin, audio ninja extraordinaire, and he wrote:

JH makes in-ear monitors for on-stage performers who play at large venues and sound engineers, where there simply can’t be any compromise in sound. Performers also need something discreet and lightweight on stage… Imagine Christina Aguilera dancing around on stage with a giant pair of Sennheiser HD800’s. A “nice” pair of cans from Grado, Denon, Sennheiser, etc. are more for spectator-style listening.

Then there’s the segment of musical “spectators” with lots of discretionary income that want to hear things the way the pros hear them on stage. These also might be the bleeding-edge techie folks who just need the latest, regardless of whether it’s truly the greatest.

Is 8 drivers overkill, even for professionals? Certainly. After all, performers have gotten along with 2- and 3-driver models for years without complaint, and engineers are more apt to use huge cans anyway. And doubling each segment of the audio spectrum (lows, mids and highs) adds quite a bit of complexity to the engineering, especially when it comes to distributing the original audio signal to all the different drivers. There’s potential for all kinds of sonic benefits, like improved clarity and separation of instruments, and certainly for more powerful lows. Whether that engineering is done precisely and consistently enough is what determines the sonic benefits actually occur.

Ultimate Ears 5 Pro – $600
These were my first custom earbuds and they were created by the same team that currently runs JH Audio. These earbuds have two drivers and the sound, in a nutshell, is a bit flatter than the 16 Pros. These are almost the “bargain basement” model for Ultimate Ears but they’re quite comfortable and you still get excellent -26db noise isolation an, because I’ve worn these for so long, I think the comfort has grown on me.

Eytmotic hf2 Customs – About $250
These earbuds are actually made by ACS Custom, a UK company, and use Eytmotics excellent hf2 headset. While the audio is decidedly lower key than the other two in this round-up, the price is about right. The “sleeves” are molded to your ear but are a less-secure fit than the other two. They cost $133 while the earbuds cost about $125.

These are custom audio products for people who want to recreate the artist experience. They are also the most dependable noise isolation solution I’ve found. Are they for you? If you need lots of sound isolation and want to hear almost everything in your high quality music while traipsing around the city or just sitting in your easy chair, these things can’t be beat.

Video music by Volfoniq and Binrpilot.

If you’re going to scan, scan right with the CanoScan 9000F

Posted: 06 May 2010 05:30 PM PDT

Let’s be honest: scanning has become a necessary evil. But as long as you’re doing what has to be done, you may as well do it right. I got decent results scanning 35mm film with an old bargain scanner, but if you’re planning on re-printing them (or re-printing prints, or what have you), you want the highest resolution possible. The 9000F will do up your film at a massive 9600×9600DPI. Yeah, it’s probably overkill, but at $250 it’s bargain overkill.

Yeah yeah, you can get scanners for like $40 at Best Buy, but you know Canon has got your best interests in mind when they put out a piece of hardware like this. They know what image quality is, and they’ve been making the pieces of devices like this one for long enough to know what needs to be done.

At that resolution, you’ll never have to buy another scanner… if you’re okay with a gigantic, slow thing like this being your only scanner. If I’m honest, I think I would prefer something like this portable one. Who am I kidding, I’ve been avoiding printers and scanners like the plague for a good five years now, I’m not going to stop.

[via Gizmag]

Gadgets of days gone by: My Super Nintendo

Posted: 06 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.

I want to be clear here: I’m not just celebrating the Super Nintendo in general — I do that every day, as should you. I’m celebrating my Super Nintendo in particular. Because for almost 20 years now, this amazing piece of hardware has been my constant companion, and I want to give it the recognition it deserves.

This SNES was originally one my parents had in their office, a design firm where the staff would take play a little F-Zero on their coffee breaks. I inherited it at some point (though I’d travel downtown just to play it) and since then it hasn’t really left my side. It traveled to LA with me for college and was shipped back and forth to Seattle several times, and moved from dorm to dorm to apartment to apartment, until I moved back here. Packed crudely into a paper grocery bag with all the cables and games, it lived below my parents’ TV for a year or so, and then came with me to my first apartment here on Capitol Hill, and then to my present one. It may in fact be the longest-kept object in my possession.

It’s been chewed on by dogs, dropped innumerable times, used as a bookend and a table, crushed at the bottom of boxes, and god knows what else. Several kinds of drink have been spilled on it, and many brands of chips have been crumbled over it. It has pieces missing from the case and I can instantly tell the first player controller by the bite marks.

Through all this, it has never failed to work, even once. I’ve never replaced the controllers, the power cable, the contacts, or the RCA cables. Every game pops up like a champ after you blow on it a bit, and even though I accidentally leave it on for days at a time occasionally, it has never had it go out on me. For nearly two decades — and counting.

If there were a lifetime achievement award for any of the gadgets I’ve used, it would have to go to this thing. Of course, the platform deserves accolades due to its amazing selection of classic games, but this particular one, right here on my living room table, is the one I know and love. C’mere, you.

Microsoft researching “4-D light fields” for better 3D displays

Posted: 06 May 2010 03:30 PM PDT


One of the issues people have with 3D displays, or more precisely, rather one of the issues people’s brains have with 3D displays, is that your eyes remain focused on the same plane (the screen) while the actual visual cues change and make you think you should be refocusing. It’s such a fundamental response that it can’t really be avoided, only accommodated. One project attempting to do this is detailed in this slide from Microsoft Research’s TechFair going on right now.

The idea is that instead of having the eyes looking at the screen and attempting to focus nearer or further from it, a microlens array is interposed, which refracts the light in such a way that the eye would be able to focus on where the displayed object would actually be. Here’s the full slide:

The idea is cool, but the technology to make this happen would be monstrously complicated. Current 3D displays require only a left and right eye image, and display that in sequence, or optically separated, or whatever. But this display method would need more information: virtual distance, relative object size, and so on, unless I’m mistaken and it can derive this information from the image.

It’s all just research right now anyway, far from a commercial application if it’s even viable, but I like hearing what people are working on in this area. Like I said regarding Ebert’s objections to 3D, a lot of naysayers will probably be eating their words when the technology improves over the next few years.

Video: Medal of Honor trailer reveals upcoming beta

Posted: 06 May 2010 03:00 PM PDT

A new trailer just posted to the Medal of Honor Web site pretty much checks all the boxes on the Big Checklist of FPS Trailer requirements. Sad, dramatic music; military man talking to his wife on the phone in a reassuring manner “I love you, we’re OK because we’re trained for this sort of thing, don’t forget to have the car inspected,” etc.; flash, bang, explosion, fade to black. I really don’t know how many of these games I can take. That’s not saying it’ll be a bad game—I played it, and it is, in fact, quite good&,dash;but I do believe I’m tiring of playing toy soldier.

There was a bit of news in the trailer: there will be a beta of some sorts, and it’s “coming soon.”

Hopefully calling the genre as a whole tired won’t get me blacklisted from the fine gents at EA.


My summer memories as captured by a Sony Mavica floppy disk camera

Posted: 06 May 2010 02:30 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.

Way back in the balmy summer of 2001, I made sunset time-lapse video using a Sony Mavica and a stack of 3.5mm floppy disks. I did this while working at a Boy Scout summer camp. Yes, I have always been a huge nerd.

Camp Tapico was my summer home for nearly 10 years. I lived and worked at the Boy Scout camp for seven of those years and like everyone else that has visited, feel in love with the gorgeous 1,200-acre camp deep in the northern woods of Michigan’s lower peninsula. The 120-acre Grass Lake rests almost dead center in the camp and can always be trusted to put on a spectacular show as the sun descends into the trees over the most northern campsite, 3Bs.

My dream was to capture that moment during each season and so I set out to record the first one using a buddy’s Sony Mavica digital camera and bunch of 3.5mm floppy disks. So I grabbed a couple of camp chairs for myself and one of the hot lifeguards, and climbed up the observation tower at the beach.

It wasn’t really that hard to capture the necessary images, but it was rather time consuming. I mounted the camera to the wooden railing and proceeded to take a picture every 15 seconds for, like, an hour and a half. That required a stack of floppy disks for the Sony Mavica I was using; it actually took fine pictures, even though they were 640 x 480. From there, I used Flash 4’s auto import function to load the whole lot into separate keyframes and the results are above. It was really that easy back then and still is today, although I’m sure you can use something other than Flash.

Nowadays many cameras have a time lapse function built-in that will produce a much better result. Once mounted to a tripod, the camera should snap the pictures without user intervention, therefore eliminating the wobble seen in my video from me pressing the shutter button and swapping disks.

But that method doesn’t breed memories like I created years ago. Unfortunately I never captured the sunset for the three other seasons like I initially planned, although I did take plenty of sunset pictures that year with the Mavica and the following years with better cameras. But I really should complete that time-lapse set. The tower I used is still there and I could certainly use the break from the Internet and society in general. Maybe as we say in Michigan, it’s time to take a trip up North.

How to use the Seagate Dockstar on a LAN without Pogoplug

Posted: 06 May 2010 02:00 PM PDT


Our readers are awesome. They are always trying to help. For instance we just got an email explaining the process needed to get the Seagate Dockstar to work on a local network without using Pogoplug. Here, let me give you the back story.

I originally reviewed the Seagate Dockstar a while ago an found it to be a nifty little device hampered by the fact that you must use the online sharing service Pogoplug. It’s essetually a Pogoplug dock, really. You can use the dock on your local network with any USB drive, but only if you activate local network access on Pogoplug’s website. Totally lame in my opinion. It truly limits the appeal of the device. Anyway, this is where reader Matt T. comes in. He has solved my problem and came up with a solution that unlocks the dock with the help of a little text file on a connected drive.

He writes,

Matt Burns though he might change his opinion of the Dockstar if Seagate
would tell him how to use it without Pogoplug.

I’m not Seagate, but I’ve figured out how…

You can use this as a home network server for windows without signing up
with pogoplug or installing any software.

Plug your USB drive into your computer, format it (preferably with NTFS) and
create a file on it named .ceid

Using notepad, or your favorite text editor, put these lines in the file
(replacing yoursharename with a name of your own choosing). Note the mode=rw
allows reading and writing.

servicename=yoursharename
xcode.metadata=never
xcode.thumbnail=never
xcode.stream=never
cifs.mode=rw

Plug the usb drive into the Dockstar, and you’re all set. The drive will be
available as
\\fadsMMMMMM\yoursharename (where MMMMMM are the last 6 letters and numbers
of the Dockstar’s mac address, which is on the label on the bottom).

There you have it. Nicely done.

CrunchDeals: 100 AA Spider-Man batteries

Posted: 06 May 2010 01:30 PM PDT


Yeah, you read that headline right. This is a CrunchDeal for 100 Spider-Man batteries for only $29. How cool is that. But be warned, they are not cross-compatible with DC paraphernalia such as your Batman flashlight or Wonder Woman vibrator. [UWantSavings via Deals.Woot]

Handy guide for a little light vintage camera restoration

Posted: 06 May 2010 01:02 PM PDT


The charm of vintage cameras is easy to understand. Their metal build, satisfying shutter action, and funky old lenses make for a fun photography experience. What’s more, they can be bought for unbelievably low prices on eBay or at junk and antique shops. Unfortunately, they’re rarely in the best of shape, having likely been abandoned in a trunk for several years before being dragged out and sold at a garage sale. What to do?

If you’re prepared to take the thing apart (and why not, it only cost you a couple bucks), there are a few modifications and cleanup processes even the clumsiest among us can do. This instructable refers specifically to the Olympus the guy found, but the general instructions (and cautions) are applicable to many cameras from that era and others. As much as I like my old FTb, I’ve never liked the grip material, and some well-aged leather would really improve the shooting experience. And the viewfinder could certainly use a brush-down, too.

Video: Hands-on with the Sony Bloggie video camera

Posted: 06 May 2010 12:36 PM PDT

As stated in the video, please accept this hands-on of the Sony Bloggie video camera in lieu of footage of teeny-boppers, um, bopping around. I don’t need that headache, that’s for sure.

The video, which is much shorter than my 15-minute epic from the other day, pretty much goes over all the main ideas of the Bloggie. You whip it out, swivel the camera, hit record, then off you go. There’s really not much more to it than that, which is very much a good thing: you don’t want to be buried inside an instruction manual before recording your life.

I do have a tentative idea of a legitimately interesting video to show off exactly what the Bloggie can do, so be sure to check by next week.

Oh, and for whatever reason I said it’s $200, when it’s really more like $170. As always, shop around.

Song credit: “Dewey Square” by Hugo “Droopy” Contini

Gadgets of days gone by: Kodak DC50, my first digital camera

Posted: 06 May 2010 11:30 AM 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.

In 1999, I was into photography, but not seriously. I’d had the obligatory Kodak Instamatic, a couple of cheap 35mm pocket cameras, and I had fun taking snapshots. I never really took it seriously, though, until I saw some pictures that a co-worker had taken of a sunset. Then I just had to have a digital camera.

But back in ‘99, your options for digital cameras were somewhat limited. You could pay $6,000 for a Nikon D1, but I had no intentions of doing that. Based on what a co-worker had, I ended up purchasing a Kodak DC-50. The DC-50 was quite advanced for its time. The sensor was a 0.38 megapixel CCD and took pictures at a 756×508 resolution. This was unusual, since most cameras at that point took pictures at a maximum of 640×480.

Most cameras were limited to internal memory back in those days, and while the DC-50 did have internal memory available, you were much better off using a compact flash card with a PCMCIA adapter. The lens was a 3x optical zoom, which covered a relatively wide range considering that it was physically contained inside the camera. You also didn’t have any way to view the pictures until you pulled them out of the camera. There was only a basic LCD on the back, which showed a few details to keep you informed of what is going on. There was no way to control the ISO, or the shutter speed, and the focus was completely automatic. But for the money, it was the most advanced digital camera you could get without spending more then you would for a car. I’ve still got some pictures from back in those days; you can check them out at the bottom of the page.

I fondly remember that camera, but I was certainly glad when I upgraded to something better. I wince when I see the image quality from back then, but it was a great starting point. I vaguely remember spending in the neighborhood of $150 for the DC-50 off of eBay — you can find them now for about $35. Of course, I shoot with a Nikon D300 now, which is in a whole different class.

Scitable: a social network for science research and education

Posted: 06 May 2010 11:00 AM PDT


Social networks are a dime a dozen. Many of them focus on the social, or the networking, independent of other aspects that might bring people together. It’s no big surprise that many of these social networks fail, or only reach specific niche audiences. As such, it was with a bit of skepticism that I approached Scitable, a social network for science research and education from the folks at Nature Publishing Group. A quick examination of the site reveals a vibrant community of educators and learners. I had the opportunity to speak with Vikram Savkar, SVP & Publishing Director at Nature Publishing Group, who is currently spearheading the Scitable initiative, to learn more about it.

Nature Publishing Group has been around since the late 1800s. They publish science research for science researchers. Many of the folks at NPG (and elsewhere) have felt that there’s a growing problem with science education. Savkar said that according to some studies, 40% of students drop out of science programs after their first year. This is particularly problematic in a global context. While schools in the US might be doing okay in terms of science education, schools in sub-Saharan Africa may be using a single outdated textbook that is shared by all their students. Such a situation is hardly the path to meaningful learning.

According to Savkar, and his colleagues at NPG, science education needs to become interactive and social: kids and young adults learn from people, not from static words in a textbook. NPG also realized that free access to up-to-date science information and research was a critical component of advancing the world’s science education.

To that end, they launched Scitable in January, 2009. Scitable is an open teaching and learning library currently aimed at college students or AP level high school students. One of the primary goals of the site is to have a lot more than just static text information: they have rich, interactive media, and much of their published content is peer reviewed. Since Nature Publishing Group publishes scientific papers, it’s a no-brainer to share many of those paper on the Scitable site.

Savkar informed me Scitable strives to cover each content area with the same rigor and depth that is applied to traditional textbooks. The site currently focuses on genetics in order to build a strong starting point from which they can branch into other aspects of Nature Publishing Group’s content areas. “Why genetics?” I asked. The answer given to me is that there’s an awful lot of interesting stuff happening within genetics right now, so it’s a good, vibrant subject matter on which NPG has lots of information to share.

Scitable is a social site where teachers, researchers, and students can collaborate, share work, and help one another. The “social” in Scitable’s social network is less about sharing photos of your weekend trip and more about working collaboratively with people who have similar or complimentary goals to your own. Scientific inquiry is rarely conducted in a vacuum, so Scitable aims to connect people together in meaningful ways.

There’s a spotlight section on the main page that highlights a specific starting point for in-depth drill-down into additional content. There’s a student blog by students for students, and an Ask an Expert section. This feature is extremely popular, for both students asking questions and seasoned researchers answering them. It takes a day or two to get an answer, generally, and according to Savkar it is used 95% of the time for actual knowledge and learning efforts, as opposed to a quick route to a homework solution.

Instructors can create a classroom, using a course management system similar to those already in use at many institutions (Blackboard, Desire2Learn, etc). Savkar tells me that more than 500 instructors, most of them from outside the U.S., have conducted entire classes using the Scitable site for several semesters now. And Scitable is being used as a major supplement to many real-world classes, too.

Scitable is currently being used by students and instructors in 160 countries. Only 40% of the current users are in the U.S. I asked Savkar about plans for a mobile site, knowing that much of the Internet industry is moving toward mobile devices, and also cognizant that high speed Internet access on desktop PCs is still a luxury in many part of the world (parts of the world that are very much a target audience for Scitable). He assures me that a mobile site is in the works, and that great care is being taken to work with the variety of access mechanisms available: from full-blown desktop PCs to Nokia feature phones. “Learning online should not involve a compromise in quality,” Savkar said. The mobile site will be structured to maximize content delivery based on various use cases.

Scitable is following what Savkar calls the NPR model: business underwriting in the form of social value advertising, rather than specific product placement or paid content placement. The corporate sponsors might get links to relevant job openings on certain pages within the Scitable hierarchy, but there won’t be large banner ads or other impediments to accessing the content. Content is king on Scitable.

Savkar was clearly passionate about his work. His team of about 25 is working strenuously to deliver rich, meaningful scientific information to the world, and to promote social collaboration and interaction. Future Scitable content will cover cell biology and ecology (due this fall), and Savkar says they’re very eager to explore replicating their model to experts in other scientific fields.

iCitizen 2010: Hallelujah! Gaming Is Good For You (but you already knew that, it’s just that your parents didn’t)

Posted: 06 May 2010 10:35 AM PDT

OK, so shortly after I got the invite to attend iCitizen, I received a book in the mail written by Bob Johansen (one of the iCitizen keynote speakers) with a note that said “please read this before the conference.” I really wanted to read it but I confess the title made me think it was the usual “motivational speaker” fare.  I let it slip through the cracks and didn't get a chance to absorb it. Well let me tell you that after hearing Bob speak, I plan to read it A.S.A.P (right after I finish Nevil Shute's On The Beach of course—I’m reading that on Kindle for iPhone—major downer). Anyway, the guy was crazy smart and so if he says gaming is good for you (which he did), well…it must be.

But seriously, Bob's dissection of gaming and the learning that can accompany it was fascinating and only a small part of his iCitizen 2010 presentation detailing the tech outlook for the next 10 years. It was a hopeful presentation alluding to a melding of new tech with our own biology and how innovative business leaders will use this new paradigm to achieve success.

If you don't know who this guy is, he is a distinguished fellow and future forecaster for the think-tank known as the Institute For The Future. His job is to forecast future trends as far as 10-20 years out—no easy task. Bob was kind enough to take a moment to speak with me and I have posted some of the results here in my usual ghetto-style-conference-iPhone-video-mini-interview format.

Oh yeah, he also played college b-ball at Illinois back in the day. Renaissance man for sure.

Archos 7 Home Tablet: June, $199

Posted: 06 May 2010 10:30 AM PDT

We now have a release date and price for the Archos 7 Home Tablet, a device that Matt has been talking about pretty much nonstop for a while now. Does June for $199 sound good to you? Hope so, because that’s what we’re looking at.

Android powers the Archos 7 Home Tablet, and it’s pretty much exactly what you think of when you think of “home tablets.” A reasonably sized touchscreen (seven inches, 800×600), built-in Wi-Fi, USB port (for connecting to other devices~!), and so on.

What are you using a home tablet for? Maybe checking a message board thread while in bed before turning out the light? Reading people’s reactions to episodes of Lost on search.twitter.com?

Hands-on with the new Leica line: Sexytime

Posted: 06 May 2010 10:25 AM PDT


Say what you want about Leica but they make some beautiful glass and some great cameras. Today I saw the 18-megapixel M9 (New Yorkers take note: Leica will have loaner units at the New York Photo Festival), the 12-megapixel X1, and the brand new V-LUX 20. I didn’t get a chance to shoot much but from what I saw the manual controls on the X1 are excellent and its designed primarily as a street shooter, allowing even a rich housewife in Connecticut to become an impetuous artist like Henri Cartier-Bresson or that Adams dude.


We’re going to review these puppies one by one this summer and report back, but if they’re anything like the other Leicas we reviewed we won’t be disappointed.

Also Matt said to say the V-LUX 20 is available on Amazon. He also got a new bike seat.

Iron Man 2 will be the widest release in history (and it’s already made $121 million overseas)

Posted: 06 May 2010 10:00 AM PDT

Excited for Iron Man 2? How could you be, after finding out that the movie’s producers removed all of the first movie’s charm? But, whatever, let’s not mince any words: the movie will be huge. It opens at midnight tonight here in the U.S. in what threatens to be the widest movie release in the history of movie releases. Actually, “threatens” is the wrong word to use: it will, in fact, be the widest release ever.

The movie has already been released overseas in 53 countries, and it’s made some $121 million dollars. Apparently the movie had a budget of $200 million, so it’s not quite there yet, but just give it a few more days, then Paramount Pictures will be rolling in the dough.

What’s most shocking about the movie is that they didn’t take a long weekend to tack on terrible 3D effects, which means the final numbers won’t be as high as they would have been if people had to pay a 3D premium.


Report: RIM planned to out an Android tablet, scrapped and delayed until next year

Posted: 06 May 2010 09:30 AM PDT

RIM has a tablet in the works. This isn’t the first we’ve heard of it either. Apparently it was even supposed to be powered by Android and was to be released this year. But that’s not going to happen according to one source. Nope, the RIM “BlackPad” has been pushed back to next year and will ship with RIM’s own BlackBerry OS instead.

This comes from Ashok Kumar, an analyst from Rodman Renshaw, and while the part about the tablet coming out next year rings true with what we’ve already heard, we’re definitely questioning the Android part of the story. That doesn’t sound like RIM at all. They have always held true to its BlackBerry OS, which is certainly tablet ready. Perhaps an early hardware demo ran Android as a proof-of-concept, but RIM probably wouldn’t muck up its brand identity by releasing an Android tablet to the masses.

Apple is the poster child of creating a common user interfaces across product lines. RIM would likely follow the same path, relying on longtime BlackBerry users to quickly jump on board with the BlackPad because of the familiar operating system and robust email support.

That is if RIM is even working on tablet. There hasn’t been any official confirmation out of Waterloo concerning such a device, but RIM, along with the other mobile manufacturers like Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola, would likely be the prime candidates to out a true iPad contender. But they better hurry. There are already over a million iPads in the states and Europe is about to get their first chance at the tablet in the coming days. It’s going to be hard to break the public’s attention away from the iPad in a few months, let alone next year when the so-called BlackPad is supposed to debut.

Photo report: CrunchGear digs up Akihabara’s top 10 expensive classic games

Posted: 06 May 2010 09:21 AM PDT


Nearly two years have passed since I last went to Akihabara in Tokyo to dig up Japan’s most expensive retro games. This time, I made the observation that the general price level has gone down in the past months. Some of the pricey carts and CDs I listed up were simply nowhere to be found, some were considerably cheaper for some reason, and other games became more expensive over time.

Needless to say, it’s impossible to conduct a “representative study” in this case, but I did my best to identify the most sought after games in about seven or eight retro game stores in Akihabara as of a couple of days ago. Consider this a good cross-section.

Top 10: Radiant Silvergun $190/boxed
(Shooting, Sega Saturn 1998)

Top 9: Mortal Kombat Trilogy $196/boxed
(Fighting, Sony Playstation 1996)

Top 8: Sylphia $211/boxed
(Shooting, PC-Engine Super CD 1993)

Top 7: Death Crimson $213/boxed (new)
(Gun shooting, Sega Saturn 1996)

Top 6: Final Fight Revenge $222/boxed (new)
(Fighting, Sega Saturn 2000)

Top 5: Dead of the Brain 1&2 $222/boxed
(Adventure, PC-Engine Super-CD 1999)

Top 4: Derisoba Deluxe $640/boxed
(based on Courier Crisis, Sega Saturn 1997)

Top 3 and 2: WWF Raw $1,010/boxed and Maximum Carnage $1,050/boxed
(WWF Raw: Sega Genesis 1994, Maximum Carnage: Fighting, Sega Genesis 1994)

Top 1: Dodgeball $1,360/cart only
(Super NES 1993)

Xbox 360 Arcade Spring 2010 bundle has two Rare games~!

Posted: 06 May 2010 09:00 AM PDT

Right about now you should start seeing the Xbox 360 Arcade Spring 2010 bundle online and at the local store. The $200 bundle includes two games, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and Viva Piñata, both of which aren’t too bad, actually. Banjo Kazooie is sorta weird, but weird doesn’t equal bad, you know?

Since that’s all there is to this story, here’s a clip of the Viva Piñata cartoon. Now that was weird…

First 3D baseball game ever will air on DirecTV in July

Posted: 06 May 2010 08:15 AM PDT


Yeah, this will be real exciting in 3D…

Listen, it’s all well and good that DirecTV gets to make these grandiloquent announcements that it’s going to offer this or that sport in 3D—today’s news is that DirecTV will be the first TV provider to show a Major League Baseball game in 3D with this July 10 and July 11’s Yankees-Mariners clash on the YES Network—but I have one question: why in God’s name is Fox Soccer Channel still shown in standard definition? That’s right, four years after I purchased my first HDTV specifically so I could watch ESPN-HD and ESPN2-HD coverage of the World Cup, I’m still staring at SD coverage on FSC with DirecTV. It’s all a little bit stupid.

It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even watch SD games on Fox Soccer Channel anymore. Why bother? Instead I’ll play Team Fortress 2 in windowed mode, then have Sopcast or one of those P2P stream applications off to the side. I’m all but convinced that an illegal stream of any random Premiership game will actually look better than the official broadcast on Fox Soccer Channel.

So, why should I be paying for this channel when the free alternatives are better?

I’m not even sure if I should be mad at DirecTV or Fox Soccer Channel, but I’m mad at someone, that’s for sure.

Not that it even matters now, now that the Premiership and Serie A are winding down, and the Champions League concludes in a few weeks. (Other channels show other leagues.) Once I see Mourinho’s team win the Champions League trophy on May 22, there will be no reason to watch Fox Soccer Channel till mid-August when the domestic leagues begin anew.

All I’m saying is that it sure would be nice to have THE MOST POPULAR SPORT IN THE WORLD in HD before we start showing random MLB games in 3D. And really, how exciting will a mid-July two-game series between the Yankees and Mariners be? Oh boy, only 800 more games till the playoffs start, these games are vital.

And we all know that cricket is more exciting than baseball.

Nuts to this, I’m moving to Brazil.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)