CrunchGear

CrunchGear

Link to CrunchGear

Video: Sony’s new, super-thin OLED display wraps around a pencil

Posted: 26 May 2010 03:21 AM PDT

OLEDs, which are said to lead the next wave of innovation in the TV space (after back-lit LCDs and 3D displays), come with plenty of advantages: they produce gorgeous images, they are self-luminous, light, and they’re flexible – very flexible. Case in point: a super-thin, Sony-made 4.1-inch OLED that actually wraps around a pencil, shown today in Japan.

The display is just 80μm thick, offers 432 x 240 resolution (121 ppi), a contrast ratio of around 1,000:1, and produces 100 cd/m2 brightness. Sony says the OLED can be wrapped around a pencil with just a 4mm radius. And the OLED can actually continue to display images and video while being rolled up, which is (according to Sony) a world’s first.

Unfortunately, the OLED is just a prototype, but those of you who attend the SID event in Seattle this week will be able to see the screen in action. All the others can drool over the display in the short (but pretty cool) video embedded below.

Half-Life 2 launching on Macs this Wednesday

Posted: 25 May 2010 03:05 PM PDT

It’s so appropriate yet sad that Alyx is tasked with announcing the six-year old Half-Life 2’s Mac launch. But really there’s no shame in playing the some-what old Half-Life 2 even today. It’s one of the games that we agreed with in PC Gamer’s top games of all time list. But it’s yet another sign that the Mac gaming scene still has a long way to go.

This Sony Vaio P takes the style to another level

Posted: 25 May 2010 02:38 PM PDT

Maybe the standard Sony Vaio P is a bit pedestrian for your taste. It’s just not enough, right? Well then, how about one covered with crocodile skin? It’s supposed to be a digital clutch anyway.

Pricing info isn’t available, but it’s not going to be low-cost. The model’s spec’d out with the Atom Z560 Intel US15X chipset, 256GB SSD, and optional 12-hour battery. Plus all that crocodile skin can’t be cheap. [SonyBrands via eeepc via liliputing]

mTouch: An affordable multi-touch web table

Posted: 25 May 2010 02:10 PM PDT


It’s hard out here at Disrupt for gadget geeks, but we just got lucky. Merel Technologies is showing off a very cool multi-touch web table that uses gesture recognition, object recognition, and multi-user multi-touch to create a new way to interact with media and kiosk apps.

The best thing? It costs $3,200 for the 32-inch model and $4,200 for the 42-incher.

The table is made by Merel Technologies in New York and it uses a stacked multi-touch layer (looks like IR) along with an LCD TV to display the interface. A built-in PC runs the whole thing and you can tear it down to create a coffee-table sized device. You can also customize colors.

Interestingly, the gear is assembled in New York.

The goal here, it seems, is to allow customers access to multi-touch displays for not much money. It’s no Surface, but the company is working on an App Store which allows you to browse devices via Bluetooth, browse photos and classifieds, or even access video and restaurant menus right from your table. We saw something similar in iTable, which was a little more PC and a little less Surface — but also going for the lower price point.

SNES HD emulator for iPad looks sick – even the iPhone controller

Posted: 25 May 2010 01:15 PM PDT


It’s a pain to play emulators on the iPhone because not only is it small, but you have to sacrifice screen space to allow for buttons — and in the SNES’ case, that’s a lot of buttons. The iPad has a lot of promise as a portable gaming platform, but without a decent controller and interface, even a perfectly emulated console will be no fun to play. This SNES HD app seems to pretty much solve all those problems… at least, if you have an iPhone or iPod touch to use as a controller.

The iPhone connects over Bluetooth and you even use the physical buttons for the L and R buttons. To be honest I doubt it controls all that well, but it’s better than having it all on one screen. Someone PLEASE make a decent controller for this thing already. I love the save state pictures and the actual console in the interface. Man, I really want an iPad now.

Did I mention it’s free? More info at the creator’s site.

[via iPhoneblog.de, Kotaku]

There will be a Mass Effect movie. Will Lost’s Matthew Fox play Commander Shepard?

Posted: 25 May 2010 12:45 PM PDT

It’s takes a special type of nerd to read a video game’s novelization, and I’m none too proud to say that I recently started reading the Mass Effect novel. But there’s a certain quiet dignity in reading a novelization that simply isn’t present when sitting at the multiplex (or downloading the Blu-ray rip, as it were) watching a movie. Get ready: EA has sold the movie rights to Mass Effect, and it’s gone to Legendary Pictures, the same people behind The Dark Knight, Watchmen, and The Hangover. So there’s hope the movie won’t be total dross.

Several of the BioWare folks, including Ray Muzyka and Mass Effect project manager Casey Hudson, will be a part of the production, so there’s even more evidence that the movie has the potential to be OK.

It’s being written by the man who wrote I Am Legend, Mark Protosevich. I never understood how you can be credited with writing a movie when all you’re doing is remaking it…

The thing is, Mass Effect is already so cinematic that making a movie seems like overkill. Just play the game; I’m almost certain the movie won’t be as good as the game was.

Stating the obvious: Commander Shepard needs to be played by Matthew Fox, the guy who played Jack in “Lost.” They look identical.

Via to flood the US market with five sub-$150 Android tablets by year’s end

Posted: 25 May 2010 12:15 PM PDT

2010 was called the year of the tablet and Via might make that come true. The chip maker plans on releasing five tablets by the end of the year. The kicker is that these five models will cost between $100 and $150 — or so says a Bloomberg report. These tablets are said to run Android and will be available in the states in the second half of the 2010.

Via’s upcoming tablets are of course in response to the iPad and is a classic CE move. Instead of producing a quality product, a company, in this case Via, is outing a whole range of low-cost (and likely cheap) alternatives.

This move hopefully won’t earn 2010 the title of year of the tablet alone. In fact there’s a chance that it could harm the consumer’s interest in the slate form factor. The iPad isn’t perfect by any means, but it is showing the entire consumer electronic market that they want and need a tablet computer with its slick user experience. However, it’s still an elite-type device with the $500+ price tag and obviously a low-cost Via model will capture some sales of those looking to be part of the cool crowd. However if these tablets fail to provide a good experience, it might turn off an entire market segment to tablets in general.

Super Mario Bro. Crossover gets Ryu from Ninja Gaiden

Posted: 25 May 2010 11:54 AM PDT

Can you dig it? Ryu from Ninja Gaiden on the NES was a real badass. He could climb on walls and he had unlimited shuriken, a big plus when you’re going against hordes of anti-ninja forces on the NES. But how is he against Koopa Troopers?

Our favorite game, SMB Crossover, just announced they’re adding Ryu to their line-up of classic characters.

You can play it right here, right now. Thank us after you’ve had like an hour of fun.

via Kotaku

Verizon exec hits the gym, loses the unreleased Motorola Shadow instead of weight

Posted: 25 May 2010 11:30 AM PDT

Note to self: keep an eye out for unreleased smartphones in ridiculous places. Hanging out in a random beer garden in Palo Alto? Oh, hello there, fourth-generation iPhone. Hitting the gym? Lookie here, it’s the unreleased Motorola Shadow Android phone for Verizon!

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

Lamp poster (poster lamp?) adds a surrealist bent to your bedroom

Posted: 25 May 2010 11:30 AM PDT


If you don’t have room in your office for another lamp, yet find yourself squinting as you read over your books and parchments, then perhaps you should consider investing in one of these fabulous lamp posters. Sure, you could just open the window, but you’d have to get out of your chair. Plus, when people see this, they’ll immediately think you well-versed in surrealist art. When this happens, don’t say anything. Just stare at them — if you have a beard, stroke it.

The piece, which is not a concept and is actually for sale, though it is limited to 50 pieces. It was designed quite a while ago, but only recently was actually made available — at $195 it’s slightly more expensive than your average poster of a lamp, but unlike most other posters, this one lights up.

[via OhGizmo]

Goodnight, sweet iPhone: Apple pulls iPhone 3G sales from their online store

Posted: 25 May 2010 11:15 AM PDT

You know what's coming up in just a few days? Apples Worldwide Developer Conference. With WWDC comes new iPhones.. and with new iPhones, comes the death of an old one. Apple may very well still offer the 3GS after the fourth-generation iPhone is on the shelves -- but offering the fourth-gen iPhone, the 3GS, and the 3G? Probably not going to happen. The first herald of the iPhone 3G's impending death has come.


Will the fancy-pants Jabulani perform at altitude at the World Cup?

Posted: 25 May 2010 11:00 AM PDT

Football (soccer) writers are typically terribly serious about what they do. Relax, buddy, it’s just a game. A fun game, yeah, but just a game. The Guardian’s Barry Glendenning does things a little bit differently: he’s actually good! In a column today, Glendenning prepares us all for the inevitable complaints that will surround the Jabulani’s performance at the World Cup. It’s a time-honored tradition, complaining about the new ball: the ball is too heavy, the ball is too light, the ball swerves too much, the ball swerves too little, etc. Most accurate ball ever created? Obviously you haven’t seen a Michael Carrick pass.

There’s a lot of well-deserved rambling in the column, but the one thing that should resonate to the non-soccer fan is this: the “main” stadium, Soccer City in Johannesburg, is 1,694m above sea level. Playing the game at such great heights tends to do wacky things to both player performance and ball behavior. There’s less air way up there, so we may be looking at a case of Xavi Hernandez being able to pass just at sea level in Durban, but finding the ball going every which way in the final at Soccer City.

And just to be clear: we’re talking extraordinarily small differences here. It’s not like Xavi will mean to pass to David Villa and the ball instead swerves back to Casillas. But a pass that was meant to go right at Fernando Torres’ feet and instead is a fraction of a step “off,” well, that could be something.

WOO~!

Boost Mobile’s pre-paid, Android-powered Motorola i1 to cost $349.99

Posted: 25 May 2010 10:45 AM PDT

When we dug up some evidence yesterday that Boost Mobile would be getting the US’s first pre-paid Android phone in the form of Motorola’s crazy-tough, push-to-talk i1, there was one bit we were missing: the price.

Fortunately, that didn’t stay a secret for very long.
Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

Concrete USB drives weigh as much as they hold

Posted: 25 May 2010 10:20 AM PDT


I think these are great, but to be honest I kind of question their practicality. I mean, they’re big — and that’s the point — but I think the novelty would wear off after a bit. 256 grams isn’t really that much, but it’s a hell of a lot more grams than one of these things. I like that they’re stackable, though.

[via HardOCP]

‘Lost’ finale now the most downloaded TV show in history!

Posted: 25 May 2010 09:55 AM PDT

The mania surrounding “Lost” continues. It has emerged that the series finale now holds the record of being the most downloaded TV show in the history of TV. The final two episodes, within 20 hours of appearing online, were downloaded some 900,000 times. Quite a bit, yes.

Many of the downloads came from overseas, and that makes sense: episodes of the show typically don’t air in local markets for some time. Why wait until the local TV network gets around to showing the episodes when you can hop on BitTorrent and watch it just a few hours after ABC in the U.S.?

The show’s producers did anticipate this, and tried to have the finale air quickly after its U.S. debut. That would explain this little stat: a full 15 percent of downloads come from Australia, where the finale doesn’t air until tonight. Or maybe it already has; I don’t understand time zones. The point is: Australians would rather download the show than wait around till the local TV network decides to air it.

A staggered release may have worked in the past, but in this day and age, when 720p rips of every TV show are available online within minutes of their U.S. debut, there’s no way you can convince people to wait around.

Done and done!

Is this a Droid running Android 2.2?

Posted: 25 May 2010 09:15 AM PDT

Call us skeptical but we're not quite sure this is legit. A regular on myDroidWorld's forums just posted a bunch of screenshots that are supposed to be a Droid running Froyo. There are shots of the app launcher, new Car Home, the camera, and updated search options. Really everything but the About Phone screen which will show the phone's model number, firmware, and kernal version -- you know, everything that would confirm his claims. So yeah, this might be the first look at the Droid running Android 2.2 or, well, it's not.


Microsoft’s J. Allard and Robbie Bach are leaving the company

Posted: 25 May 2010 09:12 AM PDT

Microsoft is losing two high-profile executives. Both J. Allard, “Chief Experience Offer” and Entertainment and Device Division’s CTO, and Robbie Bach, President of Entertainment and Devices Division, are leaving the company per a Steve Ballmer email from this morning. These are the guys behind the Xbox, Zune, Project Natal, and the dead Courier project — so basically all of Microsoft’s hit entertainment projects from the last decade.

From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 11:01 AM
To: Microsoft – All Employees (QBDG)
Subject: Executive Leadership Transitions

After almost 22 years with the company, Robbie Bach has decided to retire from Microsoft. I have worked with Robbie during his entire tenure at Microsoft, and count him as both a friend and a great business partner and leader. Robbie has always had great timing, and is going out on a high note – this has been a phenomenal year for E&D overall, and with the coming launches of both Windows Phone 7 and “Project Natal,” the rest of the year looks stupendous as well. While we are announcing Robbie’s retirement today, he will remain here through the fall, ensuring we have a smooth transition.

Concurrent with Robbie’s retirement, I am making several organization changes to ensure we have the right leaders in the right positions as we set ourselves up for the next big wave of products and services. Effective July 1, Don Mattrick, who leads our interactive entertainment business, and Andy Lees, who leads our mobile communications business, will report directly to me. Don and Andy have built out strong leadership teams and product pipelines, and are well-positioned for the years ahead. Independent of Robbie’s decision, J Allard (currently serving as senior vice president of Design and
Development for E&D), will also be leaving Microsoft. Given his ongoing passion and commitment to Microsoft, he will remain as an advisor to me, helping incubation efforts, looking at design and UI, and providing a cross-company perspective on these and similar topics. With J’s change in role, corporate vice president David Treadwell will join IEB to lead the core technology organization, reporting to Don. David has a great set of accomplishments at Microsoft, most recently working on the Windows Live Platform Services team. Over the next several months, Robbie and I will work together to finalize reporting and structure for the rest of his org.

Now that Office 2010 has been launched to business customers, Antoine Leblond, senior vice president in the Office Productivity Applications Group, will take a new role as senior vice president for the Windows Web Services team. This team brings together the integral Windows services that today deliver updates, solutions, community and depth
information for the Windows consumer. Kurt DelBene, senior vice president in the Office Business Productivity Group, will take on all of the engineering responsibilities for the Office business.

Transitions are always hard. Robbie has been an instrumental part of so many key moments in Microsoft history – from the evolution of Office to the decision to create the first Xbox to pushing the company hard in entertainment overall. J as well has had a great impact in the market and on our culture, providing leadership in design, and in creating a passionate and involved Xbox community, and earlier being at the center of our work seizing the importance of the Web for the company. But most important, both have been great team builders with a strong record of attracting, coaching and growing talent. As a result, their teams are primed to continue to step up and deliver great products, great services and great results for the company. Don has led the Interactive Entertainment Business since July 2007, where he’s significantly grown our entertainment footprint as well as our profitability. He can count as successes the evolution of Xbox Live, the launch of blockbusters like “Halo 3″ and the much-anticipated “Project Natal.” Previously, Don was president of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios. Andy has led the Mobile Communications Business since February, 2008, and has been instrumental in reinvigorating our mobility efforts, bringing in new business and development talent and
overseeing the creation of both KIN and Windows Phone 7.

As we finalize and ship so many of our key products (“Project Natal,”Windows Phone 7, Office 2010, Windows Live Wave 4 and others) it is a natural time for us to look ahead and make sure we have the right talent in the right roles to fuel our next set of offerings. I am confident that the changes above will set us up well for the months and years ahead.

I want to close by thanking Robbie for the incalculable contributions he has made to Microsoft over the years. He will be greatly missed when he retires this fall, and I am glad that I’ll have the opportunity to continue working closely with him between now and then. And as J makes a similar transition, I look forward to working with him in a new way.

A quick look at Lenovo’s ThinkCentre M90z desktop

Posted: 25 May 2010 08:50 AM PDT

Ready for your daily dose of viral marketing? This Lenovo video is just that, but it’s also an interesting look at the development of Lenovo’s upcoming ThinkCentre M90z all-in-one desktop PC. These folks know all-in-one desktops and the M90z looks to be the best yet. Launch data and specs should drop soon. Hopefully.

Netflix goes with Microsoft PlayReady DRM for upcoming streaming devices

Posted: 25 May 2010 08:10 AM PDT

Looks like Netflix has decided to go with Microsoft’s PlayReady DRM for all upcoming Netflix-ready devices. If all goes according to plan you shouldn’t even notice the DRM being there, but we all know how well DRM has worked in the past.

Netflix already uses PlayReady for its Mac and Windows PC instant streaming services, so both companies already have a convivial working relationship. More importantly to end-users, I don’t recall any big DRM dust-ups vis-à-vis Netflix streams.

This announcement also confirms a host of new Netflix-ready devices. The press release mentions “Internet TVs, Blu-ray disc players, home theater systems, video game consoles and other devices.” What could “other devices” mean? Something like Google TV, or maybe the Boxee Box? A Netflix-equipped Google TV could do well for itself.

Netlfix says the move to PlayReady DRM will make it easier to get content providers (movie studios and the like) to supply a steady stream of, well, content. If there’s one complaint against the Netflix streaming service is that there’s not as wide a selection of content as there is with disc-based Netflix. That should begin to change with this move.

The first devices making use of this new DRM should hit stores early this summer.

Needless to say, your ability to stream Netflix on your Xbox 360 (or PS3 or Wii) won’t be negatively affected by this transition.

Even a 10-year old can replace an iPhone’s glass

Posted: 25 May 2010 08:00 AM PDT


Don’t cry to AT&T or Apple if you crack your iPhone screen. They don’t care. Besides as this pictures and Cnet story clearly shows, with a bit of patience, nearly anyone can replace an iPhone screen. This 10-year boy used a $20 kit available from 3gcrackedglass.com to replace the glass on his dad’s iPhone and in turn saved him from the $200 repair bill that Apple would have charged for the same service.

But it’s not the act of saving this particular iPhone that’s compelling. Think about how proud this dad must feel watching his 10-year preform the operation. I get excited when my 3-year old son hits the baseball off the T ball stand. Fatherhood is great.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)