CrunchGear

CrunchDeals: Mmm, a leather-bound 500GB hard drive for $70
Steadiseg: Finally, a use for a Segway I can get on board with
Panasonic DMC-LX5 compact enthusiast camera arrives on the net early
Giveaway: spruce up your wardrobe with $500 at ShirtsMyWay
GeekBeat.TV #10 – iPhone 4 Battery Packs and Cute Turtle Robots
Chump Dump: Get Rid Of “Friends” On Twitter

CrunchDeals: Mmm, a leather-bound 500GB hard drive for $70

Posted: 17 Jul 2010 03:20 PM PDT

Do you love the look and feel of cappuccino leather? Do you have digitized media that needs to be stored? Do you have $70 burning a hole in your pocket? Then today is your lucky day, friend. Amazon’s got a nice deal on this decadent-looking Iomega (that looks like it should be full of whiskey) right now. $70 for 500GB ain’t the best deal in the entire world, but sometimes you need a touch of leather in your life.

Steadiseg: Finally, a use for a Segway I can get on board with

Posted: 17 Jul 2010 02:20 PM PDT

You see a lot of Steadicam work in movies today, and while the best of it goes unnoticed (as good technical work should), it’s fun to know that behind every smooth shot is a skilled and often immensely strong camera operator with some serious apparatus to make things as steady as possible. But this application of a Segway to the noble art of Steadicamming might just save some camera guys’ elbows.

What do you think, camera guys? Would this work? Seemed to go well for this guy.

[via Doobybrain]

Panasonic DMC-LX5 compact enthusiast camera arrives on the net early

Posted: 17 Jul 2010 02:05 PM PDT

The “compact enthusiast” category of camera, which I have just now made up, includes such devices as the Canon G11, Sigma DP2, and some of the more consumer-oriented M4/3 cameras. It’s for the photographer who wants more control, slightly better glass, and doesn’t care about the creature comforts of touchscreens and in-camera sepia tones. Panasonic’s entry in this class was the competent LX3, now being supplanted by the slightly (but not trivially) improved LX5. With a fast lens and high ISO range, this could be the carry-around compact you’ve been looking for.

The full specs are available over at 4/3rds Rumors, who found the leak, or at the Panasonic UK microsite, but here are a few vitals:

10.1 megapixels
1/1.63″ sensor
3.8x zoom on a F/2.0-3.3 Leica Summicron lens (zoom is improved over LX3)
ISO 80-12800 (nice range, also implies lower noise at normal ISO levels)
HD recording at 720p/30 or 720p/60 (weird since sensor output is limited to 30p)
3″ LCD (480×320)
Optional optical or electronic viewfinder (nice!)

There you have it. Looks like a competent camera, although these fixed-lens guys are looking less sexy every day as the nicer M4/3 cameras drop in price, with their sexy pancake wide-angle primes. I’m looking forward to Panasonic’s own GH2, in fact.

The LX5 will be officially announced July 21, at which time we’ll get pricing and availability. I notice the UK site actually refers to it as the LX5K, but that might just be a local variant.

Giveaway: spruce up your wardrobe with $500 at ShirtsMyWay

Posted: 17 Jul 2010 12:30 PM PDT

I wrote about ShirtsMyWay, the design-your-own dress shirt service, last month. I’ve since learned about a variety of other sites providing customized products, and I’ll be writing a wrap-up post about the trend toward custominzation in general some time soon. But for now, please enjoy this brief review of the shirts created by ShirtsMyWay, and learn how one lucky reader can get a chance to win $500 to spend at ShirtsMyWay.com!

I should preface this review with the fact that I am probably not the most qualified person to review quality menswear. Most of my wardrobe comes from Threadless and Woot. I own two suits, both of which were purchased at a discount retailer, and only get worn to weddings and funerals. I’ve never purchased a handmade shirt before. Keep all of that in mind when I say I like the ShirtsMyWay shirts.

The presentation of the shirt in the package is nice. It looks like a quality product, and not something you picked up at Target or Wal-Mart. I particularly like the fact that plastic hooks are used instead of straight pins. Although ShirtsMyWay accepts raw measurements for a perfectly tailored shirt, I opted instead to select the pre-defined size of XL. I told them that I usually wear XL Tall, so they added two extra inches to the sleeves for me. This worked out perfectly, and the shirt fit me as it should.

The fabric is comfortable. The seams are solid, and there are no loose threads. The buttons are all securely fastened, and feel like they’ll stand up well to my manhandling of them as I attempt to look decent. My wife and her mother, both more informed about clothing than myself, remarked upon the quality of the shirts and how good they looked.

The entire process of designing your own shirt is super easy. You can see nice full color photos of each fabric, allowing you to make sure you get the pattern you want. The customizability of the shirts is a bit overwhelming, actually, with 7 trillion combinations; but that’ll make sure you get the right shirt for you.

Full disclosure: I had my lady wife design a shirt for me, since I’ve no sense of taste to speak of (witness my complete failure to iron these shirts before wearing them), and ShirtsMyWay sent it plus another shirt that they designed to me. I get to keep the shirts.

CONTEST!
The gang at ShirtsMyWay have generously offered $500 to one lucky reader to buy their shirts. In order to have a shot at this wardrobe makeover, you simply need to visit shirtsmyway.com, browse their selection of fabrics, and then leave a comment on this post stating which fabric was your favorite. We’ll pick a random winner on Monday afternoon.

Unlike most of the contests we run, this one is actually open to the international community, and not just people with a U.S. mailing address. If you live in one of the countries to which ShirtsMyWay delivers, you can enter! If you’re not in one of those countries, we can still be friends, right? Also, the $500 credit cannot be exchanged for cash, and it expires in six months.

Even if you’re not a winner of this contest, ShirtsMyWay is offering a pretty generous discount to first-time customers. Sign up for their mailing list to get the full details. But hurry: the deal ends Tuesday, July 20!

GeekBeat.TV #10 – iPhone 4 Battery Packs and Cute Turtle Robots

Posted: 17 Jul 2010 09:29 AM PDT

The first wrap-around battery pack for the iPhone 4 hits the market, researchers are closing in on a cure for Alzheimer’s, Sony has the world’s first HD camcorder with interchangeable lenses, and a cute turtle robot to steal your geeky heart. Cali Lewis brings you all the news in GeekBeat.TV #10.

Chump Dump: Get Rid Of “Friends” On Twitter

Posted: 17 Jul 2010 06:20 AM PDT

You never know where you are going to see something innovative—even right here the heart of the “Sili-corn Valley” that is Central Ohio. This week, I met a gentleman by the name of Dan Rockwell at the local Mobile Monday gathering, and we had a short conversation about his company’s latest mobile app called Chump Dump.

The somewhat irreverent concept is both funny and serious; gain points for ceasing to follow people on twitter. The app recalls Crispin Porter’s Whopper Sacrifice campaign for unfriending people on Facebook, but has a much purer and utilitarian result in mind—clean up the list of people you follow on Twitter using game mechanics, actual metrics and crowdsourced conversation. As funny or rebellious as the app seems on the surface, when you get down to it, its goal is functionally sound and it gets people to ask the real question “why am I following this chump on Twitter?”

Ultimately, I think an app like this could actually add more relationship value and reputation status to your Twitter stream if you are not actively analyzing the people you follow. Or, you know…you could just have fun dumping people too.

You can also see the list of “dumped chumps” using their Chumpdar (like as in radar) mashup . Pretty funny.

Check out Dan’s own description of the app in the video below and while you’re at it, I would recommend checking out some of the other products over at the Big Kitty Labs website, like ParsePlz or HashParty.