CrunchGear

CrunchDeals: Roku HD Media Player
Video: Cute Robot Selling Ice Cream
Video: iriver’s Portable Media Player “S100 Panorama”
$35 Indian Tablet Demonstrated On Video
A Quick Look At the 21st Century 3D Dual Red 3D Rig
Hands-on With the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport (!)

Posted: 16 Aug 2010 05:14 AM PDT

Woot has a great deal going on today with a refurb Roku HD Media costing only $59. That’s $40 off the MSRP, kiddies. It’s an amazingly refined product with an interface that most baby boomers should be able to handle. Roku made a name for itself a few years back by being one of the first devices to stream Netflix. While that capability is still there, there are now dozens of channels and apps. The model on Woot today is the HD model, which means it has HDMI, Toslink, and 802.11 b/g. $59? Not a bad deal.

Video: Cute Robot Selling Ice Cream

Posted: 16 Aug 2010 04:20 AM PDT

Meet Yaskawa-kun. Yaskawa-kun is Japan’s newest robot, and he has two special skills: he looks cute and he can make and sell ice cream. Currently, he is working at Tokyo Summerland, a big theme park, where he will replace human workers until August 22.

The way you order is pretty simple: step up to the ice cream stand and select what you want via a touch screen (it’s possible to choose the size, sauce, topping and other things). Confirm with another push of a button, pay and watch Yaskawa-kun make the ice cream and hand it over to you.

Yaskawa-kun is the brain child of Japanese robot maker Yaskawa, a major Japanese bank and a leading advertising agency. The three companies want to continue conducting experiments with the robot and hope to lease or sell future versions (Tokyo Summerland is currently leasing the robot).

Here’s Yaskawa-kun official promo video (and unbelievable anthem):

Via Robonable [JP]

Video: iriver’s Portable Media Player “S100 Panorama”

Posted: 16 Aug 2010 02:01 AM PDT

After launching the S100 Panorama in South Korea back in June, iriver today announced [JP] it will bring their media player to Japan (the company is yet to list the device on its global website). Technically, the player isn’t anything special, but it looks quite cute and comes in a total of three colors (white, black and pink).

Spec-wise, buyers can expect a 2.83-inch TFT screen with QVGA solution, 16GB of internal memory, a microSDHC slot (32GB max.), a built-in FM tuner and voice recorder, and a USB 2.0 slot. Once charged, the battery will let users listen to 42 hours of music or view video for 7.5 hours. Needless to say, it’s also possible to view pictures on the S100.

The device will go on sale on the Japanese market this Friday (price: $199, but there’s also an 8GB version that will retail for $25 less). iriver hasn’t announced any sales plans for regions outside Korea and Japan yet.

This video I grabbed off YouTube (shot by user burgundy59) is in Korean but shows the UI in action:

$35 Indian Tablet Demonstrated On Video

Posted: 15 Aug 2010 04:54 PM PDT

“It is probably the cheapest innovation of all times.”

Bear in mind that the $35 price on this tablet, which we heard about a couple weeks back, is a fantasy until it is actually in production and releasing with that price. And also note that when the narrator is talking about how well it handles Android 1.6, the video is sped up quite a bit. I’ll believe it when I see it — but if I do see it, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

A Quick Look At the 21st Century 3D Dual Red 3D Rig

Posted: 15 Aug 2010 12:40 PM PDT

Walking among the cars this weekend in Monterey I spotted an odd rig with two Red cameras attached to something that looked like a range hood. It turns out it was a 3D camera set-up from 21st Century 3D and records full HD at various depths and in a package that rides on a dolly.

Their BX3 has two cameras placed at 90-degree angles to each other. One camera takes the scene as it appears while another one shoots a one-way mirror at a slightly different angle to get the 3D effect. It’s obviously not for the average consumer – the Reds alone are $17,000 or so each – but was great to spot this thing in the wild.

Excuse the wind noise on the video. Sadly, I didn’t know I was picking it up until it was too late.

Hands-on With the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport (!)

Posted: 15 Aug 2010 11:04 AM PDT

Yes, these are hands-on photos a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport on the pages of CrunchGear. I think that means we’ve made it.

You’ll recall that the car is now, officially, the fastest production car in the world, having recently been driven around a track in Germany at speeds of up to 267.8 mph. Top Gear was involved, and even held the speed record for a while until the “real” driver showed up.

Let’s let this simmer here for a little bit before getting too far ahead of ourselves…