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Daily Crunch: Germ Rock Edition

Posted: 16 Oct 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Uh Oh: September Wii Sales Down 45% From Last Year

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 05:45 PM PDT


Sales for the Wii last month totaled just 245,000, just over half of the 462,000 sold in September of 2009. Could it be that Nintendo’s juggernaut has finally lost its steam?

Sales were blamed on “gamer fatigue,” whatever that is, and a lack of compelling high-end titles. We noted earlier today how last month was a bad one for game sales all around, but still, that’s a pretty major drop.

Let’s be honest, here: the Wii isn’t just underpowered and old, it has also failed to provide really compelling gameplay over the last year. Sure, there are some bright spots here and there, but Microsoft is planning to scoop up casual gamers with Kinect and Sony’s Move might be good enough for the hardcore. What’s left for Nintendo? Old folks’ homes?

The 3DS is going to be great, but the Wii needs to be replaced, and fast. Nintendo has been resting on its laurels for far too long, and these sales numbers might be the kick in the pants they need to realize it.

[via 1up]

Analysts Predict Exponential Increases In Tablet Sales

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 04:55 PM PDT


Oh, analysts. Always making predictions! In this case, however, they may be right this time, though. Gartner is predicting that by 2014 we’ll be seeing tablet sales in the hundreds of millions. And why not?

First, it must be said that all this years-off speculation should be taken with a grain of salt, since over three years the term “tablet” may evolve somewhat. For instance, we now think of tablets as having light or mobile operating systems like iOS and Android, but in a couple years there will be tablet-specific OSes that will make our current tablets look primitive in comparison.

Anyway, the predictions they have don’t seem so far off the mark. Early adopters and iPad sales will bring this year’s totals to just under 20 million, which seems about right. Next year that number will rise to 55 million, which if anything I think might be an underestimate. This is a worldwide market and I think it will grow a lot — at the cost of some laptop and netbook sales, though right now tablets are far from a replacement for those. Next year will be different.

After that, Gartner sees the sales roughly doubling in 2012 to 100 million, at which point personally I think it may stall a bit. The functionality of a tablet is more basic than that of a laptop, and so demands on refreshing and replacing hardware aren’t as great. But hey, what do I know?

The numbers just keep increasing, obviously, and past 2012 I think it’s unwise to state much other than “more than 100 million, less than 300 million.”

Costco Dropping iPods After Tiff With Apple?

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 04:30 PM PDT

It looks as if big-box store Costco may no longer sell the iPod or iPod touch, after they were apparently snubbed for being a reseller of the iPad. You go girl!

Apparently Costco was passed over in favor of other big retailers like Target and Sam’s Club, or perhaps the deal Apple offered wasn’t good enough. In either case, iLounge is reporting that Costco is working through the last of their iPod inventory and will not buy offering the gadget any more.

Just a little FYI in case you were on your way to Costco to pick up a 24-pack of iPods.

Review: Camtrol Camera Control Grip

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 04:00 PM PDT


Short version: Expensive but worth having around, this rock-solid accessory stabilizes and makes video more dynamic.

Features:

  • Locking ball-joint arm gives you a good grip from any angle
  • Retractable legs allow you to set camera down anywhere
  • Camtroller remote for controlling zoom, recording, etc
  • Reposition camera to adjust center of gravity
  • MSRP: $399

Pros:

  • Heavy-duty construction
  • Locking arm feels reliable
  • Having just a little extra latitude with shots feels great

Cons:

  • Too expensive for amateurs, too basic for pros
  • Grip not for everyone
  • Tilting/Rotating LCD or monitor necessary

Full review:

This is one of those products that’s a little easier to show in a video. I’ll just do that and then address some other points. Sorry about the sound, I haven’t really calibrated my webcam for this kind of thing.

So there you have it. It essentially extends your reach, lets you do stuff like self-shots or extreme highs and lows with ease. It also lets you adjust the center of gravity for your rig and the weight helps stabilize the shot. All in all a pretty great accessory. Just don’t forget to take off your neckstrap for your video review, like I did.

I had some trouble making the remote work with the T2i, but firmware upgrades usually take care of these things. Threading the remote is a pain you generally only have to go through with once, and once it’s done, it feels like a natural extension of your camera.

The trouble I can see with this thing is basically that it lies in a rather uncomfortable area between consumer and pro. It’s too expensive for a guy who just wants to stabilize and extend his $500 camcorder’s range, and it’s too limited for a guy who needs to do follow focus on his 7D.

Conclusion

I still like the Camtrol, despite its questionable placement as far as features and price in the market. With a little work, it can make your video feel much less like amateur handheld footage. It’s well-built and easy to operate. Is it worth $400? People have certainly spent more on less.

Product page: Camtrol Prime

This week is Photography Week at CrunchGear!

You can find the rest of our posts here.

Lowepro Camera Bag Roundup

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 03:30 PM PDT


It’s tough to recommend camera bags. Choosing the bag that’s right for you can be a long process, and one that you should take seriously, even to the point of going to your local camera store to check out the fit and feel of bags there. You need to make sure that the bag you choose fits your needs, but still has room to grow. That way your spouse/significant other can’t shoot you down when you find that killer deal on a lens by saying you don’t have room in your bag.

I can make a few recommendations about bags, however, and Lowepro was kind enough to send several very different bags for me to check out for you. These bags vary greatly in size and type, so hopefully I can help get you on the right path. If you’re not into Lowepro, we just had another little round-up yesterday.

First up, the Inverse 200 AW. This is a beltpack style bag, so it takes a fashion victim brave person to be willing to wear it. I too was from the school of “no beltpack for me, thanks” before I tried this one too, so hear me out – there’s a reason Lowepro still makes this style. It’s incredibly comfortable to carry your gear in. The Inverse 200 AW has a contoured mesh belt, holds one body with a lens attached, as well as 2 additional lenses and a flash. You can of course adjust the interior dividers as needed to fit your gear, and there is plenty of room on the outside for filters, memory cards, and other incidentals. This isn’t a huge bag, you’ll need to pick and choose what exactly you’re going to take with you. The Inverse 200 AW also has a rain cover (which is why the bag has the All-Weather designation) which stores out of sight in a dedicated pocket sewn into the bag. MSRP is $89.99, but you can probably find it online cheaper. It’s a nice bag, and relatively subtle, you just have to get past the beltpack thing.

The Outback 200 beltpack on the other hand, is anything but subtle. It’ll hold your camera with battery grip and a 70-200mm zoom lens, along with memory cards, filters, and two additional lenses, but it’s going to stick out from your backside quite prominently. The Outback is comfortable to wear, there are attachments for a shoulder strap as well as the belt, if you prefer to wear it slung over your shoulder, but it’s intended to be used as a beltpack. If you’re a wildlife photographer, hiding the woods somewhere, this is the bag for you; I wouldn’t recommend it for a wedding photographer though, it’s not going to suit your needs very well. MSRP on the Outback 200 is $79.99.

Lowepro also makes the Versapack 200 AW, a backpack split into two large pockets, one for a DSLR body and two lenses, and the other for filters and other gear. The bottom pocket unzips to open very wide to allow access to your camera and lenses, and upper pocket unzips and gives you free access to a organizer, as well as mesh pockets for filters and other small items. This pack is really great, it gives you somewhere to strap your tripod, and loops to attach other needed items (like a water bottle or multi-tool). MSRP on this pack is $129.99, and worth every penny. The shoulder strap and waist belt system is of very high quality, and the kind that you would expect to find in an actual camping backpack.

Finally, we have my favorite, the Classified 200 AW. This is a very nice-looking messenger type bag with enough storage to carry almost everything. And while this might be the ultimate camera bag, it certainly doesn’t look the part. Instead, it looks like a slightly over-sized briefcase with leather accents. This really is Lowepro’s top of the line product, the finish and fabrics are solid and utilitarian, but still have a luxury feel to them. The bag also has a removable memory card wallet, a padded shoulder strap, a removable three point stabilizer strap, and even a built in micro-fiber LCD cleaning cloth. As an “AW” bag, it has a fitted rainfly that is held in its own dedicated pocket until needed. The Classified 200 AW isn’t cheap unfortunately, MSRP is $199.99, but I honestly believe it’s worth it.

This week is Photography Week at CrunchGear!

You can find the rest of our posts here.

Source Claims 11.6″ MacBook Air Incoming

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 02:20 PM PDT


A little more than a week ago, it was reported that MacBook Air retail supplies were dwindling. This has historically indicated a new product or refresh, and now there is chatter suggesting that the new version will indeed be the 11.6″ version we heard about back in July.

A source credited with “pinpoint accuracy” in the past by Apple Insider claims that the new 11.6″ laptops have been in manufacture for about a week. But will it simply be a smaller version of the existing laptop, or something new? I’m going to go with new.

The MacBook Air simply isn’t compelling any more — if it ever truly was as anything more than a fashion item. For compact computing, the iPad and netbooks have really pushed the limits for portability, and tablets are going to be huge over the next six months. And although the Air is still an impressively svelte machine, it’s not really much smaller than a 13″ MacBook, though it certainly is lighter.

So they’ve got to do something new. A whole new internal layout is in order — probably borrowing a lot from the iPad, but using a Core i3 processor with more RAM, hybrid graphics, and a few of the usual accessory ports. I think they’re going to put something out that’s only a little thicker than the iPad when closed, and resembles the design of that device and the iPhone 4 (i.e. sharper edges). Apple Insider also speculates (and I agree) that a non-traditional storage system will be used — there’s no particular reason to use actual jacketed 2.5″ SSDs when you can integrate storage on the board. It won’t be user-replaceable, but that hasn’t stopped Apple before.

Could there be even more to it, though? Let’s use our imaginations. It’s all pure wishwork from here on.

The new OS X version promises many updates to OS X. But what is really in need of updating? As I suggested in the event announcement article, it’s possible that Lion will be a major change, and will be a crossover event with iOS. A convertible MacBook Air with a touchscreen that essentially turns into an iPad? It may sound like fiction, but Apple is full of surprises. Such a device (perhaps the “iPad Pro” I posited some weeks back) would send millions of nerds into ecstasy: marrying the rigidly defined iPad to the flexible and powerful OS X, with easy syncing, shared resources, and everything.

I’m freaking myself out here with how cool that would be. Too bad it’s just a fantasy for now. Plus there are all kinds of resolution and engineering obstacles. I remember a post by Doug from 2008 on this very topic. If Apple proves him right this far down the line, he’ll have some pretty serious bragging rights.

At any rate, Apple’s reticence to enter the low-cost netbook world will probably remain. This new device, whether it’s just a slimmed-down Air or the crossover device I dreamt up above, will almost certainly be quite expensive. Apple’s objection to netbooks isn’t that you can’t have a good experience on a small form factor, but rather that netbooks are cheap devices and feel like it.

We’ll find out on the 20th, anyway, when we report live from the Apple event. Join us for our liveblog and additional reporting on Wednesday.

Review: Adobe Lightroom 3

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 01:00 PM PDT


Short version: Powerful and easy to use, this is probably the best cross-platform photography management software out there — though navigation and organization aren’t the most intuitive. Version 3 adds some useful features, but whether they are useful enough for you to upgrade is for you to decide.

Features: (new in version 3)

  • Improved non-destructive RAW processing engine
  • Shareable presets, plug-ins for Flickr output, making portfolios, etc
  • Lens correction tool adjusts images based on lens used
  • Support for tethering, video
  • MSRP: $299 ($99 for upgrade)

Pros:

  • Excellent RAW processing
  • Tone adjustment is easy as pie
  • Internal and plug-in-based exporting is powerful and easy

Cons:

  • Organization style not for everyone
  • Keyboard shortcuts don’t seem natural
  • Inelegant UI

Full review:

I just want to state up front that this is a basic review of this software, not an in-depth one. For a long, extremely detailed write-up, see DP Review’s. I will be focusing on how this software has (and has not) been useful to me personally as a photographer. Furthermore, Lightroom has been around for quite a while in more or less its present form, so I won’t labor over features which have existed for years. Lightroom has been updated to 3.2 since its release, which has fixed several bugs and added many new lens profiles.

The main idea with Lightroom, as opposed to competing software like iPhoto, Aperture, and more general-purpose viewers like ACDSee, is that you establish powerful, partially preset workflows, making the process of taking a picture from camera to whatever end format as easy as possible. This is evident from the modular, step-based left-to-right UI setup: browse and import in Library, make adjustments in Develop, and then export or share in one of the ways provided.

Adobe is extremely proud of their new RAW processing engine. Amateur photographers probably won’t notice the difference between it and other RAW processors, but serious pixel-snoopers will notice finer and more regularly-grained noise in high-ISO shots, and they’ve made it quite non-destructive to detail when you push it a bit. The same goes for sharpening, which can go a little further before showing oversharp patterns and distortion. Here’s a quick comparison I did (100% crop):

Obviously you can see the patterning in the fringing there and in out-of-focus bits, though depending on your output, it may be better that way. Of course, I could just brush on the sharpness using the incredibly versatile brush tool. Judicious use of the brush can really make your pictures striking, and makes you feel like you’re really pulling some darkroom tricks, but brushes have been around for quite a while, so let’s not linger here. The brushes are better than Aperture’s.

A new tool for making the best of your pictures is the lens correction library. I feel it’s something Adobe put a lot of work into, but which users will only see a little bit of. I’ve been unable to use it, since neither my 24-85 zoom nor my 35mm f/2 are included in their profile library, though to be fair neither is still manufactured. The tool itself is easy to use and adjustable, so if you just want to reduce the natural vignetting a touch (or enhance it), you’re free to do so.

The perspective correction tool is more useful. I personally am a bit obsessive about orientations in pictures, and being able to adjust the perspective after the fact to make a window or building front absolutely square is excellent.

The preset system is powerful and very easy to use. When you take a dozen or a hundred pictures in the same environment, it pays to be able to apply a quick temperature, contrast, and exposure adjustment. For example, I was shooting at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference and, after adjusting one photo for the light and exposure settings I would be using a lot, I just saved those adjustments as a new preset and one click applied it to any other shot. Very simple, very easy, very customizable. Once you get in the habit of creating and applying these presets, you tend to find yourself a lot more “keeper” shots, I’ve found, which can be a good or a bad thing.

The organization style of Lightroom just doesn’t work for me. I think with a little more time I could get used to it, but it tends to multiply nested folders and make things more complicated than they need to be. Aperture’s method of drill-downs seems much more natural to me. You can, however, tag and search for metadata, which makes things easier — but I just found the Lightroom organizational principle a pain. I’m really not sure how I got it to look like it does at right, but that kind of thing should be impossible.

Navigation seemed a little overcomplicated, as well. Keyboard shortcuts could be better chosen, and I feel that it’s easy to get lost between the different screens, or accidentally navigate away from what you’re trying to do. This is more a matter of taste, though, and when you’re “in the zone” and serially adjusting a roll of shots, it feels great. Establishing a workflow within Lightroom (having import presets, knowing the limits of the tools, having a few keyword conventions) is very important, but it could be easier.

The output options increase with plug-ins; I won’t enumerate the many options you’ll have, but a quick search for Lightroom plug-ins will show you the many ways you can modify your Lightroom experience. I stayed vanilla for the purposes of this review, but I know that the plug-in library has grown to encompass quite a few extra services.

I wouldn’t bother organizing my video in Lightroom; sure, you can add it into your existing organization and store videos with your photos, but really, you want access to those with your video editing program, and having them accessible in a “footage” folder or what have you is just as good.

Conclusion

While some of Lightroom’s organizational principles are difficult to get used to, they can be gotten used to, and in the end it’s the photos that matter. Their processing engine, presets, and the versatility of the tools they provide within the program, all make for an excellent photography tool, if not the best collection tool. I’ve found it an agreeable alternative to single-photo editors like Photoshop, and I’m glad to see it focus on photo-in, photo-out instead of going all-out metadata like Aperture. For taking a roll of pictures and making them look as good as possible, and then getting them into the form you need to have them, Lightroom is probably the best enthusiast solution out there.

Product page: Adobe Lightroom

OH HAI I HAS AN INVISIBLE MOUSE

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 12:31 PM PDT

This is a quick hands-on with a clever UI solution called the Invisible Mouse. A $10 system uses lasers to “sense” your fingers in mid-air. You cup your hand to set the position of the mouse and then move it around on the table. You can even right and left click on the invisible surface.

Sprouting out of the back is basically a camera and an invisible light source. It uses very little real technology and, like Kinect, depends on the PC processor.

For Those About To Rock, We Offer You An iPhone-Controlled Guitar

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 12:15 PM PDT

Rob Morris just showed me this very cool gestural guitar interface that allows you to control a guitar with your iPhone. You can modify the sound by moving the guitar around (think Star Power in Guitar Hero) and you can even shred on the iPhone while the guitar twangs away.


Hands-On With The MIT Media Lab’s G-Speak Interface

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 11:59 AM PDT

This interface has been talked about extensively before here and elsewhere, but it bears another look. It’s amazingly cool. Basically what you’re seeing is a gestural interface powered by a pair of gloves. It supports multiple hands – multiple pairs of hands, that is, so you and your friends can freak out – and it is so smooth and intuitive that it borders on magic.

The two demos here, Grabby and Erf, show only a few of the basic gestures and with a little imagination you can see where this sort of thing is headed. I doubt we’ll be waggling our hands in front of our laptops anytime soon (even though we’ll be waggling our hands in front of the the PS3 and XBox’s Kinetic this Christmas) but the demo is so futuristic that it’s scary.

The system uses cameras to sense the hands in space and monitor movement in 3D. The gloves are just standard black gloves with little reflectors sewn on. The effect is amazing.

World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm Makes Debut (Of Sorts) During Sunday’s Cowboys-Vikings Game

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 11:30 AM PDT

I’ve just received word that the very first cinematic footage of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will pop up during Sunday’s Cowboys-Vikings game on Fox. The game starts at 4:15pm ET. So, set your DVR or wait till someone puts it on YouTube (which I will subsequently post here). That’s it.

Why Haven’t The Big Games Sold Well Recently?

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 10:45 AM PDT

A couple of big games came out in September, and it turns out that several of them haven’t met various sales expectations. Take Halo: Reach. A fine game (for a console shooter/Halo game), but it *only* sold 3.3 million units. A prominent analyst at Cowen & Company (an investment services group) had officially predicted 3.75 million. Believe it or not, that’s bad news for Microsoft and not the person who made the prediction. Okie dokie.

The very idea of *only* selling 3.3 million games (times $60 a pop, that’s just under $200m) and that being a disappointment is crazy, but here we are.

Another game that hasn’t done too well: Nintendo’s Metroid: Other M. Of course we can’t know for sure how well (or not) it did because NPD has altered the way it reports sales.

Not shocking: Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock only moved 86,000 units during its five days of availability. Pretty sure that cow is done giving milk.

So, what gives? Big games, or games the "should" be "big," aren’t doing as well as you’d think.

I think we’re sorta in a rut creatively right now: how many years in a row will Call of Duty, or its derivatives, occupy the top spot on the consoles? Medal of Honor‘s multi-player mode, based on a few hours of playtime, is pretty much Battlefield: Bad Company 2, but with smaller maps.

That’s probably why Minecraft has done so well: it’s different. (It’s also why I have high hopes for Okamiden, even if it’s a sequel. It’s not a played out sequel.) $60 for a re-skin of the same military shooter just seems daft.

And doesn’t Metroid: Other M suffer from some game-breaking glitch? Why buy that before it’s fixed?

This whole industry could use a spark of some sort.

Company Claims Ownership Of Image Rollover Text, Demands $80,000

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 09:30 AM PDT

[Insert clever hyperlink here]

Go ahead and rollover the image you see here. If a certain company gets its way, we’ll have to pay them some $80,000 for violating one of their patents. Clearly humanity has lost its way.

The deal is that a company by the name of Webvention Company claims ownership of patent no. 5,251,294. You can read the jargon of the patent filing if you want, but then again you could smash your foot with a cartoonishly large hammer. Either way.

The Webvention Company claims that the patent gives it exclusive rights to the technique of the image rollover with embedded hyperlinking. You know, when you hover your mouse over an image and that little bit of text appears.

Yeah, Webvention claims it owns that. Hmm.

It has targeted a Web site owned by Novartis, the big pharmaceutical company.

As the world turns, right? I think I’m going to patent the idea of writing boring posts all day. I’ll be a chamillionaire in no time at all.

German Satellites Fly Extraordinarily Close To Each Other In 3D Earth-Mapping Effort

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 09:00 AM PDT

Leave it to Germany to create the most detailed 3D map of the planet that has ever existed. Two satellites, TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X, are flying above the surface of the planet to create the map. The thing is, the satellites are extraordinarily close to each other, getting as close as 350m away from each other as they cruise at a fine speed of 7km/s.

The satellites were launched back in 2007, and the images they produce will be used for any number of things. The BBC lists airline navigation and better figuring out what areas could be at risk for a flood.

The map the satellites produce will be completed by 2014.

That is Italy on the left, correct? I’m almost positive I can see the San Siro.

Garmin Chirp: The Geocacher’s Aide-de-Camp

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 08:30 AM PDT

Attention, geocachers! Garmin has a new device that may be worth your while. It’s called the chirp (yup, lowercase "c"), and it works in conjunction with Garmin phones to ensure a "more interactive and enjoyable geocaching experience." Sounds fun. Not that I’ve ever been geocaching, but it seems like a swell way to spend an afternoon. It certainly beats trolling message boards all day long.

Chirp, which is available now (for $22.99), is described thus by Garmin’s Dan Bartel, vice-president of worldwide sales:

With Chirp, geocachers have a new tool to enhance the joys of creating and finding caches around the globe. In listening to and participating in the vibrant geocaching community, Garmin created a one-of-a-kind device that builds on popular innovations such as paperless geocaching and downloading cache details directly to the device.

And as you know, geocaching is basically a form of treasure hunting. You walk about the earth with a GPS, aided by geocaching Web sites, and find little bundles of stuff all over the place.

It sounds ludicrous at the outset, but what doesn’t? It’s certainly no sillier than becoming the "mayor" of a café because you’ve "checked into" it more times than anyone else.

The chirp is tiny, described by Garmin as "slightly bigger than a quarter." It transmits geocaching data to your Garmin handheld device, things like coordinates, how many times a cache has been found before, hints, etc.

It’s your geocaching companion~!

I don’t know, it seems neat. Geocaching is so not my scene, but it sounds delightful.

White iPhone Spotted In The Wild, Shortage Caused by “Problem With Buttons”

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 08:24 AM PDT


Our buddy Sal at Geek.com spotted this white iPhone in the wild. It belonged to someone who had a buddy at Apple.

Why aren’t they making white iPhones? Apparently the manufacturers can’t get the white button to match the white case. Clearly we need to get Greg on the case.

Live From The MIT Media Lab: A Camera Can Look Around Corners and Microdot QR Codes

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 07:57 AM PDT

I’m hanging out at the MIT Media Lab today and watching some of the great presentations by some of the Lab’s current members and alumni. For example, Ramesh Raskar is currently showing off his system of Femtosecond Transient Imaging, essentially a type of camera that can take pictures around corners using high speed lasers.

The project has been designed to “see” around corners using high speed laser scanning. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

We are developing the theoretical foundation for sensing and reasoning using transient light transport, and experimenting with scenarios in which transient reasoning exposes scene properties that are beyond the reach of traditional machine vision.

The second project Raskar demonstrated was a system called Bokodes, a microdot that is invisible when its in focus but is clear when you defocus the surface. This means you can create a tiny tag that is completely invisible until you “don’t” look at it. The system can be used to test eyesight as well.

I’ll find other cool stuff as it comes up.

teaser Screen shot 2010-10-15 at 10.49.13 AM Screen shot 2010-10-15 at 10.47.03 AM Screen shot 2010-10-15 at 10.45.25 AM Screen shot 2010-10-15 at 10.45.03 AM Screen shot 2010-10-15 at 10.44.31 AM


Ewwwww… Your Phone Is Dirtier Than A Toilet Flush Handle

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 07:33 AM PDT

According to a study by Stanford University students, your phone is covered with 18 times more germs than a toilet handle which means, in short, anyone who touches your phone will get your disgusting, disgusting germs. The study, published in July, found that:

“If you put virus on a surface, like an iPhone, about 30 percent of it will get on your fingertips,” Julian said. In turn, “a fair amount of it may go from your fingers to your eyes, mouth or nose,” the most likely routes of infection.

While most people are smart about their contact with other people, if you’re like me and suck on your fingers for hours at a time and lick other people uncontrollably this could be a huge problem.

Incidentally, I predict that in four to five hours some janky OEM will release a case or something marketed as an iPhone germ killer. Mark my words.

via SacBee

Angry Bird Plush Toys Coming This Holiday

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 07:15 AM PDT

Angry Birds, a game that inexplicably has won the hearts and minds of millions (I still prefer Crush the Castle) is apparently coming to a toy store near you. These two birds, shot at Nokia HQ with a Nokia N8, can be flung across the room using slingshots at local pigs who have stolen your nest.

No word on pricing or availability but they look pretty nicely done so we can only assume they’re either prototypes of giveaways or commercial products.


Angry Birds is now available for most platforms including Android, Windows Phone 7, and Palm’s WebOS. With all of these launches, it’s clear that Angry Birds is now the new, mobile version of Far Cry

UPDATE – These things are definitely on their way.
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