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- LovePlus: Konami’s Dating Sim Gets Otaku Cell Phone Chargers
- MB&F Horlogical Machine No. 3 “Chocolate Frog” Watch
- Daily Crunch: Rat’s Lair Edition
- Google Editions: Divide And Conquer
- The Cobra iRadar Is Exactly What It Sounds Like: An iPhone-fueled Radar Detector
- The HP Slate 500 Clearly Now Shipping, Anticlimactic Unboxing Already Posted
- Apple Granted Patent For Insanely Complicated 3D Display Method
- Bring On The Quantum Dot LED Displays
- Review: Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T. 9 Gaming Mouse
- Will Japan Get To Host The First ‘Next-Generation’ (And 3D!) World Cup in 2022?
- What Is This New ioSafe Device?
- Video: Making Of The Glif iPhone 4 Holder
- TV Sales Soften Worldwide: Even The World Cup Couldn’t Save Sales This Year
- FCC Lays Out Net Neutrality Plans: Who Could Be Against An ‘Open & Free’ Internet?
- Wikileaks’ Julian Assange Now Wanted By Interpol, ‘Hacktivist’ Claims Responsiblity For Denial Of Service Attack
- Windows Home Server Is Dead, Long Live Windows Home Server?
- Will There Be A Halo: Combat Evolved HD Remake Next Year?
- Citizen Self-Defense Walking Stick: BAD. ASS.
- EA Sports MMA Producer Confirms EA Sports MMA 2 In Radio Interview
- Seven Watches Up For Grabs During Holiday Giveaway
| LovePlus: Konami’s Dating Sim Gets Otaku Cell Phone Chargers Posted: 02 Dec 2010 05:02 AM PST
In September last year, Konami Japan released a dating simulation called LovePlus that went on to become a huge hit on the Nintendo DS. It’s so successful that last November, a Japanese man married a character from the game. Now Konami decided to give a merchandising license to Tokoy-based Webcrew Agency [JP], which today announced cell phone chargers [JP] based on LovePlus. There are three main characters in the game, all of whom get a model (Rinko, Manaka, Nene). Technically, buyers get batteries (rebranded units made by Tennrich) that are just 7mm slim and weigh only 40g. Apart from a cute pouch, Webcrew throws in a set of adapters that make them compatible to Japanese feature phones, the iPhone 3G/3GS/4, the Xperia, the Nintendo DS (various models) etc.
According to the company, smartphones get an extra 2 hours of juice when you use the battery. Pre-orders started today in Japan (price: $64). All of you Otaku can contact specialized online stores like Rinkya to get one for you when Webcrew starts shipping the batteries in February next year.
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| MB&F Horlogical Machine No. 3 “Chocolate Frog” Watch Posted: 02 Dec 2010 04:22 AM PST
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| Daily Crunch: Rat’s Lair Edition Posted: 02 Dec 2010 12:00 AM PST |
| Google Editions: Divide And Conquer Posted: 01 Dec 2010 05:00 PM PST
So it’s no surprise that Google is jumping into the fray with the long-awaited Google Editions service, set to launch by the end of the year in the U.S. and first quarter of 2011 internationally. But between Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and independent publishing services like Amazon’s DTP and the unfortunately-named Pubit, is there room for another player? Not that that’s ever stopped anyone from trying — but I think in this case it may be that Google brings something new to the table: decentralization.
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| The Cobra iRadar Is Exactly What It Sounds Like: An iPhone-fueled Radar Detector Posted: 01 Dec 2010 03:08 PM PST
We’re going to ahead and skip the moral babble on whether or not radar detectors are good or bad*; if you want to wage that war, the comment section is all yours. With that said, check this thing out: it’s a police radar/red light camera detector that works with help from the iPhone (or, soon, an Android handset.) Read the rest at MobileCrunch. Batman reads MobileCrunch. You want to be like Batman, don’t you? >>
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| The HP Slate 500 Clearly Now Shipping, Anticlimactic Unboxing Already Posted Posted: 01 Dec 2010 02:53 PM PST
The HP Slate 500 is finally finding its way to eager fans after nearly a year since it was first announced nearly a year ago at CES ’10. But no matter. Product development and fulfillment generally doesn’t happen overnight. Heatlessun over at TabletPCReview just posted what could be the first unboxing of a commercial HP Slate. Of course the first impression is all prancing unicorns under double rainbows for this user, but who am I to question his conclusions. He’s the chap with the Slate, not me. [TabletPCReview via SlashGear]
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| Apple Granted Patent For Insanely Complicated 3D Display Method Posted: 01 Dec 2010 02:30 PM PST
Today’s “grab bag” patent is for an autostereoscopic 3D display that tracks the user’s position in space and adjusts the display accordingly. It’s a monstrously complex way of doing things, but if you don’t want to wear glasses, this is what you get.
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| Bring On The Quantum Dot LED Displays Posted: 01 Dec 2010 12:30 PM PST
How does it work? The secret is in the electroluminescent colloidal quantum dots. I won’t tell if you don’t! Actually, the specifics of the research are really beyond me; we’ve heard of nanodots and quantum dots before, but these are different. Apparently the dots themselves luminesce when a current is applied, and luminesce in customizable colors to boot. That means no need for backlights, and no need for color filters. That means these are printable, flexible, bright, and produce very true color. They’re still very much in the research phase, of course, so don’t expect them in the next year or two. But it wasn’t too long ago we were talking about AMOLED screens as being things of the future. And… well, they still kind of are. So, point made. [via Akihabara News and Dvice]
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| Review: Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T. 9 Gaming Mouse Posted: 01 Dec 2010 11:47 AM PST
Pros:
Cons:
When we saw this thing last year, and then again at CES, I was skeptical that it would ever come out. It was just too weird to live. But here we are, almost a year later, and I have it in my hot little hands. How is it? Well, it’s exactly what it looks like. It’s big, heavy, and kind of awesome. Hardware The idea is that it’s a customizable body — something we’ve seen before, I believe in the Cyber Snipa mouse I reviewed a while back. The parts, in this case, are held on with little hex screws, and that little “tail” on the rear of the mouse unscrews to reveal a little hex wrench. Swapping pieces out only takes a minute, and they fit on nice and securely. You get three palm rests: original, original plus grippy rubber, and elevated, which perches your palm a bit higher up. The right side pinky rest comes in original (no rest), grippy, and enormous flying pinky/ring rest. It’s a little frustrating that there’s nothing in between, as I found the original too little and the big rest too big. That’s just me, though. The palm rest also slides fore and aft, locking into one of several positions.
There’s a weight compartment, where you put extra weights. I really don’t think you’ll need them, though. This thing has got to weigh like a pound and a half. If you like heavy mice, look no further. All the metal in this thing makes it feel very substantial, and while the open architecture of it suggests fragility, it is in fact quite solid and well-built. It’s also an attention-grabber. I had people over at my house after the bars closed, and one and all of them were baffled by how crazy this mouse looked. Some liked it, some hated it, none could effectively use it. As for buttons: you’ve got your usual left and right mouse buttons, which are extremely sensitive (a good thing, in my opinion), the thumb wheel and its button, a profile switch button that’s deliberately (I think) difficult to hit, a DPI up/down rocker behind the thumb wheel, two thumb buttons on the side, a “precision aim” button, and a thumb scroll wheel. Whew! Yeah, not as many as a Naga or something, but these aren’t organized in a handy grid. That said, they’re also easily accessible to your fingers, and although I found the thumb buttons a bit mushy and the DPI down a bit hard to hit, they’re not bad.
The precision aim button lets you slow down the mouse’s movement to whatever degree you like (it’s a configurable setting), and it’s placed pretty well, but it’s remarkably stiff. I had to concentrate in order not to hit the right click button while gripping the mouse hard enough to hold precision aim down. Performance The 5600 DPI sensor is more or less dead center, and tracked accurately under the conditions I tested it on. Unfortunately, though, I also found that allowing the weight of your hand to fall on the palm rest often resulted in significant cursor movement. Most mice have a large, flat footprint and no “overhangs,” so putting your weight straight down on any part of a good mouse won’t cause movement — only sideways pressure will do that. But the R.A.T. 9 and a few other mice with design flourishes have fallen into this design trap.
The configuration utility is pretty spartan. You can easily string together keys and mouse buttons for macros, but there are no common commands built-in, like “Launch…” or “Double-click,” which means you’ll have to roll them yourself. Setting DPI presets and managing profiles (gaming, working, etc) is easy, though. The mouse is wireless, and except for the lack of a cord, you’d never know it if you went by the latency and performance. After I got used to the shape, I was doing just fine, though I still prefer the sculpted shape of the Mamba or the simple lozenge of the Xai, personally (I could just be accustomed to them).
Unfortunately, the battery life is not so hot. They give you two battery “cartridges,” one of which should be charging in the combination charger/wireless hub. I’d say these things last six or seven hours with serious mousing. I’ve had to change the battery every day, or twice when working and then playing Fallout: New Vegas until late. Thankfully, switching the battery only takes about 10-15 seconds, but it’s a pain to see that red light blinking, and you always think “What? I just did that!” Conclusion It’s certainly an original piece of work, and for a power user, it could be amazing, as long as you don’t mind switching out the battery every day. And it certainly looks cool, or if not cool, then at least interesting. But I don’t think it’s going to offer superior performance in any way over a Mamba or Logitech MX Revolution. It’s no slouch, either, it just doesn’t excel in anything except design. Product Page: Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T. 9         
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| Will Japan Get To Host The First ‘Next-Generation’ (And 3D!) World Cup in 2022? Posted: 01 Dec 2010 11:00 AM PST
Fifa’s bigwigs are currently in Zurich listening to numerous bids to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. A sort of, "Please bring the World Cup to My Country because we have lots of stadiums and hotel rooms and we think Fifa is really awesome." It’s truly the height of tedium. (The number of articles I’ve read over the past few weeks, particularly in British newspapers, along the lines of "But do we really want the World Cup?) But, there’s a fun tech story here, so allow me to waste two minutes of your day. Japan is bidding for the 2022 spot (the favorite is actually Qatar), and it says that if it gets the World Cup, it’ll be the "first, next-generation World Cup." (One thing working against Japan is that it co-hosted the tournament only eight years ago, in 2002, with South Korea. Fifa typically doesn’t like having the World Cup in the same country so soon after hosting up. Plus, Fifa has this thing now where the World Cup is being used to promote nobler virtues, and that bringing it to off-the-beaten-path countries like South Korea, Brazil, and [maybe] Qatar seems to be a pretty strong impetus nowadays.) Back to Japan. That country is promising "live relay[s] of World Cup matches, played out lifesize in 3-D." Visitors will also be handed tiny translation devices that will be able to instantly translate into some 50 different languages. I’m not sure if that’s audio translation or more like, point-the-device-at-a-sign-and-have-it-translated-to-your-laguage, but either way, nice. And I’m sure by 2022 machine translation will have gotten pretty good. Maybe it’ll be like Google Translate, it had built-in machine translation, then improves over time as a result of user submissions. The decision happens tomorrow. The US is in the running for the 2022 World Cup, too, but I’d be shocked if we get it. My money’s on Spain & Portugal for 2018 (it’s a joint-bid) and Qatar for 2022. Well, my theoretical money; I’m not a betting man.
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| What Is This New ioSafe Device? Posted: 01 Dec 2010 10:55 AM PST
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| Video: Making Of The Glif iPhone 4 Holder Posted: 01 Dec 2010 10:25 AM PST Got a thing for community-funded projects and injection molding? Oh man, you better get off your treadmill desk and find a stable seat because this video of the Glif’s manufacturing process is going to rock your socks. This is the little iPhone 4 tripod mount storage stand that raised $137,417 on Kickstarter. Premier Source out of Brookings, South Dakota was tasked with the making and this little clip documents the journey from plastic bead to plastic thing. So awesome.
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| TV Sales Soften Worldwide: Even The World Cup Couldn’t Save Sales This Year Posted: 01 Dec 2010 10:10 AM PST  According to a DisplaySearch report, global TV shipment growth is down to 17% from 26% last year. This means that there is a general slow-down of TV sales in the US and Europe and, even though the World Cup should have driven massive sales this summer, unsold inventory is backing up in Asia. All is not lost, however. Plasma shipments are up slightly as are LCD models. DLP rear projection is also up. Generally, however, sales are slowest they've been since Q4 of 2008. It's not that TVs aren't selling - they're just selling more slowly than they were even last year. DisplaySearch also found that Samsung is number one in worldwide sales followed by LG, Sony, and Panasonic. There are a few obvious reasons for this and one not so obvious - but exciting - one. First, folks don't have money. That's a given. TVs are probably the last thing you'll ever upgrade or buy in the house, especially a house that is probably already overrun with screens. My son put water all over our six-year-old JVC DLP and, even though there's a big blotch in the corner now, we're not going to upgrade for perhaps another four years. There's no need. 3D TV is a dud for now and the PC can display 3D content just fine if we ever get the bug.
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| FCC Lays Out Net Neutrality Plans: Who Could Be Against An ‘Open & Free’ Internet? Posted: 01 Dec 2010 10:00 AM PST
The FCC continues to push for Net Neutrality, with an actual vote set for later this month. The Commission’s chair, Julius Genachowski, is set to give a speech on the subject today, but luckily it’s already been posted online. The reason for all of this? "The animating force behind all of these efforts is a shared appreciation for the Internet's wondrous contributions to our economy and our way of life." Or are you against the Internet’s "contributions to our economy and our way of life"? As I read the speech, there’s really nothing too controversial about it. All the FCC is trying to do is to ensure that the Internet, in the words of President Obama, remains "open and free." Surely you don’t want the Internet to be "closed and non-free," right? Or do you simply not care? My guess is that the average person walking down Main Street doesn’t care one way or the other. That is, until they try to use Netflix and find out that it doesn’t work. That’s when people will care: when they’re directly inconvenienced. An open and free Internet, says Genachowski, is "the American dream at work." Would a site like Facebook taken off if Zuckerberg & Co. not had access, in their Harvard dorms, to a free and open Internet? I doubt it. So, how to ensure this openness? If the FCC gets its way, it will establish, for the first time ever, "open Internet rules." It goes a little something like this: • "[C]onsumers and innovators have a right to know basic information about broadband service, like how networks are being managed." So, if Comcast decides to throttle your BitTorrent traffic for whatever reason, you have a right to know. • "[C]onsumers and innovators have a right to send and receive lawful Internet traffic—to go where they want and say what they want online, and to use the devices of their choice." No ISP should be able to tell you that they’re not going to carry this or that traffic—see: Netflix and Comcast— for whatever made-up reason. • "[C]consumers and innovators have a right to a level playing field. No central authority, public or private, should have the power to pick which ideas or companies win or lose on the Internet; that's the role of the market and the marketplace of ideas." Genachowski then adds that ISPs should be allowed to manage their networks to, in part, "address the effects of congestion." And that’s fine, provided the ISPs inform their users what they’re doing, and why. Maybe an ISP wants to limit download speed between the hours of 6pm and midnight in order to ensure that everyone in an area can actually access the Internet? All of this seems eminently reasonable, but I’m willing to entrain differing points of view.
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| Posted: 01 Dec 2010 09:30 AM PST
It’s Wednesday, that must mean there’s more Wikileaks news to discuss. And of course there is. Interpol, and by that I don’t mean the band, has placed Julian Assange on its wanted list for "sex crimes." It all goes back to that alleged incident in Sweden a few months back. If nothing else it’ll make travel slightly more difficult for Assange. In other news, some joker who claims to be a "hacktivist" has taken credit for that denial of service attack that knocked Wikileaks offline for some time yesterday. I laugh because the idea of taking credit for a denial of service attack in 2010 is right up there with playing peekaboo with your toddler and then telling your friends, "Man, my little guy actually thought I had disappeared for a while there! Fooled him!" I’m pretty sure that talking parrots can initiate denial of service attacks at this point, so to sit there, chest out, and adopt the posture of "hey, look what I did in the name of FREEDOM~! and HACKTIVISM~!" is nothing short of pathetic. But feel free to think you’re the second coming of Toussaint L’ouverture, sir.
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| Windows Home Server Is Dead, Long Live Windows Home Server? Posted: 01 Dec 2010 09:00 AM PST
Of course these moves have caused the WHS server fan base to erupt in an Internet ragestorm fueled by confusion and abandonment issues. The thought that Windows Home Server is now dead in the water was further defined today when Microsoft confirmed reports that HP, which shipped the first widely adapted WHS, will not produce servers based on the next-gen OS. Dead, canceled, or some other name with synonymous lifeless might not be the correct description as Microsoft is clearly working on the platform, but the next version of WHS is seemingly different enough in its core philosophy and target demographic to warrant a name change or even death decree.
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| Will There Be A Halo: Combat Evolved HD Remake Next Year? Posted: 01 Dec 2010 08:30 AM PST
Now here’s a juicy rumor. Is someone remaking Halo: Combat Evolved? That would be simultaneously neat and depressing. Neat in that, yeah, I’d like to see what Halo: Combat Evolved looks like at modern resolutions and with textures larger than thimbles. Depressing in that, jeez, it’s come to this? The Hollywoodization of the video game business continues. Of course, Microsoft gave the old standby "We have nothing to announce at this time." Certainly doesn’t like a denial to me… Word on the street is that 343 Industries, a new internal division within Microsoft that’s been tipped as the future "stewards" of the Halo franchise (remember: Bungie has moved onto Activision), is making the game, and that it’ll be based on the Halo: Reach engine. Now, that’s a fine engine in its own right, particularly when considering the limitations of the Xbox 360, but in the days of Metro 2033 and even Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (and even Source-based games turned up to the max), please don’t expect me to be knocked-out impressed. The idea behind the remake would be to bridge the gap between the next big sequel in the series, which is currently scheduled for release in late 2012. In other words, that would make the Halo: Combat Evolved remake ready for your consumption probably late 2011. One question: will they leave the Library untouched for nostalgia’s sake, or will they fix it?
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| Citizen Self-Defense Walking Stick: BAD. ASS. Posted: 01 Dec 2010 08:30 AM PST WHAM! POW! BANG! You, too, can recreate Kick-Ass with the Citizen Walking Cane, a crazy cane that turns into a tonfa self-defense stick and lets you “learn how to disable and subdue an opponent in a flash of a second.” That’s right! A flash of a second!
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| EA Sports MMA Producer Confirms EA Sports MMA 2 In Radio Interview Posted: 01 Dec 2010 07:30 AM PST "There is definitely going to be an EA Sports MMA 2." That’s the big news coming out of yesterday’s Figure Four Daily interview with EA Sports MMA producer Jeff Ecker, who said that it’s not "if" but "when" there will be a sequel. So, hooray! The interview touched on a number of things, including the game’s low sales (Ecker referred the hosts to the game’s marketing department if they wanted to discuss sales numbers), what it was like to work with all the different fighters (Bas Rutten is specifically praised for being awesome to work with), how fighters were selected (basically, they wanted to get the biggest names worldwide that they could), and what Paul Heyman brought to the game’s promotion (Ecker was amazed by Heyman’s creativity). But yeah, by far the biggest news is that Ecker did, in fact, confirm that there will be a sequel. That probably goes against conventional wisdom. We all know the game didn’t sell too well (which, again, speaks to the fact that Joe Public has no interest in MMA itself, but is only interested in UFC and its recognizable fighters; rabid MMA fans on Sherdog are not indicative of the average sports fan, for better or worse), so this should be a relief to the game’s fans. I actually got the game this past week, during one of Amazon’s crazy Black Friday deals ($29.99!), and yeah, it’s quite good, at least on the surface. I can’t speak too much to the gameplay, but I would like to see next year the option of full ring entrances (who are Mayhem Miller and King Mo without their elaborate entrances?). Nothing annoyed me more in WWF No Mercy 10 years ago (yes, I hold grudges) than the shortened ring entrances—the entrance is part of the entire experience! Well, that and there was some pretty gnarly slowdown at times. It also stinks that Sakuraba isn’t in the game, but that’s because of a licensing dispute. Unfortunate! The interview itself is behind a paywall, so unless you’re willing to cough up $10 to hear it you’re out of luck.
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| Seven Watches Up For Grabs During Holiday Giveaway Posted: 01 Dec 2010 06:30 AM PST  The holiday season brings special entitlements - so win yourself a watch already. This Casio Pathfinder is just one of seven watches being given away during the month of December on aBlogtoRead.com. The seven timepieces vary in style and prices. People who enter and are randomly chosen to win, will further be randomly chosen in what they win. Double suspense.
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Windows Home Server is easily one of the best products to ever come out of Redmond. It brings most of the functionality of a full-fledged server without any of the hassle. OEMs like HP and Acer quickly jumped on the platform a few years ago and outed fantastic products lines centered around WHS that allowed nearly any consumer to set up a comprehensive back-up solution, media vault, and network-attached storage unit — all on a small form factor PC that sucks less energy than a traditional computer. It’s seemingly a winning product for Microsoft, hardware makers and even us consumers. But that perception is apparently wrong. Microsoft is now prepping the next version of WHS named Vail, which reportable does not include features and functions that previously defined the platform.
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