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New Fujitsu Device Harvests Energy From Both Heat And Light

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 02:05 AM PST

Fujitsu today announced the development of a single device that’s capable of generating electricity from either heat or light. Previously, two devices had to be combined to generate electricity from these sources (through energy harvesting, energy can be derived from external sources like light, heat, vibrations, wind energy etc.).

On paper, Fujitsu’s so-called hybrid energy harvesting device doubles the energy-capture potential (see below).

The company also says its new device doesn’t require wiring or battery replacements, meaning it can serve as a rather inexpensive solution in areas with insufficient energy supply in the future.

What you can see on the picture on top of this post is a prototype device manufactured on flexible substrate. Fujitsu says it’s now working on improving their technology to commercialize it by around 2015.

First “Transformers: Dark Of The Moon” Trailer Hits The Web

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 12:52 AM PST

Transformers 3 (full title: Transformers: Dark Of The Moon) is scheduled to hit theaters in the US on July 1, 2011, but Paramount Pictures just released a first teaser trailer for the movie. It runs 2.20 min and doesn’t really show much, but it’s somehow pretty interesting nevertheless.

This is a high-quality clip by the way, not some bootleg version. Paramount also updated the official website of the movie.

Here’s the trailer (go to Apple Trailers for more options to view it):

Daily Crunch: Wipeout Edition

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 12:00 AM PST

Android Now Seeing 300,000 Activations Per Day

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 11:46 PM PST

Andy Rubin, head of Google’s Android team, doesn’t talk to his 15,000+ twitter followers very often. In fact, he’s only tweeted once before, and it was little more than a quick retort lobbed in Steve Job’s direction after he questioned Android’s definition of openness.

This evening, he let out but nine more words:

iPad Clone Of The Day: The 8″ MID From Morlab

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 07:14 PM PST


While trolling the vastnesses of the FCC, we ran across a random iPad clone and thought hey, why not share it with the world? This one is apparently nameless, identified only as the 8″ MID on the user manual. And it appears to run Android 1.5 with an iPad skin! How wonderful!

No, this thing won’t ever show anywhere you’ll see it, but it’ll probably be available via various import outlets, and needed to take a trip to the FCC to make sure it won’t be bathing you with X-rays.

While the insides are garbage (600MHz professor, 128MB RAM, resistive screen), I kind of like the little buttons there on the top. Tablets like the Playbook and Motorola thing are going buttonless, though. C’mon, I like buttons!

Hey, and at least it’s got a MicroSD slot, unlike some devices I could mention.

Remember: Today Is the Last Day Of Festivus

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 06:01 PM PST

Today is the final day of our Festivus contest and it's a doozy. This is a secret word hunt that we'll run all day. At the end of some of our posts, you'll find an all caps word written where it has no place being. This is one of the Festivus miracles. Write it down. You will find eight words or short phrases in total.


OnLive Has “No Agenda” To Take On Netflix

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 03:40 PM PST


As OnLive has continued to grow and prove itself not to be an elaborate hoax, it has become clear that their streaming tech is seriously good. So good, in fact, that some speculated that they might get into the business of streaming movies. OnLive CEO Steven Perlman corrected these wild ideas, noting that even when he had earlier said that OnLive could do what Netflix does, he had qualified that statement by noting that Netflix’s strength is really in its library.

I found that the instant streaming of game trailers was a more effective way to watch them than on games sites, and I could easily believe that OnLive could get into streaming a few shows or movies, maybe just game-related stuff. I’d be okay with that, and Netflix probably would be too.

They’ve got a whole market to change here, it’d be weird for them to go shooting off in Netflix’s direction before proving themselves in gaming. So let’s all just calm down.

If anything, if OnLive grows big enough, I can see them offering their service and the microconsole as a frontend for the Netflix service. That might be too complicated, though. Eh. As if streaming hundreds of videos of games being played live isn’t complicated already!

BlackBerry PlayBook Stars In “Extensive Hands-On Walkthrough”

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 03:00 PM PST


Those lucky ducks over at BGR have gotten a nice, long in-person demo of Blackberry’s Playbook, and I have to say I’m pretty impressed. The gestures using the bezel are smart, and I like the multi-tasking methods. The sound is off a bit in the video, but it doesn’t affect viewing much.

I’d go through all the features I noticed here, but it’s better for you to just watch the video when you’ve got a spare ten minutes. It’s not some revolutionary thing, but it’s more compelling than I expected, and this combined with Android 3.0 may be actually provide some serious competition for the iPad.

Monster Now Selling Daft Punk TRON Edition Headphones That Are Technologic

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 02:14 PM PST

Here’s something I want for Christmas: Daft Punk edition TRON headphones! Made by Monster—I’m assuming quality similar to the Beats—these ear cans come with LED lights. A first for Monster, the LEDs will light up and mimic movements from the character’s costumes.

The headphones are meant for gamers, movie watchers and of course, music listeners. Features include noise isolation and an attachable microphone for dual duty as a headset. I can just picture all those tf2 players with these, ahem, Around the World.

Unfortunately, you will not be able to celebrate and dance for free. Price is set at $350 and it comes with a surround version of Daft Punk’s soundtrack for TRON: Legacy.

Outfitting Your Family’s Traveler For Stellar Photography

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 02:00 PM PST


If you’ve got a friend or family member who’s planning a trip, you’re going to want to make sure they’re prepared. Yeah, sure, with extra socks and stuff, but what I’m talking about is making sure they don’t come back from a three-month tour of rural China with a grand total of 15 pictures on their iPhone, because “it’s good enough.” No, they need to take along something that can take a beating and still produce memorable images. And a few accessories wouldn’t hurt, either.

Depending on how much you want to spend, there are a lot of good options out there, though it depends on what kind of travel is going on.

Are they headed somewhere wet and tropical? They’re going to want something they can take underwater with them, something that won’t croak when covered in sand or spray. We had a rugged camera roundup recently that addresses these needs, but if you’re in a hurry, I recommend the Casio EX-G1.

It’s cool-looking, super compact, takes solid pictures, and is waterproof and shockproof. Its weakness is that it doesn’t do HD video, but I think its strengths make up for that.

If, on the other hand, they’re going somewhere snowy or rainy, a camera bag like the Cloak might be in order, mainly for SLR users. People thought about it as a way to surreptitiously take pictures, but it really is just a handy way to keep your camera out of the rain and snow and still be able to snap a few shots.

It zips shut, in case you were wondering. If it doesn’t seem their style, check out our round-up of cases and bags from just a little while back and see if any there pique your interest.

Remember, though! Having a camera bag says to the world “I have a camera!” So make sure to get your loved one a nice custom strap, so they’ll keep things around their neck. A $15-20 padded strap makes a huge difference in comfort, and you could even stitch in a personalization!

Your best bet is to take a look at the camera your gift recipient has or wants, and then just spend a few minutes in a local camera shop checking out straps that’ll fit.

Feeling a little more spendy, or maybe it’s just time for your spouse or kid to upgrade? DSLRs are amazing across the board right now. I favor the T2i, but if your family has a wealth of Nikon or Pentax lenses and such, you might consider the D3100 or K-r; both lag a bit in features, but both are great cameras and the K-r is weather-sealed to boot, so add that into your calculations.

Handsome buggers, aren’t they? Look around online for the best price, and get the body only — photographers should pick their own lenses!

When you’re traveling, you’re never sure whether you’ll have a good flat surface to put your camera down on for group shots, low-light, or what have you. So something like the GorillaPod is handy, though getting a big one with the ball head attachment can be expensive.

I used a folding tripod like the Ultrapod for my travels, which also worked extremely well.

And last, don’t forget the SD card! Most cameras store to SD, and high-capacity cards are getting cheap enough that you could go weeks without unloading. 8GB or 16GB is usually enough, and you can get those for chump change. But if you really want to make a photographer’s day, go for the Eye-Fi.

Once you have one of these, you’re probably going to end up relying on it. Wireless syncing means less trouble, less stuff to lose, and less likelihood of accidentally formatting your card with your pictures on it. They’re a bit pricier than regular SD cards, of course.

There you have it. Your little traveler will be well-equipped with all the stuff from this list, or really just one or two items from it.

Check out the rest of our holiday gift guides!

18,000 B&N Nook Colors Are Being Produced Each And Every Day

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 01:30 PM PST

B&N has high hopes for the Nook Color. High expectations is actually more like it. The company’s chairman Len Riggio recently in an article, “B&N is manufacturing Nook Colors at a rate of 18,000 per day and is loading up a 747 every four to five days to bring devices to the U.S. from China” So yeah, for B&N’s sake, hopefully at least a few of you have the Nook Color on your wish list. OSMOSIS [PW via Crave]

Rolex Owner Gets A Christmas Surprise: Posted His Watch On eBay For $9.95, Final Bid Was $60,000

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 12:48 PM PST

A retired Navy doctor wanted to sell a few of this old knick-knacks and posted his Rolex on eBay for $9.95. The seller, a guy named Bob, bought a Rolex watch on the Kwajalien Atoll from a Navy Exchange fifty-two years ago and he wore it almost every day for forty years. He then put the watch away and forgot about it for a decade, finally pulling it out recently to see if he could sell it for a bit of Christmas money.

He posted it and forgot all about it until the bids started hitting in the thousands. Over the next few days he watch it rise to $30K. He spoke with his son who discovered that his watch was the rare “Bond” Rolex Submariner Ref 5510, the same model Sean Connery wore in Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Thunderball (trust me: if you’re a watch dork, this is your holy grail). This particular model is the rarest and most sought-after version of that watch. It should be noted that Ian Fleming wore an Explorer.

The auction closed three days ago at $66,100, which definitely isn’t bad for a timepiece that the owner originally thought was worth $10. If you’d like to pick one up yourself here’s a similar watch for a mere $100,000.

The best part is Bob has a full set of photos showing the watch in its natural habitat including, inexplicably, at a party with Christopher Reeve.

via Hodinkee

Festivus Miracle Word: THREE BEAN SALAD

Time Warner Shows Off Its $200/Month SignatureHome Package For The Remaining Rich

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 12:07 PM PST

Today I got to see Time Warner’s Signature Home $200 a month service package offerings up close and personal at a loft they rented in fancy-pants Soho. The offering, which is comparable to their triple-play program except that you get 24/7 customer service including concierge-style phone service and installation techs who will spend up to three hours at your home setting up all your junk. They even wear little booties so they don’t scratch up your imported zebra-wood and elephant ivory parquet floors.

To be fair, you do get two 500GB DVRs as well as a digital VOIP service with included caller ID that will AIM when you get a call. You can also control the DVRs over the Internet and iPad and iPhone apps are forthcoming. Finally, you get “wideband” Internet through DOCSIS 3.0-tier networking with 50Mbps down and 5Mbps up, an improvment from their current real-world service of about 1Mbps down and “Why Don’t You Send a Letter In The Mail, It Will Get There Faster”Mbps up.

The service is currently unavailable in Dallas and LA while their “wideband” service is available in small cities throughout the US. Until it rolls out in your nabe, friends, you’re going to have to depend on their current, non-SignatureHome techs scuffing up your linoleum.

We talked to Sam Howe, CMO, about the installs as well as the future of 3D on cable.

Product Page


WhiteyBoards Introduces the Next Generation In Dry Erase Technology: The WhiteyNotes and WhiteyPads

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 11:13 AM PST

A few things really stand out as watershed moments in human history. The Polio vaccine and the moon landing are two, perhaps, and maybe there’s that whole Hadron collider thing. But when it comes to true breakthroughs I’d have to add one more to the list: the Whiteyboard. As you recall, Whiteyboards are big panels of dry-erase plastic that you can stick to any wall in the house or office. They are removable without damage to the underlying surface and they’re significantly cheaper than any other whiteboard solutions out there. The company just introduced WhiteyNotes, dry-erase sticky notes, and WhiteyPads, to-do list-type sheets for kitchens and/or kink dungeons.

The notes come in Post-It size and cost $5 for ten. The pads come for $8 per 10 and are 5×8 inches. Both are infinitely reusable, assuming a repeating, never-ending universe and not accounting for entropy. The company is a former YCombinator start-up.

The items are shipping now and they work a treat. I have one up in my office now and I feel like a real big-time journalist with a to-do list and everything.

Product Page


Go Away, Snoopers: Internet Explorer 9 To Add Anti-Tracking Feature

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 11:00 AM PST

Did you hear the one about the Web browser that tracks your every move? It’s great fun, all so that advertisers can better sell you widgets as you read Web Site Z by way of Web Site B. Microsoft looks to be buttering up to some of the users it may have scared off given Internet Explorer’s pretty dire security reputation. A new feature planned for Internet Explorer 9 called Tracking Protection would help users take control of what sites keep tabs on their browsing history. Control!

The feature, which will be implemented in a future beta of IE9, would let the browser connect to sites only when directly requested. For example, if you visit espn.com, then only elements from espn.com will actually connect (provided you’ve configured IE9 as required). You won’t subject your browser to any of the third-party nonsense/advertisers that ESPN may employ.

That’s probably something ESPN’s advertisers won’t want to hear, but it’ll help keep your browser your browser. No need to worry about Ad-Man A knowing whether or not you visit Site Z after visiting espn.com.

Or you can be like me and use Firefox along with the NoScript Add-On and basically block the entire Internet from your browser, building a white-list of approved sites and servers from reaching home base.

It’s not so much about blocking ads as it is about making sure mysterious third-parties are snooping on your every move.

And I almost forgot: SNICKERDOODLES

Well met, traveller. From Parts Unknown, Nicholas Deleon would stop using the Internet altogether if he could. It’s a fad, anyway. Then how to explain his Twitter?

Ivyskin SmartCases Now Shipping… Without Batteries

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 10:33 AM PST

Way back in 2008 we started paying attention to a company called Ivyskin. They first offered a solar iPhone case, which was just ugly, and they they offered something called the SmartCase, an iPad case with a battery in it. It’s basically a more angular Mophie Juicepackfor the iPad.

Sadly, there have been numerous complaints about Ivyskin and one reader sent in a recent exchange he had with Ivyskin. They shipped him the case, but they didn’t include the battery and they don’t expect to ship it any time soon. Our reader wrote:

Dear Ivyskin
You sent me the iPad case a couple months ago and still waiting for the battery.
When can I expect to get a battery?

[redacted]

Ivyskin’s response:

Hello [redacted]:
Please note that due to the Apple certification, battery pack portion of your
SmartCase™ will ship separately. You have now received the Quattro™ glass
Touch-Thru screen case that is the base frame of the SmartCase™.

We will notify you with the tracking details as soon as the battery pack is shipped.

Please feel free to email or call us with any questions or concerns.

Best Regards,
Sean
IvySkin USA

They’ve also been hit by multiple complains from the BBB for non-shipment and, according to our tipster, “If you get someone on the phone and try to cancel, they insist it's being shipped soon. When you push hard they insist it's being sent next week.” To their discredit, they still claim it’s on pre-order but they take your money immediately and then you wait. So far our tipster has been waiting for six months. It’s clearly no way to run a railroad.

We emailed to ask if the devices were shipping and were told they were but, as we see from this exchange, trusting your cash with folks pushing vaporware or, at the very least, delayware, is a risky proposition.

Video: Yes, That’s Wolfenstein 3D In The LittleBigPlanet2 Engine

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 09:30 AM PST

I should hope this video puts a smile on John Carmack’s face. It shows Wolfenstein 3D re-created in the LittleBigPlanet 2 engine.

The game is currently in beta, and will be released in January. PS3, of course. Like Ars says, the 3D effect is a little unusual, but that doesn’t detract from its ability to make you say, "Whoa, what’s that?"

Also: RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS

Well met, traveller. From Parts Unknown, Nicholas Deleon highly encourages y’all to read the book Master of Doom, about Id Software. It’s quite good (unlike his Twitter, which is rubbish).

Not Smart: Operation Payback Fights Wikileaks’ Enemies With Denial Of Service Attacks

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 09:00 AM PST

See, now this is getting silly. A group calling itself "Anonymous" (the site seems to be down at the moment) has started to coordinate denial of service attacks against Wikileaks‘ enemies as part of "Operation Payback." You know, companies like Amazon (kicked Wikileaks off its S3 servers), PayPal (froze its account for engaging in "illegal activities"), and EveryDNS (shut off its DNS services to Wikileaks). Nothing like good ol’ fashioned vigilante justice, right?

Um, no. This is not a good idea, nor is it a good way to ingratiate yourself to public opinion. If you want to protest or boycott or whatever these services, fine, great, more power to you. But to act like a petulant little child, knocking over neighborhood mailboxes because you’re angry? Not a very good idea.

It gets better. There are rumors that Twitter has been suppressing ("censoring," in the language of the movement) tweets from appearing on the trending lists that contain the hashtags "#wikileaks" or "cablegate" or related phrases. As such, Anonymous has also set its sights on Twitter.

As if Twitter doesn’t have enough problems staying online as it is!

But yeah, I really cannot abide this type of wanton destruction. Keep your protests civil, folks. It’s the only way anyone’s going to give your cause the time of day.

Well met, traveler. From Parts Unknown, Nicholas Deleon does not approve of denial of service attacks, primarily because they’re silly. Not even against Twitter.

This Is What Happens When A Content Writer Goes Mad

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 08:38 AM PST


I get bored writing about nonsense tablets every other day. I can only imagine what it would be like writing printer cartridge descriptions all day, every day. It’s a damn printer cartridge. Anyway, click here for a bit of amusement.

[Thanks for the tip, Manuel!]

Did Junk Science Motivate Nasa’s ‘New Life’ Announcement?

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 08:10 AM PST

Oh, Nasa. If only you could invent a time machine and go back to when you actually had a budget. The agency’s claim last week that it had found a new type of life in a lake in California is now under fire from all sides. Encirclement! One Slate article quotes several skeptical scientists who question the veracity of Nasa’s claims. One even said perhaps the most damming thing one scientist can say to another: your paper should not be published. What gives?

You’ll recall that Nasa announced last week it had found a microbe in Mono Lake, in California, that’s able to use arsenic rather than phosphorus when putting together its DNA. It’s big because, well, we’ve never before found any bit of life that’s been able to do that. This changes everything, etc.

And then the knives came out.

"They carried out science by press release and press conference. Whether they were right or not in their claims, they are now hypocritical if they say that the only response should be in the scientific literature," said Jonathan Eisen, of the University of California, Davis, to the Nasa’s scientists refusal to engage in debate via the media.

Scientific debate, argues the Nasa scientists, is best done through the proper channels. That means academic journals like Science or Nature.

Many of the skeptics say that Nasa basically engaged in bad science. Whether that was motivated by the need for good news (says one scientist, "I suspect that NASA may be so desperate for a positive story that they didn’t look for any serious advice from DNA or even microbiology people") or anything else, who knows?

Other sources of error may include not properly cleaning the slides containing the microbe, or not even realizing that arsenic pretty much falls apart in water—how were the microbes able to survive in the lab, to say nothing of Mono Lake, when a main component of their DNA is essentially allergic to water?

In other words, it would look like Nasa has some explaining to do.

But at the very least we’re arguing over science and not, say, what "rules harder," Xbox Live or PSN. (They’re both neat is the answer! Everyone be nice to each other!)

Well met, traveller. From Parts Unknown, Nicholas Deleon managed to get his Worgen Priest up to level 11 last night. Not bad. Maybe he’ll tweet every time he dings a level?
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