CrunchGear

Sony In Talks To Buy IMAX?
CES May Have Flexible Displays From Samsung, Others
Olympus E-PL2 Turns Into Doctor Octopus With Lights
More PS One Classics From Square-Enix Coming To PS3
China “Outlaws” VoIP, Creates VoIP Reporting Hotline
And Now, A 110-Minute Video Review Of Star Wars: Episode III
Progress Bar Illusions
Amazon & GameStop Put Duke Nukem Forever At May 31
Why Roger Ebert Doesn’t Like Video Games: He Became Obsessed With TMNT
2010 In Review: The Fortunate Winners And The Pathetic Losers
Daily Crunch: Out With The Old Edition

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 02:41 PM PST

There are rumors going around right now that Sony is going to make a play for IMAX. Since IMAX is a major (so to speak) venue for 3D films, it makes some sense, and the sale would put Sony in control of a large amount of high-profile theaters around the country. How does that sound to you? Not so good? Yeah, same here.

Actually, I doubt it would make too much difference; it’s not like Sony theaters would fail to show movies you wanted to see. The deal would be a good one for IMAX, with the offer rumored to be $40/share and the company currently valued at around $26/share. It’s all unconfirmed, but it would make some sense. Sony likes to put itself in positions of power in the distribution structure, and the “last mile” of having control over IMAX would be a coup for them.

[via Electronista]

CES May Have Flexible Displays From Samsung, Others

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 02:28 PM PST

Lots of companies are getting in the flexible display R&D, but few have actually shown anything but prototypes. That’s not likely to change at CES this year, but we may see a few new items; Samsung is now showing off a 4.5″ AMOLED display that’s both flexible and transparent. Nice!

It’s different from the other screens they’ve shown off, and of course it’s not e-ink like some of the ones we’ve seen. Whether the flexibility would remain once you’d added a CPU and touch-sensitive panel is of course hard to say, but I’m liking where things are going.

Olympus E-PL2 Turns Into Doctor Octopus With Lights

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 01:00 PM PST

The Olympus E-PL2 is due to hit retailers soon, and we’re starting to see pictures of the accessories that will be available. Sure, there’s the standard fisheye, macro, and wide angle lenses; but what other camera has lights on flexible arms?

Olympus is also coming out with some specialized lights intended for macro photography. These lights are powered off the hot shoe (that mount on top of the camera where you put your flash), and mounted on two flexible arms, allowing you to light your subject using just the camera. No word on when the lights will hit stores, or how much they’ll cost. Props to Olympus for coming up with this clever lighting solution.

[via Electronista]

More PS One Classics From Square-Enix Coming To PS3

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:30 PM PST

Been hoping to play a little Xenogears or Vagrant Story, but don’t want to drag out your old PS One? Well, you’re very lazy and should be ashamed of yourself. But soon it won’t matter, because these classics are coming to the PS3 as downloadable PSN games.

Yes, Xenogears, Legend of Mana, Threads of Fate, and Vagrant Story are all headed your direction, likely for similar pricing to that of the classic PS One Final Fantasy games.

Here’s the question, though. Will they run as well and look as good as they would if you used a Playstation emulator on your PC? Because those things run like butter and offer options like anti-aliasing, freeze frames, and all kinds of other stuff. I’m just saying. If you already own the games, there’s no reason to buy them again.

China “Outlaws” VoIP, Creates VoIP Reporting Hotline

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 11:43 AM PST

The State Ministry of Industry in China has “outlawed” VoIP calling, suggesting workers use good old China telecom for their important calls out into the Capitalist wilds. According to a report, the ministry suggested that 30 million current users are using “illegal VoIP operators” and they have been given a number to call to report use of VoIP in their neighborhoods.

Generally this looks more like a power play by China Telecom and the other carriers to maintain its user base than any real concern over legality. However, it’s fairly obvious that VoIP is harder to police than POTS but considering the official Chinese carriers offer VoIP of their own, it’s pretty hard to swallow the security angle.

via Inquirer

And Now, A 110-Minute Video Review Of Star Wars: Episode III

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 11:34 AM PST

After the last two epic Star Wars prequel reviews, you know what you’re getting into: an at-length breakdown of everything that went wrong with Episode III. Watch it before you go out tonight so you can be the one who’s seen it. Because that’s cool, or something? Why would I recommend that?

[again via Metafilter]

Progress Bar Illusions

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 10:11 AM PST

I always wondered why OS X progress bars had an odd ripple effect and now we know: rippling progress bars seem to move faster across the screen, making you think stuff is getting done faster.

And now you know, and we all know what knowing is half of.

via Dvorak

Amazon & GameStop Put Duke Nukem Forever At May 31

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 07:30 AM PST

Duke Nukem Forever has popped up on Amazon and GameStop with a May 31, 2011 release date. Considering both pre-order pages are linked from the official Duke Nukem Forever Web site there’s probably a good chance that the game will be spinning inside your 360/PS3 on (or by) that date.

In and of itself it’s almost enough to make your jaw drop: not only have we seen previews in the media for a few months now (I think I was supposed to see it a few months ago but I couldn’t make it for whatever reason), but now we’re getting a solid release date.

Also keep in mind that the game is being developed by Gearbox, the same folks behind Borderlands, so we know it’ll be pretty decent (knock on wood!).

I didn’t even know there was going to be a PC version, but that’s great news. It’s very difficult to play an FPS on a console once you’ve spent any amount of time playing ‘em on the PC, which the lucky winner of that fancy PC will find out soon enough.

"Oh, so this is what games look like with jaggies all over the place!"

Why Roger Ebert Doesn’t Like Video Games: He Became Obsessed With TMNT

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 07:14 AM PST

It’s easy to understad Roger Ebert’s position that games aren’t art when you realize that he once became addicted to TMNT on the NES, arguably one of the hardest and, I believe, worst games on the platform.

In this video clip from the Siskel & Ebert 1989 gift guide, Ebert reported that he “started playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with it. And after a while, after a week of this, I’d find that every time I had a spare moment and every time I came home, I was in front of the set playing with these mutant turtles.” You see, for a week, Ebert was basically a 12-year-old boy.

Considering he probably hasn’t played many games since that lost week, I suspect his opinions on the medium are slightly distorted. However, he’s still a great movie reviewer, so lets let him rail against Dark Tower as much as he wants.

via Kotaku

2010 In Review: The Fortunate Winners And The Pathetic Losers

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 05:44 AM PST

Oh, 2010. It was glorious, but thank the almighty prancing unicorn in the sky that it’s over. It was the year of the iPad, really. Steve Jobs took to the stage of Moscone Center, sat down, and proceeded to show the world how he wanted us to interact with the Internet — several million consumers followed suit immediately. But there was so much more, too! Of course, not everyone had as good year as Apple. Or Roku. Or Amazon. Some companies and products didn’t fare so well and they’re probably looking to the riches that will (hopefully) be made in 2011.

Look at Android tablets, netbooks, cable companies and even Windows Home server, Google TV, and the TV show Lost. All losers in the game of Life, 2010 Edition. But no worries. 2011 is tomorrow and the Internet is a kind soul who’s quick to forget past blunders as long as future ventures result positively. It’s just too bad that what happened in 2010 will likely happen in 2011. It’s going to be more of the same. Sorry if I’m the one to tell you this; that’s the way it works ’round here.

Winners: Apple launched the iPad and weathered Antennagate while retooling nearly their entire line. Impressive. An updated MacBook Air that’s lighter, thin and cheaper? Alright, fine. A new Apple TV that brings content from iOS devices into the living room without centralized storage. Sounds good. 12-Core Mac Pros? 10 hour battery life on MacBook Pros? An iPod that can double as a wrist watch? Beatles in iTunes? Yeah, Apple had a good year and it’s just not the products that demonstrate that. The bean counters are mighty happy, too.

Apple retail is booming. Apple Stores worldwide saw 75 million visitors cross their thresholds in 2010. That’s more guests in a year than Disneyland gets in five. A table full of metallic objects is all it takes to lure people in. Free admission is nice as well.

Apple’s fourth quarter was a blockbuster of sorts for Steve Jobs and his company. New records all around: 14.1 million iPhones sold (Antennagate wha?), 4.19M iPads, 3.89M Macs — and Fabolous recorded the Steve Jobs single (NSFW). A rockstar year indeed.

Losers: While the iPad had a killer first year, that can’t be said about Android tablets. It wasn’t until the Samsung Galaxy Tab strolled into town that the platform even seemed viable on a slate device. Manufacturers and Google are both to blame here. Makers were out to make a quick buck so component prices were probably worked over more than feature lists. Then Google didn’t exactly make it easy for these companies by restricting access to the Android Marketplace and outing an SDK that’s like pig latin compared to the iOS SDK.

Follow this rabbit hole a bit deeper and we might see that consumers were the real loser here. But let’s not. Those consumers should have known better. We’re talking about first-gen tablets from companies that didn’t exist the week prior running an OS that was never designed for the form factor. Serves them right.

But 2011 might write a kinder story for Android tablets. Samsung supposedly sold 1 million Galaxy Tabs so far in 2010 and the other big CE players will likely out their offerings at CES 2011 (Motorola’s Xoom will likely be the one to beat). As long as Google can rework the user interface to make it a bit more tablet friendly and several high resolution apps designed just for larger screens become must-haves, Android tablets might find its footing. Well, that said, Android tablets will sell even if they’re repackaged hedgehog poo because clearly anything is better than a tablet with an Apple logo on the backside to some buyers.

Winners: There wasn’t anything more surprising to many of us around the office than the Windows Phone 7 launch. There wasn’t even a hiccup. The platform launched and the world kept spinning. iPhones continued to work and Droids didn’t notice. That’s a win. Really.

WP7 was Microsoft’s big thing this year and hopefully Christmas bonuses around the Redmond campus will reflect how smooth everything is going so far. Reviews were fair to the system, not finding anything of a truly deal-breaking nature. It just seems to work and yes, this is a Microsoft product. Feels awesome to say that.

Losers: There’s a battle raging right now between content producers and a few hardware companies. The winner? No one. We all lose in this one.

Big media embraced the World Wide Web a few clicks back, but so far, the industry as a whole is uncomfortable with the whole notion of Internet on TVs. Google TV is treading water because of this fight and Boxee Box would be cut off at the knees if the big media fat cats so decide.

It’s a shame, too. All we want as consumers is a legitimate alternative to cable and the Internet seems perfect for that role. In many ways it is, and these new media set top boxes skin the Internet so it’s a bit more friendly 10 feet away. But it doesn’t matter. You as the consumer might as well roll over and play dead. It’s the safest thing to do anyway. Committing to any of these boxes in 2010 sets your 2011 to be filled with agony and frustration as your living room turns into a scene from 300.

Winners: Roku launched its first video product in the spring of 2008 and was known initially as a Netflix streaming box. But no one cared.

Then, slowly at first, different apps, or in Roku-speak, channels, made their way on to the platform. Now there are over 100 channels with most of the major streaming services present: Netflix, Hulu Plus, MLB.TV, Amazon Video On Demand, Pandora, and lots more. Indie producers can even make their own channel with the help of Ooyala.

Roku was in the right place and time this year though. The lucky ducks managed to have updated Roku models prepped and ready to launch this fall. It just so happens that Apple also introduced an updated Apple TV, which was special enough to get the Internet’s attention for few a minutes back in September. The new Roku boxes then launched just two weeks later and undercut the Apple TV on price while boasting a richer feature set. Since then, the little streamer is a fan favorite and is constantly recommended by pundits and every day consumers over the Apple TV and more recently, the Boxee Box.

Losers: You’ve heard the news, right? CDs are dead, murdered at the hands of Steve Jobs and his marauding geniuses. Or something like that. Well, if honesty is the goal here, CDs died for many consumers years ago, but 2010 happened to have lots of little events that, well, when combined, further signaled the end of CD.

Apple, for one, now bundles OS X on a flash drive for its latest MacBook Air. That’s the event that got the silly headline. Spotify didn’t make its way to US shores yet; Rdio did, though. New people are finding the fantastic Grooveshark service every day. Even the most basic passenger vehicles now have 3.5mm inputs and, in the case of the inexpensive Ford Fiesta, Bluetooth streaming local and internet content from services like Pandora is found its way downmarket to the sub-$20k car market.

It’s just not streaming services quickly toppling optical media. It’s now cheaper to buy a flash drive than a stack of CDs of equal storage capacity. It’s awesome, really. Storage anxiety should be a thing of the past. The fixed limit on a CD seems strange in today’s world where nearly every other week, flash drives double in size. 120GB on a stick? Yessir. CDs are sitting slightly higher than Iomega Zip discs in terms of usefulness right now.

Winners: It’s outright ignorant to think that electric cars are going to overtake conventional cars within the new decade, but 2010 was a big year for the EV. The Chevy Volt went on sale and the Nissan Leaf will soon follow. Great news for both GM and Nissan, but Tesla is the one that should be breaking out the 18-year old scotch and hookers.

The list of high points reads like a corporate fairy tale: Received significant financial investments from Toyota and Panasonic. The company introduced a new model for themselves and Toyota while managing to nearly doubled its stock value since going public almost six months ago. Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, even found time to talk to Steven Colbert. Companies always try to top their previous year and 2010 set 2011′s bar damn high for Tesla.

Losers: Contrary to everyone’s strong feelings otherwise, netbooks have been dead for years. At least that’s what all us journos want to think. Well, this year we might finally be right and the iPad is credited with the kill.

You should know where this is going. Netbooks are dead because no one wants them. This year, though, there was a legitimate alternative for couch surfing in both the iPad and ultra-portable notebooks with new, lower prices. Sales dropped to an all-time low even though the little notebooks keep getting more powerful.

Winners: The next generation of gamers are set to be thin, nimble and healthy. Console gamers, that is. PC gamers will still be sucking down caffeinated death drinks if something like the Move or Kinect doesn’t free them from their comfy office chairs.

The new take on gaming might not be the end-all solution. In many ways, both the Kinect and Move do not satisfy the so-called hardcore gaming crowd. Everyone else though will enjoy the novelty for what it is while Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo toil away at the next generation when things will really get interesting.

For now though, at least some gamers will get off their mom’s couch and burn a few calories while gaming. Nintendo started the movement (you’re welcome) but, Microsoft and Sony rebooted the public’s interest in motion controls by showing in their own ways what could be done on a powerful system. Just watch out for grandpa.

Losers: Huzzah! Cable companies are losing more and more subs every month! Victory!

Well, sort of. Sure, pay TV companies are having a hard time holding on to subscribers, but that’s only going to mean prices will probably stagnate or worse, will be raised to compensate for the lose of income. Comcast has to pay the power bill on their massive video wall in their swanky new-ish skyscraper somehow.

But where are these people getting their content? Not one report surfaced that showed the cable cutting movement has any real traction, and big media basically controls the future of living room streaming devices anyway. Pay TV needs a savior or a disruptor. Someone will probably have to paint their face blue and white and stand in front of a horde of angry subscribers to really make a difference.

Winners: Mark one up for e-readers. Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble — the only two real contenders — dropped their respective model’s prices and introduced new models. Amazon went downmarket with a redesigned and cheaper Kindle, while B&N brought out what amounts to an iPad-lite. Not that this is a bad thing. The Nook Color is a fine device and at half the cost of the iPad, will probably make a lot of buyers very happy. A few though will probably crave more and ultimately move to something a bit more featured filled.

The redesigned Kindle Amazon announced in August went on to be the retailer’s turned out to be Amazon’s best-selling item of all time — a feat achieved in only five months. Amazon didn’t reveal the exact sales numbers but when something outsells Harry Potter and his band of ungodly brethren, it’s gotta be a lot.

Losers: There’s a saying at Google, “Launch early, launch often.” It often works for the cash-rich company. But the consumer electronics space is a tad different than the Internet as the search giant found out with Google TV this. Consumers and retailers don’t like products with promissory notes for major feature sets. A wide open market with strong manufacturer and carrier support pushed Android through its rough first months. Google TV didn’t have such luck.

The product seemed — at least to us tech-savvy know-it-alls — as the Wave of the future. It was going to be the product that finally brought Internet video to the living room in a proper and Google-ish manner. But that didn’t happen.

Big media immediately went on the defensive and blocked the Android system from accessing their online content. Then the units launched to strong negative criticism. I found it “half-baked” with major features not scheduled to launch until months later. Currently the system is stalled-out with even major CES announcements reportable shelved until Google can work out…something.

The philosophy is right and it never hurts to have Sony pimping your platform. But without the blessing of media networks and content providers, Google TV will never see Android-type success.

Winners: Me. I won this year as CrunchGear expanded our coverage of the automotive world. We quickly won over automakers thanks to our review style and formats, which allowed myself and our intern Kyle to drive some awesome vehicle this year. We drove the CTS-V Coupe, the Range Rover Supercharged, the 2011 Audi A8 (which we got a flat tire in), and were the second outlet in the country to have the Hyundai Equus.

But one dreary October afternoon, I made my way to Ford’s Dearborn test track to drive a 800HP, $475,000 Iconic AC Roadster. I didn’t get out of second gear and spun-out the half-million dollar supercar while simultaneously eating several traffic cones with the car in front of a group of journalists and Ford staffers, but it was still the highlight of my year.

Losers Remember the Kin? You must. The platform surely holds the title for fastest product from a major company to go from launch to cancellation — 48 days according to the Kin Wikipedia page.

Was it Microsoft’s fault? Perhaps, there was nasty rumors even prior to the platform’s launch. But Verizon needs to shoulder some of the blame too for requiring the phones to carry the same $30 data package as proper smartphones even though the Kins were nothing more next-gen feature phones. So the Kin One and Kin Two were shuttered and most of us thought for good.

But nope, they came back in November. Only this time they’re priced properly alongside other bargin phones and only require a feature phone data plan of $10 per month. Still, that 48 day period is awful funny.

Other Victories

The Walking Dead. Easily the best new show of the year but it could be even better.

Android fans finally have multiple quality handsets to choose from. The Droid X, Droid 2, Droid Pro…Well, they have multiple quality Motorola handsets to choose from at least. And the Samsung Galaxy S.

HP bought Palm and managed to stir up a fair amount of Internet buzz concerning both the HP Slate 500 and upcoming Palmpad. Now, if Internet buzz actually related to hard sales numbers HP could start popping corks.

Netflix kept their ball rolling, made it onto more hardware platforms and introduced a streaming-only plan. All that’s left is Android. Guess you have to save something to do in 2011.

Several states flexed their rights and decided that Four Loko was a bit too much for their citizens. John demonstrated live why the drink was hit by the banhammer.

Stargate Universe finally ditched the drama monkey and decided it was time to be a good show. Too bad this will be the last season.

Nintendo jumped aboard the 3D party train with the 3DS — at least, they announced it. We’ll see it in 2011.

Steam finally launched on OS X and introduced the proud race to Half-Life 2 and 2004.

The Engineer class in TF2 was converted into a defensive class to one of the strongest offensive options in the game.

3TB hard drives. [period] As in, 3TB hard drives are awesome.

Other Defeats:

RIM attempted an Apple maneuver with the upcoming Playbook but failed. It’s fine that the company wanted to steal a bit of the the iPad’s thunder and so they decided to reveal the Playbook slate before it was ready to ship. But a bit too early. Like six months early. The Blackberry Torch and OS 6 weren’t quite the game-changers RIM wanted them to be, either.

Well, who didn’t see this coming? Notion Ink still hasn’t shipped the Adam. Pre-ordering started but was marred by many troubling issues. Maybe they’ll get it out the door in 2011.

Microsoft decided that the most important feature of Windows Home Server wasn’t really the most important feature after all. Microsoft clearly knows best.

This year’s hot FPS games were just rehashes of last year’s piss-poor releases.

Lost. Just Lost. It lost.

No one is buying standalone GPS units anymore. I wonder why?

So what’s going to happen in 2011? The usual. Apple will announce the iPad 2, the iPhone 5, and some new product that will described as a “breakthrough,” “a real game-changer,” and MG will dredge out the always-popular headline, Apple Killed The [ubiquitous product] Today. Then Microsoft will putz around in the tablet space some more while Google rolls out a half-dozen or so major Android updates –from Gingerbread to Lollipop, of course. So yeah, more of the same. But man, I can’t wait. On to 2011!