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Will WrestleMania Be The Next ‘Big’ Event To Go 3D?

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 05:00 AM PST

Word on the street ("the street" being this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, which is behind a paywall, sorry) is that WWE is looking to film WrestleMania in 3D this year. The event, which takes place on April 3 in Atlanta, would be the first WWE event (and first North American wrestling or MMA event) to be filmed in 3D.

Keep in mind that this would be in-theater 3D, not 3D viewable on your 3DTV. The company WWE is working with, Fathom Events, is best known for promoting in-theater concerts and other special events. (It’s also the same company that put on those three UFC events in theaters around the country last year.)

But don’t get too excited because the Observer says WWE and Fathom Events are still working out the money split—WWE wants 60-70 percent of the 3D revenue, while Fathom Events would like to see WWE take a smaller cut.

So if it all works out, and that’s a big if, you’ll be able to see, maybe, CM Punk vs. John Cena and Undertaker vs. Wade Barrett (maybe!) at your local movie theater in 3D.

Sorta neat.

For His Blog: Man Has Been Taking Pictures Of Same Vending Machine For 5 Years

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 02:20 AM PST

It’s no secret the Japanese love their vending machines, but this is extreme: a man from Sapporo has been taking pictures of the same vending machine (almost) every day since August 2005. The man, a person called Ikeda, is still uploading each picture on a blog he set up more than five years ago just for his strange hobby – just for fun.

I first thought this is either fake, a case of objectophilia or a viral marketing campaign by Coca Cola (the machine sells drinks), but it’s well documented in Japan’s blogosphere that Ikeda is a regular person (here‘s his Flickr account).

When drinks or prices change overnight, Ikeda makes an effort to highlight every single change, as you can see below:

What you see on top of this post is the original vending machine from August 2005. Pictured below is the new version (the machine has been replaced once).

Via Asiajin [ENG]

CLM-V55: Sony’s Clip-On 5-Inch LCD Screen For Digital Cameras

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 12:22 AM PST

Are you missing a large screen on your camera that lets you monitor your footage whenever you shoot video in HD? Then the CLM-V55 Sony announced today might be the right solution for: it’s a 5-inch clip-on screen, which features WVGA solution (800 x 480).

The screen can be attached to “most” interchangeable lens cameras and compatible HD camcorders with an auto-lock accessory shoe or ISO shoe through an adaptor (which Sony throws in). It connects to other devices via HDMI and tilts and swivels “to any angle”.

Sony Europe says the CLM-V55 will be released in March (without mentioning a price). If it’s any indication, the street price in Japan will be a whopping $505.

NVIDIA Shows Us What Terga II Can Do For You (And Your Car)

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 10:06 PM PST

Pretty soon you’re going to be able to play 1080p pr0n in your car. Handy and disgusting all at the same time. But at least it will have a pretty interface!

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Ease Seasonal Depression The Easy Way With Valkee Ear Buds

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 09:00 PM PST

I’ve always worried about people on depression meds; there are all kinds of meds, like Prozac and whatnot, then if that’s not working — probably due to overuse — there’s Abilify. Are you f’in kidding me? Stop these bad things now! Now! And check out some depression-fighting ear buds.

Those going with the natural way — good diet and exercise — needing an extra boost can check out the new development from Finnish company Valkee. Just by wearing them for 8-12 minutes, users can ease seasonal depression. The researchers believe that we need more light in the brain, not just the eyes — so sungazing is not really an effective solution — so by placing the buds in the ears, light can effectively get to the brain. Happy days ahead.

Cost is 185€, but good luck getting them shipped here. Right now they don’t ship to the US.

Mitek Systems Shows Off Their Smartphone Banking Apps

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 08:43 PM PST

“Point. Shoot. Pay — or Deposit.” That pretty much sums Mobile Photo Bill Pay and Mobile Deposit from Mitek Systems, which uses smartphone cameras to take mobile banking to the next level.

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Verizon Makes Changes To Its Policies, Conveniently, Before The iPhone Releases

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 08:17 PM PST

To all you Verizon people out there who planned on using your “New Every Two” program to get an iPhone; it’s going to be your last credited upgrade. Verizon is ending that, hah! Verizon giveth, then Verizon taketh away.

Oh, and if you think you’ll be able to upgrade into the next iPhone early; too bad, that can’t happen anymore either, well, not until you’ve been with the big red for 20 months, as opposed to 13.

So unlike the AT&T users, who can get a new iPhone pretty much every year, Verizon customers will have to endure outdated tech for 20 months, that’s like September of 2012.

On the brighter side, you can wait until June or July, get the latest and greatest, and at least only be one version obsolete by 2012, instead of two.

Agloves Demos True Smartphone-Friendly Gloves At CES 2011

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 07:51 PM PST

Agloves is a winner, but follow closely; I don’t wanna lose you. They’re gloves — got you so far? — that without any annoying nub, button or nipple, work with touchscreens. Crazy, I know. But we saw them in action and they really do work thanks to conductive silver-coated-nylon fibers woven in the mitts. Clever, eh? $17.99.

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Touring the Panasonic Booth

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 07:45 PM PST

Is This The New Facebook Phone And Interface?

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 07:43 PM PST

The new phone is being called the INQ Cloud Touch and just might be the rumored Facebook phone. We just learned that the device received its Bluetooth certification and from that we learn that the phone was developed to “make messaging faster and smarter.” What will be different with this phone is how it interacts with the user; that it was developed around the way people naturally communicate.

Even though it’s rumored to be based on Android, Facebook is at the core of the device; every feature ties into Facebook. When the user is on the home screen, there are multiple places they can access Facebook functions. Expect live status updates, with events, pictures, and places. I’d assume that this is not the actual interface; what you see here is junk.

After news of the certification went up, the working was changed removing references to Facebook. Hmmm?! What’s interesting here is that INQ makes phones in Europe; and none here. Why would the Facebook phone look like this? It looks like something I had in high school. I’m thinking it’s going to go to one of those countries where music from my high school years is still popular; just “look at that photograph..”

What’s your take?

[Via PocketNow]

PC Shipments Recover Somewhat; Apple Share Jumps In U.S.

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 07:22 PM PST


The latest numbers for worldwide and US computer shipment sales have been made available by research group Gartner, and the results are about as interesting as they usually are; that is to say, a little. 2010 was a hard year in some ways, perhaps most so in that netbook sales, which boosted PC sales hugely in 2008 and to a lesser extent in 2009, have pretty much hit the wall. Tablets, or to be precise the iPad and the promise of other tablets, have done their work in taking a bite out of the cheap-PC market, though as many will likely point out in the comments here, they are very different devices. Nevertheless, the iPad has dented netbook sales, and as tablets mature, that trend will likely increase.

Apple’s portion of the US pie has increased quite significantly: a 23.7% jump brought them to a total of 9.7% of all computers sold in the country this last quarter. Why are more people buying macs? That’s a more complicated question than it sounds.

I’d like to give some credit to the iPad, which may have taken quite a few people off the fence, but at the same time, many people might have bought an iPad instead of upgrading their current mac. It would take a separate survey to establish whether that’s true, and unfortunately, I don’t have enough minutes on my phone to make 3,000 random phone calls to iPad owners. So it’s a mystery for now, but the end result is that Apple is on the rise.

As usual, HP is on top, but it’s losing ground to Lenovo and Toshiba, who seem to be eating up all the new growth. Hopefully the HP webOS slate and new notebook lineup will convince consumers that it’s okay to buy from the big guy.

The next year will be clutch for PC makers. Tablets will increasingly replace netbooks and other portable computers, and the all-purpose hub for storage, media, high-power processing, and so on, will be further marginalized (though it’s still got plenty of life in it). The market will become large enough and diverse enough that tracking it won’t be a matter of tracking “iPad” and “other.” Total volume for tablets will be 20-30 million at least.

At the same time, Intel’s new Sandy Bridge platform and the AMD Fusion APUs will make ultraportables and notebooks far more attractive and practical than they were last year, so you can expect a bump there too. Desktop sales, not so much. At least, that’s my take. You can read the report and choose your own adventure here.

Southwest Airlines To Start Implement Green Landings. Wait There Exists Such A Thing?

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 07:00 PM PST

First off, what am I talking about when I say “green” landings? Well, how about energy-efficient landings? Does that do anything for you?

Aiming to cut greenhouse emission, save money and reduce delays, Southwest Airlines has begun to implement GPS based RNP, or required navigation performance, which is fundamentally similar to the older RNAV, or area navigation, but different. Different because the requirements monitoring their flight patterns are more accurate. What this means is more direct routing and specially designed landing patterns using GPS. You’d think that would have been standard years ago.

Right now, SWA is placing these procedures at 11 airports and plan to save $11 million a year from operations at just those 11 airports. Later, they will bring it to all SWA airports and expect to save over $60 million a year.

If you fly into Amarillo, Birmingham, Boise, Corpus Christi, Chicago Midway, Los Angeles, Oakland, Oklahoma City, Raleigh-Durham, San Jose and West Palm Beach your plane routes will be greener by Friday.

The FAA is pretty much requiring this method going forward with an initiative called NextGen. It’s going to require a shift from ground-based air traffic control to GPS-based. Again, I thought that in 2011, this would be going on.

But, no matter what way you look at it, by 2018, it’s going to save money ($22 billion), jet fuel (1.4 billion gallons) and the planet (14 million tons of carbon). Well..not save the planet, just help it die slower. As far as efficiency, the practice will reduce flight delays by 21%, which is actually quite a bit.

SWA operate over 3,100 flights a day; so training its more than 5,900 pilots and modifying its aircrafts must be expensive. Perhaps that’s the reason that, in 2011, GPS will finally be at home in air traffic control.

Video Of Four- And Five-Finger Gestures On iOS 4.3

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 06:26 PM PST


It’s a good thing they implemented these, or they might have been left behind by the multi-screen desktops of both Android 3.0 and the Playbook. There isn’t much to say about the video (via MacRumors), but it’s nice to see it in motion. I suppose the apps must be left-to-right in order of being opened.

Leaked: Galaxy Tab Gets A Price Drop On Sprint

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 06:17 PM PST

Sprint has only had the Samsung Galaxy Tab out since November 14th, yet is already slashing its price. Perhaps the huge amount of tablets announced at CES has something to do with the price adjustment. That or the fact that when Honeycomb comes out, the Tab will be obsolete. Besides it’s not that much to make.

The new price will be $299 to lock in for two years and $499 contract-free. We’re thinking that this price drop might be in anticipation for the Wi-Fi only model coming out. Hopefully, the early adopters don’t get too upset like the Apple customers did for the original iPhone.

Uh Oh: Asus Tablets May Not Ship Till Summer, Will Not Have Android 3.0

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 05:40 PM PST


Remember when we went to Asus’s CES press conference, and they showed us several nice-looking tablets, all of which we were told would run Android 3.0? I sure remember, because I was there. As it turns out, that might have been — there’s no polite way of putting it — a straight-up lie.

It seems that Asus was a little overconfident, and did not know what specifications would be required to run Android 3.0, so they just said their tablets would have it without knowing whether that was true. That’s pretty shameful, guys. When the Inquirer asked Asus’s marketing specialist John Swatton about this, he said the announcement “was a mistake.” Actually, John, it’s not a mistake when you say something you know isn’t true. To thousands of people. Who then report it to millions. It’s called systematically spreading disinformation.

Not only that, but the tablets won’t be out until the third quarter of 2011. With the Xoom and almost certainly the iPad 2 coming out in 1Q, and then the rest of the tablet army hitting sometime in 2Q, I think we can safely write off Asus as a player in the 2011 Tablet Wars.

U100 From iRiver Is Sexy And Zune-Like; You Will Probably Never Have One

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 05:30 PM PST


Now, I’m not saying that this particular gadget is the best thing in the world, but I do have to say that I like the look, and of course microSDHC support and a big battery are a plus. The interface looks very Zune-like, right down to the circled triangle for “play” and the sans-serif, left-aligned white-on-dark typography. Maybe they did it first and Microsoft copied them?

Whatever the case, the U100 has a 3.1″ 480×320 touchscreen, 4-16GB of space inside (remember, you’ve got a card slot too), and a big ol’ battery that promises a full 50 hours of audio playback, or 11 of video. Even my excellent Zune HD can’t match that.

[via Journal du Geek and Anything But iPod]

Visiting the Bowers & Wilkins Booth

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 05:00 PM PST

PSP2 To Be Announced On January 27th?

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 04:30 PM PST


The fact that there is a PSP2 is kind of an open secret: Sony hasn’t said a word, but developers have confirmed they’re working with them, and we saw some supposedly leaked pics. Now the same site that showed off the pics is claiming (sources be damned!) that Sony is planning a big meeting with select press to announce the PSP2 this month, on the 27th.

The timing is good; they definitely want to get it out in the open before the 3DS hits, or they’ll be buried. And if they’re smart, they’ll put the hardware specs and capabilities front and center, since the 3DS can’t match them there.

VG247 isn’t naming any names, but another blog has stepped forward to say they’ve confirmed this. It’s all speculation at the moment, though, so don’t get too excited. We’ll update if we hear anything to confirm or deny all this stuff.

Woo! Minecraft Hits 1,000,000 Purchases

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 04:00 PM PST


We just wanted to shout out a congratulations to wildly successful Minecraft creator Notch, who has created one of the weirdo sleeper hits of the year. With virtually no promotion, only word of mouth and a reasonable price, this indie exploration and creation game has sold over a million copies. I’ll leave the implications of this on the bloated, franchise-obsessed AAA game community to your imagination.

I’m a happy owner of Minecraft myself, but I would like to say to Notch: more monsters! No need for cake!

What Super Mario All-Stars Collector’s Edition Could Have Been

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 03:30 PM PST


A few weeks back, we were talking about our favorite things, and John selected the new Wii re-release (wii-release?) of Super Mario All-Stars. A great game, to be sure, but I felt that it was rather neglectful of Nintendo not to make much more of a hullabaloo about it. But there was more to be said.

Luckily, I don’t have to say it, because this great little feature over at 1UP is exactly what I would have put down. Rare games! Developer commentary! Long-lost commercials! Why not, Nintendo? Mario deserves it!
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