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Bovet Dimier Recital Watch Collection

Posted: 20 Jan 2011 04:40 AM PST

Dimier is a sub-brand of Bovet, that is just as high-end, and also known as the watch movement maker of the group. Bovet didn't start Dimier, but rather acquired it. I've never seen a Dimer watch in the US - only in Europe - butt hat doesn't mean there aren't a few of them hanging around. Bovet and Dimier watches are said to be made in the same place, with similar values. Though Dimier watches are a bit more traditional in form. Unlike Bovet watches they don't have that pocket-watch-on-your-wrist style that is quite unique.


Media Keg: Pioneer Updates Its Portable Music Player

Posted: 20 Jan 2011 02:46 AM PST

Kenwood has been selling portable music players in Japan since 2006. Marketed as “Media Keg”, we last covered the devices back in September 2008, and today Kenwood announced [JP] it has refreshed the line-up after a long time.

The so-called MG-G508 comes with the following specs:

  • 8GB internal memory
  • microSD card slot, USB port
  • sound: 7mW×2 (16Ω)
  • MP3/WMA/AAC/WAV support
  • JPEG and BMP support (no video)
  • 25 hours of battery life
  • size: 98.5×46.5×10.5mm, weight: 45g

Kenwood plans to start selling the Media Keg MG-G508 in Japan next week (price: $145), but don’t expect the player to show up anywhere else soon (even though it has a Japanese/Chinese/English menu).

CHOBICAM1: Super-Tiny Camcorder Weighs 12g

Posted: 20 Jan 2011 01:22 AM PST

Tokyo-based accessory maker Japan Trust Technology (JTT) is known for its CHOBI CAM series of ultra-small cameras. Today JTT announced [JP] a new model, the so-called CHOBICAM1. It’s being marketed as a toy movie camera, and as you can see on the pictures, it looks like a DSLR in micro format.

The device is sized at 2.5×2.5×2.6cm, weighs a mere 12g and features a built-in mono speaker. Users can shoot video in 640×480 resolution in AVI format or pictures in 1,600×1,200 resolution (JPEGs). The device has a slot for microSD/SDHC cards (32GB max) and can be connected to your PC via USB 2.0 (Windows machines only).

JTT started selling the CHOBICAM1 in Japan today (price: $120). The company also plans to offer a set of lenses for the camera in a few days (see below).


If you’re interested but live outside Japan, ask Geek Stuff 4 U to get a CHOBICAM1 shipped to you.

Daily Crunch: Kitchen Temp Edition

Posted: 20 Jan 2011 12:00 AM PST

Pure Black Knife Set Is Evil-Looking, Tasteful

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 07:20 PM PST


Man, these are some handsome knives. They’re each cut from a single piece of metal and then given a grippy, non-stick black coating. It’s not really clear whether these knives are actually good knives, but I certainly wouldn’t mind having them hanging in my kitchen. Are you evil? A Sith lord perhaps? Or a gothic lolita moonlighting as a chef? I think these are for you.

No price yet. You can also order the knives individually, or rather you’ll be able to once they’re for sale. I like the set, though. You never need anything more than those three knives, really. And only the two if you like to tear your bread.

[via Uncrate]

HTC’s First Tablet To Be Called “Flyer,” Launch In March?

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 06:51 PM PST

We heard a few weeks back about a tablet from HTC called the Scribe, and we expected it to be their first entry into that particular device category. But Digitimes reports that they’re actually going to put out one called the Flyer first, in March, and it’s essentially a big Desire.

It would ship in March with Android 2.3 on it, and then upgrade to 3.0 whenever Honeycomb gets released for viable devices. Two other tablets, likely larger and/or fancier, would launch in June.

We’ll see whether that’ll grab people. By then you’ll be looking at Xoom, Playbook, and likely iPad 2 release windows within a month or two, and people might want to wait. Especially if you’re not getting the “full” product until the other ones are available.

“Upstream Component Makers” Corroborate iPad 2 Retina Display

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 06:38 PM PST

Whether this Digitimes report is just an echo of the previous rumors, I can’t say, but they seem to have gotten independent confirmation that the next iPad will indeed have a 2048×1536 display.

Let’s take it with a grain of salt, though, until we get something a little more solid. Nothing on the other rumors, either.

…Lotta white space here. I guess I’ll use it to say that I don’t think the RAM issue is such a big deal. If they’re using similar quality memory, they’ll be able to get it for half the price this year and ordering units by the tens of millions tends to save money. Why not have a ton of RAM? I’d be more worried about the screen itself requiring more power and producing more heat.

Samsung Snaps Up E-Paper Tech Company Liquavista

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 06:22 PM PST


It was just a few months ago that we heard Samsung was leaving the e-paper e-reader business to focus on LCD-based systems. Those reports may have been mistaken, as the tech giant has just purchased Liquavista, a company originally spun off from Philips, and which is working on improved electrowetting techniques.

What Samsung’s planning is a mystery, but I’d guess they’re looking into more advanced e-paper and transparent or flexible displays. I doubt we’ll hear about them for at least a year, though.

Here’s the full press release:

Samsung Acquires Display Technology Provider Liquavista

Investment aims expand leadership in next generation displays for mobile devices

SEOUL, South Korea–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global technology innovation and digital convergence leader, today announced it has acquired display technology firm Liquavista BV. Samsung completed the acquisition of Liquavista, based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in December 2010.

Liquavista, founded in 2006 as a spin-out from the Philips Research Labs, offers a new type of electronic display technology known as electrowetting for applications in e-readers, mobile phones, media players and other mobile devices.

The electrowetting technology, which operates in transmissive, reflective, transparent and transflective modes, enables the creation of displays with bright, colorful images with dramatically reduced power consumption. Offering more than twice the transmittance of LCD technology and able to operate at low frequencies, displays utilizing electrowetting consume just 10 percent of the battery power of existing display technologies.

With the acquisition of Liquavista, Samsung aims to expand its leadership in next generation display technologies by pioneering the application of electrowetting in e-Paper and transparent displays. As electrowetting can be manufactured by modifying existing LCD production lines, Samsung will be able to realize significant synergies through the utilization of existing manufacturing equipment and capabilities.

In e-paper applications, the response time of the electrowetting displays will be more than 70 times faster than that of existing reflective displays, allowing for color videos, which was previously thought impossible. In future, the application of the technology is expected to expand to transparent, transmissive and transflective displays.


Easy DIY Foot Pedal For Your DSLR

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 05:00 PM PST


If you don’t feel like paying full price for a foot trigger for your DSLR? You can make your own with a few parts if you’re comfortable with a little bit of soldering. Nothing major, but of course for someone like me, even opening a can of tuna is major. So I won’t be attempting this, but it’s cheap and easy enough that you could start after lunch and be done before Miller time.

Basically all you’re doing is switching the output on a simple on/off (not expression) foot pedal, the kind you’d use for a keyboard to toggle sustain. You trade the 1/8″ end of a 1/4″-1/8″ audio cable for a 3/32″ male, and boom, you’re done.

The full instructions are here; all the parts should be available at your local Radio Shack and/or music supply store.

How Sonos Got It Right: Up Close With A Survivor

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 04:50 PM PST


John MacFarlane had a dream: to send music from one box to every room in the house. In 2002, the only way to do this – sanely – was to run speaker wire from room to room, creating an install headache or a rats nest of wires. Instead, his company, Sonos, succeeded at sending the audio wirelessly, a feat that has been replicated many times but has never resulted in a product as successful and popular as the Sonos Multi-Room Music System.

There’s a dirty secret in gadget start-ups: they fail. Constantly and catastrophically. Unlike web or web service start-ups, gadget start-ups require R&D, manufacturing, and distribution. The Gizmondo, the most famous of all flame-outs, involved unkept promises, horrible hardware, and an exec with organized crime ties wrapping a Ferrari Enzo around a light pole.

Making hardware is hard. It takes time, and MacFarlane and his team took three years to finally launch the ZonePlayer 100 and remote control. During this time multiple vendors tried and failed to ship similar products. However, thanks to a unique design aesthetic, some nice software, and a lot of luck, Sonos survived and is now thriving.

GigaOm did a great analysis of the company as a business, but let’s talk a bit about why the company what the company did to succeed in a difficult marketplace.

A Unified Design

The Sonos is easy to describe: it’s a device that sends music to every room of the house, wirelessly. Originally requiring a dedicated PC, the system now streams audio from multiple sources and includes speakers, amplifiers, and even a uniquely excellent remote control that presaged the common end-user LCD remote by years.

Sonos has a unique identity and consistent trade dress. All Sonos devices look similar and they all share a common, muted color. There are few, if any buttons, and set-up is dead simple, even back in 2005 when consumer electronics were even less logically designed than they are today.

Simplified Visual UI And Language

The Sonos controller, a box the size of perhaps two old fashioned iPods put side by side, had a large, bright screen and dead simple UI. You selected a song, sent it to the room you wanted it to play in, or sent it to all the speakers in the house. Compared to anything else on the market six years ago it was very heaven.

Premium Pricing

Many manufacturers fall into one of two traps – they price their devices at the mid-point of the market, in order to be on parity with larger companies, or try to flood the shelves with low-priced garbage. As evidenced by a number of successful hardware companies, the premium spot is actually the first place to target, especially as a primarily American company.

Why? Well, a gadget start-up usually needs to target early adopters. Early adopters want quality and are usually not afraid of spending money to scratch an itch. Granted the price can go down over time, but an early high price can slowly roll down to a lower, more manageable price in the future. This is exactly what Sonos did: they launched initially as a fairly high-priced item and then launched lower-priced accessories and versions. They also accepted the inevitable and create an iPod Touch/iPhone app that would eventually replace their hardware remote control solution.

Getting It To All The Right People

All of the tech nerds in Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley know about Sonos. If they don’t, they know someone who has one. Many swear by them and there is a small but vocal community of well-known users.

Many of these users were tech journalists – I know even our own Arrington has used one and I reviewed it a few times in its lifetime – and I’ve been approached consistently by the company on a regular schedule. The key, here, is reminding the tech press that you still exist. Compare that to something like the homegrown FitBit. It was a clever product, but it seemed to disappear after an impressive launch.

Constantly Telling The Story

Smaller companies can’t release product on a monthly basis. It takes years to prepare and ship new hardware and given the problem Sonos set out to solve – the streaming of audio to speakers – they are more an appliance than a disposable item of whimsy. Therefore, they solved that problem by updating the software in various ways, bringing in media partners, and generally gathering attention every six months or so. When new hardware launched, it was a big deal. But it was also a big deal when the smaller stuff launched because the established install base was ready for upgrades.

This also kept the idea of Sonos fresh in customer’s minds. The Sonos solves a very specific problem and once you realize it exists, you’re initially intrigued but the pricing puts you off. After reading more and more about it, however, it begins to make more sense. This is how you build a customer.

There’s no guarantee of success in the gadget space, but Sonos hit on all the right cylinders at exactly the right time. They may be small, but they’re popular and their still going strong, even after a good 9 years.

Could a larger company like Sony pull off a Sonos? Probably not. The product is too niche and Sony would probably overdo it with an odd branding campaign centered around rubber balls and lithe Moroccan dancers. Sonos kept it small, kept it sane, and sold a lot of hardware.

Zero Punctuation Takes On Fable III

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 04:26 PM PST


Like Yahtzee, about halfway through this, I began expecting a pleasant surprise. But like Yahtzee, I was disappointed by the arbitrary and repetitive gameplay aspects. Ah well. Back to playing Minecraft.

Which Is More Likely: Retina Display On iPad 2, Or 3D Display On G-Slate?

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 04:00 PM PST


So apparently there’s a bit of a rumor going around that T-Mobile’s G-Slate, which had the honor of introducing us to Honeycomb, will actually have an autostereoscopic 3D screen. The evidence: GPSandCo got word from LG that the thing would both take and display 3D images glasses-free.

But others aren’t so sure, and Engadget notes some conflicting information. And really, I seriously doubt that T-Mo’s first big tablet will be something as risky as 3D; autostereo displays are expensive and I’m pretty sure Android isn’t built from the ground up for 3D.

Who knows, though? Maybe the initial wave of tablets will be dominated by crazy screens like the rumored (and counter-un-rumored) iPad high-resolution screen, and potentially this weirdo LG thing. There will be a lot of competition, so maybe setting themselves apart from the pack is the right idea.

…Nah. 3D tablet? I don’t think so, not now anyway.

New Multi-touch Gestures Will Not Be Available On iOS 4.3

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 03:39 PM PST

Last week, we showed you the new multi-touch gestures that Apple plans to add to the iPad with iOS 4.3. We thought they looked pretty cool and useful. Well it turns out the gestures were merely a test and we shouldn’t expect them in iPad’s next update.

On the developer’s site:

This feature will not be enabled in iOS 4.3 for customers, but [Apple is] providing this preview to gather input on how these gestures work with [developer's] apps.

Lawyer Bait: The iFrame Digital Picture Frame

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 02:44 PM PST


I wonder whether the creators of this particular digital picture frame know that Apple actually has something called iFrame. I mean, sure, it’s just a really dumb (and more or less defunct) resolution, but still, if you’re going to make an iPad lookalike, it’s good to mitigate risk by giving it some obscure name.

As for the frame itself, it’s just your usual thing: WiFi, USB, Flickr, basic weather and news. It’s 13″ and 1366×768, and costs $141. You can probably get one like this cheaper at your local electronics store, and you won’t have to pay for shipping — but it won’t have that handsome piano black bezel.

Sexy ladies in pajamas not included.

[via 7 Gadgets]

3DS Debuts With Considerable International Price Disparity

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 02:26 PM PST

Nintendo has finally launched its new handheld, the 3DS, after nearly 10 months of anticipation, and as usual, has been coy about some key details. The complete launch lineup is still a mystery, and while they announced a $250 price for the US, the rest of the world has been left out of the loop. However, retailers and rumors are putting international pricing details on the map, and it’s looking a little… lopsided.

UK retailers are offering it online for £219-£229, or around $366 (!) at today’s exchange rates. Japan, meanwhile, the system will be sold at ¥25,000, about $300 in American dollars. In the EU, Euro-Amazon and Gamestop are offering it for €249.99, which translates to around $337. There’s no Australian pricing yet, which historically is absurdly high, nor Canadian, which will likely be a little higher than the US. Remember, also, that the pricing is fluid (Nintendo left it, to some degree, to the discretion of the retailers), and depending on sell rates and supply, the price may go up or down over the next few weeks.

The subtle vagaries of international currency exchange obviously are in play here, and these disparities aren’t as great as they appear due to the various factors that go into valuating currency, but still, it seems that importing might actually be cost-effective for some thrifty non-Americans. That is, if they can get around the region lockdown.

If any of our international readers would like to chime in with their evaluation of the pricing, that’d be great. I’m not local to the UK or EU, so I can’t really speak to whether these prices are out of control or just off-kilter by the usual amount.

AT&T To Launch New Text Plans Next Week?

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 01:22 PM PST

The gents over at GearLive just finagled this screenshot out of a Best Buy employee, purportedly detailing a new text messaging plan AT&T plans to launch next week.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch, because OMG LOL JUZ R33D IT OKAY ROFL! JK! >>

T-Mobile Launches Service To Block Texting While Driving

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 01:08 PM PST

I’m not usually one to preach, but texting while driving is really, really stupid. Yes, steering a 3,000+ pound metal missile while staring down at a tiny screen to blast out short, generally forgettable sentences is stupid. Anyone who says they’re “good at it” or that they “have a technique” just hasn’t screwed up yet. No one expects to get into an accident.

With that said, high-fives to T-Mobile for introducing a service aimed at ending texting-while-driving (at least amongst teens with watchful parents.)

Read the rest at MobileCrunch, where the only thing we do while driving is drive. Oh, and eat burritos. >>

Starbucks Now Letting You Pay For Your Coffee Fix By Phone In 7,800+ Locations

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 01:07 PM PST

Back in 2009, Starbucks revealed the third step in their world domination process (after “Put a Starbucks on every other corner” and “Put a disguised Starbucks on remaining corners“): they would let people pay for their coffee with their phones.

It started off quietly enough, with a pilot program in but a handful of cities. Then it spread to the Target locations. Then to New York City. Today, it’s being expanded to over 7,000 new locations around the country.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch, where we understand why your hands start shaking around noon >>

Acer: Just Kidding, We’re Not Phasing Out Netbooks In Favor Of Tablets After All

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 01:06 PM PST


Yesterday, Acer’s Taiwan Sales Manager said of their tablet lineup, “They are aimed at phasing out netbooks… That's the direction of the market.” Today, Acer has amended that statement, saying “According to recent statement from Sales Manager based in Taiwan, Acer Inc. confirms that the company will not phase out netbooks in favor of tablets.”

Well, that’s all cleared up, then!

Actually, the whole statement (reproduced at the bottom of this post) goes on to say that the market is changing and that tablets and netbooks are just pieces of “the mosaic.” Among this “multitude of instruments” we will find the netbook and tablet hand-in-hand, not competing at all.

Acer to increase its presence on mobile market investing
on tablet devices: netbooks will not be phased out

Manno, January 19th 2011 – According to recent statement from Sales
Manager based in Taiwan, Acer Inc. confirms that the company will not
phase out netbooks in favor of tablets.

Mobility, which has always been part of Acer's DNA, finds a new form
of expression in the range of tablets on offer, which feature various
display sizes and models designed to fit different kinds of usage
scenarios. Acer recognizes that the computer market is changing. As
PCs are no longer only used to create content but are more and more
becoming consumption tools, new devices and new form factors are
appearing.

This means the range of devices available to users is getting wider
and tablets are just another piece of the mosaic. Therefore, they will
find their space next to netbooks and notebooks.

Technological developments are changing the way we interact with
devices. No longer a single product, but a multitude of instruments
with diverse form factors and display sizes designed to meet the
specific connection need of that particular moment, allowing the
digital individual to stay connected and interact with his world,
anytime, anywhere.

Acer's offer includes a 10.1" Android tablet, for a superb mobile and
home entertainment experience, a 7" Android Tablet, the epitome of
mobility and a 10.1" Windows Tablet for the maximum of versatility in
a tablet form factor. For the moment devices based on Sandy Bridge are
not yet foreseen.

The mBrace, A Handy Handle For Your MacBook On Kickstarter

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 12:00 PM PST


I don’t know about you guys, but I get a sort of pang every time I pull my MacBook Pro out of my bag; I mean, the screen portion is so thin, and I have to grip it pretty hard to lift that 5-pound mother out of there, I’m afraid I’m going to bust a few pixels one of these days. This Kickstarter project, the mBrace, adds a handle to the rear end of your Mac laptop so that never has to happen.

It also folds down to tilt the keyboard up a bit. Personally I’m not sure I want a little tail hanging off my milled slab of a MBP, but it could be handy if you’re in an office and move your gear around a lot. Or something.

At any rate, he’s only a little way toward his rather high goal of $75k to produce this thing. You don’t have to kick-start the whole production run!
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