CrunchGear |  |
- Toshiba Releases Thinner, Lighter Fleet Laptops
- Sony’s Outs Two New OLED Monitors
- Is Fujitsu Prepping A Symbian/Windows 7 Dual Boot Cell Phone?
- Daily Crunch: Transaction Edition
- Official Steve Jobs Biography Coming In 2012
- The Gagarin Tourbillon Watch
- Review: TDK 3 Speaker Boombox
- This Is Acer’s New Logo (Act Like You Care)
- Amazon Announces Ad-Supported Kindle For $114 (That’s $25 Off)
- Shareport: A Cracked Version Of Apple’s Airplay That Doesn’t Discriminate
- Video: Eddie Izzard Walks Us Through iTunes Software Update
- Adobe Unveils Creative Suite Subscription Editions: Photoshop For $50/Month
- PSA: Some Nissan Leafs Are Randomly Not Starting
- China Is A Nation Of Fakery: Inside The Shanzhai Markets
- “Caoon” DSLR Is Actually An MP3 Player
- Best Buy Forces Customer To Buy Service Plan To Get An iPad 2 Out Of Storage
- DARPA Wants Full-Disk Encryption For Android, iOS Devices
- Claim: Forget About Traveling The Solar System With Current Knowledge, Technology
- Pour Votre Plaisir: A USB Key Shaped Like A Padlock
- CrunchDeals: External Seagate 3TB Hard Drive For $125
| Toshiba Releases Thinner, Lighter Fleet Laptops Posted: 12 Apr 2011 05:23 AM PDT
Their new Tecra and Portege laptops feature a new “ultraportable” design with some rugged build features that will keep your powered up and working through multiple flights (the smallest laptop has a 10 hour battery life) and they are attractive enough to warrant a second look. The laptops have been redesigned from the ground up to be lighter, stronger, and cooler looking and, although you probably won’t want to buy one for yourself, you wouldn’t kick it out of your laptop bag if the IT team dropped it on your desk one day.
NEW TOSHIBA LAPTOPS FOR BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS REDEFINE THIN AND LIGHT New Tecra and Portégé Laptops Set New Standard in Balancing Performance, Mobility, Durability and Extended Battery Life Ratings IRVINE, Calif. – April 12, 2011 – Toshiba’s Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced its new range of high-performance business laptops. Reengineered from the ground up with thin, light and highly-durable designs, the new Tecra® and Portégé® laptops redefine mobility for business “Our new business laptops build on the success of our award-winning Portégé R700 ultraportable laptop, providing professionals what they need and want – the performance needed to handle demanding business tasks in lightweight and durable designs.” said Carl Pinto, vice president of product development, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., The Tecra and Portégé laptops are the thinnest Toshiba business laptops ever made. The Portégé R830 is redefining ultraportable and the Tecra R840 is about 25 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than its predecessor, Tecra M11. The Tecra R850 is equally impressive with its slimmer size. High Performance Technologies Enhanced Durability, Security and Style Equipped with Toshiba’s EasyGuard® Technology to help protect against accidental spills and bumps, the laptops also are designed with a suite of security features, including multiple level passwords, a fingerprint reader and optional SmartCard reader to help thwart unwanted access. A Trusted Platform Module offers high-level data encryption and available Computrace® aids recovery in case of theft. The Tecra laptops boast a stylish, textured Graphite Black Metallic with Line Pattern finish and premium raised tile spill resistant keyboards with Accupoint pointing devices. The Portégé R830 maintained its predecessor, the R700, award winning design and finish. Lowering Total Cost of Ownership Tecra R840 Series Detailed specifications can be found at us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/tecra/R840. Tecra R850 Series Detailed specifications can be found at us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/tecra/R850. Portégé R830 Series Detailed specifications can be found at us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/portege/R830. Consumer Model Also Available Pricing and Availability The Portégé R835 is currently available at Best Buy, the Microsoft Store and direct from Toshiba at toshibadirect.com.
|
| Sony’s Outs Two New OLED Monitors Posted: 12 Apr 2011 02:27 AM PDT
It took Sony just two months to update its TRIMASTER series of (pretty expensive) OLED monitors, and the two new professional displays the company announced [JP] today (a 25-inch model for $7,400 and a 17-incher for $,4900) are more affordable than the first ones (which went for $16,000 and $29,000, respectively). Here are the main specs:
This is the smaller model, the PVM-1741 (the 25-incher, the PVM-2541 is picture above):
Mainly targeting TV, advertising and movie production companies, Sony plans to roll out both models in the second half of this year.
|
| Is Fujitsu Prepping A Symbian/Windows 7 Dual Boot Cell Phone? Posted: 12 Apr 2011 01:09 AM PDT  Take this with a grain of salt: Japanese tech blog Juggly is reporting [JP] that Fujitsu is working on a cell phone with both the Symbian and Windows 7 OS (not Windows Phone) on board. According to the article, the handset will be released by Japan's biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo as part of its summer line up. Read the rest on MobileCrunch.
|
| Daily Crunch: Transaction Edition Posted: 12 Apr 2011 12:00 AM PDT |
| Official Steve Jobs Biography Coming In 2012 Posted: 11 Apr 2011 05:46 PM PDT
A Steve Jobs biography is nothing new. But a Steve Jobs authorized Steve Jobs biography may offer a lot of answers into the life of the famous iCEO. The book is going to be called “iSteve: The Book of Jobs.” The author is Walter Isaacson, a ex-executive from Time who has written biographies about Ben Franklin and Einstein. It’s been rumored that Isaacson has been working on the book since 2009. The book will be out in early 2012.
|
| Posted: 11 Apr 2011 04:35 PM PDT
|
| Posted: 11 Apr 2011 04:00 PM PDT
Pros:
Cons:
Full review:
TDK is aiming at the nostalgia crowd, a group of people who used to have boomboxes but now have a little disposable income and a taste for design. Design So obviously the first thing you notice about this thing is the design. Portland-based Ziba design really did TDK proud here, creating an easily recognizable, almost instantly iconic look, and one that puts the most sound-related features forward: the speakers. They’re uncovered so you can better see them move, but it’s also worth noting that not putting a grill on them makes them susceptible to kids, pets, and feet. The design has an admirable symmetry, with the volume/power control on the left and navigation/adjustment on the right. There are little touch-sensitive buttons that appear when applicable and disappear at other times, which gives the device a nice minimalist look, though it slightly disrupts the symmetry. There are two displays, a one-line display on the left that shows song data and/or radio station name. The display on the right is used for navigating your directories on a drive, adjusting the station and EQ, and defaults to a spectrum display when not in active use. The volume dial (which goes to 11 — nice one) is weighty and feels good to spin. I love the finish, too:
The color theme throughout is orange and white, and overall it’s very attractive. The piano black finish is attractive but attracts dust and fingerprints, as you can see in my pictures, and I swear I just wiped that thing off right before I took the shots. The two screens, however, could really stand to be quite a bit larger. Song data is almost always truncated and must be shown in several sequential screens. Not so much a big deal for song and artist display, but navigation can be troublesome if you have more than a few directories. Why not make them both the same size — about 1.5″x4″ would do it, and we’re not talking about some expensive touchscreen here, just a low-res, limited-color display. I know the attention is supposed to be on the industrial design, TDK, but let’s be honest, there’s bright, blinking info at all times and it really should be either bigger or smaller. You can’t make it smaller without making it non-functional — so make it bigger.
Despite the small screen size, navigation really isn’t that bad. Text is clear and attractive, and although I would have preferred it show ID3 tags instead of filenames, that’s really a matter of taste. It doesn’t really “accelerate” if you spin it faster, though, which feels like it would make sense. It’ll function plugged in, or with twelve D batteries. I guess boom boxes always needed that kind of power, but man, that’s rough. There’s a handle for carrying, which is convenient, and a little grippy rubber pad for you to put your MP3 player on. Good attention to detail all around, and the build quality is hard to fault. I would have liked an SD card slot, though. Why not? It’s cheap, makes your device more self-contained, and attracts techie types. Sound The predominant sound of this boombox is big, warm, and loud. Wattage ratings aren’t anything to go by, by the way. These three speakers are more than enough to completely saturate a room with thumping bass and serious noise. Depending on your input (more on that in a second) you can really make this thing push air. We’re not talking phone book-shredding or anything, but if you were worried that a (relatively) compact system can’t make enough noise, you can safely shelf those worries.
Actually, speaking of amps, it’s also compatible with any instrument with a 1/4″ out. My disused electric guitar worked perfectly well with it, and while it’s no tube amp, it’s an easy setup for practice, though to be honest you might want to increase the single before it goes into the TDK, as the input level seemed pretty low. For that matter, the line in input level seemed low as well, while whatever controller handles music on USB drives obviously has the input set at maximum. I played the same song on my Zune and on a USB stick after noticing some clipping issues, and not only did I have to set the volume twice as high when using the 1/8″ in, but the sound was clear all the way through, while on the USB drive it clipped almost constantly. I tried a couple different drives, same result. TDK, you need to turn that sucker down. How about a firmware update? This USB issue seems to extend, unfortunately, to iOS devices, which it supports via the same port (it ships with a 30-pin connector). It’ll even charge your iPhone or iPod, though my iPad would play music but not charge. Conclusion So is it worth the money? If you plan on using USB media with it, I can’t recommend it. If this USB issue weren’t present, this would make a great sound system for a music-orientated small household or shared area where people are always plugging in their iPods or what have you to provide a collective soundtrack to a home. The sound is great for parties and general non-audiophile use if you use the analog inputs or radio, and the 1/4″ port is appreciated, but without USB it’s not really a complete product. If TDK addresses this issue (or if this review unit can be shown to be an exception) then I’d say get thee to the TDK-ery if you feel you can spend half a grand on a nicely-designed second sound system. Until then, though, hold off. Product page: TDK 3 Speaker Boombox
|
| This Is Acer’s New Logo (Act Like You Care) Posted: 11 Apr 2011 03:59 PM PDT
|
| Amazon Announces Ad-Supported Kindle For $114 (That’s $25 Off) Posted: 11 Apr 2011 03:33 PM PDT
Today, the company announced that it’s releasing a new version of its popular eReader with a new feature that everyone will like: a price-tag that’s $25 cheaper than the Kindle Wi-Fi’s normal $139. But it comes with one minor catch: Amazon will be placing ‘Special Offers’ — also known as ads — into specific parts of the Kindle UI. But fear not, skeptical bibliophiles: Amazon says that the ads will only show up on the Kindle’s home screen and screensavers, and they won’t show up when you’re actually reading. For those of you who haven’t used a Kindle before, the home screen is, as you’d expect, the menu where you select what content you’d like to read (you don’t see it often unless you frequently jump between books). And the screen savers show up whenever you put your device to sleep (on current models these include portraits of famous authors and art). In other words, the ads should be pretty unintrusive.
|
| Shareport: A Cracked Version Of Apple’s Airplay That Doesn’t Discriminate Posted: 11 Apr 2011 02:30 PM PDT
Developer and probably all-around nice guy James Laird reversed engineered an Airport Express by physically taking it apart and search the ROM for the private key. Once found it was only a hop, skip and jump to crack the key and open it up for third party development. Soon, with ShairPort 0.01 software, non-apple devices can get in on the Airtunes fun with the ability to receive content directly from iTunes. A person could stream content to an Xbox 360. Or from one Mac to another. The only thing standing in the way is, well, the right software or hardware. Chances are software will come before hardware as manufacturers are likely not going to implant technology based on cracked Apple intellectual property. The possibilities are hopefully as promising as they sound. Until then I’m stuck play my music through the RDIO app on the Xoom — which works fine anyway. [via http://www.macrumors.com/2011/04/11/apple-airplay-private-key-exposed-opening-door-to-airport-express-emulators/]
|
| Video: Eddie Izzard Walks Us Through iTunes Software Update Posted: 11 Apr 2011 02:00 PM PDT "But you said you’ve read the terms and conditions… even God has not read the terms and conditions."
|
| Adobe Unveils Creative Suite Subscription Editions: Photoshop For $50/Month Posted: 11 Apr 2011 01:46 PM PDT
Adobe’s taking a pretty big step here, but a smart one. In order to fit in better with other cloud- and subscription-based services, they’re giving their Creative Suite (Photoshop, Premiere, Flash, etc.) an alternative pricing model: subscribe for a month or a year, but never buy. They also apparently lengthened their release schedule to 24 months, though I can’t find a source for that — which makes constant rental a slightly worse deal (over two years) than just buying the software. Having a flexible pay structure is a good thing all around. The thousand dollar cost for After Effects is prohibitive even for some professionals, when budgets are tight. Piracy is a serious issue, of course, but most would rather do their business on the up-and-up, and forking out $50-75 for a month-long license fits easily within existing schedules and budgets. Facilitating people paying for your software on their own terms is a recipe for sales, plain and simple. Do I wish I had After Effects or Photoshop every once in a while, when I need to do some heavy work? Sure. But 90% of the time, I can get away with using Paint.net or the built-in tools in Premiere Express. The pricing scheme seems to show a significant break to “yearly subscriptions,” but displaying it as a monthly cost (as Adobe does, not the chart above) is kind of disingenuous. The monthly cost for Photoshop is $49. If you buy 12 months at once, it’s $420 — $35 per month. Unfortunately rental payments don’t go towards a purchase, but that would be a little bit too good of a deal. Some will say “this is idiotic, renting software is absurd.” And indeed, it’s not the best choice for everyone. Are you a professional web designer, editor, effects artist, or some such? You probably should just buy it, especially if you plan to buy the next version (or upgrade) as well, since often there’s a discount. But not everyone is in your situation, and there’s plenty of precedent for subscription- and use-based payment systems for software tools. Cloud music services, Flickr (to Mike’s despair), that sort of thing. Remember, the standard method of paying for software is based on selling boxes in stores. We can do better. All your questions are answered here; pricing and links to rent are here.
|
| PSA: Some Nissan Leafs Are Randomly Not Starting Posted: 11 Apr 2011 01:30 PM PDT
[via Autoblog Green]
|
| China Is A Nation Of Fakery: Inside The Shanzhai Markets Posted: 11 Apr 2011 01:03 PM PDT It’s hard to believe, but 1 out of 5 phones in the world is counterfeit and the vast majority come from Shenzhen. This ten-minute video explores the Shanzhai phenomenon and the “mobile phoney” market, a wild west sort of world where counterfeit iPhone 4s are hard to tell apart from their real counterparts. The Shanzhai market sees the sale of these phones as a sort of a system of liberation that allows items once owned by the elite to trickle down to the rest of the world. The obvious concern – that these are not the same quality as the “real” thing – is made moot by the fact that these things are so cheap and have such diverse features that you’re really talking about an entirely new device for an entirely new market. Check out the video and see for yourself how the Shanzhai phenomenon is changing the way we think about durable goods and the lengths pirates go to making things look like the real thing.
|
| “Caoon” DSLR Is Actually An MP3 Player Posted: 11 Apr 2011 01:00 PM PDT
|
| Best Buy Forces Customer To Buy Service Plan To Get An iPad 2 Out Of Storage Posted: 11 Apr 2011 12:50 PM PDT
First we have Best Buy employees holding back iPads 2 during periods of high demand and now we have managers essentially blackmailing customers into paying for service plans before they’re allowed to touch available stock. A reader writes:
I asked for a receipt and you see it there. It’s clear someone is using high demand to boost their sales numbers and they’re taking it out on folks who are looking at iPads. Incredulous, I emailed the readers back. “So, to be clear, you couldn’t buy this without buying the service plan?” I asked. “That’s exactly what the manager said. There were witnesses,” he said. It’s not a crime, obviously, but it’s a nasty way to do business.
|
| DARPA Wants Full-Disk Encryption For Android, iOS Devices Posted: 11 Apr 2011 12:30 PM PDT
DARPA has put out a request for full-disk encryption for iOS and Android-based devices. The deal is that the Defense Advances Research Projects Agency wants to have greater choice when it comes to smartphone selection, having used the BlackBerry for years without complaint. That’s because it was only the BlackBerry that met the agency’s encryption requirements. You can speculate why DARPA all of a sudden wants greater choice when it comes to issuing smartphones, but that would be a waste of time. The fact is, the request has been made for full-disk encryption. Regulations prevent material higher than the Restricted level, but, as The Register kindly reminds us, there’s plenty of day-to-day business that can be handled at that level. And now they’ll be able to play Angry Birds, so it all works out.
|
| Claim: Forget About Traveling The Solar System With Current Knowledge, Technology Posted: 11 Apr 2011 12:00 PM PDT We just had a pretty fascinating discussion in the official CrunchGear chartroom about how you’d respond to complete, humanity-threatening disaster. How would you prepare yourself? Stock up on gasoline, food, and medicine? What happens when that runs out? A gun might come in handy for a number of different reason, but what happens when you run out of bullets—do you know how to make bullets? Do you have the knowledge to bore into the earth, extract ore, melt it down, then shape it all into working bullets? Well done of you do, but odds are the average person has no idea how to do that. It all ties into this story about how humanity’s quest to travel the heavens is hopelessly doomed given our current level of technology and knowledge of the laws of physics. The gist is that we’re pretty much gotten as much energy as we can out of traditional rocket fuel. Unless we find some new, super fancy fuel we’ll have to think of some other way to send humans into outer space. This, of course, assumes we even want to send humans across the solar system (and beyond if we’re lucky!). Michio Kaku’s old book, Physics of the Impossible, says that instead of sending actual people, or even traditional robots, into outer space we may have greater success sending nanomachines. It takes a heck of a lot less energy to put nanomachines into outer space than a bunch of astronauts and their supplies. Of course that doesn’t address the issue of space colonization, but hopefully by the time humanity gives serious thought to that we’ll have figured out something more efficient than plain ol’ rocket fuel. Provided, of course, we don’t blow ourselves up before we reach that level of advanced technology.
|
| Pour Votre Plaisir: A USB Key Shaped Like A Padlock Posted: 11 Apr 2011 11:50 AM PDT
This Brando USB key has a unique “lock shape design” and comes in multiple sizes. It is “Portable and easy operation” and the USB key pops out of the bottom like a wee tail. It maxes out at $34 for 8GB. Not sure why you’d want it. It just looks so ridiculous I thought you’d all enjoy it.
|
| CrunchDeals: External Seagate 3TB Hard Drive For $125 Posted: 11 Apr 2011 11:17 AM PDT
The trick comes by way of Cnet’s Cheapskate blog that points to the on-sale Seagate Expansion 3TB USB drive. If you pad your shopping cart to $150 with, let’s say, this $0.29 eraser, and then use coupon code 48437290, the price of the entire cart drops to $125. Nice, eh. Of course the USB 2.0 interface might turn some people off, but there’s a 3TB hard drive inside the enclosure that with a little MacGyvering will fit nicely into your desktop.
|
Ironically enough I was just thinking about BLU, and what ever happened to it? The cool high-end brand did some neat stuff with dials, but I haven’t heard anything about them in at least a year or two. Well now I know. BLU’s Bernhard Lederer is (BLU = Bernhard Lederer Universe) is on to other projects, and this is it – The Gagarin Tourbillon.
Amazon’s Kindle is about to become even more affordable.
We’re hearing a few interesting things about Best Buy these days, especially when it comes to selling iPads. While many of these are isolated incidents, they all point to a general nastiness on the part of Best Buy employees and management who know a good thing when they see one.
| You are subscribed to email updates from CrunchGear To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment