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AQUOS PHONE THE HYBRID 007SH: Sharp Shows World’s First Clamshell Android Phone

Posted: 20 May 2011 01:32 AM PDT

If you thought Android and clamshell handsets won't fit, think again: Sharp today introduced [JP] the so-called AQUOS PHONE THE HYBRID 007SH, a flip phone running on Android 2.3. It's the first of its kind (at least by a major company), but that's not all the device has to offer. Read the rest on MobileCrunch.


Daily Crunch: Tank Edition

Posted: 20 May 2011 12:00 AM PDT

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 With TouchWiz Caught On Video (With Bonus Keyboard Dock)

Posted: 19 May 2011 06:17 PM PDT


Samsung’s medium-size Galaxy Tab 8.9 is my favorite of the upcoming Android tablets, just based on its form factor and pixel density. And after seeing it on video, I’m more convinced than ever that it’s a decent machine, though I’ll have to hold it in my hands before I’m sold on the TouchWiz UI, which looks a little bit laggy in this video.

Also spotted was a new keyboard dock for the device, in shiny white and docking to the device in landscape mode:

Nobody seems to have any idea what these Russian guys are saying, but if it’s anything like our own commentary, you may as well watch it on mute and provide your own. The tablet is the star of the show, so glean what you can of the new UI and watch out for interesting things like the install of Flash 10.3 they do.

[via Tech Digest and Engadget]

HP TouchPad To Hit Wal-Mart For $599

Posted: 19 May 2011 05:40 PM PDT


If this leaked internal listing is legit, it looks like HP’s TouchPad will be coming to Wal-Mart for $599 for a 32GB model. We heard that it would be $699 earlier, and likely that price will still exist for the 64GB version. Will there be a cheapie one for $499? No word. We’re pretty sure it’s going to hit in June, though, so stay tuned for further leaks as the launch date approaches.

[via SlashGear]

In The Future, The Robots Will Roll And Hover

Posted: 19 May 2011 05:26 PM PDT


I’m not exactly enthused by the idea of these rolling/hovering hybrid robots crawling and zipping all over the earth. Sure, they could be useful in a military or rescue situation, able to conserve power by sitting comfortably on the ground but navigate freely in the air if necessary. But they could also be replicated at large by the machines when the Robocalypse comes, at which point they’ll roll over you and then hover over your lifeless body.

For now I guess we should congratulate Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos and his team at the University of Minnesota for creating a pretty cool little bot. Their design is solid, although right now there are two models, one that only flies and one that only rolls, since they haven’t worked out how to get the motor to power both drives.

The next step is to make it simpler and lighter, and making the robot navigate autonomously instead of by remote. Isn’t it a little early for that, guys? Don’t need to bring down humankind any faster than necessary.

[via Ieee Spectrum]

Review: Blancier Desert Wolf

Posted: 19 May 2011 04:48 PM PDT

A lot of watchmaking is aspirational. Since the 1700s, watchmakers have wanted to create simulacrum of the items that explorers, engineers, and soldiers carried into their daily scrum for dandies on the boulevard who ascribed a sense of romance to their professions. That’s why watch collectors love war watches. They basically allow folks who may have never been to war to feel like they own something that could survive in the thick of things or, more valuable still, items that actually saw fighting.

So when Butch went back to get his father’s war watch, it was because that cold hunk of metal meant something to him. It meant his father had fought for his freedom and then Christopher Walken did that thing that he did with the watch and then gave Butch his birthright, it was the passing of a physical object that signified something far more valuable than a case and some gears. It’s the way things have been for centuries.

That’s why the Desert Wolf by Blancier is pretty cool. It’s a war watch designed for “desert environments” that honors our fighting men and women in the Middle East. The dial shows a map of the world and “of course” an American flag along with the Afghanistan’s coordinates. It has a double-sided non-reflecting sapphire crystal and has a bead plasted PVD coated steel case. As an added bonus they are donating $10 to the Fisher House, a charity for soldiers.

Is the dial a bit jingoistic? Yes. Is the watch generally cool? Absolutely. Is it worth $395? Sure.

It contains a Miyota movement with date and 12 hour chronograph and it has a signed back and buckle. The buttons are at the top of the watch, in what is called a “bullhead” configuration, and it has a 45mm water resistant to 100 meters.

To be clear, the Blancier Desert Wolf is not a unique watch to Blancier. It is built around standard case that has been used in the past by “>Lum-Tec and, I suspect, other manufacturers. However, the folks at Blancier customized the dial and caseback and make a mean bespoke watch if this isn’t your style.

The Blancier Desert Wolf is a bullhead chrono that, in the end, has a great provenance, is made by a great small manufacturer in Germany, and is cheap enough to warrant a second look. Is it perfect? No, some might find it goofy or garish but my wife, who likes big watches, along everyone who has seen it on her wrist think it’s quite cool and quite rugged. It’s a great beater watch and pays homage to soldiers. Who could hate that?

IMG_1002 IMG_1008 IMG_1015


Sony’s New Color E-Paper Screen Shows That We’re Not Quite There Yet

Posted: 19 May 2011 03:41 PM PDT


There’s no denying that the latest cool displays are making important advances. But that doesn’t mean they’re quite ready for prime time. Take the flexible, 13.3″ color e-paper being shown by Sony over at SID right now. Without a doubt it’s cool stuff, but be honest — would you buy something using it? Not just yet.

This is the reason color e-readers are still LCD-based (and as a consequence, essentially tablets) — the color e-paper is still extremely limited tonally. With a limited number of shades and generally washed out colors, even the cutting edge tech would be unimpressive to consumers. The benefits of bistable displays aren’t readily appreciated by people just looking for a cool e-reader or tablet, so for now they’ll be limited to trade shows like this one.

Still, they’re getting these things mighty thin and light, and the flexibility is a plus, at least if it’s flexible enough to roll or fold. I’m sure as hell looking forward to that. I’d mention the specs but the report at Tech-On seems to be talking about something different than the one they have a picture of, so you’ll have to figure that out on your own.

This Revolver Camera Shot A Picture And A Bullet Simultaneously

Posted: 19 May 2011 01:45 PM PDT

I actually can think of good reasons for something like this to exist. Maybe for police pistols, for instance? Still, it’s a bit creepy, especially if those pictures on the side there were taken with live film and live ammo. Hopefully they were just for demonstration.

The camera is in the Dutch National Archives Flickr stream, but is given a “New York, 1938″ locality. Maybe they tried them out for a little while, then?

[via PetaPixel and Photojojo]

Inside F1′s 20-button Super Steering Wheel

Posted: 19 May 2011 01:15 PM PDT


F1 racing has long been a technology battle, and while the driver is an important component, his role has been increasingly supplemented by computers and engineers. This is perhaps no more visible than on the steering wheel which, once just the way you changed the direction the tires pointed, has turned into an Xbox-esque controller for a huge variety of precision settings and high-tech abilities.

This video from Mercedes does a good job showing off what the various dials, switches, and buttons do, but just check out the diagram and guide at F1 Fanatics for a more concise explanation. Not all steering wheels are the same, obviously, but all F1 cars must have this level of quick access and control in order to be competitive. This one is from Sauber.

Just imagine trying to keep track of that while going 150 in the wet:

Yeah, I’d probably have a heart attack. My respect for F1 drivers (already pretty high) just went up another notch.

[via Hacker News]

Cartridge Hack Creates Super Mario All-Stars… For NES

Posted: 19 May 2011 12:39 PM PDT


I’ve always been slightly bothered by the updated graphics in Super Mario All-Stars, but at the same time I can’t deny that it’s a fantastic cartridge to have around. Hacker Callan Brown apparently felt the same way, and decided to do a little investigation into perhaps remedying the situation. The result? A sweet megacartridge with an old-school way of selecting which game you want.

Brown looked at the circuit layout and found that with a little work, he could wire it up so that the reset signal not only reset the console, but switched which part of the cartridge’s memory was being read. Normally it would just start from the beginning (that’s why it’s called, you know, reset) but the memory-managed ROM he installed on the cartridge could tell it to start from a different point, so that every time you reset, it boots a different game. Excellent!

The titles on board are Super Mario Bros 2, 3, Lost Levels, and a ROM hack of SMB3. No SMB1, for some reason. Still pretty sweet. All the instructions and diagrams you need to replicate this thing are right here. You could even do one with all the Mega Man games, or… well, anything.

Brown notes that the next thing he’s working on is an “arcade-quality” Arkanoid controller. Hell yes.

[via Hack A Day]

New 360 Update Rolling Out, Old 360 Update Bricking Some Consoles

Posted: 19 May 2011 11:57 AM PDT

Microsoft is rolling out a new update to the Xbox 360 which adds a few new features. Gamers in some countries can now link their PayPal accounts to their 360s and buy stuff that way, and standby mode has been tweaked.

Coincident with this update (coming over the next two weeks) comes the news that a recent firmware update adding support for the new expanded disc capacity feature may not be playing nicely with some 360s. But don’t worry, Microsoft is on the case. In fact, you might wish yours was getting bricked.

From Microsoft:

Following a recent update to our system software, we have become aware of an issue that is preventing a very small number of Xbox 360 owners from playing retail game discs. This issue manifests itself a as a unique ‘disc unreadable’ or ‘disc unsupported’ error on the screen. We are also able to detect this issue over Xbox Live and are proactively reaching out to customers that may be impacted to replace their console.

The unlucky/lucky few will receive a brand spanking new 250GB Xbox 360 S and a year of Xbox Live Gold access. If you’re having this problem, contact Microsoft here to start the process.

Good on them for doing the right thing here, though apparently the bricking has been happening for a little while now. After the rocky launch (never forget) of the 360 and in the light of Sony’s continuing hacking troubles, Microsoft’s generous customer service is no surprise.

Sprint HTC Arrive To Get Security Update On May 24th?

Posted: 19 May 2011 11:10 AM PDT

We’re not usually ones to believe images that are essentially one big JPEG artifact — but hey, we’re talking about a security update here. For Windows Phone 7, no less. Who would fake that? It’d be like photoshopping yourself into a picture of a Quizno’s and only showing it to your cats.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

Apple Patents A Streaming Music Service That Has A Key Advantage Over Current Providers

Posted: 19 May 2011 11:04 AM PDT


Streaming media is the future. You know this if you’ve used Netflix, Rdio, Grooveshark or any of the other popular music services. Apple is said to be getting into the game as well and a recently-released patent application from 2009 shows iTunes streaming will in fact offer something different from the rest of the players.

As much as I love Rdio, and I do love Rdio, I can’t always guarantee that the mobile app will start playing music when I press play. There’s always this waiting game as my Droid X fights for enough Verizon bandwidth to start streaming. Once the little blue bar partially fills up, signifying that there’s enough of a buffer for seamless playback, the song starts. This is where Apple will offer something better and different.

This patent describes a cloud music service that stores part of the media locally. This way there’s no waiting and when you press play and the device will start with just a sliver of the media, being a song, book, or movie, from a local source while keying up the rest from the cloud. Apple describes the service as being “seamless and invisible to the user,” and if it works as described, it probably will be. The patent also describes a scheme where chunks throughout the media file are stored locally rather than just the beginning, which could be more of a built-in security feature than a buffer for the stream.


According to a chart in the filing, it seems this will be optional as there’s a check box to “Sync partial music” noting that the minimum connection speed is 3G. Of course this would free up considerable amount of space, but would likely only work for music currently in a person’s iTune collection and not available for on-demand streaming like Rdio or Spotify is known for — perhaps once an on-demand song plays once, a portion is cached permanently though.

Now this is just a patent, from 2009 no less, so the exact cloud music service Apple rolls out could be different, but we all know that it will likely be, as Apple says here, seamless and invisible to the user. (and locked down as tight as Jobs & Co. can manage)

DIY Electrostatic Motor

Posted: 19 May 2011 10:55 AM PDT

In the post-apocalyptic hellscape that will be next week, we’re going to need people who know how to make unique electronics projects in order to power the homes of the cannibals who will populate our cities. To that end, we present this interesting DIY Electrostatic motor that will power, for example, a fan used to blow flies away from the new God-King who will rise to take his place on the throne once all political systems have fallen.

The device uses a set of sticks topped with round clackers. A high voltage charge shoots into them, shuttling back and forth as the power flows.

I used conductive spheres to shuttle electric charges between the poles of a high voltage (HV) DC source. This shuttle assembly was made from two, foil-covered spheres joined by a non-conducting, plastic tube. The assembly was sandwiched between two stationary, dumbbell shaped electrodes. When the upper dumbbell was grounded with respect to the negatively charged lower dumbbell, the shuttle began to bounce between the HV poles with a clacking noise as charges were transferred from the lower to the upper electrode. This rocking motion completed the HV circuit.

If you can’t use this to control devices in the future, rest assured it will make an excellent trick for your upcoming travelling magic show.

Project Page


Behind The Scenes At B&H

Posted: 19 May 2011 09:56 AM PDT

A photographer named Linhbergh Nguyen bought a camera from B&H photo in New York, a camera store run by Satmar Hasidic Jews in a manner that more resembles Katz’s Deli with its arcane ticketing/receipt system than a retail establishment. On the camera he found some shots inside what appears to be a testing lab in the store, which is interesting but not the real draw.

What’s missing here is what the store conveyor looks like inside. See, when you pop into the shop, you pick the item you want, the clerk has it brought up, and then you get a slip to give to the cash register folks who ring you up. Then the item you bought is stuck onto a little conveyor that dumps the purchase out at the front where you hand over your receipt and grab your prize. It’s basically the most convoluted anti-theft system you’ve ever seen and seems to be a holdover from the old days when everything in the store was behind the counter.

Anyway, the photos are pretty cool and it looks like those guys are having a blast talking cameras and rocking out to AC/DC or whatever they have on those headphones.

Fly Or Die: Hands On With The Google Music Beta And A Wild New Wi-Fi Hard Drive

Posted: 19 May 2011 09:05 AM PDT

This week Erick and I received two invites to the Google Music Beta and I also discovered that Erick is a secret 90s classic rap fan who used to drink the brass monkey while whiling away the hours in his college dorm room. Who knew?

We also tried out the new Seagate GoFlex Satellite wireless hard drive and discussed why I loved the New Yorker iPad app so darn much. Plus, at some point in the show, a rep from one of the three companies comes on to respond to our verdicts (we don’t know who it is until he shows up, which is part of the fun).

You can watch two clips from the show (including a detailed hands-on of Google Music) or you can watch the entire episode below, featuring all three products.

That Was Fast: Amazon’s Kindle Ebook Sales Surpass Print (It Only Took Four Years)

Posted: 19 May 2011 08:53 AM PDT

Five years ago, if you’d told a fellow book lover that eBooks were poised to surge in popularity and overtake traditional books, you probably would have been met with a scoff and a dismissal about reading too much sci-fi. And yet here we are: Amazon has just announced that it is now selling more eBooks than it is selling print editions, a mere four years after launching the Kindle. Obviously Amazon doesn’t account for all print or eBook sales, but it’s a very impressive milestone.

Then again, the news doesn’t come as a huge surprise if you’ve been following the Kindle’s growth. Kindle eBook sales surpassed Amazon’s hardcover sales back in July 2010, and they surpassed paperback sales in January of this year. But now it’s bested both of them combined. Note that this does not include the free books that many Kindle users take advantage of — these are all paid books.

Concrete Canvas: The Pop-up Tent That Turns Into A Concrete Structure With Just Water

Posted: 19 May 2011 08:06 AM PDT


Concrete Canvas is just what it sounds like: canvas that’s, well, concrete. The material is essentially a water-activated concrete fabric that can be deployed for just about any task generally reserved for traditional concrete. Just add water, really. The novel part is that the company sells a self-contained pop-up tent that, with the help of a provided electric fan, deploys and becomes permanent relatively quick. All that’s need is to soak the tent and wait. It takes about 24 hours for the tent to harden, transforming into a permanent structure that can be sterilized and wired for electricity.

The BCC just posted a video interview with the founders who explain how the material came to be and the company’s plans, but if nothing else, click through just to see this stuff in action. I want one for my backyard shed. Put together a standard Home Depot barn is for jerks.

Patek Philippe Invests In Silicon Micro Parts Research For Watches

Posted: 19 May 2011 07:56 AM PDT

Silicon for the win! The material that has had watch brands debating and experimenting is here to stay and Patek Philippe is making sure of that. News from the big guys in Switzerland says that they intend for all Patek Philippe watches in the future to have Silinvar (their type of silicon) parts. A new limited edition watch called the ref. 5550P uses the brand’s newest Silinvar component called the GyromaxSi balance wheel. This balance wheel has a new shape that looks less like a wheel and more like an hour glass with inlaid gold added for weight. The ref. 5550P encapsulates the brand’s total efforts in Silinvar research to date and has three areas of the movement done in Silinvar. Now, get ready to remember some vocabulary.

Read the rest here…

Sony Wants To Take Augmented Reality To The Next Level With SmartAR (Video)

Posted: 19 May 2011 07:38 AM PDT

Sony has been working on Augmented Reality technologies since 1994, and today the company took the wraps of “SmartAR”, a so-called integrated Augmented Reality solution. The company says their technology has four distinct advantages when compared to existing AR solutions.

First, SmartAR doesn’t require markers to work, which, by itself, isn’t really new for an AR solution. Second, Sony says objects can be identified and then tracked at high speed, thanks to a combination of advanced object recognition, matching and image tracking tech (as you can see in the video, SmartAR works very well in this regard).

Third, SmartAR is specifically designed for 3D, meaning the technology can identify 3D structures to let objects blend in smoothly (also when moving the camera). And fourth, Sony seems to be pretty proud of the SmartAR UI, which makes it possible for users to easily interact with virtual objects, for example to turn pages in a virtual menu via touch control (pictured above and shown towards the end in the video below).

Official Sony SmartAR video (text in Japanese, but that doesn’t matter to much in this case):

 
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