CrunchGear |  |
- Acer Iconia Tab A100: Dual-Core, Honeycomb, Starts At $329
- Apple Patents Hint At Multi-Part Gestures, Touchable OS X
- Sony Cuts Prices On Google TV-Integrated HDTVs
- Nintendo Shareholders Still Clamoring For Mario On The iPhone
- Live Blog: HTC’s “Major Announcement”
- Mad Catz Intros The Cyborg R.A.T. 7 Albino Gaming Mouse For The Style-Obsessed Gamer
- Grooveshark Now Found Lurking In Boxee Waters
- Vuzix Wrap 1200 3D Glasses Hang A 75-Inch Screen In Front Of Your Nose
- SteelSeries Sensei Mouse Is Familiar But Enhanced
- Have No Fear, The 7-inch HP TouchPad Go Is Almost Here!
- The Motorola KORE: Just A Heart Rate Monitor?
| Acer Iconia Tab A100: Dual-Core, Honeycomb, Starts At $329 Posted: 12 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT  If Acer’s previous tablet effort was a bit too weighty for you, then consider this: Acer has just announced that their 7-inch WiFi-only Iconia Tab A100 is launching today at retail stores across the country. It’s the first 7-inch tablet to sport the latest version of Honeycomb (Android 3.2, if you’re keeping track), and it weighs in at a hair under 1 pound. The A100 comes bearing your typical complement of ports: MicroUSB and Micro HDMI (with support for mirroring) mean that this tiny tab works just as well plugged into your television as it does with your computer. Like its big brother, the A100 also supports media streaming through Acer’s clear.fi service, allowing users to connect and wirelessly share media between DLNA-compatible devices. Meanwhile, the 5 megapixel camera around the back makes sure you’ll always have a cache of embarassing photos ready to share. The A100 is no slouch when it comes to horsepower either: there’s an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor and 1 GB of RAM running the show. Hopefully that power helps with Flash’s often lackluster Android performance, as Flash 10.3 comes pre-installed. Two models will be available at launch: $329 nets you 8 GB of onboard storage, while $349 bumps you up to 16 GB. The media hoarders among you may scoff, but both tablets can accept MicroSD cards up to 32 GB — have fun filling it all up.
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| Apple Patents Hint At Multi-Part Gestures, Touchable OS X Posted: 11 Aug 2011 05:23 PM PDT  Designing a user interface for touch isn’t an easy thing to do. At least, it isn’t easy to do well. The great number and variety of gestures possible when four fingers and a thumb hit a touchscreen may well cause development and design paralysis. Yet the gestures we see implemented often seem so simple and intuitive that as soon as we perform them once, we wonder how anyone would have trouble coming up with it. Apple’s early success with the simple and intuitive gestures on the iPhone has actually worked against it in a way, as adding gestures over-complicates a UI known for accessibility. On the other hand, it has prevented them from providing richer gestures like drawing shapes, creating spontaneous UI items, and so on. But I doubt they ever stopped looking into it. Some newly published patent applications, while questionable as far as patentable ideas go, is chock-full of interesting ideas and promising new UI concepts. Patent 20110197153 was found by IP sniffers Patently Apple. The patent, filed in February 2011, covers a number of multi-part gestures in which a gesture is done to create or invoke a certain UI element, and then a second action using that element is enabled. For instance, “digging a hole.” In this case, you’d tap or “scratch” the screen a few times to create a “hole,” which you could then drag files into, either to delete, hide, or what have you. The hole would presumably fill itself in, or a second gesture could be used to do this. Another example: opening a portal, trap door, or window by drawing a rectangle. This is a similar “drag and drop” concept, but as the gesture and the graphic would be different, it can fulfill a different purpose: creating a folder or archive, or adding an attachment to an email. A more involved gesture described in a second patent application (20110193788) has the user drawing a circle or blob around a set of files, which would then be enclosed in a graphical bubble. The device could then be physically tipped and the bubbled data “poured” into a second device. I know what you’re thinking. How can Apple expect to patent gestures that have been used in games, applications, and other UIs (using a mouse, for instance), in similar fashions, for years? I have to imagine that somewhere in the hundred thousand games there are for iOS, there’s one where you have to dig a hole by scratching the screen. If not on iOS, then on the 3DS, a platform saturated with interesting touch-based UIs. And we even had a demo of data being “poured” from one device to another at Disrupt in New York. To be honest, I really don’t know. The patent really does claim the “digging a hole and then dragging an item over it to be processed” method, as well as the others, and it doesn’t restrict it to anything as specific as managing file representations or app icons. Apple seems to want a patent on digging virtual holes and putting things in them. There are examples of these UI elements going back a long, long time, and even with the permissive patent system we have in place, I can’t imagine Apple’s approach will be deemed sufficiently different just because it’s done on a touchscreen. Drawing an X on something to delete it? Is it even possible that they could let that fly? I certainly hope not. Patent worries aside, the gestures are very interesting from a user point of view. I’ve always advocated rich touch interaction in tablets, and have been disappointed by the refusal of tablet OS makers to implement things that are only possible with a touch interface. Games have done a much better job of exploring the possibilities than OS developers. It’s nice to see someone going beyond clicking and dragging. Given Apple’s focus on the trackpad and touchscreen, it was always a good bet that they’d be among the first to integrate rich gestures, even if they aren’t even close to the first to create them. Interestingly, the patent application uses very OS X-esque images in its tablet illustrations. This doesn’t have to mean anything; the patent writer might have just felt the explanation worked better with a more traditional desktop interface. But there’s more to it than that. Lassoing files, transferring them to nearby devices, hiding and deleting files and windows — these aren’t things you do on Apple tablets. They’re things you do in OS X. The portal? Sending a window to your other desktop — on the other “side” of the tablet, perhaps, where iOS lives? The “trap door” is a great metaphor for passing things between two distinct areas. Or is it for saving things for later — like the reading list in Safari? What about X-ing out items? There isn’t room for that in many places on iOS — you delete listed items by swiping, and icons by long-pressing and bringing up their little x boxes. Besides, how would you make an X without swiping over to another screen? A quick flick is interpreted as a directional swipe, not a stroke on a touch canvas. The X gesture itself demands a single-screen desktop, where there is dead space that isn’t interacted with. The same can be said for the “pinch” gesture, which requires negative space on all sides of an item. There is very little such space on iOS — but your OS X desktop is covered with it. Sharing files from one device to another close by? Sounds familiar — oh right, it’s a marquee feature of Lion. Creating a bubble on an unlocked device is a tacit approval for a file transfer, without going into any menus or selecting a network. Bubble up some files on the other device, the devices pair, and when you pour, it transfers. These are desktop concepts, not iOS concepts. Or are they both? Lion brought iOS-like interface elements to OS X, and half the world thought we’d have convertible, touchscreen MacBooks right now. No — Apple is bringing OS X to the tablet, though not completely, of course. But I can imagine a second “face” to the iPad, for file management and sharing, with a more familiar desktop metaphor, updated with gestures like these. Apple seems to be imagining something along these lines as well, and while there’s still a good chance this patent is more a “just to be safe” collection of interesting ideas not actually being implemented, you have to admit it’s compelling to think about how they might apply if they were actually executed.
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| Sony Cuts Prices On Google TV-Integrated HDTVs Posted: 11 Aug 2011 03:27 PM PDT  Google TV hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, and while we could argue all day about what exactly prevented it from achieving greatness, the expensive hardware has to at least be part of the discussion. Logitech bit the bullet two weeks ago and lowered the price of their Revue from $250 to $99 — and it seems Sony has decided they might take a bit of that medicine too. Their Google TV-powered HDTVs, which debuted in October, are getting hefty price cuts. Sony also made clear that these are not being made cheaper because there are better ones coming out soon — they just want to capture more market. That’s code for “they were too expensive to begin with.” Here’s the breakdown (according to Amazon, and confirmed by Sony), by display size: 24″: The best savings are on the 24″ version — and while Google TV wasn’t exactly a big hit among the TV-watching public at large (they prefer just watching), an internet-powered display like this could be a hit in a dorm room or kitchen. Google TV will probably be around for a while, so it’s not a bad investment (and not a bad price for a 24″ set anyway), and the platform should be getting an update in the next few months as well, so you could be doing yourself a favor picking one up now.
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| Nintendo Shareholders Still Clamoring For Mario On The iPhone Posted: 11 Aug 2011 09:25 AM PDT  Nintendo investors have been grumbling about Nintendo’s tendency to release flagship games only for their own platforms for years. Mario and Zelda have, in general, spent their entire lives on some sort of Nintendo hardware, barring a few odd versions released years ago. Why? Because Nintendo has long tried to control everything about their part of the gaming ecosphere, from developer licensing to hardware sales. Sadly, benighted investors don’t see the method to Nintendo’s madness, especially considering the 3DS’ slow sales as well as the rise of the smartphone market and are now asking the giant to branch out into smartphones. This is a terrible idea. Bloomberg has a short piece on the unrest and quotes one investor who says:
To be clear, Nintendo could, conceivably, “buy” its way into this market by releasing its own games for the various smartphone platforms. But why? Mario makes a lot of money two ways – by selling cheap hardware to the masses and by selling expensive software to those same masses. Mario Kart on the iPhone would be a hoot but Mario Kart Wii costs $30 and Mario Kart DS costs $18. The closest MK analog on the App Store is a $4.99 copy of Sega All Stars Racing, a good game to be sure but hardly a Nintendo-caliber release… and price. There are two or three companies out there who can, for the most part, write their own ticket in the electronics market. Sony used to be one of them but, with the slow trickle-down of the Playstation brand into phones it’s clear they’re listening to their shareholders and not following their core competencies. Nintendo and Apple are the last “walled garden”-type manufacturers in existence and it will be a long time before they pollute their brand by deigning to port their flagship titles to smartphones. Could they release a smartphone? Sure they could, but why? The 3DS already has Wi-Fi so they could clearly add Skype or a similar chat service to their devices and maybe a cellular radio to some. However, they’re not a chat company and their audience – school-age kids, for the most part – probably aren’t allowed to be chatting in school and the safety issues associated with letting kids appear on video are enormous. So a smartphone play is out. So what are shareholders really saying? To use a sports analogy, they’re telling Nintendo to trade their best players because of a down season. Nintendo’s real treasure isn’t the hardware or even the software, per se. It’s the good will, brand awareness, and nostalgia associated with their top games. Nintendo has more console exclusives than any other device manufacturer and they’re going to keep it that way for as long as they can, investors (hopefully) be damned.
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| Live Blog: HTC’s “Major Announcement” Posted: 11 Aug 2011 08:27 AM PDT  Late last night, HTC announced that they had a “Major News Announcement” to share this morning. With HTC having made some of the finest smartphones we’ve ever seen (like the Thunderbolt, the 7 Pro, and the world’s original Android device, the G1), anything they consider “major news” is probably worth tuning in to. So, what might they announce? Thanks to some late night leaks, we’ve got a pretty good idea — find the details, along with our live notes from HTC’s teleconference, below. Refresh the page to update notes. 8:26 a.m: I’m waiting on the call now. The call is scheduled to begin at 8:30 A.M pacific. 8:27 a.m: Based on some news that broke late last night, we’re expecting HTC to officially announce that they’ve formed a strategic partnership with Beats Electronics, makers of the Beats By Dr Dre line. It’s likely that HTC will be announcing that they’ve acquired a majority stake in the Beats line, with an investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars. 8:31 a.m: Still on hold. This is probably the smoothest smooth jazz I’ve ever heard. 8:35 a.m: 5 minutes later, we’re still jammin’ away to some sultry jazz tunes. Pretty sure HTC forgot about us here. 8:37 a.m: To be clear, today’s press call wasn’t supposed to have been cancelled due to bits of the news breaking last night. HTC confirmed to everyone last night that the call would still go on, with additional details discussed. 8:38 a.m: Here we go! They’ve brought us into the call. Peter Chou (CEO of HTC) and Jimmy Iovine of Beats are leading the call. 8:39 a.m: Peter Chou: We’re very excited to announce this partnership. We plan to bring “studio quality” sound to handsets. 8:40 a.m: “Quality of design has always been a very high priority for HTC. When we met with Beats, we were very impressed with their knowledge and technology in the music area…. The team at Beats really understands music, and really understands the music experience.” 8:41 a.m: “With this strategy, with this investment, we’re able to bring the best people from two sides to make a very deep integration of Beats technology in the software, and the hardware. This is a great opportunity to take the mobile experience to the next step. Mobile phones — the smart phones — are very powerful. It makes it easier than ever to enjoy music… but the sound quality hasn’t caught up yet. This is an opportunity for us to provide great sound quality” 8:42 a.m: Yeah — so far, no new details. Just a lot of talking about how awesome the partnership is. 8:43 a.m: Jimmy Iovine is now on the call 8:44 a.m: “When a record is made, millions of dollars are spent on getting that emotion into music. When you then take it and put it on CD, and then MP3, you lose that emotion. [Because of these Mp3s, and bad earbuds], we’ve lost approximately 2 generations of sound.” 8:45 a.m: According to Jimmy Iovine, Beats went to HTC to ask them to invest. 8:46 a.m: Iovine: “Why Apple works so well, is because they have a head. What Steve Jobs does, the company follows. I’ve found that here with Peter.” 8:47 a.m: We’re moving into Q&A. 8:48 a.m: “What will this deal do to enhance the phone? Are consumers really looking for sound quality?” Jimmy Iovine: When we started Beats, people told us “no one cares about sound”. 3 years and 8 million headphones later, we’ve completely penetrated headphone sales between 12 and 20 years old. We brought it to them with culture, but it made them realize that quality matters. You’ll find that over the next few months, ALL phone companies will upgrade their sound quality. HTC will be first. Peter: This partnership is built on the idea that amazing sound is the key to an amazing mobile experience. 8:51 a.m: Will these be about headphones sold with the phones, or tech built into the phones? Peter: It’s not just purely the handset, it’s going to be a “holistic experience”. We see the possibility that we can create a lot more exciting innovations in the market place. [Didn't... really answer the question, there.] 8:52 a.m: “Why did you invest in Beats, rather than just license it?” Peter: We believe to create innovation, we have to have the two companies be working together day and night. 8:53 a.m: Can you confirm that this is a $300 million investment? Peter: Yes. This is a $300 million investment. 8:54 a.m: Jimmy Iovine on the size of the investment: The valuation that we came up with here.. was from March. Since then, Beats sales have doubled, but we kept the price the same [because we like HTC]. We, as in the music industry, HAVE to get to phones. This expedites that. 8:58 a.m: What, if anything, does this partnership do to your relationship with HTC? Jimmy: I talked to Todd [Bradley] and he was thrilled for us. It’s in HPs best interest to continue building out the brand, and our goal is to fix sound everywhere — but we’ll have an exclusive relationship with HTC in phones. (Sounds like Beats will continue to work with HP and other brands in computers, but will work strictly with HTC in phones) Aaaand they’ve just ended the call. The primary interesting bits here: HTC confirmed that the investment was, in fact, $300 million, for their 51% stake, while Jimmy Iovine disclosed that this valuation was built back in March and that Beats tech in phones will likely be an exclusive to HTC. Thanks for tuning in, everyone! HTC Corp, (TAIEX: 2498) produces smartphones running the Android and Windows Mobile operating systems for themselves and as an OEM to other manufacturers. Since launching its own brand in...
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| Mad Catz Intros The Cyborg R.A.T. 7 Albino Gaming Mouse For The Style-Obsessed Gamer Posted: 11 Aug 2011 07:49 AM PDT  Are you not sticking out at your LAN parties? Does your mouse look like all rest? Are you feeling the need for something new, fresh, and, dare I say, innovative? Well, fellow gaming friend, Mad Catz has something for you! The company just announced a new version of its rather strange Cyborg R.A.T. 7 gaming mouse. This new version, dubbed the Albino thanks to its matte white paint scheme, features the same infamous design found in the rest of the R.A.T. line along with an enhanced 6400DPI sensor, which lends to improved tracking and response. Yes, friend, this boy will make you the king of the nerds at your next LAN party. The mouse just went on pre-order for $99. That’s slightly more than an average gaming mouse, but well within the price range most gamers are willing to drop in the hope for more frags. That’s also the same price as the black R.A.T. 7, but the white color scheme will certainly impress the ladies — as if ladies care about the color of your mouse.
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| Grooveshark Now Found Lurking In Boxee Waters Posted: 11 Aug 2011 07:15 AM PDT  Grooveshark is now singing and swaying with Boxee as the music streaming service just hit the platform. The somewhat-underground music service streams lands on Boxee in a slightly different form than its online counterpart. The service not only looks different, but costs $9 a month after a free trial. Ouch. Grooveshark likely wants a slice of that sweet revunue pie Spotify is currently enjoying. In fact, the Boxee version looks a feels totally different from the traditional online service. Gone is the iTunes-style interface as a, well, orange-ified version of Rdio takes its place. The new tabbed interface brings up user-selected music, playlists, and popular music. Like the traditional version, it allows for easy playlist creation and sorting.
Grooveshark is a web-based music application built for anyone on the internet to listen to music on-demand at no charge. Users have the ability to listen to single songs from... Boxee is a partially open-source freeware media player software platform that integrates personal locally stored media with Internet streaming media along with social networking features. Boxee’s social networking...
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| Vuzix Wrap 1200 3D Glasses Hang A 75-Inch Screen In Front Of Your Nose Posted: 11 Aug 2011 07:07 AM PDT  Vuzix is now shipping their Wrap 1200 3Ds, a pair of $500 glasses (a headtracking model called the 1200VR is coming later this month) that displays a 75-inch virtual screen in front of your face and supports 3D content. You have separate focus settings for each each eye and these are as light and small as a standard pair of sunglasses. The Vuzix 1200s also allow you to wear your own prescription lenses under the device. I’ve used earlier Vuzix video glasses on flights before and, barring the dork-feel of wearing a pair of video glasses, the experience is fairly interesting and impressive. Now, however, with HD, 3D and a huge screen these things could, feasibly, replace a standard monitor in some situations. The glasses include a pair of headphones for audio and you can buy optional DVI adapters and light shields as well as a head-position sensor for more advanced tricks like real-time VR. The future, as they say, is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.
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| SteelSeries Sensei Mouse Is Familiar But Enhanced Posted: 11 Aug 2011 07:00 AM PDT  I reviewed the SteelSeries Xai early last year, pronouncing it elegant and effective. I’d still recommend it today, except for the fact that a new and improved version has just been announced: the Sensei. The simple and comfortable design of the Xai is intact, but there’s a new metal surface (which has yet to prove itself; the old surface was great), customizable lighting, and some changes under the hood. A new in-mouse processor (which they note is fast as 1994′s Pentiums) allows for increased sensitivity, collating and processing images from the laser sensor at up to 12,000 frames per second. Yes, it’s probably overkill, but so is a quad-core i7 when you’re checking email. The new engine should enhance the tracking accuracy, especially for high-CPI users like me, whose mouse rarely moves less than an inch in crossing 4000 pixels of display space. The lighting has been updated, as well — you can now light up the scroll wheel, high/low sensitivity light, and logo with different colors. I suspect there will be many flag-related schemes being shared. On the bottom you’ll find the same on-mouse sensitivity and profile manager from the last few mice. Again, overkill, but nice to have. The overall layout hasn’t changed, though I have to say I’m sad to see the classic, rough SteelSeries finish go. We’ll be sure to put this one through its paces. You’ll be able to pick one up yourself in September for $90 or €90. Head over to SteelSeries for more info.
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| Have No Fear, The 7-inch HP TouchPad Go Is Almost Here! Posted: 11 Aug 2011 06:51 AM PDT  Never mind the marketplace is having a hard time selling the first TouchPad. Never mind that it has a fraction of the apps found on competing platforms. Never mind that it works best when paired with the least popular smartphone. HP is prepping a new TouchPad for an US launch. The TouchPad Go is a 7-inch tablet from the same strain the produced the original. Oh goodie. This might not be the first you’re hearing of it. A smaller TouchPad was rumored alongside the first one. Back then, it was thought to have been called internally as the Opal. But then the device hit the FCC where the Go moniker was found. Per the FCC docs, the tablet is much of what you’d expect: 16 and 32GB models, both available in 3G and WiFi-only flavors. The new model will actually pack a faster CPU with a 1.5GHz clockspeed rather than 1.2GHz. GPS, Bluetooth and likely Beats Audio are also packed into the smaller chassis. Interestingly enough, the FCC docs do not talk of screen size. However, per the FCC rules, HP had to include the device’s ID label on a schematic exactly as it’s found on the real device. A webOSroundup forum member then took that label and used some middle school math to determine that, yes, this is a 7-inch tablet. Joking aside, a smaller TouchPad, as long as it’s priced right, might do just fine among the webOS loyalists. The TouchPad is a fine device, but the initial high MSRP made it a hard sell. Now that the price is lower, first adopters are probably more interested. Hopefully HP learned its lesson and will price the smaller TouchPad more aggressively. No word on the exact release date, but since it just passed through the FCC, it will likely be within a few months.
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| The Motorola KORE: Just A Heart Rate Monitor? Posted: 11 Aug 2011 06:44 AM PDT  While we were fairly certain that Moto was going to go all KORE on its tablet line last week, it looks like KORE is just a trademark for a heart rate monitor and headphones combo that works with Motorola phones. Bums-ville.
The KORE could also be a music player/fitness device that appeared a while back, which would definitely make it more interesting then just a pair of headphones. This is all just conjecture and kremlinology, obviously, so we shall see.
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