CrunchGear |  |
- Daily Crunch: Dry Ice Machine
- Canon Unveils New Line Of PowerShot Digital Cameras
- Delay On Hulu Availability More Than Doubles Piracy Of Fox Shows
- Refurbished 16GB iPad 1 Drops To $299
- A Woman, A Cupcake, A Bank And A Square: Why Credit Card Companies Are Scared Of Change
- HP Pre 3 Will Never Come To US, But It’s Crazy Cheap In Europe
- New Research Weaves Omnidirectional Antennas Into Clothing
- Miramax Launches Facebook App For Streaming Movies
- “Cyberloafing” Study: Slacking Off At Work Is “Salubrious”
- Sharp Outs The RW-T107 Gingerbread Tablet With NFC & RFID Capabilities
- Modding Community Offers $1500 Bounty For TouchPad Android Port
- Lenovo CEO Stabs At The iPad, Ignores His Own Tablets’ Faults
- Jetty The Duct-Cleaning Robot Will Hunt You Down, Wash You With Dry Ice
- TC Tests The GeoMate Jr., A Geocaching GPS Unit For The Wee Ones
- RoboCar MEV-C: Japan Gets New Robot Car
- Rumor: The Fujifilm X10 Announcement Coming Soon, Should Pack Retro Hotness For $599
- Apple Adds Earthquake Warning To Japanese iOS
| Posted: 23 Aug 2011 01:00 AM PDT  Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets:
|
| Canon Unveils New Line Of PowerShot Digital Cameras Posted: 23 Aug 2011 01:00 AM PDT  Nothing goes better with back-to-school clothes than a nice little point-and-shoot. Thus, Canon's timing couldn't be any better. Today the new PowerShot digital cameras are making their debut, and from the looks of it, Canon has its bases covered. We have three new models: the PowerShot SX150 IS, PowerShot Elph 510 HS, and the PowerShot Elph 310 HS. Most impressive by a mile is the Elph 510 HS, which Canon is describing as "the thinnest digital camera in the world (with 12x optical zoom and a 28mm wide-angle lens)." A bold statement, but the 510 HS seems to be bringing it. Features shared by all three shooters:
These bad boys range between $250 and $350, come in all shapes and sizes, and color options galore (at least for the little guy.) Let's take a look, shall we? Canon PowerShot ELPH 510 HS This is undoubtedly the looker of the trio: a super slim design, touchscreen LCD display, and 1080p video capture. Yep, all the bells and whistles accounted for. Here are the full specs:
Canon PowerShot ELPH 310 HS Next up, we have the 510 HS's little brother, the Elph 310 HS. This is the cheaper of the Elph models and with the color options, I'm betting it'll end up in the hands of many a teenager. Full specs:
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS Last, but not least (but also kind of least because it's the cheapest of the three), we have the PowerShot SX 150 IS. Take a look at the specs:
Canon Inc. is a multinational corporation that specialises in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, photocopiers, steppers and computer printers. Its headquarters are located in Ōta,...
|
| Delay On Hulu Availability More Than Doubles Piracy Of Fox Shows Posted: 22 Aug 2011 07:02 PM PDT  A week ago, Fox changed its licensing rules so that non-paying users of Hulu would be unable to watch new episodes of their shows until eight days after their air date. Put on your analyst hat and think about what effect this might have on, say, piracy of those shows. Did you determine that it would increase piracy? Congratulations, you are a better judge of consequences than Fox. Because piracy of Fox shows went up by a huge amount during this last week. Actually, it’s likely that Fox anticipated this increase in piracy and simply considered it worth the trade-off. With worse options for free users, more will watch the live broadcast, they suppose, and ad prices go up with these increased projections. Query: if these people could watch it on live TV, why would they be watching it on Hulu in the first place? For busy and budget-conscious TV-watchers, expensive cable and a DVR aren’t an option. Hulu is. Hulu gets shows out there, allows for targeted, relatively unskippable advertising, and with a reasonable one-day delay, doesn’t add much inconvenience to the bargain for the user. This eight-day delay is punishing, and while “getting something for nothing” is a rather new entitlement we all seem to have, it does feel like a bait-and-switch for millions of viewers. So what do they do? They google “download ______”, and halfway down the first page is a public, well-seeded torrent that downloads the whole episode — with no ads — in minutes, and allows them to use their favorite media player or take it with them anywhere. Wow! What a great way to watch your favorite shows! TorrentFreak tracked the piracy of two Fox shows after the delay went into effect. Hell’s Kitchen downloads went up by 114%, and MasterChef went up a massive 189%. That number will only go up as more people discover the limitation. Will Fox backpedal? Not likely. But Hulu is a work in progress, and the cards change hands rapidly in this business. What seems like a good deal to Fox now, improving their broadcast relationships, might turn out to be a ball and chain a year from now as the practicality of cord-cutting grows. Sometimes companies have to do things that their customers don’t like. Raise rates, for instance. Ugly but inevitable. But making decisions plainly detrimental to your customer experience for mysterious reasons will have repercussions. In this case, they just lost thousands upon thousands of loyal viewers who enjoyed their products, many of whom consider themselves abused and will never return.
|
| Refurbished 16GB iPad 1 Drops To $299 Posted: 22 Aug 2011 06:28 PM PDT  While $300 for a tablet might seem insanely high after this weekend’s $100 TouchPad frenzy, it’s still a decent buy. I still find it hard to recommend existing budget Honeycomb tablets over the iPad when I’m talking to people who aren’t into tech, and this makes its case even stronger. iPad or netbook? For some people the choice is obvious, for others not so much. But at $300 neither both are good deals. Still not sure? Let’s take a look at the other options. The new Acer Iconia A100 is only $20 more, and beats the iPad on specs, but the 7″, 16:9 screen might not be enough for people. Lenovo’s K1 doesn’t strike me as a quality tablet, and their ThinkPad Tablet (while it looks great) isn’t in the same price league. The Sony S1 and S2 will be interesting, but not for a while. The only real competition, I’d say, is a refurb Nook Color. I never had much good to say about these things, but at $180 they’re a good deal, come with support and a community of hackers anyone could be proud of. As an e-reader, I’m not a fan of LCD stuff, but as a budget tablet, this thing ain’t half bad. And sure, you can get a “tablet” for under a hundred bucks, but you’d be better off buying RIM stock. Oh no he didn’t Get your $299 iPad here at the Apple Store. Yeah, you could do Craigslist, but you don’t know what they did to that thing. [via TUAW]
|
| A Woman, A Cupcake, A Bank And A Square: Why Credit Card Companies Are Scared Of Change Posted: 22 Aug 2011 02:58 PM PDT  In the sleepy Columbus, Ohio suburb of Canal Winchester there is a shop that makes cupcakes. These are not ordinary cupcakes; these are fantastic cupcakes. In fact the name of this establishment—Fantasy Cupcake—is no boast and can readily back up the hype (trust me, I ate one and it was killer). A relatively new business owned and operated by Leah Dotson, Fantasy Cupcake chose Square as its processor when it came time to set up a transaction mechanism for accepting credit cards. And then a funny thing happened. Coincidentally or not, several banks and processors approached Leah about setting up merchant services with them instead of relying on Square. Most of the visiting merchant services reps looked at the Square rate plan Leah had worked out and admitted she had a good deal and that indeed, Square would be her best bet. But there were two that didn't go so smoothly. A Key Bank rep came in with an offer and a flyer—"We'll give you 300 bucks if we can't beat your current merchant rate plus give you $100 to switch to our service." Leah told the rep her Square rate (2.75% + no additional fees) and she said the Key bank rep "kind of panicked", and laughably left as soon as she could (leaving a flyer behind but keeping the 300 smackeroos). Hilarious. The First Data Rep? Well, here's where it gets weird. That representative (actually rep-ing for Huntington Bank) gave her a bunch of information (or mis-information, actually) about Square, and suggested that she switch over to the First Data/Huntington services for her own protection. While Leah characterized her as professional, she admitted that the barrage of negative info about Square did freak her out little. Actually, it freaked her out a lot…enough to call her brother-in-law who helped her get set up with Square in the first place (and who also happens to be a payments expert). That's how I got wind of it. So what was this mis-information? The First Data rep indicated to Leah that:
This First Data Rep then tried to sell their merchant services program to her even though it was not quite as friendly for small purchases, which is the majority of Leah's business. The breakdown compared something like this: In the end, a First Data merchant agreement would have amounted to almost $800 per year in additional fees for Leah vs. Square's simple 2.75% rate structure and no additional fees. Forget the POS hardware purchases and statement fees and just think about that $.15 transaction fee. That's 1.2% plus $.15 on every single transaction vs. Squares flat rate of 2.7%. When you think about the fact that the majority of Leah's sales are under $3.00, it really adds up. That's roughly $.21 in fees for that $3.00 order vs. $.08 using Square. So what about all the encryption and PCI compliance claims about Square. If that were true, it would be enough to make anyone have second thoughts. I reached out to First Data for comment, but they would not comment about Square nor whether their representative indicated this to Leah. So I reached out to Square. Their spokesperson didn't give me much detail, but indicated that no card numbers, magnetic stripe data nor security code data is ever stored on any devices authorized to use Square's service. She also said that Square's service is 100% PCI compliant and that all data passing thru is encrypted, surpassing requirements. She then sent me a link to their security page. But what about the actual reader—the Square, so to speak. Is it encrypted? Well, it technically isn't. I heard as much from App Ninja's CEO John Waldron when I interviewed him a few months ago. I confirmed this with George Peabody, Director, Emerging Technologies Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group. George told me that the Square reader actually makes a pretty effective card skimmer and there are rogue apps out there that can use it in that way. To be fair, card skimmers are readily available if you go looking for one though and there are even more complex and stealthy methods to retrieve card information than a mis-used Square (remember this histrionic story from a while back)? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN So Square is, in fact, an encrypted software solution that meets rules for PCI compliance and it doesn't store any data on the devices that use it. It's a safe solution for accepting Credit Cards, and therefore the First Data/Huntington rep that spoke to Leah Dotson is wrong. However, depending on how one defines encryption, the claim that Square does not use hardware encryption is actually true for now. In practical terms though, it would be difficult to intercept that card data swiped on a Square reader before that data reached Square's software. The more likely way to facilitate this kind of skim, would be for a shifty merchant to use a rogue app on their jail-broken or otherwise unauthorized mobile device in place of Square's software to collect card data. But a person that would hijack a Square reader to skim cards could easily rig another solution to do the same thing. So the real question a consumer should ask isn’t "is this merchant using Square", but rather "Wait, who is this merchant in the first place? Are they established, legitimate and can I find them again?" But back to our little drama. It's certainly not shocking that one company would try to use mis-information to compete for business — that is par for the course in the contemporary business world. What is a little shocking to me is what this action could represent. Whether corporately sanctioned or not, do actions like this signal that big banks/processors are just a little bit afraid of Square? Perhaps Square, which seemed fringe to the big banks a year ago, actually represents a bit more of a threat than previously thought? Maybe the threat of losing that $800 a year in fees alone, is enough to make some processors and banks actually sweat a little? It sounds like your classic David vs. Goliath story, right? The "big guy" processors like First Data and even regional players like banks are starting to freak a little and this institutional fear is spreading to all areas of their merchant services sales initiatives—a logical conclusion right? Well…probably not. First of all, let's keep the volume in perspective. Square is doing $4 million dollars in transactions a day. It sounds like a lot but remember that processors like Chase Paymentech (one of First Data's biggest international competitors) did something like $137 billion in transaction volume in Q2 2011. That's about $1.5 billion a day and easily dwarfs Square's volume. First Data's volume is likely similar. A difference in volume like that means that, institutionally, Square is likely not on First Data's radar at all. They are a gnat flying around one of First Data's many Hydra heads. No, this story is likely less David vs. Goliath than it is David vs. David. Huh? You probably know that the payments space is incredibly complex. At least in the U.S.A. there are so many players and so many relationships with regard to merchant accounts, that the macro view of it is daunting, to say the least. However, what you may or may not know is that major processors like First Data and Paymentech typically do not set up merchant accounts for smaller, Mom-and-Pop type stores even though those transactions ride on their rails. It's possible to do business directly with one of these big players, but it is expensive, so you pretty much have to be a big business yourself to engage with them. For small retailers, merchant accounts are typically set up by Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) that are affiliated with the major processors and that specialize in selling and setting up payments and merchant accounts for smaller players. These could be banks, but they could also be small specialized businesses. The view of this ISO infrastructure is vast and I don't pretend to be an expert on it. To quickly sum how these ISOs relate to the large payments processors, I reached out to George Peabody again for an explanation.
So here is my theory to explain why this First Data representative (likely working as or with an ISO) would be falsely telling Leah Dotson that if she uses Square to process her card transactions she could get sued. Square is competing, not with the big players in the payments processing realm, but instead with these smaller ISOs and independent reps that are looking for their $800 a year in additional transaction-related fees. Square is disrupting this sales model and is causing the ISOs to take notice and become much more competitive. I bounced this idea off George Peabody and he concurred. "This is classic internet disintermediation" and indeed both the small and larger ISOs are likely starting to feel the heat and at least take notice of Square and their disruptive service. So Square is the winner here right? They hold the high ground by operating services with much lower overhead and no "on-the-ground" sales force? Maybe, but one thing is for sure, they are still going to have to do a heck of a lot more volume than a mere $4 Million dollars a day to get any kind of foothold. Credit margins are thin and it is definitely a volume game. The standard infrastructure for payments is still embedded. I also think they will ultimately have to address the “hardware encryption" question. Whew. I've worked up quite an appetite, pondering all this drama. A cupcake could definitely ease my pain. Maybe I should make the drive to Canal Winchester for a safe snack. I'll make sure to bring my credit card. Square is a revolutionary service that enables anyone to accept credit cards anywhere. Square offers an easy to use, free credit card reader that plugs into a phone or...
|
| HP Pre 3 Will Never Come To US, But It’s Crazy Cheap In Europe Posted: 22 Aug 2011 02:24 PM PDT  On the heels of the HP’s first and likely last webOS fire sale, word has come from across the pond thatthey’re also deeply discounting the cost of the newly-launched Pre 3 smartphone in most European markets. While it was originally available for the princely sum of £299 in the U.K. and €349 in France (both around $500), HP’s price evisceration brings the cost down to a remarkably reasonable $75 sans contract. Germany won’t be benefiting from price cuts because all the units have already been sold, believe it or not. Phenomenal deal though it may be, it comes with a bit of bad news for domestic webOS fans. HP had hopes for controlling the webOS ecosystem from end to end, and without the TouchPad, it would seem they don’t see the need to launch the Pre 3 in the United States. It’s a shame, really: the Pre3 was HP’s last chance at relevance in the smartphone market, and more than a few webOS diehards were waiting more or less patiently for it. If you’ve got money in your pocket and a yearning for webOS in your heart, feel free to import it when it goes on sale “shortly.” Be warned though, in spite of the Pre 3′s above-average specs, expect some spottiness when it comes to coverage. T-Mobile users will be relegated to EDGE speed, and AT&T will have partial 3G coverage at best. [via PCMag]
|
| New Research Weaves Omnidirectional Antennas Into Clothing Posted: 22 Aug 2011 02:15 PM PDT  Antennas are a bit like like underwear. Everybody needs them, but you generally want to conceal them, and when you have troubles with them, it gets embarrassing. Ever since we lost the pull-out and nub antennas of yesteryear on our phones and radios, the antenna has been more and more integrated with the designs of devices, but sometimes it isn’t practical to do so. Take our clothing, for instance. Generally, getting antennas to play nice with bending and reshaping has led to poor performance (and then there are these things). But work being done at Ohio State University might have taken the next big step towards creating a sweater transmitter. They used a thin, flexible plastic substrate and etched brass onto it, forming a sort of lightweight antenna thread. They then wove this thread into four areas of a vest: front, back, and both shoulders. A controller about the size of a deck of cards was mounted on a belt. This device monitors the signal of each antenna and switches between them on the fly in order to keep those bars up. In tests, it performed far better than existing whip-style antennas. Most importantly, it allowed reliable communication regardless of the direction the person was facing. It’s not quite ready for deployment to Banana Republic just yet, but there are plenty of applications. ChiChih Chen, one of the researchers, says: “Our primary goal is to improve communications reliability and the mobility of the soldiers, but the same technology could work for police officers, fire fighters, astronauts – anybody who needs to keep their hands free for important work.” Good signal can mean the difference between a good copy and a bad copy when a building is coming down, and a smaller device footprint means one more magazine or one more tool a soldier or firefighter can carry. I’m thinking this could be useful for espionage and police work, though. No more sticking wires to the undercover guy’s chest. It isn’t cheap: right now the tech costs around $200 per person to implement, which is probably out of NASA’s budget. The researchers believe they can bring the price down, and eventually integrate the antennas with normal clothes for safety purposes.
|
| Miramax Launches Facebook App For Streaming Movies Posted: 22 Aug 2011 01:08 PM PDT  Following the lead of Warner Bros, Paramount, and Universal, Miramax has jumped on the Facebook app bandwagon offering movie rentals in exchange for Facebook credits. Along with watching movie clips and playing games, users will get access to full-length feature films from the Miramax library, including Clerks, Kill Bill, Good Will Hunting, and No Country For Old Men. As of right now, the app is still in beta. It was built in "just eight short weeks," so you should expect a few bugs and hiccups in the beginning. US Facebook users will have a choice between 20 movies, each of which cost 30 Facebook credits to rent — that's the equivalent of $3. The service was also made available in the UK and Turkey this morning, with France and Germany on deck, according to the Miramax Blog. Once you rent, you'll have a full 30 days of access to the movie. But once the movie is started, you only have 48 hours to finish it before it expires. The iPad and Google TV also work with the app. The full list of movies available right now (all 20 of them) can be found here. Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It...
|
| “Cyberloafing” Study: Slacking Off At Work Is “Salubrious” Posted: 22 Aug 2011 12:37 PM PDT  A study performed at the National University of Singapore has confirmed what many of us seem to know intuitively: taking a little time off of coding or writing to check your favorite blogs or webcomics is actually a productive behavior. Just as taking a short break to get a snack or a coffee can reinvigorate you, taking a very short break to do something other than type or mouse around improves the quality of your work thereafter. The study, done by researchers Don J.Q. Chen and Vivien K.G Lim, started out with participants doing a repetitive task: highlighting every “e” in a 3500-word document. They then were told to do one of three things: one group was told to stack sticks in a certain way, another was told to do anything but go on the web, and another was told to go on the web and check out a few standard blogs and sites. Lastly, they were asked to repeat their first task with a different document. Not surprisingly, the web people were the least mentally exhausted (according to the infallible questionnaire) and most productive. Interestingly, checking email did not tend to restore people, as it was viewed as a kind of work to read and respond. Methodologically, it’s not bulletproof. People doing “anything but web” in their own environment, rather than a lab, would likely be as refreshed as the web people. And tasks that require more focus and skill (creative tasks rather than repetitive) might not be as forgiving of interruption. But the point was made that web browsing didn’t have any deleterious effect on the participants’ ability to function. It didn’t act as an opiate. Naturally, this only applies to a certain extent (no WoW raids), and real-life work conditions must be reasonable as well (web access may not improve sweatshop morale). But attempting to limit or control workers’ ability to go to certain sites or take short breaks like this (I just took one in the middle of the last paragraph) is certainly counter-productive. It reduces trust and makes people unhappy. And saying that checking Reddit or 1UP is stealing from the company only alienates the people who know better. Plus, they’ll keep on “stealing” without a second thought. So next time your boss walks up to your cube while you’re taking five to hit up a few blogs, tell him about this study and suggest they make it policy. People love policy.
|
| Sharp Outs The RW-T107 Gingerbread Tablet With NFC & RFID Capabilities Posted: 22 Aug 2011 12:25 PM PDT  Sharp just did the unthinkable. The RW-T107 Gingerbread tablet is actually useful and gives businesses a new way to interact with consumers with a built-in NFC and RFID reader. This is the future, kids. The tablet itself is of the 7-inch Gingerbread variety. It’s of a standard build and includes microUSB, a HDMI port, SIM card slot, and a headphone jack. Sharp expects to release 5,000 a month starting next month and it will likely be reserved for the commercial market and not hit the consumer channels. It’s only meant for the Japanese market where RFID payment cards are commonplace and NFC mobile wallets are gaining traction. Think of it this way: You’re in Japan (this tablet is only for Japan) and have your FeliCa money card. A sales associate will be able to process your transaction with just this tablet. Or maybe you have a membership card for some random arcade; you can check your bonus points on one of these tablets. It’s like an untethered customer interaction system. Other markets will likely see similar devices as NFC penetrates the market. The platform allows retailers to rid themselves of checkout kiosks and interact more directly with customers. Of course’s there’s always the Apple Store solution and equip sales associates with credit card-reading iPod touches. But that’s not as fun as a fully-functional and Flash-enabled Android tablet.
|
| Modding Community Offers $1500 Bounty For TouchPad Android Port Posted: 22 Aug 2011 09:48 AM PDT  This weekend’s TouchPad fire sale has more or less petered out, and thousands of HP’s little tablets that couldn’t have found new homes. Not everyone seems to love WebOS though, as a growing number of people who bought bargain-bin TouchPads are clamoring for a tablet experience that’s a bit more… shall we say, relevant. Thanks to its open nature, Android is the OS of choice for a TouchPad port, and now the folks at a modding community called HackNMod are offering bounties to the devs that can make it happen. The total amount of money up for grabs is $1500, but it’s broken down into several parts, so multiple devs will get a chance at a payout. Whoever is first able to get a “basic Android port” up and running on the TouchPad nets $400. HackNMod doesn’t elaborate on what exactly constitutes a “basic port,” but presumably the device would have to boot into Android with a decent degree of stability. The sub-bounties run the gamut as far as payout: the team that gets WiFi to work nabs $350, the audio team gets $300, and the multitouch team gets $100. Developers will have one more thing to contend with: their solutions have to be easy enough for the average user to install on their own. As with all things, there is a bit of a catch: while the $450 for the Android port itself comes out of HackNMod’s pockets, the rest are being left up to sponsors. In a way, it’s the perfect system for a project like this: the features with the highest demand are (hopefully) the ones that will be funded. Interested parties can also throw in money for other features they want to see working, leading to more sub-bounties for eager devs to jump on. Itching to throw your hat in the ring? Be sure to post your code on GitHub and provide photo & video evidence. Ready, go!
|
| Lenovo CEO Stabs At The iPad, Ignores His Own Tablets’ Faults Posted: 22 Aug 2011 08:57 AM PDT  Lenovo is the fastest growing PC maker in the world. The Chinese computer company outgrew every other PC maker for the past seven quarters and is now the third largest PC maker by volume. There’s no questioning Lenovo is a major player in the desktop and notebook fields — and soon tablets, or so says the CEO, Yang Yuanquing. Lenovo recently announced three tablets, the Honeycomb ThinkTab and IdeaPad K1 along with the Windows-powered IdeaPad P1. The first two just hit the market with the Windows tab coming this fall. With these three tablets, each with a distinct target demographic, Lenovo hopes to surge to the front of the tablet race. Of course that means going head-to-head with the iPad, a product Lenovo’s CEO sees as a top-tier item and whose $500 price puts it out of reach of those in “the small cities, townships, low salary class, low-income class.” Someone should probably tell Yuanquing that his craptastic IdeaPad is only $50 less. Let’s look at the full quote, courtesy of the Financial Times:
It’s hard to argue against that strategy. Different consumers want their tablets to do different things and one product cannot cover all the bases. The Lenovo IdeaPad K1 targets consumers with a curvy exterior and Netflix app. The prosumer ThinkPad packs a strong security suite, active digitizer stylus, and enough straight lines to look right in any corner office. The IdeaPad P1 is there for consumers and companies that still need/want Windows on a tablet for some reason. This multi-demographic approach is widely different from what other companies are doing. But it’s not off to a good start. IdeaPad P1 reviews started popping up. I turned down a review sample; all Honeycomb tablets are essentially the same right now. Engadget gave it a 6/10 while Joanna Stern over at ThisIsMyNext awarded it a more honest 4.5/10. The only notable feature on the consumer-oriented Honeycomb tablet is the Netflix app but is effectively countered by Honeycomb itself and a cheap build. The IdeaPad P1 will likely make a few owners happy but it’s a hard sell at $449 when the iPad is only $50 more. It’s hard to see how Lenovo views their tablet hitting the lower-income demographic when there’s only a $50 price difference. Lenovo is hitting the tablet market running but it’s still unclear if it will pay off. The IdeaPad K1 is just another stale Honeycomb tab while the remaining two-thirds of Lenovo’s tablet offering targets businesses with tablets that replicate notebook functionality. If Lenovo wants to set their tablets apart from the iPad – and they should – the Android tablets should first prove how they increase productivity and fit in business world – that’s a trick even the iPad hasn’t pulled off. Lenovo Group Limited, an investment holding company, engages manufacture and distribution of IT products and services. It offers laptops, desktops, workstations, servers, batteries and power, docks and port replicators,...
|
| Jetty The Duct-Cleaning Robot Will Hunt You Down, Wash You With Dry Ice Posted: 22 Aug 2011 08:26 AM PDT  Researchers at a Czech company, Neovision, have invented a duct-cleaning robot called Jetty. This machine is joystick controlled and has a 1024×768 pixel camera. It receives power and signal over a Ethernet-over-Cat5 cable, limiting its movement to about 35 meters right now, but it can clean and inspect kitchen, industrial, and office ducts with relative ease. The robot uses dry ice to clean ductwork and can move up and down using its tread-like feet. The jets are situated on the middle of the robot for maximum pressure and Jetty can move through circular, rectangular, and square ducts and go up curves. In almost every FPS adventure there’s a duct sequence and this demonic-looking, six armed monster will only add the the fright potential. It’s only a matter of time before this guy is armed with a flame thrower, net ejector, and stun gun so let’s just pretend the coming robot apocalypse isn’t going to happen any time soon and watch as Jetty washes the inside of some industrial vents in the video below. And remember, All Hail Our Coming Robot Overlords.
|
| TC Tests The GeoMate Jr., A Geocaching GPS Unit For The Wee Ones Posted: 22 Aug 2011 06:36 AM PDT  I just had the unique pleasure geocaching for the first time. I’d always been interested in the concept: someone hides something tiny in the wilderness and you use a GPS tracker to find it. However, the thought of traipsing around in the woods to look for someone hippie’s Tupperware did not compute. Then we got the GeoMate Jr., a small GPS tracker designed for kids and discovered that it wasn’t all dream-catchers hidden in stately old oak trees. The GeoMate Jr. is a dead simple geocaching system for kids. It has 250,000 caches pre-programmed into its interface and you scroll through them using the large button on the left. Then, when you find a cache, you mark it using the button on the right. You can set the tracker to also take you home by pressing both buttons simultaneously. It’s literally so simple a five year old could use it (and reader: mine did). Hunting consists of selecting a cache and following the onscreen arrows and distance calculations. As you move closer to a cache the distance reading falls and once you’re there you’re unfortunately on your own. Sadly, all of the hints and descriptions available on sites like geocaching.com are unavailable on this device. The caches come up in order of distance from your current location so if you don’t mark previously found caches you may end up being led to the same one over and over again. You can also type in geocache code manually using the buttons, but it’s a bit of a chore. The device costs $69.95 and $24.95 for an update kit to program new geocaches onto the device. We were initially frustrated while looking for caches near us until we began to understand the size of these things. In the city, most people hide tiny little microcaches, no bigger than a pebble. Without the hints it’s considerably tougher to find them but once you know what you’re looking for it’s fairly simple. Luckily, when we went out into the wilds of Brooklyn with the GeoMate Jr., we stumbled upon a cache held by a helpful fellow who goes by the name of schbus86 (he drive’s a school bus). His cache, CRETE, contained a trackable coin that we will later drop off elsewhere. It’s this mixture of adventure, a search for pirate booty, and electronics that makes geocaching so compelling. The GeoMate Jr. runs on two AA batteries and the interface could be a bit complex for smaller kids. However, paired with a responsible adult and access to a geocache database online, it’s an excellent and fun way to get kids excited about exploring the outdoors.
|
| RoboCar MEV-C: Japan Gets New Robot Car Posted: 22 Aug 2011 05:52 AM PDT  Tokyo-based robot venture ZMP has churned out yet another robot car: this time, it’s the so-called RoboCar MEV-C, which is based on COMS, a vehicle Toyota started developing back in 2000. Just as COMS, the MEV-C is a single-person, 4-wheeled electric mini car – just with a robotic twist. ZMP says the car can actually be driven around, but the company is actually marketing it as a research object for roboticists, universities and car manufacturers. While the conventional COMS is a rather simple electric vehicle, ZMP added quite a few features to make it sexier: a stereo camera, a 9-axis wireless motion sensor, a GPS unit, a temperature and humidity sensor, a laser range sensor, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G and the so-called CAN (Control Area Network) protocol as an “open platform” that allows buyers to access every piece of the hardware. The RoboCar MEV-C is sized at 2.3×1.0×1.6m and weighs 310kg. ZMP has already started selling it, with prices starting at US$35,000. Via Robonable [JP]
|
| Rumor: The Fujifilm X10 Announcement Coming Soon, Should Pack Retro Hotness For $599 Posted: 22 Aug 2011 05:36 AM PDT  The Fujufilm X100 (pictured) is quietly becoming a favorite among the photography nerds thanks to its capable sensor, fair price and oh-so-hawt retro digs. But even though the price is fully justified by its performance, it’s out of reach of some aspiring shooters. No worries. The Fujifilm X10 is set to be announced within the coming weeks and should hit at a lot lower price point. Fujifilm hasn’t made any of the following specs official, but the Spanish website Quesabesde independently confirmed the X10′s previous rumors. The smaller camera is said to have a 2/3″ sensor, which, as PhotoRumors notes, is smaller than those found in Micro Four Thirds cameras but bigger than in the competing Canon G12. Also like the G12, the X10 is said to drop with a $599 MSRP and feature a 4x zoom lens with a F/2.0 aperture. The X10. or X50 in some markets, will likely shake up the prosumer space as long as Fujifilm wraps it in the same sort of sex appeal that made the X100 an instant hit.
|
| Apple Adds Earthquake Warning To Japanese iOS Posted: 22 Aug 2011 05:31 AM PDT  The Japanese version of iOS 5 will have a special notifications widget: a setting to turn on instant messages from Japan’s earthquake early warning system. The system is so sensitive that it could reduce your battery life as it polls the warning servers constantly. iOS 5′s new notifications system uses the iPhone’s old notifications but places it in an easy-to-read, lock-screen based environment that holds the last few messages form various apps. Presumably this early warning system will be considerably more noticeable than a badge on the lock or notifications screen. Apple’s Steve Jobs sent a note and assistance during the major Earthquake in March offering “time or resources to visit or care for your families, please see HR and we will help you.”
|
| You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch » Gadgets 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