CrunchGear |  |
- Daily Crunch: Eye Array
- HP TouchPads Slated For Return To Best Buy?
- Video: “Eyeborg” Replaces Eye With Functioning Wireless Video Camera
- Apple Quietly Kills 99¢ TV Show Rentals
- Samsung Galaxy S II U.S. Variants Pose For The Camera
- Video: This Isn’t The iPhone 5… But I Kind Of Wish It Was
- IBM Assembles Record 120-Petabyte Storage Array
- OnLive Adds Group Voice Chat, Parental Controls And Facebook Achievement Sharing
- Mystery 10-Inch Sleeve At T-Mobile Suggests New Tablet On The Way
- Kickstarter: Kammok, A Hammock For Outdoorsmen and City Folk Alike
- Razer’s “Blade” Gaming Notebook Takes No Prisoners (Except For Your Wallet)
- Apple Hires iPhone Hacker Nicholas Allegra (@Comex)
- 24/7 3D Network 3net Brings Kid-Friendly Content To The Third Dimension
- Apple Patent Describes Solar-Powered iPhone, Notebook Charger
- Hands-On With The 2011 Cadence Watch Line
| Posted: 27 Aug 2011 01:00 AM PDT  Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets:
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| HP TouchPads Slated For Return To Best Buy? Posted: 26 Aug 2011 09:47 PM PDT  It was widely reported that Best Buy was sitting on over 200,000 TouchPads before HP enacted their drastic price cut, but the fire sale has come and gone, and that would normally be that. Instead, a notice in Best Buy’s Employee Toolkit system shows that their contentious relationship with the TouchPad may not be over just yet. The image, sent to Droid Matters by a Best Buy insider, indicates that Best Buy stores will once again begin to receive TouchPad shipments. Due to the swarms of bargain-hunters last time round, employees are being instructed to stick to a ticket system and take down the information of the interested parties that come their way. While it’s possible the notice has been pushed out just in time to make a big splash on the front cover of the Sunday circular, you shouldn’t hold your breath. Different areas tend to have different shipping schedules, but if this holds true, it’s more likely that the units will begin trickling back into stores during the middle of the week. At this point, it’s still unknown whether the notice only applies to some stores or the whole lot of them, but thanks to a bit of corporate foresight, your nearest store may soon have a new recording in their phone system that could clear up the specifics. It’s a bit of a surprise, to be sure: 16GB TouchPads are selling for nearly double the going rate on eBay, a testament to the fact that people have all but given up on more traditional sales outlets. HP’s own site admits that they are only “temporarily” out of inventory, and that coupled with news of a major retailer suddenly receiving stock gives me pause: how many of these things does HP have left? And more importantly for some, how many are shipping with Android inexplicably preloaded? The answers, it would seem, may come later this week.
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| Video: “Eyeborg” Replaces Eye With Functioning Wireless Video Camera Posted: 26 Aug 2011 03:14 PM PDT  You might remember Rob Spence, known online as the Eyeborg for his project to create a working bionic eye. We wrote about him before, and interviewed him a while back, but the project has advanced to the point where even a seasoned tech blogger is left speechless with amazement. Spence has worked with a team of engineers to adapt an endoscope into a working in-socket video camera. It’s turned on by waving a magnet near it, at which point it will begin transmitting a wireless video signal to a handheld LCD viewer. Absolutely incredible. Watch the video from Sky News below, but be warned that it is slightly graphic. If you can’t handle someone installing and removing an artificial eye, consider this your warning. Just astonishing that this is even possible. But really, this is more of a general achievement in miniaturization, not bionics. Endoscopic cameras with wireless transmitters are now commonplace; the enclosure and ergonomics of the device would be the hard part of this build. What’s yet to be accomplished with an artificial eye is hooking it up effectively to the visual cortex, and that is still years away from being practical — at least, for producing any kind of detail. Existing cortical microelectrode arrays just don’t have the density required, and as a result produce something only loosely definable as an image. The timing of this new info is part of a media push for the new Deus Ex game (of GameStop infamy), in which cybernetics and prosthetics figure prominently — which doesn’t diminish the wonder of the thing, in my opinion. They also produced a short documentary about prosthetics and research in that field that’s worth a watch as well. It’s a very exciting field and the best bit is that they’re creating things that truly improve people’s lives. A prosthetic eye is a long way off, but it’s people with passion and dedication, like Spence and his team, who drive innovation, regardless of how far off the “final” product might be. More information can be found at the Eyeborg Project’s home page.
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| Apple Quietly Kills 99¢ TV Show Rentals Posted: 26 Aug 2011 02:46 PM PDT  Bad news for anyone who was looking to rent the latest episode of Top Gear from iTunes, as Apple has quickly and quietly removed their 99¢ television rental option today. The functionality has disappeared from both the Apple TV’s interface and the iTunes store proper, signalling a drastic shift in Apple’s pricing policy. Individual episodes of a series can still be bought as usual, and movie rentals still cost the same going rates, so not every iTunes customer will be weeping over the loss. AppleInsider has also found that support documents pertaining to iTunes episode rentals were similarly pulled, although cached versions can still be found for those who don’t mind a little digging. In a perfect world, this would be a not-so-subtle signal that Apple’s looking at different ways to handle television rentals. Apple’s big push into cross-device music and app sharing with iCloud could carry over, and rentals could reappear in a new form (and maybe a new price point) but with the ability to be pulled onto any iDevice for the same 48 hour period. Alas, it’s also completely within reason that factors like mounting studio strife forced Apple to axe the rental service. Major studios have scoffed at the low price tag for iTunes episode rentals, with players like NBC Universal’s Jeff Zucker stating that such renting episode for 99¢ “devalues” their content. Rentals, to be fair, weren’t terribly well-priced for people who have cable television, but here’s hoping they live on in a new shape.
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| Samsung Galaxy S II U.S. Variants Pose For The Camera Posted: 26 Aug 2011 02:19 PM PDT  We’ve heard quite a bit about the Galaxy S II, which isn’t all that surprising seeing that it sold 3 million units in its first 55 on the market. As people from other parts of the globe got to experience the wonder that is the GSII, we here in the States played the waiting game. But it’s so close I can almost taste the Gingerbread. On August 29, Samsung will finally unveil the GSII’s U.S. iterations in the Big Apple for T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T. If you haven’t already heard, Verizon is holding off on the GSII. In the lead up to the event, this image was leaked to PocketNow, which shows all three little beasts posing for the camera. They’re all a bit different in design, most notably T-Mobile’s Hercules. If what we’ve previously heard about the Hercules is true, T-Mobile’s Galaxy S II will sport a larger 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, as opposed to the original GSII’s 4.3-inch screen. Of course, T-Mobile’s variant may not be called the Hercules. We actually don’t know what any of the carrier names will be, although we sure have heard quite a few: the Attain (AT&T), the Within (Sprint), the Function (Verizon), and even the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch (also Sprint?). What a nasty mouthful, right? Either way, it doesn’t really matter what the phone’s called because it’ll be a hit no matter what. Just take a look at the specs: a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread, TouchWiz 4.0, 8-meagapixel rear camera (1080p video capture), 2-megapixel front-facing shooter, and a 4.3-inch 480×800 Super AMOLED Plus display. Of course, things like screen size may be different from one carrier to the next (read: Hercules), but all in all those should be the specs we’re looking at. There’s also one minor change in the U.S. variants compared to the international version, which would be the loss of that snazzy little home button. Instead, the phones will sport the same four buttons we’ve grown used to on Android.
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| Video: This Isn’t The iPhone 5… But I Kind Of Wish It Was Posted: 26 Aug 2011 02:15 PM PDT  When it comes to massive news, the past two weeks have been absolutely insane. Google buying Motorola? HTC To Buy Beats? Steve Jobs resigning as CEO of Apple?! What better way to cleanse the palette than a quick tromp into a conceptual rabbit hole? 3D animation shop AatmaStudio has released a concept video showing what they imagine as the iPhone of the future, and… well.. I’m ready to pre-order.
Now, just how much of this is actually feasible with current tech? None of it, really — but a good chunk of it is within the realm of plausibility if we consider said tech’s foreseeable evolution. The Design: That design looks far thinner than the 8mm barrier that no one has really managed to crack yet (unless we’re counting those which tuck the thick bits into one lumped region, taper the rest, and then base measurements on the thinnest part of the profile — which is kind of cheating.) With that said, the thickest bits of most modern smartphones tend to be the radios and the camera sensors, and these are getting slimmer and slimmer every few months. Just two weeks ago, for example, OmniVision announced an 8-megapixel camera module that comes in at a build height of just 4.4mm.. The Keyboard: Projection keyboards have been done before (IBM patented them in 1992!), but never quite like this. Though they never really seemed to take off, the few projection keyboards that do exist are generally dedicated Bluetooth/USB accessories, as opposed to being integrated into the handset itself. Even as rather clunky, separate components, the projection was one color, red laser-based stuff — nothing like the high-resolution, beautifully scaling board you see here. But these days, we’ve got itty-bitty pico projectors, and folks like Microsoft/PrimeSense dumping millions into IR-based motion tracking. Let those technologies continue to evolve, and we’re probably but a few years from something like the concept keyboard shown here. The Holographic Projector: As for projecting video into thin air, without any sort of screen to reflect the light… that’s something that’ll probably be stuck in concept videos and the Star Wars Universe until further notice. Damn you, physics! It’s probably for the better, really: while interacting with a floating screen seems futuristic and fun, the absence of any sort of tactility would be a rather miserable user experience. Apple’s iPhone was introduced at MacWorld in January 2007 and officially went on sale June 29, 2007, selling 146,000 units within the first weekend of launch. The phone has...
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| IBM Assembles Record 120-Petabyte Storage Array Posted: 26 Aug 2011 12:44 PM PDT  IBM Research has just set a world record in data storage by building a drive array capable of holding 120 petabytes. It was done at the request of an unnamed research group that needs this unprecedented amount of space for running simulations of some sort. These simulations have been expanding in size as the datasets grow, but also as more backups, snapshots, and redundancies are added. How did they do it? Well, the easy part was plugging in the 200,000 individual hard drives that make up the array. The racks are extra-dense with units, and need water cooling, but beyond that the hardware is fairly straightforward. The problems come when you start having to actually index this space. Some filesystems have trouble with single files above 4 GB or so, and some can’t handle single drives larger than around 3 TB. This is because they just weren’t designed to be able to track so many files over so large a space. Imagine if your job was to name everyone in the world a different name — it’s easy at first, but after a billion or so you start running out of permutations. It’s the same way with file systems, though modern ones are much more forward-looking in their design, and I doubt you’ll have that problem again — unless you’re IBM Research. 120 petabytes of storage is an insane amount, eight times larger than the 15 PB arrays already out there, and they already had to deal with address space issues. In IBM’s huge array, tracking the location and calling data for its files takes up fully 2 PB of its own space. You’d need a next-generation file index just to index the index! Their homegrown file system is called General Parallel File System, or GPFS. It’s designed with huge volumes and massive parallelism in mind: think RAID for thousands of drives. Files are striped across as many drives as they need to be, reducing or eliminating read and write capacity as a bottleneck for performance. And boy does it perform: IBM recently set another record, indexing 10 billion files in 43 minutes. The previous record? 1 billion files — in three hours. So yeah, it scales pretty well. The array, built by IBM’s Storage Systems team at Almaden, will be used by the nameless client as part of a simulation of “real-world phenomena.” That implies the natural sciences, but it could be anything from subatomic particles to planetary simulations. These projects are generally taken on as much to advance the field as to provide a service, though. And of course now IBM gets to boast that it built this thing, at least until an even bigger one comes along.
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| OnLive Adds Group Voice Chat, Parental Controls And Facebook Achievement Sharing Posted: 26 Aug 2011 11:45 AM PDT  Cloud gaming service OnLive has been getting better and better. We had a blast checking out the OnLive booth at E3 this year, and you better believe the service's usage will have gone up since GameStop inadvertently gave OnLive a ton of great publicity yesterday. But OnLive isn't resting on its laurels, as new features are rolling out today. The first on our list is Parental Controls, which is kind of a necessity on just about any gaming platform. Where there are games, there is gruesome, violent, and profane content. Definitely not suitable for small kids. Parents can now set certain restrictions on the account to block M-rated games, chatting with strangers, Brag Clips, or spectating. OnLive has also introduced a beta version of Group Voice Chat. Before today, OnLive already had a strong social element with its Game chat (for multiplayer sessions) and Spectator chat (for people watching others play). Group voice chat will let you chat with friends whether they're playing, watching or picking their nose. Even in beta, the Group chat feature should work fine on all of OnLive's supported devices. And rounding out our new feature line-up: yet another opportunity for you to brag on Facebook. OnLive has today integrated Facebook achievement sharing, which automatically posts any game achievement direct to Facebook. OnLive has already been doing this with Brag Clips, which are little videos of certain stellar moves or big-time wins you've done within a game. If it just so happens that your game has Brag Clip Achievement configured, the achievement will get blasted out to Facebook alongside a Brag Clip, so your friends have proof of your ability to dominate. OnLive says these newest features are the product of customer requests, and that they're far from the last. So if you're an OnLive junkie and have a great idea to make the platform better, ask and ye might receive. No harm in trying, right? Onlive develops server-based video game processing, allowing games to run without game consoles or high-end computers, moving away from a system in which games are purchased and downloaded....
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| Mystery 10-Inch Sleeve At T-Mobile Suggests New Tablet On The Way Posted: 26 Aug 2011 11:44 AM PDT  Well, what do we have here? Looks like T-Mobile has just snagged a new tablet accessory, but we’re not quite sure which tablet the accessory is supposed to go with. This 10-inch leather sleeve isn’t going to fit very well on either of T-Mobile’s current slate offerings: the 7-inch Dell Streak 7 or the 8.9-inch T-Mobile G-Slate. Unfortunately, the sleeve itself doesn’t have any specific tablet in mind. It’s a universal leather sleeve “for most 10-inch tablets,” according to the image leaked by TmoNews. This could mean one of two things. The first is that T-Mobile decided to sell a 10-inch tablet sleeve for the fun of it. People often get their tablet/phone accessories at their local carrier outlet, whether they bought said device there or not. And there are plenty of 10-inch tablets on the market that are in need of a snug little sleeve. This option is totally plausible, but not what we’re hoping for. The second option is that T-Mobile is working on getting itself a 10-inch tablet. Which 10-inch tablet? Your guess is as good as mine. A few rumors suggest that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 may be headed in pink’s direction, which would be pretty huge since it’s widely regarded as one of the stronger tablet offerings on the market. Right now, T-Mobile’s tablet selection is a bit limited compared to other big carriers like Verizon and AT&T, so we’ll definitely be keeping our fingers crossed that the latter is in fact the reason for this slightly random 10-inch tablet sleeve. T-Mobile is a mobile telephone operator headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile has 101 million subscribers making it the worlds sixth largest mobile...
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| Kickstarter: Kammok, A Hammock For Outdoorsmen and City Folk Alike Posted: 26 Aug 2011 11:32 AM PDT  The perception of geeks used to be that we lived in darkened houses constantly hunched over computers, never seeing the light of day. To be honest, that was me for a bit in my younger years, but these days I’ve come to appreciate the outdoors a bit more. Still, my love for fresh air is only matched by my love of lazing about, and the Kammok sounds like a perfect fit for my ideal lifestyle. The Kammok is a lightweight portable hammock whose main claim to fame is its LunarWave fabric. It’s a breathable, tear-resistant nylon fabric that allows cool air in during the dog days of summer while keeping heat in when it gets nippier out. The whole shebang stows in a lightweight, water-resistant bag, and only weighs about one pound. While it has some pretty obvious uses for all you outdoorsmen out there, Team Kammok insists that their product is just as capable for city folk and college students as it is in a forest clearing. Users just loop the Kammok’s “python straps” around two of whatever nearby supports will hold your body weight, snap the specially made carabiners into place, and voila, you’re sitting pretty in just a few minutes. At $85, the Kammok is a bit steep for what it is, but with over 1,400 backers the demand certainly seems to be sufficient. Team Kammok has also pledged that once they’re fully operational, 20% of all future profits will go toward humanitarian aid efforts. The Kickstarter project reached its funding goal in a scant two days, and has already begun the production process, so here’s hoping the final product lives up to the team’s claims.
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| Razer’s “Blade” Gaming Notebook Takes No Prisoners (Except For Your Wallet) Posted: 26 Aug 2011 10:01 AM PDT  Perhaps best known for their myriad gaming peripherals with dramatic names, Razer has just made a huge move into the PC hardware space. Announced today at PAX Prime, Razer’s new Blade gaming notebook packs a whole lot of gaming horsepower into an aluminum body that’s less than an inch thick. As one would imagine from a company so heavily focused on improving the gaming experience, the Blade doesn’t skimp on components. A 2.8 Ghz Intel Core i7 processor powers the whole thing, with 8GB of RAM, a 2 GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M video card, and a 17-inch LED-backlit display to round out the package. Seasoned PC gamers may scoff — they’ve seen their fair share of gaming laptops, after all — but the addition of Razer’s Switchblade gaming UI take the Blade above and beyond the realm of the ordinary gaming machine. First seen in an ambitious concept video last January, Switchblade now resides in the space to the right of the Blade’s keyboard. A set of 10 “dynamic adaptive tactile keys” provide quick access to in-game commands that change depending on what you’re playing. Below that is a two-function LCD that displays pertinent game info when a mouse is being used, and becomes a multi-touch trackpad when one isn’t. Razer is touting the Blade as the world’s first “true” gaming laptop, and while I don’t particularly buy that distinction, it’s a machine that certainly doesn’t make any compromises. The hardware and design are absolutely on point, and with a price tag of $2,800, it’s the kind of machine that most gamers will only be able to dream of.
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| Apple Hires iPhone Hacker Nicholas Allegra (@Comex) Posted: 26 Aug 2011 08:59 AM PDT  Apple has just hired yet another member of the iPhone jailbreaking community, Nicholas Allegra, also known as “@comex” on Twitter. Allegra is best known for the JailBreakMe website which made the process of jailbreaking the iPhone as simple as visiting a webpage using mobile Safari. The 19-year old hacker from Chappaqua, New York, posted the news of his hire on Twitter, stating that he will be starting an internship with Apple week after next. Allegra was one of the most visible members of the jailbreaking community, regularly finding security vulnerabilities in Apple’s iOS software, which made it possible to hack iPhones, iPod Touches and even iPads. Typically, these holes were exploited through the use of specialized jailbreaking software applications which required the phone or other device to be connected to the computer via a USB cable. But JailBreakMe was far easier to use – visitors just launched the website from their mobile device. The site featured a familiar-looking “slide to jailbreak” bar at the bottom of the page. One simple gesture, and the device was hacked. It made jailbreaking accessible to anyone, even non-technical users. Traditionally, Apple discouraged jailbreaking, as it allows for the installation of third-party applications outside the official iTunes App Store. The concern is that once a phone or other device is jailbroken, it’s easier to illegally pirate applications which would otherwise be sold in the App Store, earning revenue for developers and Apple alike. However, not all jailbreakers are interested in stealing apps – sometimes, like their Android-rooting counterparts, they just want control over their handset. On jailbroken iOS devices, users can make tweaks to the software and install widgets, themes and other unapproved applications by way of third-party “jailbreak” app stores like Cydia, Icy and ThemeIt. In recent months, Apple has begun to take notice of the now-burgeoning jailbreak community, estimated to include 10% of all iPhones. For example, Apple hired Peter Hajas in June, the creator of a popular jailbreak app known as Mobile Notifier, which bears a striking resemblance to the new notification system in iOS5. The move prompted discussion as to whether Apple was reconsidering its position in regards to jailbreaking – maybe it’s now being thought of as a farm league for discovering new talent? Jailbreaking is going even more mainstream this year, thanks to its first-ever hacker convention called MyGreatFest. According to event organizers, Allegra was planning on attending the conference, but whether he still will is now unclear. Says MyGreatFest organizer Craig Fox, “I think it’s a great move for Allegra, but it’s sad for the jailbreaking community to lose such a bright and young hacker.” Image credit: Forbes, which outed @comex earlier this month
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| 24/7 3D Network 3net Brings Kid-Friendly Content To The Third Dimension Posted: 26 Aug 2011 07:52 AM PDT  If you own a 3D TV, you should already know about 3net. It's a joint venture network from Sony, Discovery and IMAX that displays 3D content all day, every day, which is pretty awesome considering the amount of 3D content out there is severely lacking. It first launched with quite a variety of nature-style shows and documentaries, perfect for the 3D space, but today a more kid-friendly offering has been announced. Starting September 25 at 8pm, 3net will premiere its two new kid-oriented 3D programs, starting with the 3D animated series, Bolts & Blip, followed by Dream Defenders. Then on October 1, in usual Saturday morning fashion, the 3net Three Dee Kids weekend lineup will premiere with 30 hours of family-friendly 3D content. Programming includes the original series Feeding Time, along with Puppy Bowl (a 3net exclusive), and a number of Sony Pictures 3D family films. 3net promises more titles in the coming months, but for now, brace yourselves for Bolts & Blip and Dream Defenders. Bolts & Blip stars two best friends, who just so happen to be robots. They try their best to become battle bots to fight in the Lunar League of Robotic Sports (which so far is really exciting), until they realize that they may have bitten off more than they can chew. The series is made up of 26 half-hour episodes. Dream Defenders, starring twins Zane and Zoey, is a story of a brother and sister who are the last line of defense to guard the real world from the scary creatures of the Dreamworld. Sounds like the same story that's in every kid's imagination, so in 3D it should go over quite well. Oh, and there's also a supercomputer named Zeus. And who doesn't love supercomputers? After the premieres of Dream Defenders and Bolts & Blip on September 25, kids will have to wait until the next weekend on October 1 to get their Saturday morning cartoons on. Except these kids are from the future, and their cartoons are in 3D. Pretty snazzy, indeed. Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video game consoles, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets.
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| Apple Patent Describes Solar-Powered iPhone, Notebook Charger Posted: 26 Aug 2011 07:46 AM PDT  Among the 16 new patents granted to Apple this week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, was this fairly interesting one describing a solar-powered charging system for electronic devices. The patent details a system that includes a voltage converter and controller that would work alongside a solar power source. The voltage converter would be attached to a solar power source by way of an input cable. It would also be attached to an “electronic load” via an output cable. That “electronic load” could be a “portable electronic device,” says the filing – which basically means almost anything Apple makes, from iPhones to MacBooks. The voltage converter is configured to monitor an amount of power drawn by the device at its output, while the controller is configured to control the voltage converter in order to reduce the amount of power drawn subsequently, if it goes over a certain predetermined threshold. In other words, it’s a key part to a solar power charging system for electronics. Apple has previously filed patents for an auxiliary solar cell, that would work as a backup power source for mobile devices, as well as a method for covering a device in solar cells. However, it’s not likely that we’ll see solar-powered gadgets from Apple (or anyone, for that matter), until the costs associated with their production are reduced. Image credits: Patently Apple; Tmcnet.com Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer,...
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| Hands-On With The 2011 Cadence Watch Line Posted: 26 Aug 2011 07:40 AM PDT  We’ve been talking about Cadence for a while now and I got the chance to sit down with Vanya Buvac, founder of the company watches and creator of some nice, inexpensive timepieces (including the dirty, dirty 4:20 watch). The company started when the founder wanted to build a “cadence” sensing watch for rowing. Based near Philadelphia’s Boathouse Row, the first Cadence watch (the heavy quartz LCD model near the top of the picture above) had a built-in weight that sensed your strokes per minute. Their latest model, the Josh Chadwick, has a quartz LCD face and is clad in brushed metal and will come with either a black or silver bezel. My favorite is the relatively inexpensive Ecomatic, an automatic watch sold for under $195. Vanya is a big fan of geeks (as evidenced by his 4-Bit model) and, apparently, heshers. Generally it’s hard to find an American watch brand with such a dedicated CEO and, or important, fan base.
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