CrunchGear |  |
- Daily Crunch: True Shred
- OnLive Adds “Cloud-Accelerated Browsing” To Its Streaming-Desktop Stable
- Hack Makes Nook Touch E-Ink Display Almost As Responsive As LCD
- Tabber Adds An LED Light Show To Any Guitar
- The Tesla Bricking Story? It’s Nonsense
- Asus To Transformer Owners: “Here Is Your Unlocked Bootloader. Happy Now?”
- Here’s The Epic Borderlands 2 Launch Trailer
- UltraViolet Hits 800k Digital Media Locker Accounts, Added 50k In The Last Six Weeks
- With Facebook, Netflix And More, The PS Vita Is *Nearly* A Tablet Alternative
| Posted: 23 Feb 2012 01:00 AM PST  Here are some recent posts from TechCrunch Gadgets: The Tesla Bricking Story? It's Nonsense Here's The Epic Borderlands 2 Launch Trailer UltraViolet Hits 800k Digital Media Locker Accounts, Added 50k In The Last Six Weeks Asus To Transformer Owners: "Here Is Your Unlocked Bootloader. Happy Now?"
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| OnLive Adds “Cloud-Accelerated Browsing” To Its Streaming-Desktop Stable Posted: 22 Feb 2012 05:42 PM PST  You’re probably familiar with OnLive, the company that made its mark by streaming brand new console and PC games to whatever devices could support a high-bandwidth video stream. Many doubted its technology to begin with (including yours truly – Is OnLive OnCrack?) but they’ve more or less delivered on their promises, and have also been expanding the services they offer. Most recently they introduced OnLive Desktop, which streamed a Windows 7 desktop to your iPad. That was mainly focused on productivity – Office apps and such. Now they’ve added web browsing to the table. Yes, they will stream live video of a web browser running in a datacenter to your device, which almost certainly already has a web browser. If that sounds crazy, it’s probably because it kind of is. But maybe it’s crazy like a fox. Their accelerated browser is a full-on desktop browser running on a gigabit connection. It can load files and display them to you in the video stream faster than you can load them on your own device. And of course it has Flash. It’s certainly more capable than, say, Safari on iPad, but is it really better? The problem is that the average consumption experience doesn’t really benefit from being streamed. Flash is rarely critical to use from a tablet (though it can be nice), and big attachments are often virtualized already – big PDFs and video files can be viewed or streamed online without a tedious download process. The few cases where a window into a high-speed but generic browser is better than the built-in one are probably overshadowed by the inevitable downsides of interacting with a virtual, video desktop: lag and occasional poor image quality. You’ll have to shell out to give it a try; the iOS app is free and you can access productivity tools (if they have the spare bandwidth for you), but for the browser and desktop you’ll need to drop $5 per month. Soon you’ll also be able to pay $10 per month for extra space and custom desktop apps. It’s the beginning of something cool, but at the moment it seems a hard sell.
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| Hack Makes Nook Touch E-Ink Display Almost As Responsive As LCD Posted: 22 Feb 2012 02:30 PM PST  As you probably know, bistable or passive displays like the E-Ink ones in e-readers focus on battery life and readability rather than color and interactivity. The latest devices have been optimized for fast page refreshes and touch operation, but generally you’re still waiting a half a second or so for the screen to flip over to the next page, menu, or what have you. But that’s not all they’re capable of. We’ve seen hacks before, but this one definitely takes the cake. Check out this video of a Nook Touch from XDA hacker marspeople: Bear in mind this is strictly a hack and not a full-on release or commercially developed product. Most people wouldn’t want to use the device in this state: it’s not consistent in how fast it responds, there are graphical glitches, and it probably drains the battery like crazy. But the fact is they’ve got a passive display refreshing ~15-20 times per second and responding to touches instantly like a normal tablet. The possibilities for this generation of readers are limited: few people are going to install a hack like this, and even if they did, not much content is really designed to be consumed this way. Pages are a natural way to read books, and scrolling constantly is kind of a pain. But it’s amazing to see these displays, usually so slow and static, being used so actively. Here’s hoping the next displays from E-Ink (or Bridgestone, or whoever) are capable of even more. Despite what people might say, the passive display still has a lot of potential to grow and evolve. [via The Digital Reader]
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| Tabber Adds An LED Light Show To Any Guitar Posted: 22 Feb 2012 12:54 PM PST  Tabber is an upcoming Kickstarter project that essentially adds an LED light show to your guitar and, more importantly, allows you to learn to play chords and solos by following the lights on the fretboard. The idea is definitely not new. The Fretlight guitar beat these guys to the punch and I wonder what patent issues they will have to deal with. However, as an idea, it’s pretty ingenious. The Tabber is a “sleeve” that fits over the neck of your guitar and it should work, as the folks at Tabber reiterate, on any git-fiddle in your possession. The project uses an open source Arduino board and open source software to drive the lights and/or create an active light show for guitarists who don’t need TAB help and are instead interested in looking like Peter Frampton in the year 2020. The project is launching soon on Kickstarter and should be an interesting addition to the gigger’s bag of tricks.
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| The Tesla Bricking Story? It’s Nonsense Posted: 22 Feb 2012 12:46 PM PST  Here’s a fun fact: Batteries and cars require maintenance. The Tesla Roadster runs on batteries that require lots of maintenance. Out of the 2,200 Roadster owners, apparently at least five didn’t read the manual on their new toy and let the car sit off the charger for several months – or so says one regional service manager. This is a no-no according to Tesla. The result? The battery packs completely died and needed to be replaced at the owner’s expense. This is not unique to the $100k Tesla Roadster. Batteries stop working without a charge. It just so happens that the battery pack in question isn’t a $100 laptop battery. The latest owner with a bricked Tesla is reportedly going to have to pay $40,000 to replace the battery pack in his Roadster. Tesla notes in a released statement today that the Roadster can sit for weeks or months without a problem — if the car is originally fully charged. Problems arise if, say, if an owner took a Roadster for a drive, depleted the battery and then parked it in his seaside bungalow while he went yachting. Car and bike enthusiasts will attest that batteries die when not maintained. Trickle chargers are often employed to prevent batteries from dying while vehicles are in storage. Nissan advises Leaf owners to plug in the vehicle within 14 days of depleting the battery. Tesla says to do it immediately with the likely cause being the Roadster has several low-level systems that run even when the car is not in use. The Tesla differs from traditional vehicles in that it does not have a combustion engine but rather an electric motor. There is a lot less to worry about. Electric motors have fewer fault points and a lot less fluid circulating inside. Tesla does recommend replacing Roadsters’ transmission fluid every 30k miles or once a year. But that’s about it. Well, besides maintaining the battery. The Tesla Roadster is an intelligent vehicle. It warns the owner when the battery is low. The latest version of the Roadster can even alert Tesla itself if the battery level is too low. But apparently these owners decided to ignore those warnings and park their expensive electric cars for extended periods of time. Tesla Motors released a statement today in response to TheUnderstatement’s scaremongering story.
This fully-drained situation is also possible with the upcoming Model S sedan and Model X CUV. They use a similar lithium-ion battery pack. Tesla will no doubt seek to increase awareness of this potential issue, though. The Roadster is a first generation electric vehicle. Since its introduction in 2008 it has enjoyed a life free from many public controversies. This battery nonsense will blow over and the Roadster can get back to causing real drama by embarrassing Porsche 911s everywhere.
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| Asus To Transformer Owners: “Here Is Your Unlocked Bootloader. Happy Now?” Posted: 22 Feb 2012 09:51 AM PST  The Asus Transformer Prime was the great, grey hope for many Android lovers – until they realized that the bootloader was locked it was impossible to upgrade or install a new bit of firmware onto the device. Asus has finally relented, allowing folks to download an unlocked bootloader and install it over the “official” Asus bootloader. The best part? 2. Before you download, install, and use the Unlock Device App you acknowledge and assume complete risk to the quality and performance of this App, including but not limited to the following: once you activate the App you will not be able to recover your ASUS product ("Original Product") back to original locked conditions;the Original Product with the activated App will not be deemed the Original Product; the Revised Product will no longer be covered under the warranty of the Original Product; the software of Revised Product will no longer be deemed the software of the Original Product and can no longer receive ASUS software updates; your purchased digital content may also be affected. … It is strongly advised that you avoid activating this App unless you fully understand and accept the risks that may arise. Blam. Want your device to work as advertised? Go for it, cowboy, but don’t expect Asus to hold your hand and consider this thing junk, babies, because no warranty will cover it.
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| Here’s The Epic Borderlands 2 Launch Trailer Posted: 22 Feb 2012 08:36 AM PST  Back during the heyday of CrunchGear (now known as TechCrunch/Gadgets), we couldn’t get enough of Borderlands. The game masterfully combined the game play of a FPS with the best elements of an RPG. In a scene full of Call of Duty clones Borderlands is completely novel. Gearbox just released the launch trailer for the second installment and it promises more of the same big gun, big monster madness. The game launches on September 18th. Hey Erick, I’m going to be sick that day, m’kay?
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| UltraViolet Hits 800k Digital Media Locker Accounts, Added 50k In The Last Six Weeks Posted: 22 Feb 2012 08:01 AM PST  UltraViolet might sound too good to be true, but the service is growing. More Blu-ray titles are featuring the digital media option and consumers are at least trying the movie industry’s alternative to, well, piracy. iSupply just announced that there are now more than 800,000 household accounts, up from 750,000 at the beginning of 2012. But so far it seems most of those accounts are just testing the waters, as iSupply notes that the average account has 1.25 titles. That results in over 1 million digital films for UltraViolet but also paints a picture that consumers aren’t too sure about the service. "One million may not sound like much compared to the 504 million movie discs sold in 2011," noted Tom Adams, principal analyst and director, U.S. media, for IHS stated in today’s announcement. "However, we have projected that only 19 million digital film files were sold during the entire year of 2011 by electronic sell-through (EST) vendors like iTunes, Xbox Live and Vudu. This suggests that if UV can continue to gain momentum this year, it could encourage consumers to buy more movies. Movie purchasing represents an important priority for movie studios, which have seen their film sales dwindle in the face of growing physical and digital rentals and streaming services like Netflix." UltraViolet is the movie industry’s first major push into digital media. Rather than relying on a 3rd party like Netflix, UltraViolet is run by the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a consortium of major Hollywood studios, CE makers, retailers and DRM vendors. These companies came together in 2008 and proposed the digital locker service now called UltraViolet that lets consumers store and share digital media. Originally these movie titles were only to be bundled with physical media but Paramount started selling UltraViolet titles seperatly late last month. With UltraViolet, consumers can watch media on up to 12 devices and share between six members of the household. Content can either be downloaded or streamed from the cloud. So far the UltraViolet selection is still very limited. Paramount has about 60 titles from their online store. UVVU.com keeps a running list of new UltraViolet releases. But in order for people to ditch Netflix (and illegal downloads) UltraViolet needs to have content. Once again, content is king. Now that UltraViolet has a growing user base, the next milestone should involve seeing the average amount of titles in the digital lockers increase. Sign-ups are easy (and free), retention is hard. We interviewed DECE’s president Mitch Singer at CES where he explained UltraViolet in detail. Watch the interview below.
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| With Facebook, Netflix And More, The PS Vita Is *Nearly* A Tablet Alternative Posted: 22 Feb 2012 07:27 AM PST  I’ve enjoyed the PS Vita for a couple of weeks now. It’s a fun device, but as John describes in our review, it feels like the last of its kind. Single function devices are no longer relevant and as much as Sony tried, the Vita is still pretty much a dedicated gaming handheld. The company launched an app store for the Vita today, which folds Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, and Flickr apps into the Vita’s ecosystem. With these apps, along with the powerful hardware and 3G connectivity, the $249 Vita could be a good alternative to a traditional tablet. The only thing it’s missing is a proper web browser. The apps work as expected. The Netflix app uses the same interface as the company’s Android and iOS apps. The app does not support streaming via a 3G network, though. Flickr is downright gorgeous on the Vita. The interface takes full advantage of the Vita’s widescreen OLED screen displaying the image on the left with the details on the right. This app works on 3G. For some reason Facebook is only available to European Vitas. U.S. owners will need to wait a bit longer. These apps finally make the Vita slightly more than just a gaming device. They’re key to the Vita’s success, really. Today’s consumers expect a multifunction device, which, as I can attest, the Vita was not until these apps hit. In fact I was getting a tad bored with the Vita, tending to instead to pick up my iPad for a few minutes of gaming followed by some Facebooking. You see, my gaming attention span is not what it used to be. There was a time when I played Link’s Awakening by flashlight under my bed sheets for hours. Not anymore. I can only handle a few minutes at a time before I get bored and need to move onto something else. I know I cannot be alone. The $249 Vita (or $300 for the 3G version) was a hard sell for me. But now that there are apps, it could potentially fulfill the need of a similar person who wants a gaming device but can’t give up the features of a modern tablet. The Vita already had a Google Maps app, text and voice messaging, and a photo app. If only the Vita had a quality web browser it would be nearly perfect for this demographic. The Vita’s web browser still needs work. It renders web sites like IE 6 (read: poorly). It doesn’t support even Flash 9 and scrolling is painful because of how slow it renders. But it works in a pinch. The Vita is a powerful little thing. It rocks a custom ARM Cortex A9 quad-core CPU, 512MB of RAM, and packs the same amount of connectivity options as an iPad. The 5-inch screen is an OLED capacitive touchscreen and then there’s a massive rear capacitive touchpad for additional controls. There’s dual analog sticks, a directional pad and traditional PlayStation controls. The Vita really is the most impressive gaming device ever made. But even with good launch titles in my opinion it was still missing something: apps. The Vita is launching in a tough market. No other gaming device including Nintendo’s 3DS had to deal with so many competitors. The Vita must combat smartphones, tablets, the 3DS and in the coming weeks, the iPad 3, which will no doubt launch with the force of a mighty backdraft. But Sony seems to know this. The Vita’s hardware and accessories are pricey, hinting that Sony isn’t selling them at a loss. Sony probably knows the Vita won’t outsell the iPad. It doesn’t have to in order to be considered a success. As long as the Vita gets quality games, apps and new features at a steady rate, Sony will continue to make gamers happy. And that’s what it’s all about.
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 2/23/2012 05:22:00 AM
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