AvantGarde
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The mother of all tech demos becomes an avant garde opera
1968 is when it all changed. On December 9 that year, Douglas Engelbart, a computer scientist at Stanford Research Center, made a 90-minute video presentation that revolutionized the world of computers. He didn't show up on stage at the Computer Conference in San Francisco, instead, he teleconferenced from his research lab 30 miles away -- an unprecedented feat at the time. Now almost half a century later, "the mother of all demos" is being resurrected as an avant garde opera called The Demo. Composers Mikel Rouse and Ben Neill re-imagine Engelbart's demo and the defining moments in his life that led up to it through a hybrid theater performance.
Gresso Skeleton Gold Phone is oddly beautiful, very transparent
OK, OK, perhaps beautiful is stretching it a tad, but Gresso's Skeleton Gold Phone is definitely interesting, most notably the "polished 42k sapphire glass" see-thru back. While, essentially a twin to the Gresso Sol, it eschews wood for titanium, ceramic, 18K Gold, steel, leather, and baby seal eyelash shavings. Under the hood it 's a fairly vanilla tri-band GSM / GPRS (really, only GPRS) Windows Mobile 6 handset with 64MB of memory, 2GB of external storage, and Bluetooth. If you're in the mood to cha-ching your way into Gresso's world, you'd better act fast as this limited run only reaches 50 devices at a price of about $4400 each. A few more pics can be found right after the break.
Gresso unveils Avantgarde collection, pricing
Gresso's Avantgarde collection finally sees a release date, pricing, and some sketchy product info. Starting at only €5, 000 for the Luna (roughly $6, 900 dollars) or €7, 000 for the Sol (about $9, 700) your money'll get you a pretty slick looking handset crafted from African Blackwood, steel, and lots of gold. Both handsets run Windows Mobile ( the site is decidedly thin on specs) pack a 2 megapixel camera, and a 320 x 240 screen. Pretty simple stuff considering the money you have to fork out to pick one up and sadly without some diamond encrustation going on, we'll have to pass. Look for these to land in the 4th quarter this year.[Via SlashPhone]
Nearly $6 million in Vertu phones stolen from van
Stealing £3 million ($5.94 million) worth of mobile phones sure sounds like a risky way to may a buck, but if you're going to jack mobile handsets, you might as well swipe the ones that depreciate the least, eh? A crew of four men in Europe apparently agreed with that mantra, as they got up the nerve to run a Vertu van off the road with their Subaru and reportedly swiped a fair amount of handsets before darting off. There was no word on just how many phones were actually stolen, but we're sure the boys in blue found a fully stocked trunk after it located the crashed vehicle in Slough, Banks. Two of the four masked bandits were later captured and arrested for their part in the heist, but the other duo is probably trying to figure out how in the world they would unload hordes of these highly sought after mobiles without garnering suspicion in the first place.[Via BGR]
