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Are regular speakers too opaque? Check out the Clio
Does your speaker look a bit too, you know, speakery? ClearView's got an interesting solution in the form of the Clio, a new product unveiled today that it's deemed "the first invisible speaker." That title's a bit of a stretch, as you might have guessed. For starters, there's the clearly visible base, which houses the electronics, controls and inputs. The phrase refers to the transparent, curved glass at top, which resonates to produce sound waves and certainly makes the system less conspicuous than most speakers out there. So, aside from looking different, what benefits does such a technology provide? For starters, the sound waves disperse in 360 degrees, so if you put the speaker in the middle of a room, you'll be able to hear clear sound on either side. Convinced? You can pick one up right now through the company's site for $350.
Whirlpool's expansive centralpark system gets new upgrades
At this point it's fairly safe to say the whole concept of technology-integrated refrigerators hasn't really caught on, but certainly not because people aren't willing to drop coin on a nice new cooler. Really, it's got more to do with the fact that you simply can't upgrade anything once you've dropped that first chunk of change. Unfortunately for GE, since it was introduced last year, Whirlpool's centralpark hasn't been much more effective at tackling that problem, despite offering up a common -- but not ubiquitous or open -- interface for fridge devices. But there is that single, revealingly-named Whirlpool GD5VVAXT to connect this year's centralpark devices to, including: Ceiva digital photo frame - 8-inch display, media reader, $250, looks a bit familiar. Brandmotion iPod dock - Guess what it does! Price not yet announced. Clio Vu - Dock and display mount for your Clio NXT, running Oh yeah, you don't have a Clio NXT, because pretty much no one does. Quartet Qnote Message Center - Simple, boring glass note taker with dry-erase markers. %Gallery-12644%
HTC's CLIO200 mystery device shows up at the FCC
Oh HTC, you cads. What did we find while carefully sifting through mountains of seemingly useless and definitely boring FCC data? Well, for starters, we unearthed reports on the HTC-made CLIO200, a heretofore unknown device that appears to be making its way through the approval process. Using our Miss Cleo-like "sixth sense," we've discovered that the unit will sport CDMA, EV-DO, 802.11b/g, and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity. The FCC is referring to this little guy as a UMPC (and it does have the telltale air vents of a such a device), though it also seems like it could be a mobile phone of the TyTn variety (at least from the looks of the diagrams depicting it being held to a user's ear). Despite this minor confusion, we can promise you that at the very least it is certainly not a Sony Clie, nor an Clio NXT. Want to get "all" the "details?" Direct your browser towards the FCC site and immerse yourself in a world of impenetrable digits and charts.Update: As some of our astute readers have pointed out, this appears to be nothing more than the HTC Shift, no stranger to the pages of Engadget. We have no idea why the company has decided to start calling the device the Clio, but at least now that this mystery has been solved, we can all get some much needed rest.
Sony PlayStation ad garners Hall of Fame honor
Despite all the recent bad press and uncertainty about their future, Sony has a reason to celebrate. Their PlayStation advertisement "Double Life," was selected as an inductee into the Clio Awards Hall of Fame during the Clio Festival, earlier this week in Miami. A Clio is like an ad agency's equivalent to a television Emmy. The "Double Life" ad first aired in the UK in 1999, and apparently was developed in response to a popular series of Apple advertisements at that time. It was directed by Gorgeous Productions in collaboration with ad agency TBWA\London. The Clio Hall of Fame Award is quite an honor to bestow those in the advertising industry. Since its inception in 1960, only 300 advertisements from around the world have been commended with such an honor. As long as Sony can avoid disasters like the God of War fiasco, we'll see what additional achievements a successful marketing team can do to further the PlayStation brand name and ensure success for the PS3 console.[Via Joystiq]
Classic PlayStation ad gets hall of fame award
Remember when PlayStation ads were fun and intriguing rather than creepy and depressing? The people behind the international Clio advertising awards do. At this year's Clio festival, the jury recognized the 1999 European PlayStation ad "Double Life" with a Hall of Fame award.As Clio Television/Cinema jury chairman Mark Tutssel so aptly put it in an interview with Adoi Magazine, the ad "romanticized video gaming and deftly captured the essence of it – the personality transformation and the fantasy of gaming worlds. It got to the heart of what gaming is all about." This is in stark contrast to today's PlayStation ads, which get to the heart of turning eggs into crows. Then again, things always look better through the rose-colored lens of nostalgia. Maybe we'll be seeing awards for for exploding Rubik's Cubes eight years from now.[Update: Changed text to reflect that the adwas for the original PlayStation, not the PS2.]
Another Brit puts complete faith in GPS system, nearly perishes
Alright Britain, we've given you quite enough passes on this whole "blind faith in GPS" thing, but now we're going to need an explanation. In yet another case of a British individual nearly losing their life thanks to a complete and utter lack of common sense, a 20-year old Birmingham University student was following a GPS' directions to Carmarthenshire for the first time, only to have her vehicle destroyed by a speeding train while she watched. Oddly enough, the dame followed the route onto an "unmarked" (saywah?) railroad crossing, but rather than actually contemplating the situation, she proceeded to lift the nearest gate, drive her vehicle squarely onto the tracks, and then went to lift the far gate in order to cross what she reportedly thought was "a normal farmers' gate." In the meantime, a train made its way in her direction, and while she admitted that she considered getting back into the vehicle in an attempt to move it, thankfully she didn't follow through on any more unbelievably bad decisions. Needless to say, the car was trashed along with the GPS, but perhaps the most comical part is the fact that the lady has vowed to never use a navigation system again in protest for it nearly killing her -- we'd suggest staying off the roads altogether.[Via El Reg]
Clio NXT unleashed on Duke University... kind of
It's been almost a year since the Clio NXT was supposed to ship -- so long ago in fact, that we sense the dull fog of disinterest descending upon you. See, the Clio NXT was (is?) the successor to the cult 1998-released WinCE laptop/tablet which is said to feature Windows CE.NET 5.0 (yes, CE), a 10.4-inch, 800 x 600 touchscreen LCD with 180-degree pivot, WiFi, 64MB SDRAM and 64MB Flash memory, a near full-size QWERTY keyboard, and a smattering of connectivity and expansion options including SD card slots, PCMCIA, USB, a headphone jack, mic, and video out. Well, out of the blue this morning we received a press release stating that Duke University's Fuqua School of Business will serve as "beta site" for the NXT and Data Evolution's other CE computing device, the Cathena ultra-light laptop. That's it -- no price (although we last heard $999 for the NXT), no expected start date for this beta program, let alone a revised ship date... nothin'. In a market now flooded with reasonably priced tablets, UMPCs, and dirt cheap laptops, we're feeling, well, a bit jaded ourselves.
