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Eyes-on with Sony's 0.3mm OLED
It's a 0.3-millimeter thick OLED TV from Sony. We get (sorta) up close and personal. Need we say more? Head on over to Classic to take a peek!
Sony unveils 0.3mm thick OLED display
At D6 today Howard Stringer showed off a brand new "thinner than a credit card" 0.3mm thick OLED panel that Sony is working on. They're planning on a 27-inch version of the screen in the short term for the ultra-rich, but the obvious hope is to fight LCD for dominance in the home in the coming years. This could very well be that 11-inch 960 x 540 display we saw last month, but specs are slim at the moment. More shots after the break.[Image courtesy of All Things Digital]
Sony's Howard Stringer to show off new OLED TVs at D
The D conference is in full swing, and the next heavy hitter on deck is Sony CEO Howard Stringer, who's rumored to have a new Sony OLED display for Unkie Walt to play with. We're assuming it'll be a little bit bigger than the XEL-1, but Silicon Alley Insider says it'll come in at just .3mm thick, which is only slightly beefier than a playing card. We're guessing it'll be more like the XEL-1's 3mm, but we'll see what Howie has in store for us -- we wouldn't be opposed to hearing some more about those "slim PS3" rumors, ourselves.
Mossberg hints at Flash update for iPhone
We know, we've all been clamoring for Flash support on the iPhone since before the thing even launched, and while we've seen subtle hints here and there suggesting that it would indeed come to fruition, now we've got someone to blame if our hopes are deflated. In a recent Q&A session, Walt Mossberg himself addressed the issue, and didn't make any bones about sharing Apple's future plans. Speaking directly about Adobe's Flash technology, Walt stated that "Apple says it plans to add that plug-in through an early software update," which he surmises "will occur within the next couple of months." Sadly, there was no elaboration beyond the aforementioned bit, but he certainly sounds confident about the iPhone eventually playing nice with Flash, no?[Via MacRumors]
Siliconera drives Mr. D out of town
We aren't even sure anyone was looking forward to this one, but we kinda were, a little. The Japanese puzzle-action game Go! Go! Minon is about a superhero who can materialize trails of dominoes. His super power is also his Achilles' heel, since his movement is limited to those trails. Mastiff is rumored to be planning a US release for this as Mr. D Goes to Town. Any time a Japanese game is colorful and quirky, the word Katamari comes out and our ears perk up. In fact, Siliconera mentioned both Katamari Damacy and Gitaroo Man in the first sentence of this article, ensuring that we would read it. Gitaroo Man is a certain blogger's favorite game, and Katamari is pretty close, despite neither of these actually being on Nintendo consoles.Unfortunately, the palette and the wackiness are apparently the only similarities between this and Katamari. Siliconera cites excessively limited domino-dropping gameplay, movement that is also hampered by the domino mechanic, and checkpoints that drop Minon in seemingly random, nonsensical locations as game-breaking issues. It's really too bad the game isn't great, because dude, look at that boxart.
Poll: Jobs and Gates sit down in an alternate reality
Wednesday night's Jobs and Gates intimate sit-down wasn't just civil, it was downright reverent -- at times even tearful. But we all imagined alternate realities and an overflow of events that might have transpired in another universe... now vote.P.S. -Feel free to leave your own in comments. %Poll-1171%
Stephen Colbert makes play for iPhone at D5
For most of us, having Steve Jobs' direct attention is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (well, actually, it's a never-in-a-lifetime event for the overwhelming majority of the populace, but stay with us here). Stephen Colbert got his this week, introducing Viacom CEO Phillipe Dauman via video clip at D5. Jobs was, of course, a big player at D, and Colbert did his best to take advantage by suggesting that a gratis iPhone in his pocket -- followed by a mention on his show -- might be just the trick to spurring sales (notice that he's ogling an imaginary iPhone in this screen grab). We suspect the effort was for naught; iPhones are as scarce now as they've ever been, never mind the fact that the media has generated pretty much all the buzz Apple can handle free of charge. Might we suggest working a company that's a little less stingy with prerelease units, Stephen?
Video highlights of the Steve and Bill show
In case you missed the Engadget liveblog of last night's lovefest between Big Mac and El PC, the folks at the D conference have posted complete video coverage and a highlight reel (above) of Steve and Bill's excellent adventure. Enjoy the show, and please open any hard candies in advance of the feature.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: Historic discussion live from D 2007
We kind of never thought we'd see the day where Mac and PC voluntarily shared the stage on neutral ground, but that day is today. Very soon Bill Gates and Steve Jobs -- both pioneering execs that need absolutely no introduction -- will sit up in front of the audience here at D and discuss god knows what. Don't miss this, people, who knows if this will happen again in any of our lifetimes. You'll know when we get started. Who's got odds that they don't walk out and say "Hi, I'm a PC." "Hi, I'm a Mac."?We're in! They're playing the Beatles, just like they did when Jobs came out the first time.Update: Video recap online! Right after the break, but before the rest of our coverage.
Steve Jobs live from D 2007
Steve Jobs is up here in just a few, everybody. It looks like we can probably prepare ourselves for an update on the iTunes shift to no-DRM, the status of the iPhone, and whatever else is on El Jobso's mind. It's all on Mossberg, so hopefully he'll drill down deep to the topics we hold near and dear. Stay close, you'll know when it gets underway! (Note: Walt's questions are in bold.)UPDATE: D has posted video highlights of Steve's and Walt's talk, our original liveblog follows after the jump.
Palm Foleo announced
As rumored, the big new device that's Palm's Jeff Hawkins has chosen to announce at the D conference today is the Palm Foleo, which the company is billing as a "mobile companion." Boasting a 10-inch widescreen display and a full-size keyboard, the device is intended to be used in conjunction with your smartphone, with any edits to documents made on one device automatically reflected on the other thanks to the device's Bluetooth connectivity. The device also promises to turn on "instantly," boasts built-in WiFi, and should last about 5 hours on a single charge. The pricing and release info leaked out earlier also look to have been spot on, with it now officially set to be released sometime this summer for $500 (after a $100 mail-in rebate). We'll have plenty more pics of it shortly, but for now you can check out one more after the break.
Steve Ballmer live from D 2007
Steve "Developers!" Ballmer is set to take the stage this morning at D, but since we don't know exactly what time that's going to happen you all are gonna have to hang tight until he does. We expect he'll be discussing last night's Surface announcement, but we'll see what else he's got planned for us. Stick close! UPDATE: D has posted video highlights of Ballmer's chat, our original liveblog after the jump.
Palm Foleo and Linux OS for summer is what Hawkins is announcing at D?
Woops! Looks like someone was trigger-happy at Palm and shot out the press release for tomorrow's announcement a little too soon! Apparently what Jeff Hawkins is going to announce in the morning at D is called the Palm Foleo (a name we've heard rumored before), and is being positioned as a "smartphone companion". We didn't know our smartphones weren't quite smart enough to need a guide to the interwebs, but the Foleo syncs to your mobile device, providing a full size keyboard and larger display for editing documents and triaging email (among other things). So yeah, basically it's a dumb device piggybacking all your Treo's most useful feature -- its connectivity. Apparently users can expect instant-on access, five hours battery life, Palm's new Linux OS, and a $500 pricetag to round off that Treo kit to about a grand this summer. Assuming all this is indeed the case, we can only come to one conclusion: damned if we need yet another friggin device. Seriously, please Palm, what we need is for you to improve the Treo -- or whatever phone device you expect us to carry and use -- not design the Treo its very own Lenny Small to hack around sluggish handset design. The yet-another-device philosophy doesn't carry, so to speak, and it's sure as hell not the future of mobile computing.P.S. -No, that's a jokey Sony UX UMPC to the right, not the still-unseen Foleo.[Thanks to Brian and everyone who sent this in]Read - Screencap of the supposed releaseRead - Treocentral thread
Microsoft to unveil 'PlayTable' gesture-based interface at D?
If ZDnet staple Mary Jo Foley (or more specifically, her source) is right, we may be seeing Microsoft take the next big step in device interaction at tomorrow's D: All Things Digital Conference, with the perennial Redmond watcher predicting an official unveiling of the company's PlayTable / Project Milan multi-touch, gesture-based input technology. PlayTable, which combines elements we've seen in the iPhone, from NYU's Jeff Han, in various prototype devices, and from Microsoft's own, recently-demo'ed DigiDesk, is envisioned as a multi-purpose interface that can be employed in anything from a DAP (Zune) to a cellphone (WinMo handsets) to a gaming console (Xbox) -- so it's no coincidence that the project is being developed by the same Mobile and Entertainment division that's also in charge of these categories. All in all, tomorrow promises to be a big day: not only is Palm making a potentially breakthrough announcement, and the faces of Apple and Microsoft scheduled to appear together on the same stage, but we may also get to witness computing history to boot; man, if we had real jobs, we'd be calling in sick in a heartbeat. [Via Scobleizer]
D this week: Jobs & Gates, Jobs, Hawkins announcing new Palm device
Just a happy reminder for Apple nerds and Treo fans, this week is the D conference down in San Diego, meaning you'll be able to look forward to some fun n' interesting new bits including: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates appearing together in a joint interview Wednesday evening (no, far as we can tell they aren't expected to joint-announce anything) A second Jobs-only appearance earlier on Wednesday Jeff Hawkins, who will appear and introduce "a new category of mobile device" tomorrow morning [thanks, Jimmy] Other executives expected to appear on stage: Ballmer, Schmidt, George Lucas, Les Moonves, Hurley & Chen, and even John McCain. Should make for an interesting couple of days, stay tuned!Update: Our bad, it looks like it's Jobs who's appearing twice, not Gates. There's no official schedule, so we're kind of just going on passing comments made on Kara Swisher's blog right now.
Nacho Libre is all about the DS apparently
Jack Black, best known for his comedic and musical stylings as part of the duo Tenacious D, is currently filming his upcoming movie Nacho Libre in which he stars as, well...Nacho Libre, a priest who dons the luchadore mask in order to save an orphanage. Recently, a teaser trailer was released for the upcoming behind-the-scenes video diaries of said film, filmed by Jack Black, for Jack Black, which if the trailer is to be believed, will mostly be about Jack Black wearing ridiculous outfits and getting his chest waxed. In the teaser trailer, we see a glimpse of Jack lounging in what appears to be the character's priest costume, holding a DS. Now it's no new thing for celebrities to be lavished with free hardware from the companies, but this time around it appears that Jack procured the DS himself and brought it along for the long months of rigorous film-making he no doubt has to endure. Besides, even if he was given the DS free from Nintendo, wouldn't he instead have been given a DS Lite? Upcoming installments of Jack Black's behind the scenes diaries will be twice a week starting March 15th available through iTunes. Here's to hoping Jack throws down in some Mario Kart and provides a friend code in an upcoming installment. Slamming Wonderboy with a red shell? Sign us up! Clicking on the Read link will automatically open the video in Windows Media Player. [Thanks Krystian!]
