You know us. We can't resist anything USB-powered. We're totally suckers for it, which is why we we're giddy at the prospect of this portable battery pack which we picked up at Compact-Impact that runs on four AA batteries and pumps out a full 5V of juice to all your USB gadgets. We couldn't get it to charge our Treo, but it worked totally fine with our USB vacuum cleaner and our USB laptop light.
Read MoreOh Sony, always got to be showing people up. Okay, we'll admit, these little guys are much more attractive than D-Link's DCS-5300G network security cam (in that displaced eyeball kind of way), and they also have 802.11b capable versions, too (SNC-M1W and SNC-M3W). Otherwise, the M1 has tilt, while the M3W tilts and pans (we presume both have zoom), and both are capable of recording MPEG4 (VGA at 15fps, QVGA at 30fps) streams and JPEG directly to the network. Now if only you'd bring some of this crap to America, ok? [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreWe won't pretend that there is a whole heck of a lot to get excited about the L500V, Epson's new entry-level five megapixel digital camera with a 3x optical zoom lens. That is, except for that massive (well, massive for a digital camera) 2.5-inch LCD screen that they put on back of it. We're definitely all over this trend.
Read MoreWe like fuel cells, and we really, really like NTT DoCoMo. So DoCoMo developing fuel cell add-ons to recharge all their FOMA handsets is gravy by us, no matter how large, ugly, and unwieldy the device may yet be (no comment on the unit pictured right). No word on price or expected mass-release date of these kinds of charging units, and especially no word on how one of these things exploding in your pocket (we know, you're not supposed to recharge your phones in your ass-pocket) is going to effect that body so bootylicious.
Read MoreSo SanDisk's Digital Photo Viewer, a multi-format memory card reader which did one thing, and did it well (i.e. let you view your digital photos on a TV) has been reincarnated as the SanDisk Photo Album. Only this time they weren't able to resist the siren call of convergence and have souped it up with the ability to playback both MPEG-1 and Motion JPEG video clips and MP3 audio files besides all that digital photo viewing stuff. Not bad for fifty bucks, but better still they also mention that there's a port for USB flash drives, which makes us think that you could hook this thing up to an external USB hard drive and instantly have a cheap digital audio jukebox that connects to your home stereo.
Read MoreWe told you yesterday about the new BenQ FP785, the 17-inch handbag/monitor that was designed by Roberto Cavalli, and launched at the Just Cavalli show in Milan. We were only now able to dig up some more details about it. So it turns out it's not a handbag, big deal. Oh, and its 17-inch screen is 1.2-inches thick, has an SXGA resolution, 25 ms response time, two 1-watt speakers, and adaptive position, so the monitor displays in the correct orientation whether hung or standing up. Oh, and expect it to cost around $750 US. Come on. You know how good this is.
Read MoreFor those who don't have BMWs (and we're guessing that's a decent percentage), Alpine is releasing the $100 KCA-420i iPod Interface for car stereos. Like the new BMW stereos, the Alpine system allows you to connect your iPod to your car stereo at line level and control it from the stereo head unit. This is great news, as the Alpine systems can be installed in virtually any vehicle, and the head units start at $200. There are some interface and usability issues (playlists are called files and song are called folders), but the sound quality is reported as being excellent. It's also reportedly a little sluggish – you can't speed through songs like you can on the iPod's touch wheel. These are forgivable problems, though, since the unit does do what it promises. The installation kit comes with all necessary cabling, so you too can have a special place for your iPod in your glove compartment next to your registration and proof of insurance. Playlist, that new mag devoted entirely to worship coverage of the iPod, has a review.
Read MoreOnly BenQ, our favoritest gadget maker in the whole wide world, would do something as amazing and absurd as launching an LCD monitor-purse with Roberto Cavalli during Milan's Fashion Week. (BenQ! Why didn't you launch one with Marc Jacobs here in NY's fashion week just then! We're all very insulted.) So if you really need to carry that screen with you (maybe you're too chic for a laptop?) then fold it up transformer-style into a ladybag, and be on your way.
Read MoreSince apparently skinning and scratch-protecting your iPod is like, totally in right now, you can get these iPod wheel covers (where are the dubs, man?) that glow in the dark and look generally pretty godawful. But hey, who are we to judge? We got really bored in class one day and totally penned tribal tattoos right on our iPods with sharpies, man. Wicked. [Via iPodlounge]
Read MoreWe first spotted these Bluetooth stereo headphones at an event last week, but HP's PR rep wouldn't tell us anything about them and sorta half-heartedly tried to get us not to take any photos of it (obviously that didn't work). Turns out they're made by Logitech (and rebranded as HP), and while we would love to tell you that they're meant for use with HP's version of the iPod after you unlock some hidden Bluetooth feature, what they're really meant for is wirelessly listening to music on a Bluetooth-enabled Pocket PC. There is, of course, no word on when these might arrive in stores or what they might cost when they get there.
Read MoreFor hardcore photographers in need of a compact power solution and a tripod in one simple design, this device may solve some portability issues. It powers an APN, lamp, or other electric accessories in a nice ergonomic design that also folds into a point and shoot handle resembling a handgun (useful just in case someone decides he wants your fancy new camera). Priced at ¥6,980 (around $65), this is a pretty affordable solution for photographers on the move. It includes DC connections for a variety of devices, including Panasonic, Canon, SONY, Nikon, Olympus, Sharp, and JVC. Since it's made in Japan, Stateside users shouldn't have power transformation issues, either. Say cheese, recharge, and go!
Read MoreA recently announced product from Chainpus promises PDA users some Bluetooth QWERTY lovin'. Photos from the manufacturer's site suggest a small form factor once the keyboard is folded up, resulting in what would be a nice portable keyboard we feel is cleverly disguised as a scanner (or maybe an electric grill - you decide). It will also include a rubberized stopper for your PDA as well as a place to keep a stylus. Driver support is currently slated for Symbian, Palm, and Windows Mobile (both Smartphone and Pocket PC) handhelds and smartphones.
Read MoreSpotted at Tokyo's Hi-End Show, a showcase for preposterously expensive audio gear, were these speakers from Kubotek. Aside from having a shape that suggests the result of a warped mind playing with a Donald Duck head, a jumbo pot of varnish and a mirror, they stand 174 cm tall, which is, well, bigger than the guy in the black t-shirt. When these come out in spring 2005 a pair of them will set you back Y7.35 mn ($66,000), which is probably about what it'll cost to put a down payment on the massive, soundproofed apartment you'll need to put them in. [Via Impress AV Watch (Japanese)]
Read MoreMaybe we'd say it was going after Motorola's ojo, but let's get real, it's in a whole other ballpark. Sony's new PCS-TL50 broadband video conferencing unit is an LCD TV with an integrated camera and mic, which you jack straight into your broadband connection. It can run two video sources at once so you can watch DivX files or what have you, and don't have to spend all your time looking at your boss's mug blabbering on about your TPS reports, but still, you'd have to be pretty insane to pay the $6,400 ransom Sony is demanding for this little beauty. [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreGriffin hasn't posted this to their main site yet, but we saw it in their product section. Whoopsie! Here we were, about to do a How-To on adding a laser beam and flashlight to your iPod, and then we get link slapped with Griffin announcing this thing: the iBeam. Damn you Griffin (we mean that in the kindest way possible, of course)! The Griffin iBeam set consists of a flashlight and a class IIIA laser pointer, each with a protective cap that can be attached to a keychain. We have a laser and flashlight for a Sony Ericsson P900, and it's been more than handy when trying to plug stuff in and needing illumination behind computers and TVs and such—and as always lasers are a lot of fun to mess around with your (real) house pets.
Read MoreOnly works in Pocket PCs with CompactFlash slots, which are increasingly less common (it's an SD world), but Veridt has a new biometric fingerprint scanner new expansion card called the Bio Hub if you feel like adding a little extra protection to your handheld. And if you're really worried about this sort of thing (if you've ever lost your PDA you'll know what we're talking about), there are a few Pocket PCs with the scanner built-in, like HP's iPAQ h5550.
Read MoreGood lord almighty, we're not sure what anyone would do with over 8.8 million pixels ('cept, like, maybe show 4 simultaneous 1080i HDTV streams, one on top of the other), but if you want it, JVC Victor's got it with the 4K2K D-ILA projector, which uses some new projection technique called LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon). And as usual, you may not want to glance directly into the 2,000 watt, 8,000 lumen beam, unless you like being (ahem) blinded by science. [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreParrot has a new Bluetooth handsfree car kit coming out called the CK3300 that ups the ante a bit on other speakerphones and adds GPS to the mix so you don't have to have more than one module-thingy velcroed to your dashboard.
Read MoreSilvas Digital has developed a technique to display over a billion colors on your PC, up from the 16.7 million that most can display now. We don't want to get too technical, but their method of temporal dithering creates new colors by rapidly alternating between the two nearest shades. The practical application is mainly for graphic artists that want to perfect their image, as the average human eye probably won't even be able to notice a big improvement in picture quality. NEC announced a couple of months back they had a 1 billion color display LCD, but that one could only display 16.7 million at a time. What's sketching us out is that they want a PayPal donation before we could download a demo of their technology. Sure...
Read MoreNothing could possibly go wrong with this. The year isn't over yet, but here comes what just might the worst idea and waste of resources for 2004. VeriSign and a "children's safety group" are making the "i-Stick" token which will verify a child's age and gender to make it easier for children to avoid online predators on the web and in chat rooms. Says Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burn: "This doesn't guarantee everything, but at least it cuts the field down." Senator, don't listen to the greedy folks with the buckets of cash. They're hijacking good intentions and taking advantage of parents and politicians. A USB device will only do one thing: verify the information on the USB device. Expect these to be lost, stolen, hacked, sold on eBay, encourage age and gender targeted ads—all in the same day these are put in your kids hands.
Read MoreLooks like Maxtor's got out the latest version of their single-touch external backup solution, the OneTouch II drive. The 7200rpm drives will have a 16MB buffer, FireWire and USB 2.0 interfaces (what, no network interface? Oh, come on!), and will start at $380 for the 300GB, and $330 for the 250GB version. They be lookin' nicer, too, for what it's worth. [Via BIOS]
Read MoreNot sure where they've been all these years, but the Circuits section of the New York Times has just noticed that those USB flash keychain drives have become a big deal—or at least that once they started looking for them, they started seeing them everywhere (you know what we're talking about). That Cruzer cameo in the new Tom Cruise movie Collateral must have really done it for them. This isn't the first time it took the Times a little too much time to notice what's going on in the magical little world of USB.
Read MoreOk, so we didn't forget or anything, Nokia did in fact introduce a few other things besides the 6670, that bastardized love child of the 6600 and the 7610 (and by bastardized we meant to say awesomized or something less potentially libelous): The HS-11W, a new Bluetooth wireless headset that weighs a mere 17 grams and a listed talk time of six hours. The LD-1W, a Bluetooth GPS module which isn't due out until next year. The Remote Camera PT-6 (pictured at right), which is basically a one megapixel surveillance camera with a GSM cellular radio in it that can automatically send you a photo or video clip when it detects motion or when you ping it with a text message. Also has built-in Bluetooth so you can control it from your phone when you're close by.
Read MoreHey, we're not going to complain if people want to keep pumping out new Bluetooth headsets, making the market for Bluetooth devices more diverse and driving prices down. Especially not if it's a BT headset like Trust's new BT2220 that's got 100 hours of standby and 5 hours of talk time, comes bundled with a home and car adapter so you're always charged up, and is class II BT device (meaning 65-foot+ range). [Via Pocket Lint]
Read MoreAs frustrating as having to use inverters in your car is (your car generates DC electricity, which needs to be converted to AC, which is converted back to DC by your electronics), they can be such an awesome convenience. And even a couple of years ago you couldn't expect to easily get a 150-watt inverter, let alone one for $40, like Wagan's 150-watt SmartAC inverter. It peaks at a 450W surge; if you're using near that much probably means you've got a power strip and a mobile office all jacked in, which is both enormously stupid and totally awesome of you. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreWe're not exactly sure if we are going to take the time to get used to a whole new keyboard layout (we already wasted like 80 hours of our lives trying to learn DVORAK just to get that extra 3wpm), but if you're into it, FrogPad's iFrog will be available next week. This is the $225 Bluetooth-enabled, one-handed keyboard that comes in the cutesy colors, yeah, that FrogPad, the one we don't think we've got the guts to whip out in any serious business meeting. FrogPad claims users can type 40 words-per-minute with some practice, which is not bad, but we heard on the Internet there's supposed to be some big use in being able to type type one-handed (we've yet to figure out what that is, exactly).
Read MoreDude, that's nasty, we're not talking about Q-Tips; these are those Griffin-made $15 plastic caps that pop onto your stock iPod earbuds, the Earjams. We gave some away, remember? The Gadgeteer reviewed 'em, and they say they do deliver massive bass and isolate you from outside noises, but they were uncomfortable and dulled the treble. Too bad, but we can't say we're so surprised. Maybe their 2.0 version will be a little better if they listen up to what people are really into.
Read MoreBelkin just unveiled their new MediaPilot, which is (we think) the first peripheral using the new WirelessUSB standard (which is exactly what it sounds like it is). The MediaPilot set features a separate keyboard and numeric key/media-pad (but unfortunately no mouse); it's not quite as hype in the looks department as the diNovo, but at $100 it seems like a pretty reasonable buy compared to the diNovo's $250 pricetag. We got to take a look at one of these last night, and we have to admit, we thought it'd be a lot cooler than it actually was. Also, just beware if you're looking to go the way of WirelessUSB, since it's still definitely in the early-adopter stage. Not that that's scared you off before or anything.
Read MoreWe were totally down with an SD RFID reader, but a Bluetooth RFID reader? What could be better? (Oh, duh, an SD expansion card that combined Bluetooth with an RFID reader.) The IDblue looks a little chubby, but if you've been hunting high and low for a wireless way to read RFID tags, this should float your boat; and you have been looking for one, right? Good for you. [Thanks, Andrew]
Read MoreIt's just a prototype for right now, but Concord Camera, the same people behind the Eye-Q Go Wireless (pictured at right), that much unloved Bluetooth camera that came out last year, are showing off a prototype of an 802.11g adapter that pops into a digital camera's USB port and uses their new Wireless Image Transfer technology beam photos to a PC over a WiFi network. [Thanks, Rich]
Read MoreYou better hope you get something better than Vanessa Carlton, but HP has been giving away random iPod skins in the latest issue of Rolling Stone ("The Photographs" issue). Ok, we're convinced that the stickers fit perfectly on your iPod, but c'mon, would you put this on yours?
Read MoreLooks like Griffin's long-awaited we-all-assumed-it-was-vapor radioSHARK is finally ready to hit the streets. We're not entirely sure why it took them so long to develop their USB radio tuner, but this yet Mac-only device is on pre-order for $70. It does AM and FM, records on schedule, and has time shifting, just like TiVo. Hey man, anything that makes it easier for us to get our fix of NPR and Little Steven's Underground Garage is pretty awesome in our book. No word yet on when the RIAA plans to grind Griffin into a fine powder. [Via Cult of Mac]
Read MoreIn a slightly unusual act of corporate magnanimity, palmOne just upgraded their new Wireless Keyboard so that it's also compatible with Pocket PCs from Dell and HP (it was probably an issue of releasing the right drivers, but whatever). The one downside is that they're still using infrared; would it kill them to get some Bluetooth in there? Dell and HP already offer 'em...
Read MoreIt won't make a backup copy of your cognac glass, but the SlimDVDup Ily's new portable CD/DVD duplicator is perfect for the bootlegger who might need to pack up shop really quickly. It can only spit out one copy at a time, so it'll probably take you a while before you'll have enough pirated movies to fill an entire blanket spread out on Canal Street, but the only really big question is whether it can make on-demand while-you-wait copies of movies before the cops show up. [Via Digital Media Thoughts]
Read MoreAdding to the vast amounts of speaker-docks already available for the iPod, Bose steps up to the plate with their SoundDock system. So if you're the type who likes to put some speaker magnets right next to your precious iPod, the SoundDock has an IR remote, and, you know, a dock that plays audio. No official word on size or other specs, but we expect it'll be pretty decent and pretty high-priced.
Read MoreWe know you've got a raging case of carpal tunnel. So have we, we feel for you. So have no fear, if you're willing to trade in your developing CT for developing eye tics, neck strain, and wrinkles, then the nouse, a mouse controlled by your nose, could be the answer for you. Seriously. And you'd better be good at winking, as right and left eye blinks take the place of mouse clicks. But honestly, this thing does have actual practical applications for the disabled, so mad props to our northern neighbors who hooked it up. [Via New Scientist]
Read MoreNow that the gadget market is properly saturated and just about everyone who wants one has a cellphone, an MP3 player, a DVD player, and a digital camera, manufacturers are finally wising up and exploiting the huge untapped potential of the animal world. Or at least TOMY is with their new Wonderful Shot 3.5 megapixel digital camera for dogs, which they're supposed to wear around their neck. There's a remote control for triggering the shutter (we're disappointed they didn't trust/respect the dog's artistic sensibility) but with any luck there's also an option to have it just take photos every five minutes or something so you can finally figure out what the heck your canine is up to all day.
Read MoreWe love IOGEAR's stuff, and we normally wouldn't post about a USB Bluetooth adapter (which are thankfully becoming far more abundant commodity these days) if this one wasn't do damned cute. Seriously. Would you look at that thing? Other than that, the $40 adapter is a little chubby (and probably can't be used with vertically oriented USB ports on laptops), but it's a class 2 Bluetooth device so you can expect a good 65 foot range (class 1 is about 300 feet, and class 3 is 30) from it. [Via PDA Buyer's Guide]
Read MoreSandisk wants users to see Flash cards as consumables, like rolls of film, and what better way than to make them cheap, cheap, cheap? A 32MB Shoot & Store flash memory card comes in SD, Compact Flash, Memory Stick Pro, and soon xD-Picture flavors for under 10 bucks. 64MB versions will be $15. We like this trend of cheaper flash memory, though 32MB only holds about 15 pictures or so on a 4 megapixel camera at the highest quality settings and resolution, so you have to end up buying a few of them—but maybe that's the idea..
Read MoreWhat transmits on the 900MHz spectrum at a full watt (not that it provides an accurage point of comparison, but most cellphones transmit at about 0.4 watts), uses AES encryption, and fires off data at up to 230 kbps as far as 40 miles? The MaxStream, of course. What, don't act like the headline gave it away or something. Of course, it's yet to be determined if anyone will ever use this proprietary system (despite the fact that they call themselves the "Worldwide Leader in Wireless Device Networking", we'll give you one guess as to whether or not this ever gets widely adopted), but we like that they're trying! Maybe they can make a Bluetooth version next? [Via DailyWireless]
Read MoreWe can't think of too many examples of times when we need to shut down a bunch of stuff at the same time as our computers since most anything connected to them needs recharging anyway (excepting monitors, most of which have power power saving modes anyway), but if you love superfluous USB devices like we do—and how we do love superfluous USB devices—then the $16 Mini Power Minder might just be for you. [Via I4U]
Read MoreJapanese chipmaker Telemidic has developed an RFID reader to be used in SD slots—beautiful! The range is less than 3cm (no surprise there), and they only appear to be compatible with Toppan's T-Junction RFID tags, but we're officially now on watch for SD RFID-readers to use with all those hundreds of millions of not-yet-existant RFID tags out there.
Read MoreThat USB Flash keydrive you've been using? Apparently those are totally over. We're starting to wonder what was wrong with us that it never once occurred to us that with all those gazillions of USB keychain Flash drives out there that somebody could also make a keychain that worked with FireWire. Then again, apparently nobody else did either, since Kanguru has only just now rolled out what they claim is the world's first line of FireWire Flash memory drives. Maybe not quite so critical now that there are speedier USB 2.0 versions out there, but the Fire Flash comes in sizes ranging from 128MB all the way up to 1GB and is plug-and-play, just like the USB ones. [Via Tech Digest]
Read MoreHardware Pacers gives us a five page run-down of Microsoft's latest desktop set. The mouse and keyboard duo are certainly striking. But good looks do not necessarily mean good handling — as my wife says about me, all the time. We would recommend to the fine folks at Hardware Pacers that they try to add more of these little things we call "words" to their article. The review is filled with wallpaper-size close-ups of the hardware, which may be overkill, but illustrates how fine the package is. We're not sure if the Microsoft Wireless Desktop Comfort Edition will help your gameplay, but it sure will make your desk look better while you frag.
Read MoreYesterday we posted about Sonance's new iPod home audio interface, the iPort; today, we have some pictures, if you're still interested. As you may or may not be able to tell, the iPort is, well, rather massive. But at least it looks like something straight out of a 60s sci-fi movie, so that's got to count for something, right? [Thanks, Chris; photography by Jonthan Schalliol]
Read MoreLogitech's first io digital pen hardly revolutionized that whole writing thing the way it was supposed to (might have had something to do with regular pens and paper working just fine), but they've just unveiled a second version of their Digital Writing System called the io2. Like the first one, the io2 automatically captures and digitizes whatever it is you're writing (as long as all that jotting and sketching is done on special paper), where it can imported via a USB cradle onto your PC. The main improvements of the io2 are better handwriting recognition and a wider selection of compatible paper. It'll probably be the most expensive pen you ever own (absolutely do not lose this one), but on the other hand it's still way cheaper than investing in a Tablet PC.
Read MoreFile this one away in the "Fringe" file. Hobbyists all have their little tweaks. Audiophiles have special steel/rubber feet for their CD players that eliminates tray-rotation noise. Car fiends swear by spcial oils that you can only buy in Cuba. And computer gamers can now have the Wireweight, a device that will make your wired mouse feel like a wireless mouse. We all know how cumbersome that wire on the mouse can be (right?). It can get bunched up, add weight to every pullback on the mouse, etc. Well, the Wireweight will hold your wire in a floating state, allowing you to pull that little sucker every which way, for weightless mousing. We don't buy it, but it sure does amuse the hell out of us.
Read MoreAlmost forgot to mention that Logitech rolled out a new Bluetooth cellphone headset yesterday. It's usually hard to get all that jazzed up about yet another wireless headset, but the big deal about the Mobile Freedom Bluetooth Headset is that it uses a little something called Adaptive Frequency Hopping (we're not entirely sure how this is different from Bluetooth's integrated frequency hopping spread-spectrum—FHSS) to reduce any possible interference you might experience from WiFi or anything else that might be causing intereference around the 2.4GHz part of the spectrum that Bluetooth uses. It's also got something Logitech calls WindStop, which supposedly reduces noise from wind hitting the mic; it weighs just an ounce and you should be able to get about seven hours of talk time on this baby.
Read MoreOK, so it's not exactly the P.Diddy-diamond-encrusted-iPod of the photo printer world. But the Canon PIXMA iP1500 is a solid $50 photo printer and PC Magazine gives it a stellar review. If we had kids and they were going off to college, we'd buy them this. And when they spilled the keg all over it, we could just buy them another one. On second thought, maybe we wouldn't make such good parents after all.
Read MoreThere are already more than a few people doing this CompactFlash-style, but since last time we checked CompactFlash wasn't exactly the expansion card of choice for PDAs or smartphones anymore, we're glad that NoviiMedia wised up and managed to squeeze an universal remote control IR blaster onto an SD card (it's an especially good thing since the IR ports on most PDAs are just way too anemic for use as a remote control). The NoviiRemote Blaster comes with their NoviiRemote software which you'll need to program your handheld to control all your A/V gear, but for right now it only works on Palm PDAs right now (and just the Zire 72, Zire 71, Tungsten E, Tungsten T2, and Tungsten T — no Treo 600). Be patient, because they are working on a version that'll be compatible with most any handheld with an SD slot.
Read MoreMonsterGecko, LLC is now offering the PistolMouse FPS. As you may have gathered from its name (and the image), the PistolMouse is designed specifically for next-gen first person shooters. Apparently, it's got that whole reaction speed/ergonomic design going for it. That is, an offset optical sensor, primary & secondary grip triggers, and ambidextrous functionality. The PistolMouse will set you back about $70, and is currently available on several online sites (and by phone), but should be hitting retail stores by the end of the month.
Read MoreThe Rio Karma has been out, what, a year now, and no one's made a professional case? Sure, there were some fanboys out there who'd do it DIY style for you for a couple of bucks, but seriously, this was freaking long overdue (especially considering the iPod has cases by every famous designer that ever existed ever). It's a bit of an investment at $60 US, but the Vaja Karma case is real leather, and supremely customizeable. Not that it really matters since our Karmas are all scratched up by now, but we're still gonna buy 'em up, dig? [Thanks Javier]
Read MoreYeah, the design is a bit on the bland side, but ViewSonic has a new wireless digital media adapter coming out with a bunch of nice features that almost might make us overlook the bland packaging. The WMA100 can stream both audio and video files (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MP3, un DRM'd AAC, WMA, MP3, and WAV), but has way more video output options than you'll find on the average digital media adapter, with connectors for DVI, VGA, composite-video, component-video, and S-video. They also have a pair of new wireless access points that come with some networked attached storage built right in so you don't have to fiddle with using a PC as a media server. The WMG80 (not surpringly) comes with 80GB of storage, while the WMG120 comes with 120GB. All three of these should be out before the end of the year.
Read MoreWe'd have hoped that built-in WiFi would have been enough of an excuse for you to upgrade your old laptop by now, but if you're trying to squeeze a few more months out of that ThinkPad and you want to get in on all that sweet wireless Internet action you've been hearing about, Buffalo has a new AirStation 54Mbps Wireless USB Key Chain adapter that lets you add 802.11g to just about any PC.
Read MorePlantronics is offering a headset "engineered specifically for Xbox and Halo 2". We're talking optimized speaker, noise-canceling microphone, adjustable boom, light weight and blance, selectable earbud sizes, one-ear-fit for complete absorbtion yet outside awareness, and of course, for serious gamers only, the option to wear on either ear for extended play. Whoever thought you could pack so many features into a headset and then charge the price of the game? Unless you're a total fanatic, we suggest sticking with the standard issue model—also keep in mind that cellphone headsets are also completely adaptable and come in various shapes and sizes, and are usually well below the $50 price range.
Read MoreWe won't front that it's in the cheap zone given that you can buy a similiarly-sized CRT for way less money, but Olevia has a new 30-inch LCD television out that's priced at $1,700, which is relatively inexpensive for these things. You'd think that to get the price down they'd skimp on the resolution or something, but the image quality is surprisingly good and it actually has an HDTV-compatible 1280 x 768 pixels.
Read MoreTrying to cash in on those not willing buy a proper pocket-sized portable computer like the OQO, the BlueDock is a docking station for various PocketPCs. It's got changeable docking slots, an Ethernet port, USB (doesn't say if it's 2.0 so that probably means not), SVGA 800x600 monitor out, and a SD memory card slot. The idea is that you can ditch your laptop and use your Pocket PC like a regular PC, with a regular monitor, keyboard, and mouse when you're in the office. WHich is all very interesting (maybe even brushing the upper borders of interesting and coming up on nifty), but no matter what trendy colors they use in the name it's hard to see how they're going to convince people to completely eliminate their laptops and use a PocketPC as their "primary computing platform".
Read MoreThey've talking about it since January, but it looks like FujiFilm is getting ready to drop a new 1GB version of their xD-Picture Card on us sometime in the next few months. Not that xD has gotten a lot of traction compared to other memory card formats like SD, but you know.
Read MoreSort of scary that there are even 15 different types of Flash memory card formats out there to have to keep track of, but Belkin just came out with a new 15-in-1 Media Reader/Writer that can handle xDPicture Card, CompactFlash I, CompactFlash II, SmartMedia, SD, miniSD, MultiMediaCard, RSMMC (Reduced Size MultiMediaCard), IBM MicroDrive, and six varieties of Memory Stick. We would be jerks and complain about how there's no slot for TransFlash, the littlest format of them all, but technically you could use a TransFlash card with an SD adapter.
Read MoreIf you're betting on one of those laptop locks to prevent someone from walking off with your precious laptop, you may not be too pleased to find out that that laptop lock you just invested in is no defense. Apparently such extremely high-tech lockbreaking devices such as ballpoint pen barrels, thin pieces of plastic, and cardboard tubes are all a would-be laptop thief needs to pop open several models of locks from Targus, Kensington and Compucage. You may want to hire a full-time security guard.
Read MoreWe've always had a soft spot in our hearts for those rechargeable laptop mice from Logitech, but now Anycom has edged in on their game with its new Blue Mini Mouse BTM-100. It's an 800dpi optical Bluetooth mouse that comes with a weird-looking USB clip that recharges the batteries and "allows you to use the BTM-100 like a regular wired mouse while charging." Which sounds an awful lot like the Bluetooth gets switched off, but we're not a hundred percent sure.
Read MoreCelebrations for the 30th birthday of the world's favourite mouthless feline continue apace in Japan; the Kitty Ex exhibition that's currently touring the country features Kitty-themed pieces of all shapes and sizes contributed by designers from around the globe. You'd probably have to be a touch deranged to really want these, but David Ellis has come up with some cat-shaped speakers that we suspect could start looking rather scary depending on what music you played through them.
Read MoreThe latest generation of Logitech's computer mice has made its debut. Today marked the arrival of a new way to move that little thingy on the screen around. Instead of using a ball, or even a refreshing light, this mouse will utilize a laser to help you win more games. The device is an attractive addition to the line-up, with a heavy, executive feel that should appeal to the alpha male in all of us. Logitech claims that the laser is not visible to the human eye, and can't be harmful to humans. Just in case, you may want to keep it face down while you're playing Doom 3. Another nice touch is a three hour charge time and a 21 day usage time. We shall see about that.
Read MoreSort of the opposite of the Devil Duckie, SolidAlliance's new i-Duck Love is a, um, more love-themed special-edition of their regular i-Duck USB drive that we're thinking a certain special lady might be getting for Valentine's Day (if we can remember to try and find this five months from now, that is). Only comes with 32MB of storage space, but you're not really buying it just for that since a portion of every purchase also goes towards funding AIDS research. [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreIt's not often we see a meat grinder hooked to a PC, but Russian cutting-edge often means oddball high-tech and muscle power combos. (Also see the Blue Space leg-powered submarine). Invented by video artist Sergey Teterin, the "Movie Mincer" allows users to manually stream together digital image files like JPEGs without using video software. Apparently the mechanical action of the grinder is transferred electronically to whatever images you have waiting, so you can get sort of an early-days-of-cinema feel to your video. The ground beef-maker/video-cranker peripheral comes packed with features, including pause (stop turning the handle) speed change (speed up the handle), rewind (turn handle in opposite direction) and scratch (jiggle the handle). It's also both PS/2 or USB-ready and really quite a bargain at just $399.
Read MoreFrom the people who brought you the MP3 Clock, an inocuous-looking stuffed bear that you can connect to a PC over USB and load up with up to 50 seconds of personalized audio, like a favorite song or a greeting, or if you really want to mess with people, a steady stream of profanity. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreVenture capitalist (they're still around?) Guy Kawasaki is packaging a SanDisk 128MB USB Flash drive with his new book, The Art of the Start. Doesn't sound like there's anything actually on the drives (unlike with those bonus content CD-ROMs that still sometimes come with books). Rather they're just bundling it as a promotional item for storing all your business plans and PowerPoint presentations. Either way, we surely won't be the ones to discourage any trend towards including gadgets with book purchases. It might even get us to start looking at non-LCD screens again.
Read MoreI spoil my niece. That's a fact. She deserves it. But it's not one-sided. In return for my showering her with toys and clothes and kisses, she gives me her unyielding adoration and a StefervescentTM smile that pulls like a barbell on my heart strings. My NJ-based sister brings soon-to-be-3 Stefanie to visit every few weeks. Before heading out to the park or wherever our travels may take us for the day, I do a final email check before cutting off my digital lifeline (only for her) for a few hours. She knows the routine. Aunt Laurie's computer has fishies! "I wanna see da fishies!" she says. I am all too happy to oblige - just to see her face light up when she hears the bubbles. Now that you know what a softy I really am, it should come as no surprise that the new CareBears game, Let's Have a Ball for Mac has me all atingle. Stefanie's birthday is coming up in 2 short weeks and besides a shiny new tricycle, I have been at a loss as to what fun gifts to bestow upon her. It dawns on me now that it's never too early to get a kid hooked on a Mac. There are a wealth of edutainment games available and her little toddler brain is primed to learn from and about everything she sees. I can already envision how happy she will look sitting in front of her very own Mac (if she's in a good mood, maybe she'll let her mom use it too), chasing rainbows with the CareBears and blowing bubbles with the fishies whenever her little heart desires :) In a matter of weeks, she'll be typing and mousing better than me! If you have any other suggestions for age-appropriate Mac games for a 3yo, let me hear them!
Read MoreAs long as you remember that you're paying for the almost idiot-proof integration, easy on the eyes GUI, mac-centric vanity email addresses and the nifty software bundle that comes with the service, Apple's .Mac package is still a bargain at $99. If you're looking for a file server or hosting package, .mac's 250MB is still, in my opinion, far too little bang for the buck. That being said, despite my having a many many gigabytes of server space at my disposal at any given time, I do have a .Mac account. Being able to sync my Safari bookmarks across all of my Macs effortlessly makes it worth more than $99/year to me even if it did nothing else. The fact that I can use it for other things is just a bonus. I'm curious to hear if/how you are all using .Mac - enlighten me?
Read MorePaul Murphy, a LinuxInsider columnist, runs the numbers and discovers that when you compare Apples to apples, Macs are cheaper than PCs. SystemShootouts.org has been demonstrating this point since the original G3 iMac was all the rage. I've heard all the rebuttals about how PCs are so much cheaper and more flexible because you don't have to pay for features that you don't want, allowing you to custom-config the box to your liking. That argument doesn't fly with me. Why? Because the average consumer doesn't want to build their own PC. They want something that has everything they could possibly need right out of the box without having to decide - or request - what they need in advance, or install it in the future. The average consumer doesn't want bare bones. They don't want to run to their local Frys to buy a DVD burner and a screwdriver when they realize that those home movies or digital pictures they want to send to Aunt Betty won't fit on a floppy.
Read MoreOn Friday, Apple announced a repair extension program for 15" Powerbook G4s affected by the "white blotchy display" problem that has been widely reported in the past. Even if you previously paid for an eligible repair, Apple will now reimburse you for the cost of the repair. A limited number of 15-inch PowerBook G4 computers exhibit a display issue which may cause faint white spots to appear on the screen over time. The 15-inch PowerBook G4 Repair Extension Program is a worldwide program covering replacement of LCDs that exhibit these white spots. Your PowerBook G4 serial number must fall between one of two serial number ranges: V7334xxxxxx to V7345xxxxxx QT331xxxxxx to QT339xxxxxx These computers were manufactured from July 2003 through November 2003. PowerBooks with the serial numbers listed above may be referred to as: PowerBook G4 15-inch Aluminum (1GHz G4 or 1.25GHz G4) PowerBook G4 Titanium (867MHz G4 or 1GHz G4) Apple has even included a nifty diagram showing how the white spots manifest. This is the 2nd Powerbook-related "issue" that Apple has acted on in the past month. In mid-August, Apple recalled a bunch of 15" Aluminum PowerBook batteries, citing a possible fire hazard.
Read MoreMaybe you thought HP was a total mismatch for the iPod, whatever, but we know you're going to love the TiVo iPod. Act now and you can redeem 20,000 TiVo rewards points (what, you actually have 20,000 rewards points, sicko?) to get your super special totally unique limited edition TiVo-branded iPod (mockup pictured right). Ah yes, 20,000 TiVo points can now turn one life-consuming obsession into another in a flurry of upper and lower case letters; perhaps you can drive around with it in your VW Bug while drinking Starbucks? [Via iPodlounge]
Read MoreThanks to Andy for the drawing my attention to this side-splittingly funny, and remarkably accurate timeline. It pains me to admit how much of this I can relate to. Even if it weren't as funny as it truly is, the author's byline at the end would make reading the whole thing worthwhile. Who reading this hasn't witnessed at least this familiar scene? "On the morning of Steve Jobs's keynote presentation, the online Apple store grinds to a halt as Mac-heads set their browsers to refresh every 15 seconds." If you just raised your hand in response to that question you're either a very new Mac convert or you accidentally clicked onto the wrong blog this morning :)
Read MoreI'll be representing my local Apple User Group for a few hours tomorrow at the 2004 Digital Lifestyle Expo, taking place at the New York Marriott Marquis in Time Square. As if my presence wasn't enough, "real" experts and Apple advocates like David Pogue, Andy Ihnatko and Colin Smith will be on hand, conducting workshops and answering questions about DLexpo is "a unique education and awareness program involving the latest tools and solutions in digital technology. It specifically targets the areas of digital video, photography, music, and the Internet." I promise to let you know about anything fun, new or exciting I come across there. I thought I'd had my fill of trade shows and expos during my dot-com days, but it seems I still can't get enough. Check DLExpo.com for details on where you can pickup last minute registration discount coupons. And don't forget to say hello if you happen to find yourself in the User Group Pavilion between 1pm and 2:30!
Read MoreAccording to the Forbes Top 400 list, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has a net worth $2.6 billion (US Dollars). Do you have any idea how many pairs of blue jeans and black turtlenecks that buys? I own 36 pairs of jeans at any given time. I make a lot less than he does. You do the math.
Read MoreGet your Mac on with some old school Mac ads starting from the Apple 1 all the way to the Newton and the NeXT. Frankly, we think Apple could do with more naked people in their ads these days, but that's just us. [via Near Near Future]
Read MoreMore evidence that Apple is jumping codec first in to the mobile arena pool. Apple's Director of QuickTime, Frank Casanova is speaking at day two at the Cellular Telephone & Internet Association (CTIA) event next month. The last CTIA was a bit of a snoozer, so we're hoping Apple shakes it up a bit and drops something big on us, maybe not just that launching iTunes for mobiles with Motorola soon, but that they're also going to offer QuickTime and associated tools as the video standard for mobile entertainment delivery (or at least more so than they already do—QuickTime 6.5 currently supports the 3gpp and 3gpp2 standards for delivering video over high-speed wireless connections). [Via MacWorld]
Read MoreThis free plugin (Mac only) allows you to plug in your iPod and copy all the music of it to your library, which Apple specifically forbids. Because it would enable pirates, and you know, be useful from time to time if you use multiple Macs but don't keep the library the same on each one. Maybe it's just us, but we've got this weird feeling that the plugin won't be around for too long. Update: We called it, Apple had the developer's ISP remove the file. Too bad it's already on another site here.
Read MoreNow this is custom. Anyone can wire in an LCD and a PC into their car, but how many have a 450MHz G4 that can entertain the passengers and has custom-programmed control software that interfaces with the car's ECU? Jirka Jirout can operate his car's heater via text message, get directions with GPS on his in-dash LCD, and run DVDs on another 17-inch LCD. And since connectivity is his forte, he had to include a wireless keyboard, WiFi, Bluetooth, GRPS, and an onboard Ethernet hub. He put all this Apple goodness in his Czech-made Tatra.
Read MoreIn case you'd been wondering, Apple has just started shipping the new iMac G5 out to customers. We didn't see one at the Apple Store here in New York when we dropped by a few days ago, so we gave them a quick call this morning to see if they were in stock yet. They told us that they should have had the new iMacs in two days ago, but they never materialized and now they aren't sure when they'll arrive. Anyone seen them in a retail environment yet?
Read MoreIn an article about REM, The Guardian reports that guitarist Peter Buck filled up the iPods of everyone who worked in the recording of their latest album—Around the Sun (Dig)—with songs that he thought they might like. Personalized 10,000 songs mix! He recently filled up the iPods of everyone who worked on REM's new album with songs that he thought they might like - and considering iPods can take up to 10,000 songs, this was a Herculean feat of downloading. "He's become obsessed with it," says Stipe. "He has done this for everyone who worked on our new record, including the engineers, who he had only known for a couple of weeks. What's interesting is to discover what he thinks we should be listening to. Mike got entire albums by Miles Davis, for example, while I only got the greatest hits. [Via BoingBoing <- Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection]
Read MoreYou just knew that the catfight between Apple and RealNetworks over online music downloads was going to continue. Apple is disputing Real's claims from yesterday that Apple's share of the market dropped from 70% to 60% during Real's recent half-price music sale (where they managed to sell about three million songs and supposedly double their marketshare from 10% to 20%), saying that iTunes Music Store sales actually increased during that same time period and that they didn't see any sort of drop in marketshare at all.
Read MoreWe've been hearing reports about people doing this; literally brushing the metal on the back of their iPod with some Scotchbrite for that brushed-aluminum effect. Apparently this guy took it as a major compliment when his girlfriend asked him to do the same to her iPod. Funny, that's just what we thought all iPods look like after a couple weeks of use, anyway, but we have a sneaking suspicion that she was just being sweet. That's why they're called the fairer sex, right? So, who's for a "brushed metal" Bentley? One positive note: doing this doesn't automatically void your warranty.
Read MoreIt's actually not a knock-off the new iMac despite what you might think (we first wrote about this thing over a month ago), but either way CNET is all giddy at the sight of the Lluon LNLA11-1, an all-in-one PC from a South Korean manufacturer they spotted at the Intel Developer Forum yesterday that does bear something of a passing resemblance to the new Apple.
Read MoreThey announced it way back in June, but Apple is saying now that "due to an unexpected supply delay" they won't be able to ship their new 30-inch Cinema Display until around October 25th or so. Try and think of it as a little extra time to beg, borrow, or steal the $3,299 that this behemoth of an LCD monitor will set you back.
Read MoreKnowingly courting the ire of Apple fan base by publicly dissing the new iMac (we're almost afraid to cross them these days, lest we wake up some morning beside the dismembered remains of a PC), senior Forrester Research analyst Paul Jackson says that Apple blew a big opportunity to move ahead of the rest of the industry. How? By not including WiFi as a standard feature (it is available as an option) or a TV tuner card so you can use the new iMac (which you gotta admit would make a great wall-mounted flat-screen TV) as a digital video recorder. Either would have made the iMac even more attractive than it already is (especially since having to add an external TV tuner does sort of mess with the aesthetics), but they might not see the need to add those features since the iMac is meant to be more of an entry-level Mac aimed at students and families rather than power users and early adopters. But here's our pet theory/secret dream: they didn't include those features because they don't want the iMac to cannibalize sales of an even nicer media center Mac they have in the works.
Read MoreAfter his bout with cancer last month we had this totally scary realization: someday Steve Jobs will ascend into a perfectly white mimimalist heaven. And while we're trying to perish the thought that sooner or later he will not not walk among us, Apple devotees have a backup plan: the iLeader, a GI Joe action figure decked out in a black turtleneck and blue jeans that's been crisscrossing the world on Jobs' behalf. And apparently even finding the time to pose with such techno-luminaries as Duran Duran.
Read MoreSo to combat online music piracy/file-sharing by their students, Florida State University cut this totally sweet deal with Apple where students will get free copies of iTunes and pay only 99 cents for downloads. No way! If only there was some way for the average consumer to get in on the action. [Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog]
Read MoreQuietly in the night, Apple launched its new iTunes Affiliate program. Basically, after signing up and placing special links on your website—you get a 5% commission when people buy songs, albums, and audiobooks from iTunes. If you buy lots of music but don't have a website, it might not be a bad idea to throw one up on the web so you eventually get a 5% discount on the stuff you buy for yourself.
Read MoreIn case anyone forget what he said back in April, Greg Joswiak, Apple's VP of hardware marketing, would like to remind everyone that just because they came out with that new 2.2-inch thick iMac G5 yesterday does not mean there is a Powerbook G5 right around the corner. The Powerbook is still way thinner than the new ultraslim iMac, which means that "[t]he challenges of cooling a G5 in a Powerbook design are significantly greater". [Via MacMinute]
Read MoreApple makes ultra-cool hardware that runs it's ultra-slick Mac OS X, but you can also run Linux on that same hardware, either all by itself or dual-booting with Mac OS X. That's right: beautiful hardware, super-fast PowerPC processors, & Yellow Dog Linux. A new version of YDL just came out, and if you own a supported Apple machine, you oughta check it out. Based around Fedora Core 2, you get KDE 3.3 and GNOME 2.6.0, as well as OpenOffice 1.1.1, Mozilla 1.7 and 2.6.8 kernel (I hope that's the 2.6.8.1 kernel - wasn't there a pretty bad bug with 2.6.8?). And since YDL supports APT (as every good Linux distro should), you can update all your software to your heart's content. Hello, bleeding edge! Prices aren't available yet (previous versions ranged from $25-$60), but check back at YDL.net, and info should be there in a couple of days. They've proviced ISO images for free download in the past, and presumably this will be announced some time soon. You can read a couple of reviews of YDL 3 here and here.
Read MoreTrying to address a problem most people weren't even aware existed, Adobe has created a new file format for digital photos called Digital Negative (DNG) that tries to unify all the different raw formats (images before any in-camera processing) that digital cameras produce. Shooting raw images means you avoid dealing with the compression and loss of image quality involved with shooting JPEGs, but you also have to deal with the fact that each manufacturer basically uses a proprietary format that is specific to their cameras and might not be compatible with Photoshop or other editing software (which is where DNG comes in). They're hoping that DNG'll get adopted as the standard for capturing raw images, and they're definitely going about it the right way and letting anyone who wants to to use the format in their cameras, printers, and software applications for free without any limitations.
Read MoreWe so wanted to resist making this most obvious pun (again), but all that jazz about Skype making a version of their Voice over IP software app for Palm handhelds was just hype. Despite that report on the ABC News website last week (and the fact that they just released it for Pocket PCs), not only do they not have a version of Skype for Palms coming out next month, apparently they aren't even working on one.
Read MoreWe'd be more surprised if they didn't toss it in there, but Microsoft has more or less confirmed that the next version of the Media Center operating system, Windows Media Center 2005, will support playback and recording of high-definition television signals. Release is scheduled for some time in the middle to end of next month, but the big question on every Media Center PC owner's mind is whether or not they'll be able to score a free upgrade or not. [Via Digital Media Thoughts]
Read MoreWe knew it was coming sooner or later, but the guys behind Skype have let it slip that they'll have a version of their peer-to-peer VoIP software that'll work on Palm handhelds ready sometime next month (a version for Pocket PCs came out a few weeks ago). It will probably require some proper WiFi action to work, but we're hoping that maybe, just maybe, the 1xRTT connection on our Treo will be just enough bandwidth to get this going, especially since Skype is only supposed to need up to 16kbps to get by (and yes, we know that 1xRTT is burstable and all that). [Via Palm Addict]
Read MoreWe were quite excited when Skype released version 1.0 of their VoIP software for Pocket PCs to the masses, but it's not all gravy for every user. Certain wireless HP iPaq and Dell Axim models reportedly have issues where people on the receiving end only hear buzzing sounds rather than your mellifluous voice. Not too useful when you are trying to make a voice call from a hotpsot, isn't that what beta testing is for? Skype says they're on the ball and working to fix the issue by next week.
Read MoreIf you use Skype (which lets you make free phone calls to anyone who also using Skype software or pay calls to just about any regular phone number) and have a Pocket PC you probably already knew there's a Skype beta for it. If not, it doesn't matter: they're now up to a proper version 1.0 release, just in time for our Ask Engadget this week about what's the best portable VoIP service. [via PocketPCThoughts]
Read MoreIf you're a Gmail user with access to a PHP server, your days of not being able to check your Gmail from your cellphone are over. Gmail-mobile is a PHP application that will give you access to your account with any WAP-compatible phone (WML format), and you should be able to read your mail, compose message, reply, have access to your labels, etc. Jeez, Google totally figured it all out. Rather than freaking out and clamping down on this stuff, there are now literally dozens of Gmail-related applications out, all of them making Gmail a lot more useful and valuable to people.
Read MoreI've been giving a lot of thought to all the hype that Skype has been getting as of late. So much has been said about the great aspects of Skype, of which there are a few, that in the interest of balancing this with a bit of perspective on the downsides, I thought I'd throw a few of my own opinions into the ring for you all to chew on. Before we can really talk about what Skype is, and why it's good and cool and innovative (oh...wait, it's not really innovative), we need to be clear about what Skype is not. Skype is not a new concept and Skype is not a replacement for your other phones. It may be good for calling your other geek friends (I do) and it may be good for calling your possibly tech savvy parents in Florida, but don't try calling grandma or grandpa. I'm not trying to bash Skype here. I think it's an interesting and innovative solution in the sense that, well, it's free, but it's not the first of its kind. Ever heard of Net2Phone or the more or less defunctNetMeetingwhich also added video conferencing but never got around to allowing you to call peoples land lines? There are others as well. Not to mention the recent offering from BT / Yahoo.
Read MoreWe pointed out the upcoming release of the MP3Run awhile back, so now we'll properly follow-up with an announcement of the actual release of that MP3 player for the ultimate jogging set that comes with a special Bluetooth module that attaches to your shoe and keeps track of your speed and how much ground you've covered (come on, we know you're crazy excited to measure you're running skills in this late-Summer heat). Philips released the product at the Factory Convention Center in Amsterdam, along with some other iron man type goods like the Go Gear Wearable Camcorder which combines a MPEG4 camcorder, 2 megapixel camera, and an MP3 audio player in one, along with the Streamium TV, a 23-inch LCD TV that can wirelessly stream video, music, photos and all that multimedia stuff off your PC's hard drive. Somehow using the MP3Run sounds like a good way to develop athletic OCD, or maybe it's just us, since we really don't want to know how slow we've been going all these years.
Read MoreGood news and bad news... The good news is we figured out how to get purchased music from MSN Music Beta on to our Dell DJ MP3 player. The bad news, you can't "AutoSync" yet, you'll need to manually drag over the purchased music from your "My Music" folder. Why? AutoSync only works with MTP (Media Transport Protocol) or mass storage devices, which dragging it works fine over WMDM. This "should" be fixed when/if Dell has an MTP flash update for the DJ.
Read MoreA bit of the controversy regarding the recent claims that MSN Music store files won't play on PocketPC and Smartphone devicse might be cleared up, just for now anyway. We were able to purchase a song on the MSN Music store, download it, sync to the Pocket PC through the Windows Media Player, and then play the protected song in both internal memory as well as SD card.
Read MoreIf you're sick and tired of the kids taking over the family computer to IM their friends all night you can buy $99 worth of sweet relief from Motorola's IMfree. Yes we know, this product has been around for a while but Palmtops.About.com has a review of it and we're pretty sure a good number of people have never heard of it before anyway. Which could be saying something. But we digress. This little handheld device uses the 900 MHz band to hold up to six chat sessions up to 150 feet from the computer (the tester got even better range). Unfortunately, you most probably won't be able to use any other 900 MHz device (like a cordless phone) at the same time, since the IMfree doesn't play well with others. Oh and no backlight, which will prevent the kids from holding late-night secret conversations after you put them to bed.
Read MoreA small sign that Sony might be starting to get it? It was already pretty much an open secret that Sony was planning to add movies and video game downloads to their Connect online music store sometime next year, but the Inq reports that they're thinking of making it possible to properly buy (and own) the movies you download rather than subject you to frustrating rental periods where the movies self-destruct after a certain period of time (which is how MovieLink and CinemaNow do things). No doubt there'll be plenty of DRM involved (because Sony ain't gonna stop being Sony), but at least you'll be able to create a video collection that you can transfer to other machines without worrying about expiration dates. There's even a mention that the download service will work with the PlayStation Portable, and we'd be surprised if the PlayStation 3 didn't also figure into the mix somehow.
Read MoreSeems Sony is going through something of a change of heart recently: following its decision to support MP3 in its audio players comes news that, in Japan at least, Sony Music Entertainment is ditching copy-control CDs from November. They claim the reason is "an increase in awareness by music consumers", which we assume is supposed to mean that they've succeeded in educating everyone that copying CDs is a bad thing. Dare we suggest that the truth is simply that they're starting to see the light?
Read MoreWe hate to drop yet another acronym on you, but we really have no choice now that Toshiba has just unveiled their first flat-panel TV that kicks LCD, DLP, LCoS, and plasma to the curb and instead uses a new technology called surface-conduction electron-emitter display, or SED, which is supposed to have the brightness and contrast of CRT displays, but use one-third less power than of plasma TVs. First ones could go on sale as early as next year.
Read MoreThey changed the name a bit (it's now the NW-HD2 rather than the NW-HD1), switched the backlight color to blue, and added three new colors (pink, blue, and silver), but Sony's new version of their 20GB Network Walkman digital audio is just as craptacular as it was when it first came out, i.e. it still doesn't play MP3s unless you convert them into Sony's proprietary ATRAC3 format first. Comes out in Japan on October 10th, no word yet on availability here. [Via I4U]
Read MoreWith every digital camera maker using their own version of the so-called "raw" format to appease high-end photographers, Adobe is proposing that its new Digitial Negative Specification (DNG) is the wave of the future. To convince you, they've even made a free converter available for both Mac and Windows, which will translate many popular camera's raw formats into Adobe's DNG format. I'm no Ansel Adams, so it's hard for me to get personally excited by this. But I can see where this would be a Good ThingTM
Read MoreWe have a feeling a huge shakedown is happening at Sony (may we say, thank god and about time): Sony confirmed today they're adding MP3 support to their music players, starting at first with their flash players. They claim it's because converting to ATRAC3 is inconvenient for users who constantly need to swap files to their small-capacity devices (but doesn't Sony just want us to convert our music libraries to ATRAC3 anyway?). So what, are we dreaming? Was Sony actually listening to everyone? Are they prepared to admit that ATRAC3 is a failure? We're not sure, but despite at least one MP3-compatible device (the HMP-A1) slipping through the cracks, we're hoping this indicates a huge step forward for Sony. Somebody pinch us. [Thanks, Omar]
Read MoreWe were only just getting used to the notion that those 50GB Blu-ray discs and recorders were totally beyond our reach when the news comes that Sony is prepping an even more capacious 8-layer version of the Blu-ray disc that can hold up to 200GB of data. No word on when it'll hit, but a 4-layer version with storage capacity of 100GB is expected in 2007, so it'll be sometime after that.
Read MoreThey never even properly came out here (a few shops importing them doesn't count as a proper release), but Sony is confounding everyone once again and discontinuing those ultrasmall U50 and U70 tablet-style PCs they released in Japan earlier this year (we had a review of the U50 back in July). Four month or five months isn't exactly long for a product cycle, even in Japan, so either they sold out and have something new coming out or they just weren't getting enough love for these to keep on keepin' on.
Read MoreSince they've been steadily losing ground to the Koreans and the Taiwanese lately, it comes to us as no surprise that Sony wants to reinvent its brand image and is making a huge push to associate themselves as the company for high-definition, which they're going to be pushing throughout their entire product line (not that we mind, we like the pretty pictures). It'd be a perfect world to them if we'd all watch TV on the 70-inch Grand Wega HDTV, capture those precious moments with their HDR-FX1 consumer HDV camcorder(we can't wait to see that one), which we'd then edit on a Vaio PC and then burn to Blu-ray discs. Probably not gonna turn out exactly how they're imagining things...
Read MoreAccording to recent reports, Sony and several other large investors (including Comcast) have made a winning bid of roughly $4.8 billion to purchase MGM studios, just beating out Time Warner. With MGM, comes a number of film frnachises ripe for videogame adaptation. Of course, the two most significant, James Bond & Rocky, have already been made into numerous games across a multitude of platforms. Still, Sony reps must be salivating from the thought of exclusive ownership.
Read MoreThe real reason (or at least one of the really big reasons) why Sony just dropped $4.85 billion on Hollywood movie studio MGM? To get extra leverage in their high stakes showdown with NEC and Toshiba over whether it's going to be their Blu-ray format or NEC and Toshiba's HD-DVD format that emerges as the high-definition successor to today's DVD. For awhile it looked like HD-DVD had something of an edge there, but at the end of the day it'll probably mainly come down to which format the movie studios release their films in, which is why Sony decided to simply buy another studio and guarantee that they used Blu-ray rather than HD-DVD.
Read MoreApparently there are more people obsessive-compulsive about sterilizing their cellphones than we ever imagined. LG has officially begun a program to rid your cellphone of the 25,000-odd (benign) bacteria that inhabit it by disinfecting customers' phones by coating it with an anti-bacterial solution. We predict it's only a matter of time before gradeschools follow suit with cellphone hygenics programs, replete with singing, dancing clean-cellphone cartoons.
Read MoreMaybe not a big deal to that many people, but long time holdout Nokia is finally going to start support SD memory cards in their phones. Up until now the best you could get were MMC (MultiMediaCards) and RS-MMC (or Reduced Size MultiMediaCards) card slots, which was all fine and good except for the part about how SD has pretty much become the most popular memory card format (sorry, Sony, but the Memory Stick ain't cutting it). Making this something of no brainer, SD card slots are already compatible with MMC cards (but not vice versa), which means they won't risk leaving all of their current users hanging out to dry when they make the move sometime next year.
Read MoreUnless somehow they've managed to get JCPenney in on the scam as well, we're now fairly sure that Yahoo! does indeed have a line of consumer electronics coming out, especially since there's already another version of that Micro DVD Player we mentioned this past Friday on sale. Our latest theory: Yahoo! is just licensing their brand-name (this sort of thing happens all the time) and probably won't have a lot to do with the sales or marketing. UPDATE: Yep, it's a licensing arrangement. Here's the scoop directly from Yahoo!: This is a licensing agreement through our marketing department. It's just another component of a licensing program that we've had in place for several years for a variety of items such as computer peripherals and we're now extending to additional items such as those you see in the photograph. The manufacturer is Diamond Electronics and we will be providing our branding and logo. The manufacturer is working to sell these products into major retailers.
Read MoreMajor scoopage (we think): No official confirmation on this, but a well-placed inside source tells us that Yahoo! will be branching out in a big way soon with a line of consumer electronics which should be announced sometime within the next two weeks. The initial line up is supposedly a portable DVD player, two LCD televisions, and a home theater in a box system. Like most of these kinds of releases (assuming this is for real), they're really just slapping their logo on products built by somebody else (in this case, it's supposedly Diamond Electronics). This is either a really big deal or someone just went to a lot of trouble to try and dupe us—regardless, everything looked like it checked out, and it was too good to not pass along. Make sure you click to see pics and product descriptions. UPDATE: Dear skeptics, Yahoo! has just confirmed that this is for real.
Read MoreSony must really be feeling the heat or something because after aiming mainly at the higher-end of the PC market ever since they introduced their first VAIO back in the mid-Nineties, they're now changing course a little bit and heading straight into eMachines territory with a new line of less expensive low-end PCs. For a while Sony was one of the few players that could even manage to get mentioned in the same breath as Apple when it came to PC design, but the world is a different place now and it's definitely been getting tougher and tougher to convince people to pay a premium for a nice case with the all of the bargain basement PCs that are flooding the market these days. No specifics about the line itself or how low they really will go, but we suspect they'll want to get the first models out before the big holiday shopping season.
Read MoreA Japanese newspaper is reporting that Apple CEO Stevie Jobs offered Sony CEO Noboyuki Idei a chance to get in on the iTunes Music Store at a game of golf in Hawaii this past January. No joke, it could have been the Walkman iTunes Music Store, and you get one guess at who turned it down. So, of course, instead Sony turns around and launches Sony Connect, their music download service that only serves up ATRAC3 files (surprised?). While we're totally sure this business decision had a lot to do with the proprietary format clash that would have ensued (Apple and AAC vs. Sony and ATRAC3 is one brawl we wouldn't want to see go down), we can't say we're not surprised. Seriously Sony, this is getting real old now. [Thanks, Lars]
Read MoreThere must be a lot more trouble in gadgetland than we had ever imagined, we received more than enough readers questions for Ask Engadget to keep us all busy for the next year or so, but we settled on one from reader Cody H., who asks: I'm in desperate need of a new gadget bag/man purse. I'm looking for something that is small enough that I can carry it all the time, but big enough that I can fit my iPod, a book or two, a small camera and lunch. I don't carry a laptop. It doesn't need to look like a NASCAR jacket or be covered with leather and metal studs, but it should be sufficiently sized and styled to exude a distinct aura of non-threatening-geeky-but-all-man manliness. I'd also like it if it was under $100, preferably under $50. Any ideas? We'll use one of the slightly techier questions we got next week, but you have any suggestions for him?
Read MoreEver since we took that Song flight we got to wondering which seats on that upcoming flight have the most headroom, power for our gadgets, largest space for the caboose, trays for using our tech laptops, you know, that kind of stuff. Thank god we found Seat Guru, which has a list of all airlines and planes so when you order up that next e-ticket you can choose the best spot to park yourself. [via PowerPage]
Read MoreNah, you shouldn't be too surprised if you don't recognize many of the names on this list of the bestselling cellphones by carrier that Om Malik dug up. Usually the bestest and baddest phones aren't the most popular ones, so you won't see the Treo or the MPx200 or the P900 anywhere on a list like this since most people just take whichever handset they can get for free when they sign up for service. What is surprising is seeing how big of a comeback Motorola has made lately,how Samsung is doing a lot better than anyone would have predicted four years ago, and how LG seems to be gaining on just about everybody. AT&T Wireless: Samsung X436, Nokia 3200, LG G4015, Nokia 35095, LG L1150 Cingular: Motorola v400, Samsung x427, Nokia 1100/3100, LG 1200/1210. Nextel: Motorola i730 (we expect the i830 to gain in popularity at retail stores following expected price cuts) Sprint: Sanyo 8200, Samsung 680 T-Mobile: Motorola v600, Motorola v300, Nokia 6800, Sony Ericsson T610 (pictured above), and Siemens CF62T. Verizon: Samsung A670 (fueled by a buy-one-get-one-free offer), LG VX6000, LG VX4500, and Audiovox 8600, with the Motorola v710 gaining in popularity.
Read MoreLast week Kevin Kelly wanted to a recommendation for a good home projector, this week's question comes to us from reader Aaron S., who wants to know: Is it finally a good time to purchase a Tablet PC? I realize they're not for everyone, but the thought of being able to take notes by hand actually appeals to me and the only thing that's been holding me back (besides the price) has been my usual reluctance to buy anything until all the first-gen bugs get worked out. I heard that the new version of the Tablet PC OS just came out and I'm wondering whether it might be time to take the plunge. Should I wait? Are prices on Tablet PCs going to fall soon? Can anyone make a specific recommendation? Any advice for the guy?
Read MoreNo need to comment about this huge deal: "Florida State finalizing huge deal with Apple to provide free copies of iTunes and 99 cent songs for students." A As Jason Kottke said: Wow! How will they keep everyone else from taking advantage of this great deal? [Thanks Andrew!]
Read MoreWe're reaching the point where we'd just like Dell to get around to actually releasing the damn thing and be done with it, but the latest rumor about their new Axim X50 Pocket PC is that it will be announced October 10th and go on sale two days later. There's also some price info, supposedly the low-end one with a 416MHz processor will retail for $299, the mid-level version with a 520MHz procssor will go for $399, and the high-end model, which they're calling the X50V, will sport a 624MHz processor and both Bluetooth and WiFi and sell for $499. [Via Pocket PC Thoughts] UPDATE: The Dell Axim X50 has arrived. Click here for more details.
Read MoreIsn't it great when the Japanese do something totally insane like making PCs in the shapes of various cute zoo animals to make using a computer less scary to kids? Seriously, isn't it the best? Especially because they like, totally assassinate the American competition. Thank god they're doing stuff like this; the FrienZoo really picked up our day. Sure, the systems are only Celeron-based, but they do have FireWire, USB 2.0, and Ethernet—all not bad for a kid's computer (who are we kidding? We're ordering like seven of the little birdie.). [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreEarlier this year reports of Toshiba's ultratiny 0.85-inch hard disk drives (which consume half the power, are roughly 80 percent smaller, and can withstand more than twice the impact than the 1.8-inch drive Toshiba makes currently that is used in the iPod) sparked the usual speculation about all the fancifully small new gadgets it could eventually turn up in, like in cellphones or an even more mini iPod mini. Now they're getting down to business and say that they'll be throwing into mass production before the end of the year, which is actually a tiny bit ahead of schedule. They haven't said what the capacity of the drives will be (probably 2GB or 3GB), but do expect a flurry of "world's smallest hard drive-based MP3 players" sometime early next year.
Read MoreIf you've been having a hard time tracking down that high-end video card you've been aching for, you're not alone. PC Hardware polls some of the reputable distribution channels for high-end gear, and have a collection of the email repsonses. Interesting stuff, once you look beyond the marketing hype. The bottom line seems to be that ATI and Nvidia are churning out the cards steadily, and then handing them off to Dell and HP. Thanks guys! That's one way to play to the base.
Read MoreWe know you're seeking perfect uniformity in your life, which is why we know you're going to be really excited because you can finally replicate the experience of sitting in your Mercedes Maybach (we know you have many fine automobiles, but that would be the $360,000 Mercedes, remember?) at your home PC console: for between $5,500 and $12,000 US you too can upgrade that lowly beige desktop to an exotic wood (read: endangered rainforest timber) monitor, keyboard and mouse, which each take between six and fourteen hours of hand carving to produce from single whole blocks of wood. We were going to go for Mahogany (pictured) but we thought the better of it, and now we can't decide between Chocobolo, Amboyna, and Thuya. Probably whichever will inspire the least amount of eco-guilt. [Via bookofjoe]
Read MoreIf you're worried that AMD will never catch the PCI Express, stop worrying. VIA is coming to the rescue with a PCI-E solution that AMD can plug right into. For those new to this technological marvel, PCI-Express is a new slot that your PCI-Express compatible video card will slip into. The available bandwidth for the card will increase substantially, and there will even be some left over for networking and a/v capture. Now, that's our kind of technology.
Read MoreSo one of the big selling points of those new iPod "tattoos" from HP is that you can trick out your iPod without risking any permanent damage to it (or looking really behind the times—that Hives tattoo is already starting to look very five minutes ago). We had no problem peeling the tattoo off the iPod we we were playing with at HP's booth at that media event we hit last week, but there've been a few complaints here and there of them leaving a sticky residue on some people's iPods, and Jillian Myers has blogged the entire saga she went through to try and get to the bottom of why the tattoo she put on her iPod left behind an unwelcome reminder of its existence.
Read MoreRemember when overclocking your Celeron like fifty percent was so cool? Apparently things haven't changed too much, the stakes are about just these days, far as we can tell. Some Finnish guy overclocked his 3.6GHz P4 to 6GHz. Six gigahertz. Sure, it's not stable, but come on, don't you still have a softspot in your heart for some geeks who spend hours and hours just so they can take a screenshot of their CPU's speed that might well have been Photoshopped anyway? Er, we mean, good job, and 10GHz, ho! [Via Slashdot]
Read MoreGiven that you can pick up a wireless base station for something like $20 now (we can't wait until stores start offering them free after rebate just to get people in the door), it turns out that Intel's whole notion of putting WiFi access point functionality into their Grantsdale chipset for desktops wasn't such a hot idea and they've quietly dropped the whole thing. Can't say we'll miss it, since it's already not that hard to turn a desktop or a laptop with WiFi into a makeshift hotspot if you really want to.
Read MoreWe'll admit we never heard of Imagine Graphics (a UK outfit) before they introduced their newest Pixel Perfect 256MB DVI video card. So naturally we were a bit skeptical about their claims that the card was head and shoulders above your average PC video card because it was specially optimized for use with LCDs, plasmas, and other widescreen displays. Besides having special drivers for widescreen resolutions (which can be surprisingly elusive), they say that the Pixel Perfect offers plasma TV owners the added benefit of burn-in protection and extends the life of your display (we've heard plenty about how plasmas lose their brightness over time). We generally won't scoff at any 256MB video card (more is usually always better than less), but we suspect that plenty of other video card makers would say their products work just as well with LCD and plasma displays as the Pixel Perfect. //
Read MoreWe let you know about their last two players, the 515 and 516, but it appears MSI is skipping one model and going straight to the 518, a 1-inch drive based player in 1.5, 2, and 4GB varieties. The device will play back MP3 and WMA, FM tuner and recorder, has a 16-hour battery, OLED screen, and an SD/MMC slot. Well hot diggity. No word yet on size, weight, and Bluetooth (like its little sister), but we're assuming "small", "light", and "nope" will be an order. [Via DAPreview]
Read MoreAre you sitting down? Good. Because we have some bad news and some worse news. The bad news is that the e830, Toshiba's new flagship Pocket PC, is definitely not coming out here in the States ever. The worse news is that this also spells the end of the line for Toshiba's handheld division—they're pulling out the American market entirely and have zero plans to release another PDA here anytime soon. This leaves HP as the only manufacturer selling a significant number of Pocket PCs here in the US and you gotta wonder how long even they'll keep putting out handhelds out without any sort of cellular capability (at least, in the numbers that they have been). The cold hard reality is that sales of PDAs are flat while smartphones are all zoom zoom.
Read MoreLook, we wouldn't be any more excited about wearing that godawful getup than the lady pictured right (actually, she does seem pretty stoked), but the Human Interface Technology Laboratory's new visual aid system has got some serious practical use for the visually impaired. The 15-pound laptop/backback analyzes IR visual data in its field of vision (about ten feet) sent to it by the 1-pound(!) glasses/headset, and then sends back alerts to the wearer that they're about to hit something. Apparently the apparatus is low-cost (the most expensive parts being the laptop and $400 laser-diode), hitting somewhere beneath the $1000 mark, which is huge news for potential buyers (we all know how pricey medical technology is). We're rooting for the production model to be embedded so they can shed the laptop (or at least give 'em an X505!), but if we were smacking into stuff left and right, we wouldn't have a whole lot of room to complain about those details right yet. [Via Technology Trends]
Read MoreYou've got to admire their tenacity: taking the output jack of their sound card, feeding it through a 30-watt amp, and then wiring up to the control heads of old hard drives to "sing", the folks over at Afrotechmods created hard speakers. We heard about this a while ago, but couldn't any longer resist the urge to tell you. Coming soon to a Radiohead album near you.
Read MoreIt's not an overachiever or anything, but we can't say Gateway's new Profile 5.5 is too bad all things considered. Its specs definitely give the new iMac a run for its money (there's certainly not any competition in the looks department); the Pentium 4 equipped all-in-one machine features gigabit Ethernet, optional WiFi, Firewire and USB 2.0, SATA hard drives, integrated memory card reader, and a 17-inch LCD starting starting at $1,400. We'll see how it does, but at least for now it's a lot nicer than their last Profile (though not nearly as nice as the Lluon LNLA11-1). [Via DesignTechnica]
Read MoreIt's not even close to what you'd call a powerhouse of a PC, but then again, you'd probably be buying Vent-Box's PC-1 for its looks rather than its 600MHz VIA processor, 512MB of RAM, or 60GB hard drive. [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreWe're officially trying to break our really nasty habit of treating Iomega like a punching bag (we've got a few other bad habits we're not giving up quite yet), which is why we're turning our attention towards the NAS 100d, their first wireless networked attached storage drive that can hook up with your home network over WiFi (it's got that built-in 802.11g the kids are going crazy for these days). There are most definitely some less pricey options out there (the 160GB version retails for $499 and the 250GB version goes for $599), but they're aiming this one specifically at the small business market. It has a couple of USB ports if you want add some extra storage capacity via another external hard drive, but the really good part is that you don't need to run any special software on each PC that wants to access the NAS 100d; since it runs on its own embedded operating system it should be automatically pop up on your network (big emphasis on the "should" since you know how these things go.
Read MoreUsually we try not to geek out way too much on these sorts of industry announcements, but you gotta cut us some slack if we get a little excited at the prospect of cheaper storage and longer battery life in our portable obsessions. Hitachi and Intel are collaboarating on a new standard called CE-ATA (Consumer Electronics-Advanced Technology Attachment) which should standardize (and hopefully shrink down even further) those compact hard drives that are popping up in MP3 players, portable video players, and yes, even cellphones. The goal is to finalize the spec by June 2005, with the first mobile minidrives ready to go by August 2005.
Read MoreIn our weekly How-To this week we showed you how we hacked an old digital camera to take a photo automatically as fast as it can until the memory card fills up or the battery dies using a $1.49 LM555 Timer Chip from RadioShack. As mentioned in our intro, once you do this to a digital camera there are lots of other things you can do, and here's one in progress, the BlackBoxing of our car by tagging photos with GPS coordinates.
Read MoreJust to get all technical on your asses, Buffalo's new drive doesn't use Blu-ray discs, it actually uses Sony's other blue laser format, their new Professional Disc for Data, which can hold up to 23GB of, um, data. And they mean it when they toss the word "professional" in there, this one isn't intended for sale to regular consumers. The big difference between this and Blu-ray? Sony says the PDD has faster data transfer rates.
Read MoreThis isn't the first time we've seen ghetto blaster modding, but we have to say the beauty of its sheer obsessive-compulsiveness brings a tear to even our cynical eye. Take one 80s-style Hitachi TRK-8200HR boombox, add the Fujitsu Stylistic 1200 Tablet PC, run some Windows 98, and jimmy the software to mimic the blaster's controls. The result lets you blast Run-DMC and take e-notes on the reactions of passersby. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreGaming Nexus follows up on its recent interview with Nvidia that delved into their SLI technology. The upcoming spec will allow two cards to do the rendering duty, freeing up resources and increasing game performance. Though the tech is based on an old idea, it should get a big boost from today's powerhouse Nvidia cards. The ATI response is tepid, at best. Claiming that the cost vs. perfomrance ratio will be prohibitive " by the time you purchase the two cards and the expensive motherboards" misses the rather large hobbyist market; a market that the high-end card always goes for first. ATI needs to come up with better talking points with SLI catching more buyers' eyes.
Read MoreVoom hasn't exactly been vooming or booming since its launch about a year ago—at one point the satellite HDTV service was signing up an average of ten customers a day—but that isn't stopping them from moving forward and teaming up with OpenTV and Ucentric Systems on plans to offer a digital video recorder that'll have built-in networking capabilitites so you can stream media around the house. Not sure if it'll make all that huge of a difference since DirecTV already offers a TiVo that can record HDTV (they also don't mention when it'll be available), guess we'll have to wait and see on this one.
Read MoreHackers have been having a field day ever since crafty, budget-conscious digicam users realized that ripping the high capacity microdrives out of MP3 players (see our MuVo2 story) was cheaper than simply buying them outright. The Rio Carbon is the latest victim, and Greg Hughes has a write-up on how he extracted the 5GB Seagate ST1 Microdrive buried within. The whopper is that he actually got it working on his Nikon D70 and now has the capacity for over 1300 pictures taken at full 6 megapixel resolution. Just do the math: the Rio Carbon retails for $249, whereas 4GB microdrives are still around the $350 mark when sold by themselves (Rio must get a helluva discount). // //]]> [Via Slashdot]
Read MoreRecently, Gaming Nexus caught up with Steve Sims, the Desktop Graphics Product Manager over at NVIDIA, for a little Q&A. The topic of choice of course, was SLI, NVIDIA's answer to Alienware's Video Array system. Use the link below and check out what Steve had to say about the new dual video card.
Read MoreSpeaking of the Neonode N1 and vaporousness, the current heavyweight champion of vaporware, OQO's oft-delayed Model 01 ultrapersonal computer (that handheld with the slide-out QWERTY keyboard that runs on a full version of Windows XP and has a 20GB hard drive, 1GHz processor, and built-in Bluetooth and WiFi), is all set to become a reality when it finally becomes available on October 14th. Our lustful hearts can't wait.
Read MoreDetermined to move beyond the UK set top box market, Pace has developed its PVR2GO media player. We're not so sure how different it is from a "regular" personal video player, aside from the as-yet unaccomplished goal of tying it in with paid TV content. 5-inch screen, check. 40GB hard drive, check. MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 and MP3, WMA, JPG support, check. USB 2.0, FireWire, headphone ports, check. Seems pretty much the same to us as most of the others. Guess what's really meant by all those acronyms is that they want you to pay them for shows, instead of just downloading them off the internet. It doesn't look too shabby though. And it's not like we'd mind if our cable company threw this in for a few more bucks a month.
Read MoreATI needs to stop giving us so many goodies to download. Soon after the release of their new Control Center, the company has posted an updated driver. This brings the Catalyst version to 4.9. Amongst the fixes are graphic bandages for Far Cry, XIII and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Then again, some of the known issues with the latest release effect Doom 3 and City of Heroes. As usual, proceed with caution when you're tackling driver updates.
Read MoreIs there a problem with the Carbon, Rio's new 5GB MP3 player? It depends on how you define problem, but there is definitely a downside to all that metal they used in the casing, since you might be in for some static if the metal surrounding the headphone jack touches the metal at the base of the headphone connector (the headphones they ship with the Carbon apparently don't have a metal base on 'em). [Via PlayerBlog]
Read MoreThey've been bouncing out some fine Pocket PCs (like the MyPal A730) and laptops (like the W1N) for a little while now, but AsusTek (aka ASUS aka one of those up-and-coming Taiwanese manufacturers that Sony and Samsung better be watching out for) says they're going to shift even more of their focus onto cellphones and smartphones next year. [Via The Inquirer]
Read MoreThe ever-dependable AnandTech has blessed us with another preview of some upcoming hardware. The next offering by Nvidia will be a GeForce 6600GT. It promises high end power for a low cost. The thorough preview lays out the argument for splurging on something that isn't quite top-of-the-line. They also make the good point that the PCI Express version of the card will only run on Intel systems. It's a good observation, actually, since AMD doesn't support PCIe yet. That will change, of course, but in the short-term many of us will have an affordable option on the shelves soon.
Read MoreNot sure how pleased the good people at Intel will be about this, but Alienware just broke the 4GHz barrier by deliberately overclocking the 3.6GHz processor in their new Area-51 ALX gaming desktop and installing a special liquid-cooling system to keep the whole thing from melting down. And not surprisingly it'll cost you at least 4 G's if you want to get your hands on 4GHz.
Read MoreWhat better way to spend a long weekend at home (in your scivvies) than to tweak your machine into submission? "None other way", is the answer to that question. A nice, thorough 12 page tweaker's dream awaits you at TweakGuides for the new ATI Control Center. Apparently, this new app is much more hefty than we originally thought. We've never felt so close to our silicon.
Read MoreWe posted a review of the latest Catalyst software pack for the ATI Radeon cards last night, and then forgot to post a link to the actual download. These are worth it, folks. I've played through some Doom 3, Far Cry and Warcraft III with no problems and fiddled with the Catalyst Control Center tools with great results. The interface is slick (at last) and, as usual, the drivers themselves seem solid (after my unscientific test).
Read MoreATI's brilliant driver engineers have been pounding away at the silicon, desperately trying to suck out every last piece of performance. The latest set of updates has its own name. Yes, it's that special. The Catalyst Control Center is a bundle of improvements that includes the standard speed boosts, but also blesses us with a new interface to our hardware. The ATI user-interface design team is a no-nonsense group, with a taste for that 1990s look. They must have received a kick in the pants recently, because the new digs are really nice. Pessimists may see the new Control Center as a desperate move to catch up to Nvidia's sleek Forceware. Read the review, you pessimists.
Read MoreAnd of course almost completely contradicting that Associated Press story we just linked to about the lack of WiFi at the Republican National Convention, David Shatzkes, a VP with Computer Horizons, the company which is handling tech operations for the event, says that the real reason they decided not to install a wireless network wasn't because of concerns about security or intereference, but because they didn't want to have to deal with endless tech support requests from people who couldn't figure out how to log onto the network properly. [Via TechDirt]
Read MoreRemember that whole Internet TV thing? Yeah that whole thing really took off didn't it? Nevertheless, Amino Communications's latest go at it is the AmiNET500, an IPTV set-top box with digital video recording functionality and an 80GB hard drive. Of course it's got copyright protection so the terrible TV show thieves will come up empty-handed, but it can stream content to other units. Oh, and to please all the geeks out there, it runs Linux. The AmiNET500 will be available next month, though we don't really see content providers banging the doors down to deliver their shows this way.
Read MoreHere's a fun thing to play around with, if you're bored at 3am. Most Sony digital cameras start saving photos with the following name "DSC00001.JPG" and a lot of people take these photos and upload them to the web, where the all-knowing, all-seeing Google later catalogs all of them. So by clicking this link you can see the first photo taken by someone with their new camera or newly formatted card for some cameras, this is what it looks like when thousands of Sony cameras lose their photo-virginity. Update: Bonus fun, IMG_0001.JPG is the equivalent for Canon cameras. So, that will work too. Here's CASIO, Pentax, Kodak, Konica, Fuji and Nikon. And one of our readers points out "Using DSC as a search string in P2P programs also works great for turning up things on peoples hard drives they they didnt know they were sharing".
Read MoreAll politics aside, we're 100% for throwing monkeys at gadgets (both literally and figuratively) to see what they can (and can't) do with them. In this case, Black Box Voting is suggesting that the Diebold voting machines are so flawed that even monkey can 0wn it. Apparently there's a a hidden black box-like record keeping program that resides on Diebold's election software—this is already pretty awful, as vote record keeping should always be paper-based. This application is a "secret" feature enabled by a two-digit trigger (not a "bug" or an accidental oversight; it's a feature), and apparently even an untrained monkey (the real kind) can get in there and manipulate records. So please don't blame us if we're spending a little extra time in the booth trying figure this one out, we shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes (assuming we're of comparable intelligence with Baxter the monkey who, if allowed into a voting stall, might rule the free world with a simple hack). [Via Newstoday]
Read MoreThis week's WiFi security scare—that rogue employees could setting up unauthorized wireless hotspots at your workplace right now and you probably don't even know it!—comes to us courtesy of a bunch of security analysts at London's IT Security Summit who want to let you know your own workers, or maybe even scary hackers, are installing DIY WiFi access points in offices and that IT departments aren't even noticing. Yeah, you could simply bust out a WiFi detector or something, but as usual these warnings are more about scaring up business than anything else and AirDefense, one of the presenters at the summit, mentions that if you want to really make sure your office isn't riddled with illegal wireless access points you should probably buy their set of "wireless intrusion detection sensors" just to be on the safe side.
Read MoreWe love anything that's supposed to make using a PC safer for the average person, but generally most consumer-oriented, uh, solutions (we hate saying that word, but you know what we're getting at) usually fall way short of their potential, and worse, expectations. The SecuriKey Computer Protection System works on both Mac and PC, and secures your system via password authentication and a USB key-device. What this means is that you can't get in your system unless you know the password and have the USB device, which is a good thing, since if someone gets physical access to your machine it's usually pretty easy to crack the log-in authentication if they know what they're doing. The downside: lose the key and your screwed, which is probably going to happen sooner or later.Deepquest gives it pretty high marks on the Mac OS X side in their review, but we won't be using this puppy to secure our multinational trade secrets (we've got a couple!) anytime soon.
Read MoreYou can get death threats for helping people fake caller ID, but obviously undeterred, a prankster in Norway created Punk SMS, a site that makes it a snap to send spoofed text messages to your friends (or enemies) that'll make it look like they're coming from another number (it's not like you couldn't do this before or anything, this is just makes it easier). Right now it's only for hoaxing your pals in Sweden and Norway, but even so we're never trusting another text message ever again (which isn't to say that we aren't dying for this to come to America).
Read MoreWannado City, a Fort Lauderdale kid-geared theme park named that so they can use the marketing slogan, "Where kids do what they wanna do!", has started issuing RFID wristbands to all incoming visitors so the kiddies can still do what they wanna do, just as long as they're being digitally tracked while they're doing it. The RFID wristband, named the SafeTZone's Real Time Locating System, is made by Texas Instruments and RF Code and is being used at 4 other theme parks around the US (Legoland in Denmark actually uses WiFi to reunite lost kids with their parents). Ostensibly the reason is that people visiting can keep track of everyone in their party, but we're thinking that the real reason behind Wannado City's turn to RFID is to keep the disgruntled kids in, since Wannado's main pitch is to offer tots a chance to try out grownup jobs (if they only knew...). Seriously, they actually offer kids career games as a "pathologist", "supermarket stock person", and "landscaper" ("gadget blogger" seems to be conspicuously absent). If we had to spend an hour playing "guess the biopsy result", or the "restock the canned corn game", we might run for the hills too. [Via Slashdot]
Read MoreEngadget reader Chester Bullock decided to toss Kryptonite the link and video we posted about picking their Evolution 2000's lock with a plain ol' Bic pen. And we can't say it wasn't a good idea, but what we were hoping for was something a little more drastic than just being slightly less than amused, and plugging a bunch of new products. Click to see their response in full.
Read MoreMuch to our surprise, we were able to hack our Kryptonite Evolution 2000 U- Lock with a ballpoint pen. This $50 lock is supposed to be one of the best for "toughest bicycle security in moderate to high crime areas"—unless the thief happens to have a Bic pen. We used to use these to lock up our bicycles, but we're switching to something else ASAP. (Oh, and just to be trite, the pen is mightier than the lock.) Click here to watch the video (WindowsMedia) [Via Metafilter]
Read MoreNow we're talkin'. An enterprising fellow in San Diego who goes by "Ground Loop" started probing what information the Segway handle bars send to the control base. His findings could be good news for folks like us who plan to make autonomous robot Segways to walk our dog, but we still have to figure out how to stop people from hopping on and stealing the damn things (we're not kidding).
Read MoreWith every new Microsoft service pack release comes a new slew of problems to deal with. You can rest assured that their security fixes will make security holes. Such is life with an operating system that's on almost 95% of the computers today. But sometimes the service packs can do some good. Hardcoreware finds a lot to like about the download. Though we've had mixed results here with the native bluetooth support, the update can actaully improve hardware performance in some cases. The piece claims that, with the inclusion of Direct X 9.0c, you will see a positive difference in your gaming. This could be true. There have been a lot of reports that running 9.0c with Doom 3 is the only way to go.
Read MoreNone too happy about the fact that Verizon has deliberately crippled Bluetooth on the Motorola V710, Jonathan A. Zdziarski is offering a bounty to anyone who can successfully hack the phone and restore the OBEX and OPP Bluetooth features which have been disabled. What do these do, you ask? Well, OBEX lets you transfer files between the phone and a computer, while OPP lets you send phonebook entries and other info to another phone or Bluetooth-enabled car (using a Bluetooth headset with the V710 works just fine). Useful features don't you think? The prize is up to $882.72, a sum of money we're hoping will be enough to tempt at least one kindly hacker into getting this done.
Read MoreThat was fast: Creative's new 5GB MuVo² FM has only been on the market for hardly anytime at all, but just like somebody did with those earlier MuVo players, the good hackers over at VR-Zone have already figured out how to remove the tantalizing prize hidden within: a CompactFlash-compatible mini 5GB hard drive from Seagate that you can pop into a digital camera or a PDA. Yeah, normally we wouldn't advise wasting your time on buying a brand new gadget just to cannibalize it for parts, but seeing as how a 4GB CompactFlash card'll easily set you back close to $500 while the new MuVo² FM only retails for around two hundred and fifty bucks or so, it's a pretty nice deal. Plus you can pop an older, lower-capacity CompactFlash card in there and it'll work just fine. [Via TechBits.ca]
Read MoreIf you have an unused Wal-Mart gift card, perhaps waiting for the everyday low prices to get lower, well, it appears someone figured out how to cash out the value on some gift cards before they can be used. Wal-Mart isn't saying much, but our guess is that someone pwn3d their database and is cranking out cards then heading off to low price mecca for some hardcore savings (free) or that the cards come in sequential order and there's some social engineering—on the customer service side.
Read MoreNot that it matters for most people who pick some permutation of their rover's name for all their passwords, but if you're looking for a somewhat convenient hardware solution to store those passwords, you might want to consider the MetaPass M500. The $100 USB drive keeps all your passwords locked up tight with 448-bit Blowfish crypto (why they didn't use AES, we don't know) and has a paltry 16MB file storage area. They claim all you have to do is plug it in and you're off with automatic password entry; what they don't exactly explain is how the encryption matters if the device can be used without an authentication system of its own. In other words, don't you dare lose this thing. [Via NWF]
Read MoreLooks like Emmanuel Goldstein, founder and editor of 2600, the Hacker Quarterly (one of our favorite zines) was arrested on Tuesday while video taping a protest at 16th Street near Union Square. If we find out more, we'll post up here. We kinda wonder what happens to all the cameras, cell phones and gear that the protesters have when they get arrested, which is about 2,000 people right now. Earlier the SMS Bicycling guy got nabbed.
Read MoreWell, it's a start: it was ruled today that Skylink successfully defended itself from the DCMA-wielding Chamberlain. If you're not familiar with the case, Skylink, who manufactures 3rd party garage door openers, reverse-engineered Chamberlain's garage door devices and made their own universal openers for Chamberlain's equipment (think universal remotes for garage doors). Of course, this is a very good thing that we're not all of a sudden copyrighting things like garage door openers; but you have to wonder why Chamberlain would care, since you still have to buy their garage doors to begin with.
Read MoreBack in the halcyon days of the mid-Nineties (when we was punk) we actually recall scrawling the word "SELLOUTS!" on the covers of the Green Day LPs that turned up at that college radio station we deejayed at. Which is why it's ever-so-hard to dish out props to Green Day for encouraging (and cashing in on) people downloading their music online with this set of blank CD-Rs that come with custom-printed Green Day artwork, so your "mixes" don't have to look quite so homemade. So we'll give 'em some props, but we're now gonna scrawl "DIY or Die" on these if we ever see them for sale in a store. [Via BoingBoing]
Read MoreI really wish this Borg Pony had reared its vein-spattered synthetic head during the early teen-angst years, maybe I wouldn't have traded the My Little Pony set to a neighbor for a 3rd-degree copy of Another Bad Creation (Coolin' At the Playground Ya Know, anybody?). Yeah, I got duped (both literally and figuratively), but if I had had a creative bone in my body maybe I would have transformed the ponies into edgy/creepy art pieces like this. The artist even sculpted a tiny working LED headpiece as a Borg laser device, though she really should have networked of slew of Borg ponies (am I taking this too far?). Well, 10-year-old-me probably wouldn't have had the heart to attach tubes to Petal Blossom's shank or shave off Apple Jack's tale, I just wish I hadn't given up the stable to the sounds of "Iesha".
Read MoreNo matter how hard we try, we're never going to totally understand how they do things over in Japan, but what we do know for sure is that we really hope they'll ship this costume overseas. [Via textually.org]
Read MoreWe sorta liked it better when they were trying to disguise cellphone masts as Jesus, but Fraud Frond has a gallery of fake trees that are being used to hide cellphone antennas and towers. [Via BoingBoing]
Read MoreThere have been rumors for awhile in the Segway circles about a golf-specific Segway and it looks like it might be happening. The Segway GT comes equipped to carry a golf bag, ice chest, scorecard, GPS equipment, and is colored red. We're kinda disappointed, we'd like to see more Segways replacing cars and being used as robotic platforms, but hey, you gotta go where the green is (literally). [Via SegwayChat]
Read MoreFeaturing a h@x0r-friendly name, the new redcare auto-txt automotive security system is practically begging those h@x0rs to h@x0r this technology to death. Utilizing both Bluetooth and GPS (why they didn't go for the obvious and name it "bluecare auto-txt" we don't know), this system from BT Technologies in the UK requires drivers to enter a PIN code via a Bluetooth device in order to start the car, and upon exiting the car the system is automatically armed. If a car is found to have been stolen (or otherwise tampered with), it can be remotely tracked and disabled via GPS from a "Secure Operations Center" that is monitored by the police. It's only available in the EU, but we're pretty sure someone, somewhere is trying to figure out how to disable the Bluetooth on unsuspecting autophiles' luxury cellphones as we write this. This is going to make parking lot surfing a whole new, fun game for anyone who has grown weary of getting their kicks from Bluesnarfing. [Via Blueserker]
Read MoreWe hope only cars get smarter than their masters right quick so we have less middle-finger interactions with the seemingly infinite supply of road-idiots out there—anything to take the pain out of getting from point A to point B is good news right proper. Aston Martin taken it upon themselves to add the first adaptive neural network to their DB9's V-12 engines to prevent misfiring, which is apparently rather common in those kinds of cars. (Come on now, we really know it's actually a distributed computing project to discover the meaning of life.) The system listens to the noise the engine makes, and if everything sounds alright, you'll never even notice the system kicking in—unless things are going seriously wrong and some of the cylinders go into shutdown mode. Either way, we're sure 007 (Sean Connery only, if you please) would approve. [Via The Inquirer]
Read MoreWe dig the zero toxic emissions, but come on, that you can let BMW's H2R open up to 60 in about 6 seconds and top it out at 185 mph while the exhaust squirts steam out the back is pretty rad. The body styling something to be desired, but they more than made up for it by, you know, having a non-polluting engine. Besides, it's not like you're ever going to ride (or see) it anyway, so who cares?
Read MoreTopping on at over 4 1/2 feet longer than the Hummer H2, say hello to the new truck all the soccer moms will be driving their kids around in next year: the NaviStar CXT. This monster of a truck won't overcompensate for any, um, shortcomings, or alleviate any of your eco-guilt, but at a price of $115,000 it'll definitely leave your wallet feeling a lot lighter. Not sure if this true, but at the Earth First meeting we went to the other day they told us that the CXT runs on the blood of baby harp seals and even then only gets 15 feet to the gallon.
Read MoreLet's see: you've been convicted twice on drunk driving charges, so what do you do next time you slam your car into a tree? Why you sue the company that makes the ignition interlock breathalyzer that you have to blow into before you can drive, that's what you do. To be fair, he was sober at the time, but Jason Reali of Telford, Pennsylvania claims that he had to blow so hard into the interlock that a judge had placed into his car after his drunk driving convictions that he passed out and ended up crashing his car.
Read MoreWe're not entirely sure how a camera mounted in the front and rear of a car can eliminate a driver's blind spot (it's not like the Volvo BLIS system, that's for sure) but if Mini wants to add dual screens and an onboard camera system to their cars, we're definitely not complaining. The downside: each camera's going to set you back $1,000, so it may just be easiest to get Q to hook you up in the mean time.
Read MoreWe're not sure if we'd cross the Mojave on a Vespa (geared-out or not) like the president of the Italian Vespa Online Association plans to, but he's tricked out his rudeboy rider with a low-powered dual-drive computer, 8-inch touchscreen, USB webcam, and sat phone, which he's calling the Vespa Puter (perhaps Vesputer might be a little easier?). At least we know this Vespa won't take a dive off of a cliff in England like at the end of a certain movie. [Via The Inquirer]
Read MoreThe System Sensing and Control Lab at Hokkaido University has come up with the Sweeper, a broomlike gadget that they envisage as an alternative to the bicycle (like the bicycle, unfortunately, it doesn't fly). It's basically a pole attached to a wheel-and-motor arrangement that'll drive you forward at 10 km/h provided you remember to put on some skates first. Speed is controlled by the angle of the pole, and it'll run for about 30 minutes on a single charge. We're sure we've seen one of these before somewhere, though. (MPEG video of the Sweeper in action here)
Read MoreWe're not sure how much we like the idea of offroading with a fuel-cell vehicle (isn't half the point getting the deafening roar of a four-wheeler?), let alone offroading on something that looks suspiciously like a Plymouth Prowler. That said, if we were going to offroad fuel-cell style, we'd definitely want to do it in Peugeot's Quark, the four-wheeler with a removeable waterproof interactive display that shows fuel cell and traction system information, vehicle speed, and GPS navigation. It can cruise for about 60 miles before the fuel cell needs replacement, which should be more than enough to satisfy that once-monthly extreme lifestyle craving you've got. Now we've just got to scout some rough terrain in Manhattan to kick up some dirt; maybe 42nd St. during rush-hour?
Read MoreThose insurance companies can be real tricky-like. Progressive auto-insurance is offering discounts to customers who will install TripSense, a matchbook-sized monitoring device which records their driving habits, into their vehicles. Though the company says the information will not be used to increase fees for fast or reckless drivers (yeah right), the info has still been collected, so it could be used in noncustomer-friendly ways. Like, say it being sold to various 3rd parties, or worse, a subpoena. We're thinking puny $25 discounts and future 15% rate drops are small pennies in order to maintain our truly bad, yet still anonymous, driving habits.
Read MoreOne of the titles we're most looking forward to this holiday season is Battle for Middle Earth. The title has been shaping up to be a gorgeous, innovative game that will let you take control of the Tolkien hordes. Unfortunately, word is out that the game has been delayed. Luckily, it's not a long one and the game should see release in early December, instead of November. Hopefully it won't happen again. I want to celebrate the New Year with Orcish heads on a sea of spikes.
Read MoreThe creators of Myst IV promised that this iteration of the uber-successful series would be fun for everyone. The other games in the series have been popular, but have usually been the subject of some ridicule for their obtuse puzzles. Gamespot seems to think that Myst IV lives up to the hype. Giving it an 85%, Gamespot points out the game's attention to detail, massive scope and excellent pay off at the end of the story. The graphics also get special attention, which is to be expected. The Myst games have always looked great.
Read MoreWe'll give you a hint, he's a rapper... You got it?... Nope not him... Um sorry, try again... Ooh, so close... Alright, enough games, we'll tell you... Young Maylay, who else? Okay, so you might not be up on hip-hop's young gunners, but even so, Mayaly is pretty far below the radar (just try Googling him). He's built some underground buzz off of a few collabos, but suffice to say, the streets aren't exactly talking. Landing the lead in San Andreas as Carl Johnson—a man caught up in the west coast gangsta culture circa early-1990s and subsequently framed for murder—should help to build Maylay's buzz, most likely of the MTV-flavor. In case you were wondering, Young Maylay was recommended to Rockstar by DJ Pooh who scripted the Friday movies and was sought after for a contribution to the game.
Read MoreTecmo & Team Ninja released the second download for Ninja Gaiden this past Sunday. While it's not nearly as groundbreaking as the first volume, this latest download does focus on beefing up your adversaries. Now you'll go head-to-head against, a clawed cyclops, a new female demon, a spiked hellion, and a fireball chucking, winged boss. There's also a new costume thrown in the mix. So if you haven't already, gets to downloading, it's free!
Read MoreIf you want a lesson in how to design a great soundtrack, just look to video games. After the spectacle that was Grand Theft Auto; Vice City, all the big games feel the pressure to supply great tunes with the fun. Here's the list from Tony Hawk's Underground 2. What could possibly beat racking up points while listening to Ministry? Frank Sinatra – "That's Life" The Doors – "Break On Through (To The Other Side)" Johnny Cash – "Ring of Fire" Ramones – "Rock 'N Roll High School" Sugarhill Gang – "Rappers Delight" Metallica – "Whiplash" Red Hot Chili Peppers – "The Power of Equality" The Stooges – "1970" X – "Los Angeles" Violent Femmes – "Add It Up" The D.O.C. – "Whirlwind Pyramid" Jimmy Eat World – "Pain" Rancid – "Fall Back Down" The Explosion – "Here I Am" Melvins – "Sweet Willy Rollbar" Distillers – "Beat Your Heart Out" Less Than Jake – "That's Why They Call It A Union" Faith No More – "Mid Life Crisis" Ween – "It's Gonna Be A Long Night" Joy Division – "Warsaw" Dead Boys – "Sonic Reducer" Brand Nubian – "Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down" Cut Chemist – "Drums of Fire" The Germs – "Lexicon Devil" Disturbed – "Liberate" The Living End – "End of the World" Fear – "I Love Livin In The City" Audio Two – "Top Billin" Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth – "Soul Brother #1" Das Oath – "Awesome R***" Libretto – "Volume" Handsome Boy Modeling School – "Holy Calamity" Zeke – "Long Train Running" Lamb of God – "Black Label" 3 Inches of Blood – "Deadly Sinners" The Hiss – "Back On The Radio" 25 Ta Life – "Over the Years" Nebula – "So It Goes" Aesop Rock – "No Jumper Cables" Living Legends – "Night Prowler" Atmosphere – "Trying To Find A Balance" Suicide Machines – "High Anxiety" The Casualties – "Unknown Soldier" Diverse – "Certified" Ultramagnetic MC's – "Ego Trippin" Camaros – "Cheesecake" Steele Pulse – "Born Fe Rebel" Ministry – "No W" Grand Puba – "I Like It" Operatic – "Interested In Madness" Mike V & the Rats – "Never Give Up" Dead End Road – "Sin City" Melbeatz feat. Kool Savas – "Grind On"
Read MoreRun and download the final Doom 3 patch. The beta has been floating around for awhile, but this version is the one to get. Its long list of changes can be found at this link as well. Among the things that stand out, are the tweaks to damage in multiplayer, and some stability fixes. I've seen one of the listed crashes, so I'm downloading the thing right now. One note of caution is that the patch will reset you to the beginning of the map you're currently playing. So don't intstall it until you've progressed to the beginning of the next level.
Read MoreESPN NBA2K5 has gone gold. Looks like ESPN has seen EA's NBA 2005 bet and called. Both games were originally scheduled to launch on October 5, then EA moved up its launch date – only to see ESPN match. Both games should be in stores this week. But ESPN's thrown down the gauntlet with a $19.95 price point and games that are every bit as good (if not better, according to some reviews) as EA Sports' titles. NBA 2K has been the cornerstone of the lineup, routinely ranked as the best hoops game. EA's dropped the price of NBA Live 2005 to $39.95 – which is still twice the price of ESPN. Cheaper games? Released ahead of schedule? God bless competition.
Read MoreCheck out Worthplaying for a new demo of the EA/Sunflowers strategy game, Knights Of Honor. The file includes two playable Kingdoms (Bohemia and Scotland), and, of course, a tutorial. There's only one battlefield to play, but that should give you a good feel for the game. Multiplayer play (up to six people) is also included, with two maps available — Open Battlefield and King of Towers. We don't know how many more strategy games with knights the market can take, but Strategy Informer seems to think this one should be given a chance to carve its niche.
Read MoreAnd exactly how would you try and fight America's epidemic of gross and morbid obesity, but with video gaming? Dance Dance Revolution was a good start, but it totally left out all the first person shooter geeks. Enter the FPGameRunner, a treadmill with a really clunky looking steering-wheel controler kind of thing attached, which plugs into a USB port. Hey, anything to burn some of those empty calories and get your heart rate up past 100 without being disemboweled by a Cacodemon is gold in our book. [Thanks, Joy]
Read MoreRumor is abound that Sega has plans to auction off a number of its key intellectual properties to western (US/European) developers in an effort to increase sales of under-exploited franchises. Among the list are the House of the Dead (pictured), Shinobi, Crazy Taxi, NiGHTS, Golden Axe, Virtua Cop, and Streets of Rage. True, some of these franchises were abandoned in the mid-90s but, under the right conditions, would definitely make a welcomed return—Roo, the boxing marsupial from Streets of Rage 3 anyone? Let the bidding begin...
Read MoreAccording to reports, Mobile Digital Media is set to port Madden over to the Palm OS and the Pocket PC. The version would be based on the current 2005 make, a definite plus, and would feature full 3D graphics and sound effects, along with the NFL licenses. Mobile is aiming for an October release, offering the game on SD cards for $40.
Read MoreAs much as you might enjoy watching the industry-gobbling-empire that is Electronic Arts crumble to the ground, we's got news for you, it ain't happening any time soon. Yes, within the first ten days of the Sims 2's release more than 1 million copies were sold (more than 50% in Europe). This of course, set a record high for a PC launch, and has elevated EA to a new level in its brief 22 year history. What makes the game so potent is its appeal to 'non-gamers' (if there is such a thing), earning the Sims (every capitalist's dream) cultural phenomenon status.
Read MoreUbisoft revealed a bunch of new details about the multiplayer modes in the upcoming Splinter Cell installment, Chaos Theory. As expected, to go along with the all new co-op mode (confirmed for online, system link, and split screen), the series will revisit the incredibly addictive Spies vs. Mercs mode. This time around, besides new maps, the developers have added cooperative moves and a new set of weapons and gadgets. On top of that, it looks like there will be a little more variation in gameplay with three new modes: Scenario, Disk Hunt, and Deathmatch. Throw in the revamped game engine, and you're looking at a contender!
Read MoreA company called Meqon has announced that 3DRealms has decided to use their physics API in the once-much-anticipated game, Duke Nukem Forever. Is this good news, or bad news? Duke Nukem Forever has been in development for around 6 years — and only now we hear about which physics engine they'll use. Can that be right? Isn't this one of the things you work into the game at an early stage? Please, feel free to enlighten us if that's not the case.
Read MoreIf there's something more amusing than watching game biz analysts go at it, please let us know what it is (with a link, if possible). Nintendo and Sony fans are sounding like Baghdad Bob these days, with lofty claims that the other company has already screwed things up so badly that they'll be lucky to survive the year. Speaking about the Sony PSP's possible 300 USD tag, Nobuyuki Kawamata, a senior analyst at a Tokyo research center, said "With that price, a mother with three kids may buy them each a Nintendo DS. But if Sony decides to sell the portable game console for 300 dollars, she won't do the same because it gets too expensive." It would be nice if the analyst would wait for a final price before giving the professional opinion.
Read MoreGamespot could afford to send someone to Tokyo for the Tokyo Game Show, otherwise known as the game show with the simplest name of all time. Their impressions are, predictably, overwhelmed with DS and PSP faeries. Amongst the entries on the Gamespot page are Tekken 5, Final Fantasy XII and Okami impressions. Okami is the one that has us panting around here, and the preview is worth a read. But the one piece definitely worth checking out is the one about Kimi no Tame Nara Shineru. This title, by Sega, has a lot of people talking. It also has a lot of people worried for the company's mental health, apparently. We can't wait to see it.
Read MoreSNK is attempting a game in 3D?! Yes, the NeoGeo bad boys have announced that cult favorite, Metal Slug, will be going polygonal. The official announcement was made this past Friday at the Tokyo Game Show—along with a brief trailer featuring the Slug tank in its new 3D form—and we can expect the finished product to be available by the end of 2005. After seven installments of 2D side-scrolling action, the change is more than welcomed... but we are a bit skeptical. Let's just hope these guys can pull it off.
Read MoreCourtesy of special correspondent Oliver Mathers, we've got the scoop on the GPS capabilities of the Gizmondo, that new portable game console coming out in Britain soon, as well as the video card that's going to be used in it: With regard to the built-in GPS feature (i.e. the one that holds the unnerving power to broadcast the street-level whereabouts of its owner to other Gizmondos) we're pleased to report that the makers have foreseen the potential implications and will be implementing an age-verification system based around providing valid credit-card details in order for GPS tracking to be enabled. It has also emerged that the all-singing, all-dancing Gizmondo handheld will be powered by the nVidia GoForce 4500 chip. We're not quite sure whether this chipset was powering the device we had the chance to have a play with a while back. Review to follow soon.
Read MoreOnce again, Worthplaying delivers on the game clips. Today's list includes the brand new Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater movies. Oh yeah, there's also a Gran Tursismo 4 trailer thrown in for you racing fans. All in all 130 MB of worthy downloads. MGS 3 is gorgeous, of course, but will be facing some stiffer competition in the genre this time around. Hey, it's a strong enough title to push Tom Clancy's next Splinter Cell to next year. GTA: San Andreas looks dreamy, doesn't it? Sorry - fawning complete. Hey, it could end being awful. Yeah, right.
Read MoreAvault has thrown its slick style at my favorite topic — mods. This weekly round-up includes the staples of the mod community — Battlefield 1942, UT2K4, Half-Life, Far Cry, and the newest (most welcome) addition, Doom 3. Their point about Galactic Conquest, a Star Wars mod for Battlefield 1942, is a good one. Now that Battlefront has been released, will Lucas let the hounds loose on this excellent project? The other mod of note is the Far Cry Co-op package. At last, you can run through the lush, bloody vegetation with your best buds.
Read MoreDuring my recent visit to a Lucas press event I got to take a look at Star Wars: Republic Commando. Let's just say, it's much more promising than I thought it would be. Since its announcement I had doubts that the genre was a good fit for the Lucas outfit. A Ghost Recon/Halo shooter? That's pretty ambitious. But they may have pulled it off. We were shown a level of action where the team combat was simple to follow, the flow of the level and action was clear and exciting and the graphics were a step above the usual Lucas title. The original promo shots showed a dark setting with commandos creeping through a cave. It was hard to see what the hell was going on. But this level was bright and colorful, with droids taking shots at you from every direction. It looked excellent.
Read MoreIf you want to elevate the level of excitement over the inevitable release of Half-Life 2, take a peek at this link. One the other end of one mouse-click is a vision of beauty, a special edition of Half-Life 2 titled, appropriately, Half-Life 2 Special Edition. Sure, the title may be a bit unoriginal but you can be sure the game inside will break some new ground. Gabe Newell willing. The SE will retail for 80 bucks and includes a DVD-Rom, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life (the original game), a t-shirt and the Prima book. The release date is listed as November 1, which, if accurate will mean a record-low turnout for this years Presidential election.
Read MoreThis time EA has gotten the jump. That's right, Live '05 has gone gold ahead of schedule and will be hitting stores next Tuesday, beating out ESPN NBA 2K5 by a week. Also, to help counteract Sega's price slashing, EA has decided to drop Live's price to $40 and introduce a special promotion, offering a free EA sports title with the purchase of two others. These decisions are likely linked to the fact that last year's ESPN basketball title was far superior to the clunky Live offering, and unlike with Madden, EA doesn't have a lock on the hoops market.
Read MoreIt's shaping up to be slow Friday so we thought we'd point you towards some highlights from Joystiq, our sibling site devoted specifically to video games: Joystiq gets hands-on with Star Wars: Battlefront and Mercenaries Phantom game console is making like a phantom World of Warcraft gets hit by tornado Players killing players in World of Warcraft - Can't we all just get along? Metroid demo to be featured as the DS pack-in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 all "spit & polish" Gov. Schwarzenegger signs ESRB regulations into law Jim Davies: Pac-Man Pop Art Forget next-gen, what will be happening in 2025...
Read MoreAs the mighty (or not so mighty) empire that was Acclaim crumbles to the ground, there are a few games to be plucked from the ruins. Recent reports have suggested that Take 2 Interactive has put up a bid for Acclaim's temporarily homeless street racer, Juiced. Allegedly Take 2 would fork over $8.125 million for publishing rights, with an additional $1.875 million to be paid in royalties. Of course, all of this money will be going straight to Acclaim's creditors, as Acclaim still owes in excess of $25 million. As for Juiced, the game could be a valid competitor in the street racing genre, and with a week of bidding to go, don't be surprised if EA swallows this one up in order to ensure the success of Need For Speed Underground 2.
Read MoreMicrosoft has reported that in it's first week, Fable moved in excess of 375,000 units. That's roughly an $18.7 million gross. No joke. To put that in perspective, Fable did better than the top grossing new movie, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, that same week, while breaking first weeks record sales for an Xbox game at EB Games. At Game Rush it actually broke first week sales for any game! With Fable moving these sort of numbers, what can we expect come November 9? Chaos.
Read MoreUbisoft has announced that Peter Gabriel will perform the voiceover for the gateway to Serenia. The famed musician was inspired by Serenia's "Zen"-like world, especially the monks that inhabit it. "...I thought it succeeded well in creating a feeling of other worlds in which mystery and imagination were the compelling elements instead of the usual action-packed 'shoot 'em ups'," Gabriel remarked. Look for Myst IV Revelation next Thursday.
Read MoreIn an update to last month's news in which the California senate passed a regulatory bill that would force retailers to post information about videogame ratings, Gov. Schwarzenegger penned his best John Hancock, making the regulation law. And as a result, the Interactive Entertainment Merchants' Association has stepped up, voicing its concerns about the new law. The organization believes that Leland Yee, who drew up the bill, used misleading allegations to plead his case—Yee exploited the recent murder of a teenager in England in which, during the initial media frenzy, Rockstar's ultra-violent Manhunt game was believed to have influenced the killer. The IEMA complained that the law would simply leave retailers vulnerable to bigger lawsuits and would waste valuable government resources through enforcement.
Read MoreJim Davies has been working on his Pac-Man series since the summer of 2001. He was first drawn to the project after an experience he had with a Pac-Man coin-op in Seattle. He became fascinated with the ghosts' personalities and perhaps you could say, 'everyday struggles'. His series is focused on these four characters and their relationship to the "vicious yellow bastard". You really have to see it to understand it...
Read MoreThe2bears has thrown a tidbit at us and it stuck. His eye is always out there for the bizarre, which is fitting. He's a bizarre guy. This time he sends word of a custom-built Pong game, that works electromechanically. The device includes a relay computer, mechanical movement with collision detection, a display and acoustic components. From the site: "The movements of ball and racquet, as well as the collision detection take place in a metal chassis under the glass cover. Each moving game compoent has a mechanical counterpart, which is moved by electric motors. When these parts collide, contacts are closed and the relays in the computer switch the direction of rotation of the motors." Amazing what a lot of free time can produce. Video is included, of course. We want one.
Read MoreFans of the first Knights of the Old Republic will be thrilled. The sequel captures quite a bit of the feel of the original, with deep RPG gameplay, team action and an intriguing story. This time around you go up against a Sith of the most disgusting kind. He's held together by sheer (Dark) force of will. His body is made up of ribbons of flesh and most of his extremities are painfully exposed. Suffice it to say, he's a worthy follow-up to the baddies of the past.
Read MoreSega has revealed its plans to erect a $280 million arcade palace in Yokohama, Japan. With that kind of bank, one would hope it doesn't end up like, no offense, Mickster's basement (pictured above). All jokes aside, the new entertainment complex, a massive 9 floors covering 63,000 square meters, will also feature a full-sized movie theater. There are reports that Sega will be moving its headquarters to the site, which won't be finished until 2009. The plan came to light after the government decided to sell Sega the site, part of Minato Mirai 21, a district that has been reclaimed and is now owned by the city.
Read MoreThe latest edition of Tiger Woods' perennial golf game inevitably hit stores Monday. And while last year's make revolutionized the game, this year's version, as most expected, is simply "spit and polish" (EGM). Thus is the fate of most sport's franchises... add some features and sell it again—hats off to Sega & ESPN Games for drastically slashing the prices this year (even if they were simply desperate for sales). This is not to say that Tiger 2005 is a bad game, but it's not necessarily worth upgrading for $50. And it's not to say, if you're new to the series, it wouldn't be better to pick up a copy of the now bargain-priced 2004 version. But if you're a 'sucker' for the latest and greatest 2005 adds a nifty course-altering system, GameFace II (an upgrade to the create-any-face-imaginable feature), new licensed courses, and minor gameplay tweaks. It's your call.
Read MoreVUGames has announced that the third offering in the Tribes series is code complete and has been shipped off to manufacturers. Tribes: Vengeance will feature the franchise's first ever single player campaign, set to span two generations of a family caught in the brutal war between the Empire and the Tribes. In terms of gameplay, Irrational Games has implemented a new physics engine and added new weapons and vehicles to the original arsenal. As always, multiplayer will feature diverse and expansive maps that support up to 32 players online. Be sure to check out the multiplayer demo that will be available online before the game's release (we will keep you posted).
Read MoreWorthplaying's current list of game videos includes a nice line-up. HEad on over for Halo 2, X-Men Legends, Medieval Lords, Scarface, Hearts of Iron 2 and Godzilla: Save the Earth. They all add up to 116 MB of joy. Go ahead and play them all, full volume. Let your workmates know what a nerd you are. Sneer at the boss as Wolverine tears into Magneto. Games, man, games...
Read MoreWe were gonna hold out for a mechanical version of Combat, but some crazy Germans have created Pongmechanik, which besides being the name of that electroclash band we really meant to start back in 2002, is everybody's favorite proto-video game brought to life. Foosball ist tot. P.S. - The video is definitely worth watching... [Thanks, Randy]
Read MoreIt may come as a surprise, but EA is offering something for free. That's right, All-Star Football Challenge, is a free web game brought to you by the blood-thirsty industry giant. The latest version (written in Java) features 14 fantasy teams, and adds 2 player action to the mix. Be warned, this ain't Madden. The game is played from a top-down perspective, allowing players to control the quarterback on offense, but only play-call on defense. But hey, it's free, remember!
Read MoreValve may be set to finally hand over Half-Life 2 to publisher Vivendi, but behind the scenes, the two companies have been involved in a long, drawn out legal battle. Roughly two years ago Valve filed a lawsuit against Sierra On-Line (now Sierra Entertainment of Vivendi Universal Games) for alleged copyright infringement. Basically, Valve believes the publisher distributed its games to cyber cafes without their consent. Of course Sierra fought back with its own counterclaim, and well, we won't bore you with the legal jargon any more... (check out the article if you really want all the details). Interestingly enough, Sierra/VUG still wishes to work with Valve in the future and has gone as far as to ask the court to force Valve to work with them. Then again Vivendi is smart enough to realize that Half-Life 2 will likely sell millions.
Read MoreMidway has announced that the latest Mortal Kombat installment has gone gold and is on target for its October 4 release. Deception, the sixth game in the series, adds online kombat, and in fact, may be the first significant 3D fighter to feature this option (DOA Ultimate is scheduled for October 5, having been subjected to a series of Tecmo's now imfamous delays). As expected a number of vets will be returning to the roster, including everyone's favorite ninjas Sub Zero and Scorpion. Expect some surprises as the game revists destructable environments and break-through walls. And don't forget those quirky bonus games like Puzzle Komabt (tetris) and Konquest (chess). Hopefully this will be another flawless victory for the Midway team.
Read MoreWe're afraid there's more news of delays today. This time we have the sad news that the much-anticipated Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory has been bit by the de-l8 bug. Gamespot has the exclusive scoop, where they say the title will be out in March of 2005, instead of November. Conspiracy theorists (i.e. realists) will speculate that the delay was to stay out of a highly competitive holiday market, where games like Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 threaten to drown out other titles. The article also mentions that the publisher approved the delay to allow "players on Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and PC to discover [the game] at the same time." So the Xbox-exclusive angle is out the window.
Read MoreA slew of new details surrounding Square/Enix's latest installment in the Dragon Quest series have been revealed. First off, is the new tension system that will allow players (or enemies) to use a turn (up to three) to increase their strength for an upcoming attack, rather than attacking right away or using magic/skills/items/etc. There will also be a new character-specific skills master system. In terms of new creatures, fans can expect plenty by way of famed Japanese artist, Akira Toriyama, including the (seemingly) LOTR-inspired Oshanc Claw. It also seems possible to hunt down certain animals, capture them through battle, and in turn, use them in future fights. On top of all this, Yuji Horii, the game's designer, has been boasting about the game's enormous environment, "As far as the eye can see you can actually walk there. Perhaps you'll even get lost." Well, we've already seen with Fable how big claims can lead to fans' disappointment, but for a game that's been in the works for four years now, Dragon Quest VII had best live up to some of the hype come November 27. Word.
Read MoreApparently BioWare has acquired the license for the Unreal 3 engine and is already putting it to good use. "A BioWare team is already working on the Unreal Engine 3-powered game" (BioWare's website). Specific details are pretty hush hush for now, but we speculate the project must be along the lines of Deus EX: Invisible War, that is, a FPS RPG. Of course, BioWare could be simply developing a straight-up FPS, which would still be welcomed. Either way, this early announcement is quite intriguing. We'll keep you posted as more details emerge.
Read MoreTo celebrate its 18th birthday, British developer Codemasters is offering a free download of the original Commodore 64 game, BMX Simulator (note: that's the sequel pictured right). Yes, it's not exactly a classic, but BMX Simulator will take you back to the 80s, when guys like Dave Mira were budding young teenagers, and this sport was still considered radical. After all, you may find BMX Simulator to be a welcome relief from corporate sponsorship. But more than likely, you'll simply realize that it's a good thing that 64 KB of RAM is no longer the pinnacle of gaming software technology. At any rate, you can use the link below to find the download.
Read MoreWe're not going to pretend we know what's actually going down at this NYC subway stop, maybe an intimate act between lonely investment bankers or something to do with human jacks? But the image was sent into Digital Street Game, a New York-based urban game (yeah, another one of those) where players act out "stunts" on street corners, take digital photos of their antics, post them on the site, and thus claim ownership of that street corner. They're thinking ownership in terms of "I own yo ass," since the site has yet to hand out chunks of primetime real estate. But players try to own as much of the city as possible through as many exhibition style acts as possible. We have a sinking suspicion that the players are the same sort who started those improv groups at your high school, but hey, if being wacky's your thing, by all means start sending in those photos.
Read MoreThe Doom 3 demo is now available, for those of you who were able to hold off from buying the full game. The file weighs in at a massive 460 MB; but having palyed the title through twice I can tell you it's worth the bandwidth. The demo gives you three levels of fear, and great graphics. You know you want it. Go and get it.
Read MoreWings of War is an odd breed these days. There aren't too many combat flight sims coming out, which makes fans of the genre that much more eager to jump in a cockpit. This title lets you fly in 25 Allied and German aircraft in air combat and bombing runs. You can pilot the craft, or even man the anti-aircraft guns on the ground. All in all there are 70 chapters in 13 levels. Of course, there are a number of secret levels as well, allowing you to embark on personal adventures...and vendettas. All in all, it sounds like a fun romp. Check out the demo here.
Read MoreAfter hand-wringing, doubts and general complaining about when it would be done, The Sims 2 is here. The title has hit stores and will, no doubt, sell gargantuan numbers of copies within hours. As reported here, the title is already receiving praise for sticking to basics, while also perfecting some of the rougher aspects of the original. It could be that the 79 expansion packs to The Sims actually helped the developer perfect the sequel. Let us know your impressions.
Read MoreIf you have a bunch of broadband laying around, and you want to give it some exercise, then go to Worthplaying. The cornerstone of game clippage on the WWW has some great movies posted. These are perfect for avoiding work, holding off making a phone call, or looking busy when your boss passes the cubicle. Billions of colors explode on the screen with clips of Star Wars: Battlefront, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, NBA Street 3, and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. If you're more than damn ready for the weekend, if you're yearning for the thing, then head over and do some escaping. If but for a moment.
Read MoreActivision has blessed us with war this weekend. The single-player demo of Call of Duty: United Offensive is now available on the best of all download sites, 3D Gamers. The 220 MB file gives you a slice of the newly released expansion title. You'll be thrown into that little skirmish called Battle of the Bulge. There's no need to own the full game to enjoy the demo. It's a stand-alone product. Happy birthday.
Read MoreBritish Prime Minister, Tony Blair, defended the UK game industry's classification system during questioning in the House of Commons yesterday. The hearing is just the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of the tragic murder of Stefan Pakeerah at the hands of his peer, Warren Leblanc. In the initial media frenzy, it was alleged that Leblanc had been influenced by Rockstar's ultra-violent, action title Manhunt, however, these claims were later dismissed by police, and again in court by the Judge, Prosecution, and even the Defense. Still, MP Keith Vaz felt it necessary to raise the issue again, questioning if Blair had any concern for the effects of videogame violence on children. In response, Blair backed the UK rating system in an effort to defend the rights "responsible adults" have to gain access to mature games.
Read MoreThis makes us angry. Voodoo Extreme is reporting a money-sucking scheme on the EB Games website. Apparently, if you sign up for a free service called "Reservations rewards" you will be charged 9 bucks a month after a certain period of time. This particular case involves a guy who used an online 10 dollar rebate, was automatically registered with the program and found himself being charged a fee within weeks. Wow, you mean corporate America is fleecing us for every penny? But why would they want to do that?
Read MoreNamco recently announced that Time Crisis: Crisis Zero has gone gold and should be out by mid-to-late October. There's nothing too out of the ordinary in this one... duck, shoot, duck, shoot. But Namco has added a few nice touches, namely more interactive environments. But what's this about Halo 2 preparation? Well, while there is no obvious connection, Crisis Zero includes one unique feature that all your Halo (1) training can't touch. Of course, this is only useful for those of us who own both PS2 and Xbox—and are counting the days until November 9. But if you fall into that category, you should know that Crisis Zone has an unlockable mode where you can 'dual wield' a pair of GUNCON 2s. Now do you see what we're getting at? (Okay, so maybe it's a bit of a stretch...)
Read MoreGamesdomain does a nice bit of digging on what it takes to become a Jedi. The play-balance of Star Wars Galaxies has always been under the microscope, but no single aspect has been more scrutinized than the path to becoming a Jedi. There have been a few tweaks to the process over the course of the game, and there are more to come. It won't get easier, but it should get more fun. Instead of being a skill-based, puzzle-like path, you'll now be able to go on adventures as you build your lightsaber. Details are sketchy, of course; but would you really want to know all the secrets? No, really...
Read MoreSpike TV recently revealed that Snoop will be hosting this year's Video Game Awards, to be aired live December 14. In only its second year, the event awards not just the games, but the designers, the music, and even the stars. Called a "true gamer" by the executive producer, Snoop should (hopefully) prove to be a better choice than last year's questionable host, David Spade. Snoop has already proved to be a valuable asset in the gaming industry by providing music for various videogame soundtracks. The Hip Hop legend and now cultural icon has also wedged himself into digital immortality as a playable character in True Crime and the upcoming Def Jam: Fight for NY.
Read MoreA great interview is up on 1up. They talk to the lossless leader of Atari, and offer up some hard-hitting questions. It's always nice to see a writer take full advantage of their moment with a high and mighty bigwig. Among the questions asked is, "...let's look at all the studios you bought, then shut down — Accolade, Gremlin, Legend, etc. One word: why?" Yeah, wanker, why? Well, he has a good answer (though a little Economics 101-ish). Some of his other answers are, well frightening. Especially his one that includes blonde men, night clubs and a world filled with enemies. We'll let you check for yourself. Definitely worth a read.
Read MoreThe University of Southern California welcomed the addition of the EA Game Innovation Lab to its campus this year. The lab is the center of a 3 year MFA program made possible with a multi-million dollar donation from the gaming industry giant. Located at the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, the lab will be used as a research space and think thank for developing new concepts in design and gameplay, and in turn, pushing the boundaries of the industry.
Read MoreThis one's a no brainer. The Entertainment Depot is offering a Viewtiful Joe giveaway that includes a copy of the recent PlayStation 2 version, a strategy guide, and stylin' t-shirt. All you've got to do is email them with your name and address by next Tuesday (9/21). And hey, try to keep it limited to one entry, please!
Read MoreOne week before its release, Star Wars Battlefront is getting a thorough once-over from the game press. Avault presents a fine interview with Greg Borrud, Executive Producer at Pandemic Studios, the game's creator. The interview touches on everything fro AI to tactical balancing to the unannounced map editor (we have our fingers crossed that they offer one, considering all the mini-films it would inspire). Pandemic Studios had a hand in the Battlezone series, a couple of the most underrated games in PC history. Our hopes are high, our expectations are low. We are ready to play.
Read MoreWhoever said academia was all work and no play? Obviously not Dr. John C. Beck and co-author Mitchell Wade. To be fair, this is not a book about brain cell-killing button-mashing. In fact, it's quite the contrary. As the subtitle reads, the aim is to explore "How the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever". Beck and Wade have set out to discover how 'gamer traits' effectively carry over into the business world, resulting in savvier, more successful businesses. If you're interested head over to the website (linked below) for a closer look.
Read MoreWestHost claims to be offering free web hosting to monthly high scorers in their "free flash game", Host Wars. And if you manage to grab the top spot, you'll be set for one full year. Besides free hosting, winners also receive "valuable coupons", free domain registration, and of course, all-important intergalactic respect. We're talking serious bragging rights. The catch? What catch...
Read MoreRockstar has launched two more GTA San Andreas-themed websites: fearitdoit & cluckinbellhappychicken. Fearitdoit is the homepage for Darius Fontaine's Inversion Therapy. And that is?... Click the link below to hear the "Fear it? Face it! Do it! Conquer it!" statement. The other site looks like a TacoBell/PolloPollo fusion spoof: "Just say: I like it Chicken Huge with a blast of Sprunk". Hey, whatever works to sell your game...
Read MoreJakks Pacific is set to introduce the latest in its line of plug-and-play TV Games this fall. This time they've grabbed the EA license and will pack perfect emulations of the Genesis versions of Madden NFL Football and NHL Hockey into the look-a-like controller. The one glaring difference will be the lack of player licenses (replaced with current jersey numbers) for both games—the unit will feature team licenses. Jakks plans to offer both a single & two-player model, retailing for under $30.
Read MoreTiger Telematics will release their handheld gaming competitor to the Sony PSP in the UK first (for once, the Brits get something before the Yanks). This one has a few more tricks up its sleeve than the average portable console, like the ability to make phone calls on tri-band GSM, play MP3s, Windows Media Player, GPS navigation, digital camera, onboard Bluetooth, and GRPS capability (a mobile network that allows data to be transferred at just faster than dialup speeds). The 400MHz ARM processor runs on Windows CE and has a 2.8-inch TFT screen. While the features are plentiful, if they are positioning this as a gaming device first, they need to work on having more than four announced games. The rest of the world will be hit by Gizmondo madness sometime in 2005. [Thanks, Tony]
Read MoreWe weren't aware that Messr. McGee was this far along on his latest forray into computer gaming. The man with a trademarked name has cooked up a new demo of his team's action shooter, Scrapland. The game's premise is Matrix-like, giving you the chance to jack into a computer and play one of fifteen characters, all with their own special abilities. You do some of the action on foot and some in a vehicle. It looks like an amusing title, and if it ends up as good as McGee's Alice, then you won't hear (m)any complaints from us.
Read MoreApparently, Atari finally realized that all those kids that got hooked on games like Pong, Asteroids, and Centipede are all grown up. And while they may hold a soft spot in their hearts for such things, a trip to the local arcade is scarcely on the agenda. But one thing's for sure, many of those boys (& girls) sure like to gamble. And whether or not the wallet is any fatter these days, everyone's got at least a couple quarters to toss into the ol' slot machine. And so, teaming with Vegas gambling-machine manufacturer extraordinaire, Alliance Gaming, Atari is going to bring a series of retro game-based slot machines to the casino circuit. The machines will feature bonus rounds in which 'players' grab a classic Atari controller and compete for big rewards. Fittingly, Pong will be the first model and is set to debut at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas next month.
Read MoreCSI: Dark Motives is a first-person adventure game based on the hit television series. Put yourself in the shoes of your favorite ghouls and search the enviornments for clues. Yes, that includes bodies, of course. The game promises a hefty line-up of tools to help you look for evidence, including forensic equipment and an interactive lab. CSI: Dark Motives includes actual voices from the cast, phoned in while they were drunk (we made up the last part). This demo has you playing a chapter of the adventure they are calling the "Prints and Pauper Case" (very, very clever).
Read MoreTom's Hardware claims to have been watching STALKER since its announcement in 2001, back when it was known as Oblivion Lost. We don't recall this, so we'll take his word for it - since he's good for his word. But now that the rest of the gaming world is keeping a close eye on the project, can Tom add anything new to the stew? The site's writer gets a hands-on run with the game's multiplayer feature and does a pretty good job of laying out the scene. The piece gets a little fanboy-ish at times, but, hey, we've all been there. One worrisome detail at the end of the preview mentions where the game stands with multiplayer. If they're planning on actually releasing this title in Q1 2005, it seems to us that they should be farther along than supporting 4 players in deathmatch.
Read MoreLucasArts has made the official annoucement. The sequel to last year's award-winning Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic will be making its Xbox debut in December-the PC version won't be out until February. Said Prodcuer Mike Gallo, "We recently completed a very important milestone which confirmed we can confidently do this." KOTOR II adds even more strength to Xbox's impressive Fall/Winter lineup.
Read MoreApparently, PortaGame.com had a scout at this year's Austin Game Conference. Held this past Thursday & Friday, the conference showcased, among other things, Sony's PSP. However, according to 'iamlegend', "Sony kept up the tease act". Instead of previewing the first fully-functional game (as promised), the media giant forced the roughly 1400 attendees to settle for some additional hardware/software details. Bummer. Head over to PortaGame to get the full scoop.
Read MoreTo celebrate the opening day of American football comes the FIFA 2005 demo, the premiere soccer video game. Okay, okay I'm being facetious. Weighing in at a mere 86 MB, the demo will let you play for six minutes with Arsenal vs. AC Milan in the Highbury Stadium. The marketing hype claims that every slight move of the controller will show up as human movement on the screen. Actually, if you watch the clips they may not be stretching the truth too much. Better yet, download the demo and play it yourself.
Read MoreUbisoft's latest contribution to the Myst series is complete and will now enter the manufacturing stage. Set to hit stores September 28, Myst IV Revelation once again revisits the enchanting world, as this time around, a young girl's disappearance unfolds into a gripping mystery that has players tracking down the two primary suspects, her brothers. The adventure inevitably leads to unlocking their fate and with it a shocking 'Revelation'. We can hardly wait!
Read MoreIt's always unfortunate when copyright laws interfere with genuine creativity. Thus is the case with Chrono Ressurection, an amateur remake of the SNES classic, Chrono Trigger, for the PC—and did we mention it was going to be in 3D?! Yes, this was certainly a labor of love, but alas, it was brought to a halting stop when Square-Enix issued a Cease & Desist order. As a parting gift, the developers have left us with a handful of screenshots, a trailer, and the lasting memory of what could have been. R.I.P. (Visit the link below to pay your respects)
Read MoreNubyTech is planning a line of controllers designed exclusively for the forthcoming DoA: Ultimate. To be called "The Girls of Dead or Alive Ultimate", the controllers will feature, what else: Kasumi, Lei Feng, and Tina in all of their feminine glory. NubyTech's President, Paul Chen, calls it "a dream come true". Hmmm... we wonder if he'll be picking up a copy of the latest Playboy...
Read MoreIn case you haven't picked up the October issue of Playboy (hitting newsstands today), we're previewing a few, albeit censored, shots from the 'Gaming Grows Up' feature, courtesy of 1up.com. They pretty much speak for themselves. Enjoy?... BloodRayne: Luba Licious:
Read MoreGood morning! In case you missed the announcement from last night, the brand spankin' new Tribes: Vengeance demo will be released within hours. Barring a digital disaster, of course, which can happen in this business. The demo will be single-player only, though a multiplayer version is probably inevitable (since the Tribes series lives and breathes for online). You wouldn't know this was great news from the guys who posted on the following link. What a bunch of sourpusses. The file will be an exclusive on Gamespot's DLX for a couple of hours in the morning. Sometime around noon (EST?) it will go ballistic and attack all our hard drives. This weekend should be fun.
Read MoreGaming Nexus has an interesting write-up on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. They delve into some detail on the game that has the potential to make a lot of you very hot and heavy. The preview sums up some of the finer points of the title, like the moon cycle and a couple of specific characters you'll come across. Also of interest are the brush fires. We're not sure if this has been covered before, but apparently you need to keep your eyes open for fast-moving fires in the California countryside. You can also have some fun with a crop duster, a longtime dream for many of us. Can this game get any more exciting? Short answer, yes, probably.
Read MoreEvery few years, the gaming world gets its pants in a bunch over Carmack, the main man behind id games. Whenever he finishes a project, word gets out that he's thinking about retiring. Part of this phenomenon is fanboy-anxiety and part of it is created by Carmack's own flirtation with other interests. He makes no secret of his other vocation, private space travel. Now CNN gets in on the myth-making hype, and wonders if Carmack's next game will be his last. The Game God has mentioned that he thinks real-time rendering technology is just about where he's always dreamed it would be, but that doesn't mean he's going to lose interest. He may take a break after the next game, but if Nvidia or ATI keep plowing away in R&D you can be sure Carmack will be one step away from the fray.
Read MoreIGN has a hands-on preview of the next Tony Hawk moneymaker. The game won't break any innovative new ground (like the original title did) but it will let you leave marks on everything from quiet libraries to private studio apartments. You'll also get a chance to seek out mysterious skaters who can teach you some special moves. Ben Franklin with his kite and key sounds particularly intriguing. Unfortunately, the title will also include the overused bullet-time effect. Besides that, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 sounds like it could be another gem.
Read MoreOne of the more intriguing titles on the horizon is The Movies, another good idea form the folks at Peter Molyneaux's studio. The maker of Fable and Black & White is giving the slimy underbelly of studio pictures a whirl. This preview points out a few details that will certainly make us try out the demo when it arrives. For instance, as the head of the studio you'll have to keep your actors happy as they prep for their close-up. This doesn't only mean giving them what they want, it means giving them what they need — including Hard Love, like therapy and drug rehab. It's always been a dream of mine to throw a movie star in the bum house for the night to cool him down. The character creation tools also look more robust than just about anything seen up to this point. The Movies is shaping up well. Hopefully, it will be better than Troy.
Read MoreDue out next week, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload (you must excuse the title) is certainly one of the last in a dying breed. But Reload definitely has the guts to carry that burden. This is no average 2D clone. At it's core, Reload is built around a complex fighting system that rewards those willing to go the extra mile to master it. Yes, this is one of those blood-sweat-and-tears-type of fighters. But it's got charisma too—something like that. It's a beautiful game, packed with unique (and absurd) characters. Over at Game Informer they prefer the terms "deeply disturbing", yet "inexplicably compelling". Even if you burned out your Street Fighter skills long ago, at only $20 (& Live!), it's worth a try.
Read MoreIf A.V.P. left you feeling unsatisfied, then perhaps you'd set your hopes on the upcoming action title, Predator: Concrete Jungle. Well, we've got bad news, it's been delayed. Originally slated for a fall release, Vivendi Universal reps have now quoted a first quarter 2005 date. Concrete Jungle will allow players to assume the role of a Predator as you first 'hunt' during the bootlegging days of the 1930s depression era, and then some one hundred years later, for an unknown purpose. It's certainly an interesting concept, but we'll just have to wait and see...
Read MoreThe latest installment of the Silent Hill series is about to be in stores. Konami has announced the title is in the mail and frightening postal workers everywhere. The buzz is good and should feed the need of those who have wrapped up the other scary title of the summer, Doom 3. The series is consistently good and original, so our hopes are high for it. Let us know your impressions when you pick it up.
Read MoreWhile Burnout 3 may take the crown for this year's best arcade racer (with little competition), EA's other racing title, Need for Speed Underground 2, will have to battle it out with the likes of Rockstar's latest edition to the Midnight Club series for the bragging rights to the underground scene. Recently, Robert Workman of GamerFeed took this one for a spin and came back a believer. Apparently, Rockstar's partnership with DUB Magazine looks to really work to their adavantage, as Midnight Club 3 will feature an insane amount of customization. Rockstar is also looking to tweak the gameplay, promising greater speed without sacrificing framerate. The online racing will improve as well, with plans for greater variety and the option to form "cliques", or perhaps more appropriately, gangs. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition hits the streets this fall.
Read MoreIt's nothing we didn't expect, but nonetheless Fight For NY's soundtack features an impressive lineup of hip hop vets and up-and-comers. The list is as follows (as posted on 1up.com): "America's Most" - Method Man, Redman "Anything Goes" - C-N-N "Are We Cuttin'" - Pastor Troy "Bust" - Outkast "Comp" - Comp "Flipside" - Freeway "Get Into It" - Comp "Get It Now" - Bless "Let's Get Dirty" - Redman "Let's Go" - Shawnna "Lil' Bro" - Ric-a-Che "Make It Hurt" - Busta Rhymes "Mama Said Knock You Out" - LL Cool J "Man Up" - Sticky Fingaz "Mother Mother" - Xzibit "Move!" - Public Enemy "'Nuff Respect" - Big Daddy Kane "O.G. Original Gangster" - Ice-T "Pistol Grip Pump" - Volume 10 "Pop Off" - Joe Budden "Poppa Large" - Ultramagnetic MCs "See About Ya" - Beezle featuring Bonecrusher "Seize the Day" - Bless "Take a Look at My Life" - Fat Joe "Walk With Me" - Joe Budden "We Gon' Hit 'Em" - Deuce, Dub and the Junkyard Gang "What's Happenin'" - Method Man "Yes Sir" - C-N-N
Read MoreSeems Atari is taking a lead from Namco, and has begun a serious wave of retro-gaming re-releases. First they're going to be selling 85 games bundled as the Atari Anthology for Xbox and PS2 for $20—not a bad price! (Shh! No one tell them about emulators!) But we're really amped on is the Flashback, which is a 7800-style box with two joystiqs (pardon our spelling) and 20 integrated games—including an unreleased title, Saboteur—for $45. Not the most killer deal by comparison, but either way they get the +15 nostalgia points, and thus, props.
Read MoreFrom the floors of the UK Gamestars Live show, come a couple of clips of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (the first-person shooter with the pain-in-the-ass-to-type name). The two clips show off some outdoor action and a couple of weapons. One of which is mighty impressive, in the size department. The format is thoroughly Shaky-Cam, but it's worth checking out. Especially if you're curious about which title you'll be drooling over once you've finished Half-Life 2.
Read MoreRecently, IGN got to spend some quality time with Raven Software's upcoming action RPG, X-Men Legends. Now we're all well aware of the X-Men's sordid past when it comes to videogame appearances, and at first glance, Legends may appear a bit suspect, but as Hilary Goldstein of IGN assures us, "[this is] an X-Men game to get excited about." In all, there are 15 playable X-Men, of which you (and up to three others) choose a team of four to battle it out in real-time across "immense" levels. Not to mention, Men of Action (a small team of comic book writers) is in charge of the story, so expect them to do the characters justice (even though the game takes place in its own X-Men 'universe')-there's also some classic elements thrown in for all you X-history buffs, including costumes, comics, and even playable levels. All in all, Legends is shaping up to be another promising edition in the action RPG genre, with plenty of autheticity to satify the loyal fans.
Read MorePBS has a pretty amazing look back at the gaming industry and how it got started, changed our world, and how it may ultimately destroy us all given how gaming is now being adapted for use in modern warfare. [Via waxy.org]
Read MoreThis year's Game Developers Conference Europe featured an impressive group of industry frontliners for its keynote panel: Peter Molyneux, Karl Jeffrey, Rory Armes, and Seamus Blackly. The topic: "The Future of Development in an Expanding Entertainment Industry". They've got over 50 years experience between the four of them, so needless to say, they had plenty to say. Follow the link below to view the discussion.
Read MoreIt turns out that the Altered Beast revival will be released after all. Oringinally announced this past spring, and later all but canned, the famed, beast-morphing "Violence Action" title will be making its debut this winter in Japan. But that's not all, it's got a new name: Juu-Ou-Ki: Project Altered Beast (or, "Animal King Chronicle"). Interestingly enough, these three characters (Juu, Ou, Ki) where featured as a subtitle for the oringial Genesis version.
Read MorePerhaps the saddest casualty in the Acclaim bankruptcy is the Worms series. Long a favorite of us strategy fans, the upcoming titles, Worms 3D (for Xbox) and Worms: Forts are now listless. Anyone know a good publisher who's willing to take on this no-brainer? We're positive that Worms' developer, Team 17, will find someone. But until they do, consider our nails bitten to the bit.
Read MoreSony of Japan has posted a teaser of a website, with pretty fluttering things and not much else. Apparently, some minor sleuthing has revealed the words "Nico" and "Gengi" in the potpourri. If you follow the logic that Nico is the name of the main character in the sequel to the game Ico, then you may see where we're going with this. Spong does its best to decipher the tea leaves and reveal nirvana. Barring that, it would be nice if Sony would just tell us what the hell they're up to.
Read MoreNamco recently announced that Tekken 5 will appear in US arcades this October. Coinciding with the release will be a series of local and national tournaments, which will run into 2005-the National tournament is set to begin in February. Arcade owners must register their location in order to participate in the local tourneys. As an added comfort, players will have the option of bringing their own PS2 controller, which will plug into the machine. A home version is scheduled for release next year. We just wish it was sooner though because we can't seem to find the local arcade...
Read MoreIt's not all about gang banging on the mean streets of Los Santos, no, GTA has so much more to offer, like, well, the wide open countryside. Yes, even hicks gotta have a place to do their dirt, and clearly, Rockstar wants us to respect that fact. Gone are the days of a simple bridge connecting city to city, now we've got miles of outstretched highway dashed with open plains, cluttered forests, and towering mountains. Rockstar has really outdone themselves this time, boasting 11 distinct backwater towns and countless crimes to commit within them. Grab your camera, jack an ATV, and take in the vista.
Read MoreAs we all know, the Dreamcast was Sega's final home console, and while short-lived, the system drew a substantial following. Over in Hong Kong somewhere, they've crafted an (unofficial) portable Dreamcast complete with built-in screen, calling it the Treamcast. Now some Dreamcast deihard, named Wraggster, has actually ordered one of these units and subsequently, posted a surprisingly favorable review. Use the link to check it out—there's a ton of screenshots... this one looks legit, and it appears that you can actually get your hands on it too.
Read MoreTake-Two has secured the rights to Willy Wonka games based on the upcoming remake, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The Warner Bros. film is being directed by Tim Burton and will feature Johnny Depp as the eccentric candyman himself. Take-Two plans on a release for the game that coincides with the movie, and will perhaps follow up with subsequent titles depending on the first game's success. The console version is being developed by High Voltage Software, while Backbone Entertainment is handling the PC and portable sides. No details yet on how exactly the teams are planning to translate Roald Dahl's classic into an interactive experience.
Read MoreThe famed game designer, Peter Molyneux, talks it up with the giant of all game news sites, Gamespot. The topic? Pssh. Guess. Fable, of course. The much-hyped and inevitable title is going to hit our desks any day now (Right, boss? Right?) at which point we'll probably have no time to post to Joystiq. The interview reveals that Molyneux's offices have too many webcams in them (thus, the unofficial announcement of the gold game was a crappy webcam shot) and even delves into how they could take almost four years to finish the thing. Molyneux has clearly discovered newfound respect for the console game development process. Ah, and the end of the interview has a nice question about which game sequel he would most like to make.
Read MoreOver at GameSpy they're compiling all the latest info on the next installment in the Final Fantasy series. The article anticipates big things from FFXII, stating, "The changes really run deep in this one, and it has the potential to alienate fans. It could also be the freshest thing to happen to the series in years." Yasumi Matsuno (Final Fantasy Tactics series, Ogre Battle & Vagrant Story) is directing the title, and has chosen to set it in the world of Ivalice (where Tactics takes place). The story is centered around Rabanastre, a splendid royal city filled with peace and high technology. Unfortunately, it rests between the warring states of Archadia and Rosalia, and well, you can guess where it goes from there (Archadia takes the city as a strategic point of advantage). The game opens with Vaan, a young street kid eager to be free of oppresive Archadian rule, and lucky—I suppose—for him, will probably end up saving the world (with your help of course). Head over to GameSpy to view a more complete cast of characters and stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.
Read MoreKonami has announced that this year's Pro Evolution Soccer (or Winning Eleven, as it is also known) will be Xbox Live enabled. The superb soccer sim has earned itself a loyal following of diehards and looks to pick up a few more with this latest move. While it was at first up in the air as to which Live features would be available (download content, uploadable stats, etc.), Konami has now confirmed that Pro Evolution Soccer 4 will provide full-on, head-to-head play over the broadband network—the max number of players has yet to be confirmed. No release date has been set either, but you may want to hold off on FIFA for this one.
Read MoreSomeone named, Chui, has successfully ported the rather abstract, but nonetheless, "classic" PC shooter, Noiz2sa, to the Dreamcast. Whoever said old systems can only be retro? Use the link below to view CD burning instructions, or click the image to be directed to the download of the port.
Read MoreSometimes it's hard to separate the truth from the marketing. If Nokia is being honest with us, the N-Gage may be more successful than most of us thought. They've announced that a million units have been sold and 100,000 users have signed on to their online initiative, N-Gage Arena. Those are mighty impressive numbers. Sure, they don't match other consoles, but a million users can support the device for a long time to come. The Spong report throws in their two cents, and mention that EA's entry into the N-Gage, er, arena could scare other publishers off. We think the opposite will happen, as long as the EA games are actually good.
Read MoreIt's official, Newsday has reported that Acclaim filed for Chapter 7 on Wednesday. By doing so, the company hopes to liquidate all of its assets to pay off as much debt as possible. According to Newsday, "[Acclaim] listed assets of between $10 million and $50 million and debt of more than $100 million". As a pledge of solidarity, please join other gamers across the world as we burn our copies of Turok: Evolution.
Read MoreWe love it when Worthplaying posts their daily clips. We love it even more when the clips are choice. Today's line-up of peeks includes Anarchy Online: Alien Invasion, Prince of Persia 2, Ghost Recon 2 (*sob*) and Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. We recommend all of them (but especially the Prince of Persia clip). Previews like these make us happy to be alive.
Read MoreThe recent story that Ghost Recon 2 would be two different games, has given way to a predictable ending. The Playstation 2 and Xbox versions of the game will be released first, while the more expansive PC version will see a schedule slip. The publisher promises us that the move is the best thing for the title, and we see no reason to argue that point. What is a little irritating is the way they let us know. It was pretty obvious that the PC version would see a delay when it was announced that the title would offer a different story and more gameplay. So why didn't they announce the new release date then? We should be used to the way marketing people think — and yet they always find a way to surprise us. You may have to scroll down a bit to see the press release.
Read MoreIf you've ever felt like all those game-to-movie failures are doing the industry a great injustice, now might be your chance to really show 'em how you'd do it. Sega, in connection with the Short Film Consortium, is playing host to a script competition. But there is a catch, it's Japanese-only. The competition has been designed to find the best underground Japanese film talent, and does not require a direct connection to the videogame world. Although, in an effort to get the last laugh, I'm sure Sega would be appreciative of anyone who could come up with a Sonic script that puts Super Mario Bros. to shame—but then again, that won't necessarily take much talent...
Read MoreRoughly a decade ago, Capcom released the little known CPS Changer in an attempt to compete with the Neo Geo home arcade system. Only available through mail order, the CPS was unique in that it that it contained no game logic and connected to arcade PCBs. And with only 11 games, the CPS quickly fell off the map. Check out the full analysis over at NFG... And let this be a warning to all you next-gen developers!
Read MoreThe internet has allowed for some curious forms of hype as of late (e.g. ilovebees.com). Now the notorious Rockstar crew has joined the fun, announcing, via mailing list, the launch of two sites related to Los Santos (one of the fictional cities featured in GTA San Andreas). There's epsilonprogram.com, a page dedicated to the religious cult of Kraff; or as one of our reader's put it, "an offshore cash dump for a religion-based scam". And also, maccer.net, which is the personal site of a rockstar who claims to have 'cleaned up his act' after using the Epsilon Program. See for yourself. [Thanks 'bwana']
Read MoreThis week's claimant of the "smallest laptop" crown belongs to Sharp's Mebius Muramasa CV50. Even though it's small, the CV50 sports features usually found only on its bigger brethren, like SD and CF slots, built-in wireless, and a screen that uses a respectable contrast ratio. Problem is, the thing costs $1750 and it's so small that it's probably not going to pack enough punch to serve as your main machine. It would be great on planes, in bathrooms (not lab tested, but we can imagine), and for travel, but if you're looking for long-term usability with your mini-ness, it might be best to move on. Size fiends, take note.
Read MoreIt sure looks like a regular laptop, but the Cathena is definitely not a regular laptop, especially since it runs on Windows CE rather than on the full Windows OS. It's sort of like that movie Big, just with a PDA that's woken up in the body of a laptop instead of some forgotten child actor waking up in Tom Hanks's body (and it's also not a movie, but whatever). The specs won't blow you out of the water (64MB of ROM, 128MB of RAM, a 12.1-inch LCD screen, 802.11b WiFi, and a CompactFlash memory card slot—but NO hard drive), but you do get an instant-on laptop that weighs under 3 pounds and that'll work just fine for taking notes, sending emails, instant messaging, and accessing the web. We'd be digging on this way more were it not for the semi-outrageous list price of $799, but we absolutely want someone to investigate a version that runs on the Palm OS (and yes, we're very aware of the AlphaSmart). [Thanks, Tom]
Read MoreIt's been a little while since we last saw one from them, but there's a rumor going around that Philips is thinking about getting back into the laptop business. They'll probably just be rebadging stuff built by LG (they already have a joint-venture making laptop LCD screens), but still, you gotta be curious about what they'll come up with. Anyone out there actually have a vintage Philips laptop?
Read MoreWe know it's hard to believe, but nobody was willing to pony up $850,000 in an eBay auction earlier this month for the U.S. provisional patent to build dual display laptops (apparently a crudely photoshopped mockup wasn't enough to convince anyone to drop the cash on it). Set aside the reality that few PC makers are trolling eBay looking for patents, the thing is, despite the seller's claims, you wouldn't have first crack at a build a laptop with two screens anyway, even if you don't count the 2-VU, the Xentex Flip-Pad Voyager has been out for awhile now. [Thanks, Andrew]
Read MoreSony's been pretty vague about their Pocket Vaio's release date, though with a statement like "earlier than 2005" we guess there's not much time left to get their "video iPod killer" (isn't that an oxymoron?) out the gates. But now they're saying they'll begin shipping in a few select European countries next month. We'll see Sony, we'll see.
Read MoreJust like clockwork Hitachi Global Storage Technologies says they'll have a new 100GB version of their 2.5-inch Travelstar laptop drive out sometime before the end of the year. Seagate, Toshiba, and Fujitsu have also been ramping up production of 100GB laptop drives, so expect a flood of laptops with these in a few months.
Read MoreNEC has announced that the plastics on their latest line of laptops will be formulated from completely biodegradeable materials, such as corn. These corn-based laptops (corntops, if you will) will still surely outlive their usefulness as computers (we'll try not to crack any jokes about playing corn Korn cds in your corntop), and NEC aims to have 10% of their line biodegradable by 2010. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreIn all the hustle and bustle (yeah, it gets totally crazy around here) we neglected to mention that in addition to those new Vaio T and Vaio B laptops Sony bounced out yesterday they also upped the specs on their Vaio S series with their new S2 laptop. The S2 keeps the 13.3-inch widescreen LCD, built-in Bluetooth and 802.11g WiFi, but bumps things up with a DVD+-RW drive, up to a 2GHz processor, up to 1GB of RAM, and bigger hard drives.
Read MoreMaterials and Energy Research Institute Tokyo Ltd. (MERIT) have reportedly developed an incredibly small fuel cell for notebooks, just 30 x 20 x 1-mm in dimension (we'll say roughly the size and weight of quarter). Fifty of the sodium borohydride-based cells would contain quadruple the power of methanol fuel cells of the same size, and effectively power machines for twice the time of current lithium-ion batteries. Yay. Can we please see some of these coming out, already? Sheesh. [Via I4U]
Read MoreWe're starting to worry that Sony might eventually run out of letters of the alphabet, but they've just rolled out three new series of PCs in Japan, the Vaio M, the Vaio T, and the Vaio B (someday we'll sit down and figure out what letters they have left): The Vaio M series is an all-in-one that follows in the footsteps of the Vaio W that's meant to double as a home entertainment center and has a fold-up keyboard, a built-in TV tuner, and comes with a remote control. The high-end version comes with a 3.06GHz Pentium processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 200GB hard drive. Read - Vaio M series The Vaio T series is another slender laptop that feels sorta like their TR series, and comes with built-in 802.11g WiFi, 10.6-inch widescreen LCD, 768MB of RAM, and a 40GB hard drive. Sony even loosens its collar a bit and gives you the option of getting this one in red rather than the standard Vaio gray. Read - Sony Vaio T series The new Vaio B series rounds things out. This one's a little harder to get excited about, but it's a replacement for their Z1 series they introduced last year. The high-end model sports a 2GHz Pentium M processor, a 14.1-inch LCD screen (how we wish they'd go widescreen!), 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, and DVD+-RW drive. Read - Sony Vaio B [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreThere is, of course, no end to the number of ultralight laptops coming out of Japan these days, with the latest being the Sharp MP, which has a squint-inducing 10.4-inch LCD screen, a 1.6GHz Efficeon processor, and a Dirrect HDD function which lets you hook it up to another PC over USB and use it as an external hard drive (if only this were standard on every laptop). Comes in two versions, one DVD-R/RW/RAM drive and a 60GB hard drive, the other with a CD-RW drive and a 40GB hard drive.
Read MoreMicrosoft is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Microsoft Home showroom with some new features. At the core is a centralized media server that streams movies, music, and videogames to any room of choice. Microsoft has already considered all the copyright and ownership issues so that any movie, game, or song of choice will have to be (or already have been) purchased by the household. The system also knows that peripherals are available, where they are, and what they are capable of. Want to play a 2D fighter on a tablet PC? Done. Want to watch a widescreen movie on the flatscreen in the kitchen? Done. Of particular note is a new addition to the home, a teenage girl's bedroom (either she was adopted or she grew up fast - we're not sure). The room keeps tabs on all the clothing in the closet, allowing the fictional girl to see what matches, what items are at the cleaners, and (we assume) what items are allowed after 7pm without dad's sign-off. Didn't we see that in Clueless, by the way?
Read MoreFor this week's installment of the Engadget Interview we logged some time on the phone with Jason Gordon, Product Manager for Microsoft's Mobile and Embedded Devices Division. We weren't able to trip him up and get him to spill the beans about anything that hasn't been announced yet (people can be so damn professional that way), but he did talk about where the Windows Mobile operating system (which is used in Pocket PCs and Smartphones) is at today and where it's headed: For a few years it seemed like every new Pocket PC was a lot like the one before it, why are we suddenly seeing so much variation now? We finally reached the point where the platform is mature and it gave the manufacturers more room to innovate. With the latest release of Windows Mobile for Pocket PC 2003 Special Edition, we added support for VGA resolution displays, switching from portrait to landscape mode, and took away the screen-size requirements. Just look at the T-Mobile's MDA III [aka HTC's Blue Angel], it's got impressive hardware specs, a keyboard, WiFi, GSM... What we're seeing is really a maturity of the software. The software battle is played out, if you look at the [research firm] Gartner's last report, we're neck and neck with Palm. If you think back a couple of years, that's big, especially if you look at the global market share for handhelds and smartphones, we're still pretty early in the game. We've got ten manufacturers coming out with smartphones, but remember we're still only at mile post one or two of a marathon. The software has matured and the hardware is coming of age, and we're starting to see handsets with multiple radios, Bluetooth, WiFi, different types of user interfaces. So what comes next? Over the next 12 months you'll see lots of new services, like software that makes you more productive whether you're working out of the office or not, and you'll have lots of multimedia and photo options for your personal time.
Read MoreGamespot has a nice write-up on Microsoft's XNA, Xbox2 and Longhorn. The slew of new products/initiatives will be integrated tightly, and the result may be a gaming world that is very different than the one we know and love today. If you were under the delusion that Microsoft might cut and run on the games business, this article should change your mind. The company sees games everywhere, and they want to give you the chance to have games everywhere. The only possible bump in their plans may be the DISCover consoles. The little-known company (which has a partnership with Alienware) has the patent on any "home entertainment system for playing software designed for play in home computer". If the patent held up in court, then MS may have to rethink a lot of what they're talking about in this article.
Read MoreMaybe we're the only ones sickly obsessive enough about this stuff to even care (and even we're having trouble paying attention), but since we already did at least one gossipy post about the hugely litigious falling out Microsoft and Sendo had over what was supposed to have been the very first handset running on the Windows Mobile for Smartphone operating system (mere months before the Z100, pictured at right, was due out, Sendo abruptly jumped ship for the Symbian OS or something along those lines, it was a long time ago in cellphone years), we figured we at least had an obligation to tell you how everything ended up. Nobody won. At least not as far as we can tell, but Sendo dropped their lawsuit against Microsoft alleging theft of trade secrets, fraud, and unfair competition, and Microsoft agreed to give up the 4 percent stake they had in the manufacturer.
Read MoreMicrosoft is launching their new USB MS Fingerprint Reader, which will be available bundled with the Optical Desktop (for $110), with the Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer (for $85), or alone for $55—it does not appear that they are being bundled with their Bluetooth gear, unfortunately. Microsoft wants us to use the biometric device to keep track of login credentials in XP and online, but so long as they insist that the device is to be used for convenience and not security we'll be positively sure to not buy one (what's the point, really, since there are plenty of other options out there?). That, and the fact that it vaguely resembles HAL9000, are we right? Are we right?
Read MoreAll the Microsoft haters are going to get a new reason to be unhappy when Longhorn, the next version of Windows, comes out in a couple of years: they're going to include a little something called "Plug and Play Extensions" that should make it a lot easier for companies worried about data theft to stop people from connecting iPods, MP3 player, Flash memory drives, and other portable storage devices to their PC at work (this should make at least one Gartner analyst very happy). It's not that it's not already possible to do something like this, but next time around Windows'll have it built in. Assuming the home version has the same options, you better believe that blocking a kid from hooking up their iPod to their PC to transfer music is going to be the new grounding.
Read MoreMicrosoft gets a lot of crap for always being late to the game with everything and just throwing a ton of money around until they can dominate a market, but in an interview with BusinessWeek Bill Gates says that when it comes to those newly introduce Portable Media Centers, that this time, "We're early on the video thing" and that Apple's lead in music is "no big deal." (And that's just what we cribbed from the headline!).
Read MoreOh, unkie Walt is back in effect, today spewing ever-righteous prose on the beta of the new MSN Music store which technically isn't officially available until October 12th. We're with him that it seems like too little, too late—charging the same 99 cents for each individual track (or more, as some songs will cost up to $4.00 depending on length and whether they're pre-release) doesn't exactly positively differentiate it much from Apple's iTunes Music Store, especially given that MSN Music's catalog is only half as large (they only have 500,000 tracks compared to Apple's cool mil). Then again, Microsoft isn't courting iPod owners, they're going after pretty much everyone else and Mossberg confirms the service is compatible with dozens of non-iPod digital audio players. The other primary advantage/difference is that while it's possible (and easier) to purchase songs through Microsoft's new Windows Media Player 10, they also offer the option of purchasing music using directly from the MSN Music website.
Read MoreYou might know him best as the founder of MP3.com or the guy behind Lindows (or Linspire or whatever they're calling it now), but Michael Robertson has another company up his sleeve called SIPphone. Basically a VoIP phone service, they've recently filed a lawsuit against electronics retailer Fry's and VoIP competitor Vonage alleging that the packaging of Linksys' new Linksys Phone Adapter and RT31P2 Broadband Router (pictured at right) is misleading. Since they're not suing Linksys at all you're probably wondering what the hell Vonage (not to mention Fry's) has to do with all this, but basically the Linksys gear is locked down so it'll only work with Vonage's VoIP service, and SIPphone thinks this is misleading since people might buy the equipment thinking they can use it with SIPphone or somebody else's VoIP service. To Sipphone, this isn't fair — not only do the customers not have a choice of their VoIP service, but they may not know that they will be charged a monthly fee for the service. Are they just whining? SIPphone does market its own competing hardware, but the real question is just how confusing the packaging and marketing of the Linksys gear really is. It's not like Vonage really has anything to gain by people being tricked into buying the Linksys gear and then not signing up for their broadband telephone service. This one is for the courts to decide...
Read MoreYou already really didn't want to tempt fate and try and bring your cameraphone with you on your next visit to Saudi Arabia, but apparently since a government ban on selling and importing them hasn't worked (they even sparked a brawl at a wedding there back in July), they've decided to turn to a higher power. The kingdom's supreme religious leader, Sheik Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheik, issued a religious edict condeming cellphones with built-in digital cameras, saying that they spread obscenity and that all citizens should renounce them immediately or risk punishment.
Read MoreOf course, as soon as we post about how we can't find any Tungsten T5 pics we stumble across this photo which turned up on Amazon under a listing for palmOne's new hard case for Tungsten series Palms that just happens to have what looks like a new T5 tucked away inside of it. We're not used to Amazon hoaxing us, so we think this is legit. [Via Bargain PDA] UPDATE: If you're looking for news about the Tungsten T5 we've got the scoop on palmOne's announcement here.
Read MoreWe really wish all our past Japan trips had been accompanied by this free cellphone service which provides translations in Korean and English (and later on Chinese), road maps and GPS system of the surrounding landscapes and cultural events alerts around Kyoto prefecture. We're definitely not knocking the age-old Tonto-style pointing which can usually deliver your basic needs (point sushi, point stomach, smile, repeat), but what better way to get a Japan-immersion experience then to have your full service cellphone act as your new best friend guide. Kyoto Prefecture plans to launch the service in December, and is loaning 500 cellphones to to lucky tourists.
Read MoreNearly seventy years ago Literary Digest conducted a poll of millions of voters that predicted that Republican Alf Landon would trounce Franklin Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential election by a whopping 57 percent to 43 percent. Roosevelt went on to win the election in a landslide, grabbing 61 percent of the vote, outperforming what the Literary Digest poll had predicted by a full 18 points. So what went wrong? Literary Digest drew their unrepresentative sample from automobile registration lists and telephone directories, which was all fine and good except for the fact that during the Depression days of the 1930s people who owned cars and had phones tended to be wealthier than the average American—and Republican (George Gallup's more scientific polling style more accurately predicted the winner, even though it drew on a smaller sample size). Could something similar be happening today? Most presidential tracking polls these days only call landlines for their surveys, which wouldn't be such a big deal were it not for the fact that more and more Americans are ditching their landlines entirely and going completely wireless. They're not being surveyed because pollsters generally don't call cellphone numbers (there's no directory of numbers to draw on, for starters), but while the landline-less are still a relatively small proportion of the population (about 3 percent), the numbers are growing. The result is that they're basically ignoring three percent of the population that is generally made up of tech savvy types who don't see the need to own a landline; with polls as tight as they are even that small number could make a difference.
Read MoreThey're completely and totally unofficial, but EVDO-Coverage.com lives up to its name and has put together some maps showing the general coverage areas in all the cities where Verizon just rolled out their new high-speed EV-DO wireless service. From the looks of the LA map, Verizon better hope that Dr. Dre doesn't try to get his EV-DO on, since apparently there is zero coverage in Compton.
Read MoreLooks like Wacom is adapting Penabled, its pressure-sensitive active digitizer screen technology, which is used in a lot of Tablet PCs, for use in smartphones and cellphones. Sure, you could just throw a touchscreen in there (there are plenty of phones with that, like the Treo 600 or the Philips 755, which is pictured at right), but the advantage of using Penabled is that the screen only responds to a special electromagnetic pen (which works even when you just hover the pen over the screen), so you don't have to worry about accidentally pressing a button on the screen while you're trying to write something out or disconnecting a call when your face is all up against the phone while making a call (which we've seriously done a bunch of times with our Treo). [Via PhoneScoop]
Read MoreThat crafty mid-level manager has been watching you over your work-cellphone for awhile now, so it's probably best to resist the urge to head over to O-Malleys for a quick tipple. The GPS-cellphone as employee-monitor has been the cause of endless privacy vs. security squabbles, and confused workers might be best off tossing their spying handsets in a ditch. While the leader of the mobile-monitoring pack has been Nextel with their Mobile Locator, recently the mobile tracking firm Xora has released services like "geofences" which sets off an alarm when the employee goes to a previously no-no designated area (we bet 80% of these are bars). The technology should remind you of that pet GPS collar which sends email alerts to the pet owner when Rover dashes outside of the confines of his monitored fenced-in yard. Though since the E911 mandate (which says that cellular carriers must enable 95% of their cellphones to be tracked when the user dials 911, by the end of 2005) has been creating the boon for GPS/cellphone systems, then we guess that most employers using GPS/cellphone tracking are just trying to look out for their employee's safety - right? Though that excuse doesn't really hold up with the geofences alert system, unless the employer's going to claim it's aiding with employee alcohol abuse.
Read MoreIt's going to have some stiff competition amongst the IMfree, Ogo, and, of course, the Sidekick II in the increasingly crowded arena of teenage handheld wireless-texting gadgets, but everything about the Zipit Wireless Instant Messenger—from the 802.11(b, we presume) with WEP, to the integrated firewall, to the full QWERTY keyboard and 4-8 hour battery life—should ensure it will be in good company. So yeah, you could say it's pretty good for a Benjamin, considering it's 4 x 3.5 x ¾-inches in size, and also supposedly downloads plugins for updating IM protocols and streaming music. We'll see though, we'll see, we're trying not to get our hopes up too much. [Via Popgadget]
Read MoreAdmit it, even though you know it's totally bogus and totally crass, you've been dying to actually hear what that breast-enlarging ringtone they've been selling in Japan sounds like, right? Well, we got Gareth, our Tokyo correspondent, to download it to his phone and make a copy of it for us, which we're making available to you as an MP3 (for educational purposes, of course). If you can't be bothered to download it (or don't want to take the risk of the ringtone actually having its advertised effect), we can tell you it sounds mainly like Yngwie Malmsteen playing a guitar solo, which for some reason makes perfect sense. Now if you'll excuse us, we've been blasting this all morning and must now run out to get our first training bras. Listen
Read MoreUnless they start issuing Treos to schoolkids we're pretty sure that we'll be stuck with all that vaguely incomprehensible "txt spk" shorthand for at least the immediate future, but Larry Garfield over at infoSync hopes that the rise of the mini-keyboard spells (pun intended) a resurgence for people using proper grammar and punctuation in text messages, since you'll have no reason to be lazy and cut corners. Doesn't quite address the fact that plenty of people using instant messenger applications on their PC employ sloppy spelling and poor grammar, but we understand what he's getting at. [Via TechDirt]
Read MoreSo Hideto Tomabechi, one of the guys who helped deprogram members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan, has started selling a ringtone that he says will make your breasts grow larger just by listening to it, something which should make it very popular with the ladies (guys, you're gonna want to carry some earplugs just in case). Fortunately there are customer testimonials in case you were worried about this thing being legit or not, and Tomabechi says it's really simple, that he just uses sounds that "make the brain and body move unconsciously. It's a technique involving subliminal effects," that's like "positive brainwashing." If getting all busty through a ringtone isn't your bag, he also ringtones on the way that'll improve your memory, make you more attractive to the opposite sex, cure baldness, and help you give up smoking. Ringtones, man, ringtones. UPDATE: Wanna hear what it sounds like? Click here.
Read MoreThere are some people who say "it could have been any kind of camera!" but come on, this wouldn't be the first time a cellphone saved someone's life (okay, okay, so that was different). A Conneticut woman used her cameraphone (they didn't say which kind) to snap a shot of the car belonging to her alleged sexual assailant; the suspect was promptly snapped up and tossed in the clink. Way to go, camphones! [Via The Mobile Weblog]
Read MoreMost times commute hours are just that half hour space you zone out in, eyes glazed over, spittle forming, and any kind of forced social bonding session sounds like true torture (well, unless you're a show 'em your O-face guy). But an artist (same one who made the sketchy Sketch-a-Move toy car) designed the Mobile Snoop Service using the 3G videophone interface, enabling voyeurs and exhibitionists to peek into fellow traveller's text messages and cellphone images. Tested on London's Bus No. 52, the passengers could sign up for the service, open up their inner cellphone data as little or as much as they wanted, and then view other's text secrets in relation to their own degree of reveal. If you let it all out then you could fully ransack the offered personal data. We're not exactly sure if the project actually worked like the artist's plan describes, or if it was more abstract concept "art", since how many people riding the No. 52 commuter bus have fancy 3G videophones? [Via Near Near Future]
Read MorePossibly one the best bits of pseudo-science we've heard in ages, the head of the National Confederation of Parent Teach Associations in the UK claimed that not only is cellphone radiation not dangerous, it even has a beneficial effect in that there is a "heating effect [that] actually improves the neuron transfers between neural pathways, and therefore your thinking ability goes up." Much as we want this to be true (it'd certainly help justify the many hours we've been spending on the cellie lately), turns out that legitimate scienticians were able to debunk this one pretty quickly.
Read MoreWe've been seeing so many pet-love devices we forgot that the majority of animal-related tech falls under the animal as fry-up category. Good thing the TekVet is there to remind us with its wireless device to monitor your sick or unhealthy herd. When the animal's body temperature drops or rises significantly, the device, which is attached to the animal's ear, alerts the ranch manager electronically who can then treat the animal's ailments. That might sound like a kindly hearted old rancherman but it's of course only to negate lost profits. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreJust as we suspected, Verizon Wireless is planning a massive nationwide rollout of their high-speed EV-DO service on Monday next week in the following cities: Atlanta; Austin; Baltimore; Kansas City, KS/MO; Los Angeles; Miami/Fort Lauderdale, FL; Milwaukee; New York; Philadelphia; Tampa, FL; and West Palm Beach, FL. There are also plans to add EV-DO to at least 20 airports around the country. This means you'll be able to get a pleasant 384Kbps wireless connection (which is more or less like having slow DSL) in a helluva lot more places than you used to be able to (until now you could only get it in D.C., San Diego, and Las Vegas), but there is a big catch: at the moment there aren't any phones to use it with, so the service is only available in the form of a wireless laptop card, and even that costs a full $80 a month. But then again, you won't have to hunt for a WiFi hotspot quite as often.
Read MoreNot that this is going to settle anything for anybody, since surely in another month or two some other group of scientists will produce a completely contradictory report, but researchers from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland have released a joint statement concluding that radiation from cellphones doesn't pose a significant health risk as long as they stay below the levels recommended by the very impressive sounding International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. But they still think you should use a headset, just to be on the safe side. Thanks, guys.
Read MoreFour churches in Mexico have resorted to illegally jamming cellphone signals using devices smuggled in from Israel to stop parishoners' phones from ringing during services. The Mexican Federal Telecommunications Commission is looking the other way, but before you complain the US Federal Communications Commisson is pretty lax about this, too, and has pretty much never charged anyone with the crime of cellphone signal jamming (which might be the reason for all of those conspiracy theories that hotels are deliberately blocking cellphone signals to get guests to use the phone lines in their rooms). [Via textually.org]
Read MoreWith an appalling lack of restraint, Vodafone Japan has just announced seven new 3G phones for release this winter. A quick skim of the specs shows that most seem to be dual-band W-CDMA/GSM units with megapixel cameras and Bluetooth; details beyond that are a bit scarce, though we'll go out on a limb and say it doesn't look like there's anything really revolutionary hiding among this lot (alright, maybe we're getting jaded).
Read MoreIn perfect timing with Oktoberfest descended upon us, Siemens has apparently developed a system for their cellphones that detects and alerts users to offensive breath odors (because really, what could possibly be worse than having bad breath?). And though we think a breathalyzer cellphone might be more of an odor, er, we mean order, the spokeswoman for Siemens justified the technology by stating "Some people take smelling good rather seriously." Funny, that's one thing we've never heard anyone accuse Europeans of. What! We kid! [Via The Mobile Technology Weblog]
Read MoreWe know you've been dying to share files via cellphone (or maybe not given how freaking frustrating it'd be), so some researcher types at the Nokia Research Center in Hungary have responded with what is supposed to be the first P2P cellphone app (we vaguely recall some sort of file-sharing program for the Pocket PC or Palm or something or other, but whatever). The current prototype network, which works on Nokia 6600 phones, allows text and picture sharing, and maybe surprisingly given how loathe manufacturers can be to incur the dual wrath of the RIAA and the MPAA, they are also looking to add MP3, video, and game sharing in future versions (maybe not actually being in America has something to do with it). We'd hold out for a decent 3G connection, but they say it'll work just fine if with the 6600's GPRS data connection, just double check you've got a flat rate plan and aren't paying per precious megabyte. Those bootleg Ratatat MP3s you just grabbed might not be so free after all.
Read MoreWe know that the Treo 650 is for real. And after a few email exchanges with palmOne's PR agency earlier this month, we know that they know that we know that it's for real (at least they didn't deny it, which is good enough for us). But now they can't play dumb for much longer, especially given that a page listing "GPS Units for Tungsten T3 / T5 / Zire 72 / Treo 650" turned up on their web site. And it's for their Bluetooth GPS Navigator, too, which virtually guarantees that the new Treo 650 has got to have freaking Bluetooth in it. Oh, and this pretty much confirms the rumors that a Tungsten T5 is on the way. [Thanks, ticotek]
Read MoreHe must have pissed somebody off, because he's taken all this stuff off of his website and now is only reporting on it in his email newsletter (as if that is going to make a difference to a bunch of lawyers), but Robert Kim of evdo-coverage.com says that Verizon is currently testing their high-speed EV-DO wireless service in Los Angeles and Orange County (just don't expect them to be namechecking EV-DO on The OC anytime soon). And yeah, you should be excited, because EV-DO means you'll eventually be able to get broadband—well, poky DSL-like speeds—on your cellphone. We already heard that they were ramping things up in New York, Tampa, Boston, Chicago, and Houston (though they were encountering some roadbumps in Northern California), maybe Verizon is just waiting to get all of these cities online before they make some sort of big national announcement?
Read MoreWe knew Norway was kind of like the world's Nader (except for the part about spoiling elections), but we were a little bit suprised to learn their idea of justice denied. The Norwegian government is now suggesting a possible ban on cellphones in Norway's prisons, and Norwegians (well, the lawyers there) are nonplussed. It's big news, except for the even bigger news (to us, at least) that up until this point it was perfectly legal for prisoners to have their own cellphones (reminds us how Sweden finally cracked and banned PlayStations from their prisons—we must remember to launch our next crime spree in Scandinavia). Maybe they didn't realize that the most of the rest of the world already made the seemingly obvious step of outlawing prison cellphones outright, but smuggled cellphone-related prison break stories have been flooding the news for the past couple of years now.
Read MoreEspecially handy since you'll finally be able to call up your dog and let them know you're going to be a few minutes late meeting them for sushi at Masa, PetsMobility have a new cellphone for animals out called the PetsCell that you attach to one of their paws and that automatically answers when you call them up (because obviously the idea of a dog being able to answer a phone themselves is crazy). They do offer an optional GPS module in case you want to track your dog's whereabouts, but if you trust them enough to give them a cellphone, wouldn't you want to respect their privacy, too? (Bet you thought we were joking about this whole thing about gadget manufacturers going after the animal market—as far as we're concerned, two stories about this in one day officially constitutes an incontrovertible trend.)
Read MoreWe have fond memories of Bang & Olufsen's slick wall-mounted CD systems in the 80s; those Scandies really knew how to design us up some stuff. Now it appears B&O like to take more "chances" with their design (read between the lines), as found with BeoCom 2 cordless phone. It looks like an exclamation point, and you have to pay more than a G for it. We're going to refrain here, so just have a gander at the frivolity, and try to think happy thoughts. //
Read MoreWe're definitely as sick as you are of carrying multiple phones while living the life of a jetsetter because of incompatible cellular standards worldwide. So you can imagine how stoked we were to hear that Samsung, LG, and Motorola have all released handsets that support both GSM and CDMA networks for the global traveler market. While a billion users worldwide use GSM, there's still some 200 million (mainly in the US and Asia) that are sticking it out with CDMA, so Samsung's got the SCH-W109 and LG's got the W800, both GSM/CDMA compatible offerings. Also, Verizon is now offering the Samsung A790 (at $350, seen at right), so you can get your roaming charges pumping not just in North America, but Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and pretyy much everywhere else in the world.
Read MoreLast week reader Nick B. wanted to know "What's the most useful portable Voice over IP service?", this week we just want to hear one thing: your absolute worst cellphone carrier horror stories. Here's your chance to let it all out. We know at least one of you has a story about accidentally getting a bill for $80,000 or being stuck on hold for 37 hours or getting transferred from customer service rep to customer service rep until you eventually get transferred back to the one who refused to deal with you in the first place. Please vent. We're here for you. Don't hold back, it's all part of the coping process.
Read MoreWhen British Airways CIO bitched that planemakers should be building new wireless technologies into airplanes rather than expecting them to be retrofitted (and thus grounded for extended periods of time), we guess Airbus was listening, since they decided it'd be a good time to announce that they'd made some progress towards enabling in-flight cellphone use (not that we're dying to have to listen to fellow passengers yammer away while we're buckled in or anything). During recent test flights Airbus was able to use cellphones to successfully call and send text messages to both people on the ground and other mid-air cellphones. The test flights used an onboard base station which routed calls with the Globalstar satellite communications network to ground cellular networks, and yes, it's absolutely shocking, but they didn't encounter any navigation or communication problems. They're predicting that in-flight cellphone service could be a reality as early as 2006.
Read MoreJapan's second attempt this week to prove that the PDA is still with us comes from the Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory, part of the T-Engine Forum that develops the TRON OS. The Ubiquitous Communicator packs in a lot of goodies: RFID reader, fingerprint sensor, Bluetooth, WiFi, 2-megapixel camera on the back and another 300,000-pixel unit on the front for videophone calls, mic and speaker for VoIP calls, and so forth. There's a catch, as you might expect; the first production run models will cost something above Y300,000 ($2,700), though the second run should see that come down to about the same price as a high-end digital camera, which should help the quest for, er, ubiquity. [Via ITmedia (Japanese)]
Read MoreMaybe it's pure masochism on our part to keep posting these photos of future-forward Korean and Japanese cellphones that we'll never be able to own, but Akihabara News posted up this promotional photo of five new SK Telecom phones that'll give you a glimpse of how they like to do things over there. Not exactly sure what the bottom three are (and we're definitely not interested in the one all the way to the left), but the one on the top right looks like Samsung's 1.3 megapixel SCH-V500 cameraphone (which has a screen that flips horizontallyfor watching TV) and we're pretty sure that the one on the top left looks like Pantech & Curitel's PH-S3500 gamephone (but don't quote us on that).
Read MoreWe've got to hand it to DaimlerChrysler; we don't think they've struck gold here or anything, but they get ten points for originality. Some bored rubes in their R&D lab hacked a version of some lane monitoring software to work on a Siemens cameraphone handset, and then designed a mount for the cellphone near the rear-view. Start to nod off, stop paying attention, or just be a generally bad driver and get a ring (apparently the one alert that people won't ignore). Which means given our driving skills we'd be hearing a lot of "Big Poppa" all MIDI ringtone style. [Via AutoBlog]
Read MoreIt's only 1am here on the East Coast so we probably still have to wait a few more hours until any sort of official announcement might cross the wires, but reader Valor says that he just spoke with an AT&T Wireless customer service rep who said that the ogo, their new handheld mobile communicator for doing email and instant messaging, should be launched later today. Here's the unexpurgated scoop: I just talked to a *very* helpful customer care representative at AT&T, who gave me a lot of information about the new "ogo". Here is everything she told me: It will cost 17.99 mo, but there is a $3/mo introductory offer (she didn't say how long the offer was good for), there will be an activation fee of $19.99, and the price of the unit is $129.99, with a $30 rebate at launch. She read me the capabilities of the unit, which included unlimited domestic text messaging (didn't know if the unit would have its own phone number) with premium and international SMS available for a fee, unlimited instant messaging, and "unlimited access to 1 premium portal" (AOM, MSN, Yahoo), as well as support for "some" other email providers. She couldn't tell me what all that included, or if it included your own IMAP/POP3 server. In the most notable news, she told me that the launch date is tomorrow, September 15!!
Read MoreWe're getting reports that T-Mobile has temporarily halted their trade-in program where they were offering current Sidekick owners a hundred bucks off the new Sidekick II in exchange for turning in their old one, and have supposedly even disconnected the toll-free number they'd given people to call (we tried a few times and just got busy signals). Not sure if the problem is simply overwhelming demand or not, but at least one tipster says that T-Mobile had some sort of SNAFU with their billing system and are going to try and get things going again in a few days.
Read MoreAll current Sidekick owners received an email yesterday offering them $100 off a new Sidekick II if they trade in their current one. All they have to do is call up a toll-free number, order the new Sidekick, and send back their old one when the new one arrives. What we care more about is that the email explicitly states that current owners are being given the chance to order the new model before it goes on sale, and that the offer ends September 24. Our guess is that the new Sidekick goes on sale by Monday, September 27 at the latest. It possible that it may even happen next week, since offers like this usually have a little overlap with the actual product release. [Thanks to everyone who sent this one in]
Read MoreNot to be confused with the OQO, the Ojo, or the OKO, AT&T Wireless is getting ready to unleash the ogo, a clamshell-style mobile communicator with a mini QWERTY keyboard. It feels an awful lot like it's their response to the Sidekick 2 (only without the built-in cellphone or digital camera) but the trained eye sees they're really more closely targeting Motorola's IMfree. The ogo is pretty much just for doing instant messaging (AIM, MSN, and Yahoo come pre-installed), SMS text messaging, and email, plus it uses use IXI Mobile's Bluetooth-based Personal Mobile Gateway technology if you have a hankering for hooking the ogo up to other gadgets. The best part though? Service will be cheap, just fifteen bucks a month for current AT&T Wireless customers (read: just in reach of all those teens who want to break free of the shackles of T9 texting).
Read MoreOriginally Verizon was set to expand their new high-speed EV-DO service to the San Francisco Bay Area as well as Sacramento (last week we had the dirt on which cities were next due for EV-DO service), however it looks like they've delayed the launch in both areas as coverage (read: EV-DO towers) isn't quite where they wanted it to be yet. Delays also may affect Tampa, FL and NYC as well since they also don't have enough infrastructure in place, but rollout is still scheduled to happen in each city before 2005. And plans to introduce Verizon's first EV-DO handsets, the LG VX8000 and the XDA III, are supposedly on hold now.
Read MoreThose feeling sorry for their big lonely Japanese phone will be pleased to know that Mytan has come up with a range of miniature "phone figures" that replicate some of DoCoMo's recent faves. Everyone, including Big D and the phone manufacturers, seems to be happy about this, and future series are planned that will feature both later and earlier models. ¥294 each, if you happen to be near a Japanese convenience store in the near future. [Via Keitai Watch (Japanese)]
Read MoreWe almost don't care how they do it (we do, but you know what we mean), but researchers in Britain have developed a new cameraphone lens system that uses an optical encoder to improve image quality and reduce all that blurriness that we've become a little too accustomed to when it comes to cameraphone pics. [Thanks, Mike]
Read MoreWe're about to get a quite a few more cellphone towers scattered all over the place. An almost-approved deal between cellular industry members and historic preservation representatives would remove a bunch of limits on where cellphone towers are built and what hoops have to be jumped through before they can go up. The cellphone companies are ecstatic of course (they get more towers and can provide more coverage) but we're sure there are groups out there lamenting the rise of yet more ugly transmitters (something or other about them being highly dangerous sources of radiation). We certainly wouldn't relish one plopped down in front of our window. Aren't there enough trees to hide them in?
Read MoreHey, we're always down to try something new. For instance, an iPod-style touchpad for a cellphone, like Synatpics' (they make the touchpads for about every laptop that ever existed) new MobileTouch interface. We'll see if this takes off (we kind of hope it does) but we have a sneaking suspicion it's going to take a good amount of real-estate on that microscopic phone. [Via GeekZone]
Read MoreIf you're actually looking to buy one (no judgement or anything), HP's iPod has turned up in at least a few stores several days ahead of its scheduled release date of September 15th. The list price is the same as the regular Apple iPod (i.e. $299 for the 20GB and $399 for the 40GB version), but there are scattered reports of people finding them online for way cheaper than that. Or at least way cheaper when consider that Apple keeps a really tight grip on how aggressively retailers can price the regular iPod.
Read MoreThis week's Ask Engadget comes to us from Engadget pal Nick B., who wants to know, "What's the most useful portable Voice over IP service?" So what is it? A WiFi Pocket PC with loaded up with Skype or Vonage? A laptop with a softphone client? Just carry around your Analogue Telephone Adapter and hope for the best? Anyone tried one of those newfangled WiFi phones, like the ZyXEL Prestige 2000W pictured at right?
Read MoreWe'd already heard some talk about how Verizon is testing their high-speed EV-DO wireless network (which can deliver DSL-level download speeds to a cellphone or wireless laptop card) in the New York area, now the latest word is that they're testing it in Tampa now, too, and will be taking the service to Boston, Chicago, and Houston next. Their EV-DO service is already available in San Diego, Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas but so far Verizon has kept quiet about which cities they'll be properly rolling out in next. [Via Reiter's Wireless Data]
Read MoreThe exclusive DEMOmobile tech conference, where 40 startups get to show off their wares to investors and industry suits, is supposed to be the place to catch a glimpse of the real cutting edge wireless stuff we'll all be sweating over 12 months from now, but are we the only ones yawning at what's on display this year? A "system for sending contact information from Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail to cell phones"? A way to send photos from a cameraphone with a single click? A company that promises to research price info if you email them a picture of an ad you saw in a newspaper or magazine? Yet another company trying to sell digital downloads of sports and news to people with MP3 players? C'mon, at least one of the other 36 companies exhibiting has to have something worth writing home about. [Via PicturePhoning.org]
Read MoreIt's not quite as fun as believing that T-Mobile participated in some sort of conspiracy to keep protesters at last week's Republican National Convention from getting text messages sent to them via the mass TxTMOB messaging service, but more or less as you'd expect, the real "culprit" was a T-Mobile spam filter that automatically blocks anyone trying to send more than a hundred messages from the same SMTP server. Note to self: please read up on that William of Occam guy.
Read MoreWe saw this before in the old Airport base stations and a D-Link router, but Always On Wireless (kind of a self-defeating name, you'll see) wants us to think they're making it new again with the WiFlyer, a $150 pocket WiFi router that has an integrated modem (and Ethernet, too). They're trying to tap both the dial-up home-user and road warrior markets at once, but you have to wonder what they're thinking—mostly anyone who still uses dial-up (a lot of America) almost certainly wouldn't just now invest in a multi-node wireless network for their home, and the road warriors are seldom without a hotspot (or integrated modem). Sorry guys, you're about two years too late. [Via PCWorld]
Read MoreThe 1394 Trade Association, the shadowy cabal, er, totally legitimate group behind the FireWire connection standard we all know and love so much, has given their coveted seal of approval to the WiMedia Alliance to move forward with a wireless version of Firewire (a "FireWireless" if you will) that uses ultra wideband to create high-speed connections between gadgets.
Read MoreWe remember when it was a big deal that universities started wiring up their dorms with high-speed Internet connections (we were so happy that we could download that Christmas South Park clip). American universities are still trying hard to stay on the proverbial cutting edge, with campus-wide WiFi and stuff like Duke's free iPod handout (thanks, guys), but when it comes down to it, no one can compete with what they're doing in South Korea. Seoul's Sookmyoung Women's University already has a fully-functioning mobile campus where students use their mobile phones with built-in ID card to enter libraries, check out books and look up personal records, and in lecture halls students can just hit a button to record their attendance at lectures. We guess that's just par for the course in the country with the largest per capita Internet users, though we're more than just a little jealous that our college days are long past.
Read MoreWe're not trying to fuel anyone's paranoid fantasies (well, maybe we are...), but according to the New York Times plenty of frequent business travelers are starting to suspect that the hotels they're staying at are using cellphone jammers to force them to use phone lines in their rooms. Yeah, it's totally illegal (and trust us, you don't want to get thrown in FCC jail), but hotels do rely on jacked up rates on phone calls for part of their revenue and people using their cellphones instead has cut into profits (just imagine how screwed the hotel industry would be if in-room porn-on-demand was banned). Not that that means anything since we all know how spotty cellphone reception is in general and it's not like most hotels would have to do anything special to ensure you have crappy coverage.
Read MoreOk, so we'll be the first to admit that maybe Voice over WiFi hasn't exactly taken over the world or brought the telcos to their knees. There are loads of reasons why, like that the first WiFi phones aren't that great or easy to use, cellphone minutes are already pretty cheap, and the fact that it's not really possible to automatically switch between cellular and WiFi when you're making a call or downloading something, but a bunch of the heavyhitters like Nokia, Motorola, Cingular, T-Mobile, Sony Ericsson, Siemens, and others are trying to change that. They're trying sort out a single standard called Unlicensed Mobile Access for seamlessly roaming back and forth between GSM cellular and WiFi networks. [Via PhoneScoop]
Read MoreProtesters trying to use TXTmob (a service for sending mass text messages to groups of people) to organize during this past week's Republican National Convention in NYC are asking if T-Mobile was blocking messages sent to their subscribers. Apparently as things heated up the TXTmob service dispatched the message saying that "T-Mobile blocked TXTmob messages during a portion of the RNC". It could just be that there were too many messages from one server (TXTmob) and the network automatically stops that sorta thing. This is normally a good thing when it's spam, but depending on one's level of tinfoil hat-ness it could indicate something far more sinister. If we find out more we'll let you know—unless we're told not to.
Read MoreThey did this once before after Hurricane Charley a few weeks ago, now with Hurricane Frances about to hit shore T-Mobile is doing the right thing again and is offering free WiFi at all of their hotspots in Florida until the end of Monday.
Read MoreWhen the Nokia 6630 (aka Charlie) was announced earlier this year we were impressed with its features, but not taken by the design. Last weekend at a meeting of the Bay Area Mobility Forum I had the chance to play with a real 6630 and all I can say is that, well, I'm sorry Engadget fans, but I am in love with this phone. It's got a beautiful screen, a keypad with a nice layout, and it fits well in my hand. And you should see the photos that camera takes; if you have anything less than a 3 megapixel digicam, just throw it away and get this phone—it's that good and it doesn't even have a flash! And to correct one earlier error, the phone's memory card slot is on the outside, not under the battery. The only problem with this 6630 is that it's designed for those damn folks in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) since it's 900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE and 700 MHz WCDMA. Today AT&T Wireless launched 3G WCDMA in two more cities, Dallas and San Diego. AT&T's current 3G handsets are, ummm, less than appealing, but given how small the potential market is for 3G in the US right now, it's understandable that manufacturers wouldn't go to too much trouble. We have to hope that now that AT&T has launched in six cities (Cingular will probably add a few more once the buyout is complete) that manufactuers will modify their newer and better 3G handsets to be compatible with the cellular bands (850/1800/1900GSM and 1900 MHz WCDM) that we use here in the States.
Read MorePlease nobody tell our new bestest buddy Jack Valenti about this, but Makayama has just released a new edition of DVD To Mobile that let's you convert DVDs into a format so you can watch them on your Sony Ericsson smartphone (there's already a version of this kicking around that does the same thing for Windows Mobile Smartphones and Pocket PCs). It helps to have a decently-sized Memory Stick Duo to store the compressed file on, but if you don't mind sacrificing a little quality you should be able to fit a feature-length film onto a 128MB card.
Read MoreNow we can definitely see the reasoning behind fining irritating cellphone gabbers in libraries, but texting too!? now that seems a bit aggressive since texting doesn't really bother anyone's neighbors. Starting September 15th California's Huntington Beach will start fining offenders $1,000 for talking or texting via cellphone in any of the city's libraries. Repeat offenders will receive anywhere from $250 to $1,000 for every infraction there after. While we are glad that someone's willing to put the smack down on, we had no idea the Huntington Beach librarians had it in 'em.
Read MoreThe City of Brotherly Love is currently considering a $10 million proposal that would blanket the 135 square mile metropolis in thousands of WiFi transmitters. While it would be congruous to the fundamental principles of the Internet to offer this service for free, which they are considering, we still feel obligated to ask the hard questions: wouldn't this money be better suited, as usual, being dumped into schools and social programs? And, ever heard of WiMax? And, when can we move in? [Thanks, Alan]
Read MoreWe're sorta past the point where a story about schools getting PDAs and WiFi is newsworthy, but we couldn't help but pick up on Mike from TechDirt's observation that one of the students shown is studying hard at trying to win a game of solitaire. Anyway, we'd break it to that kid that work isn't all about sitting at a desk playing solitaire while trying to look busy, but then we'd be lying, wouldn't we? [Via TechDirt]
Read MoreJapan gets hit by most things that nature has to offer; typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes. Add to that a nuclear industry that has in the past regarded mixing uranium in a bucket as perfectly acceptable, and the need for systems to get disaster alerts out to the populace becomes all the more pressing. To that end, Tsuruga City in Fukui prefecture is adding cellphone mail to the usual arsenal of megaphones and emergency broadcasts. Its Y20 mn system should be up and running by year-end and will also send out faxes and phone up fixed-line phones with voice messages in the event of a disaster. Doesn't sound like it would necessarily make for a calm evacuation, if there can be such a thing, but as the city is home to four nuclear reactors and is too close for comfort to the Mihama reactor at which four people were recently killed, we understand their urgency. [Via Slashdot Japan (Japanese)]
Read MoreIn May, NVidia took potshots at rival graphics/GPU company ATI. An internal presentation, which was circulated around a handful of Mac news sites, contained the following: Now ATI is taking their own jabs: Not being a gamer, I don't really care if my video card can kick your video card's butt. One thing I know for certain though, is neither company has done a very good job of keeping prices in check when it comes to Mac-based video cards versus PC-based video cards.
Read MoreHey we found a new use our Tablet PC! Tonight we're going to play bingo as we watch the "debates". Here's how to play... If President Bush or Senator Kerry say the phrase, bring up the topic, or do the action marked on the bingo square, mark off that square. The first person to mark off an entire row (either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) and shout "bingo" wins. If you'd rather waste paper as opposed to electrons, print out the BINGO page and hit refresh for another and then print that.
Read MoreEvery Thursday Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research contributes an interesting item of gadget-related research data. This week's factoid: Why Super Audio CDs and DVD-Audio haven't caught on. Displacing the CD? Not so fast... There's an old saying that says that says "standards are great, that's why there are so many of them." The truth is, everyone wants to control the standard du jour, and there's been a (not so) quiet battle going on to displace the CD with new music formats. Back in '99 Sony and Philips (the same companies who came up with the original CD in the '82) came up with the the SACD format to move beyond the CD. Less than a year later, a number of manufacturers, under the DVD Forum, launched a competing DVD-Audio format. To date, neither has had a major market impact; in a recent Jupiter Research survey, only five percent of respondents had ever purchased a disc in either format. There are a lot of reasons behind this, but it really boils down to three. To successfully introduce a new standard, three constituencies must be aligned: hardware manufacturers must rally behind the standard, media companies must adopt the standard, and consumers must be convinced of the format's superiority via clear and visible differentiation. All of these ducks were in a row for both the CD and DVD. None of these have occurred for SACD or DVD-Audio in great enough numbers to either to achieve critical mass. Consumers are far more interested in the compatibility as well as the portability of their CD content (via MP3) than a small increase in quality that most people don't appreciate. Given these barriers, neither SACD nor DVD-Audio will displace CDs, DVD-Video, or MP3 files over the next three years. Michael Gartenberg is vice president and research director for the Personal Technology & Access and Custom Research groups at Jupiter Research in New York. Contact him at mgartenberg@jupitermedia.com. His weblog and RSS feed are at http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg.
Read MoreLike most things with simple, real-world-useful features, the ATM (Advanced Table Module), with its easy, rounded edges, cable and acessory slots, integrated power strip, and excess cable collector underneath, can only be bought from a high-end designer furniture company (Vitra in this case) for exhorbitant sums of money ($1,450 in this case). Still, it can't stop us from lusting, despite its, um, ugliness. And don't you dare spill your coffee on it, you ingrate. [Via Apartment Therapy]
Read MoreIf you're one of our West Coast readers you can move on to the next post (if there is one), but if you're representin' the east side (or the midwest side) check it out: don't you totally hate it when you're standing on that slippery iced sidewalk in the dead of winter and your car lock is all frozen up and your windshield is iced like a cake? Us too (gotta take care of our fleet of Engadget Hummers!), so we're into this, er, thing. The little guy's a AAA-powered lock de-icer so you melt your way inside your car, and its big brother plugs into your car lighter once you're in so you can melt-scrape that ice straight off. No more sidewalk frostbite for you! [Via bookofjoe]
Read MoreSome lovely gents at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center seem to think rendering super-high quality 3D images in HDTV is not only possible, but rather simple and cheap (if you think $12,000 is cheap) with off the shelf components. Their system (called PSC-SAS) is partly based on the traditional anaglyph technique (you know, like the red and blue crossover imagery from old monster flicks); two visual channels are processed, each by their own PC, and then sent to their own HDTV projectors. The images are overlaid upon each other, each with polarized light reflecting in 90° in opposite directions. By the time it passes through your glasses (yes, you still have to wear glasses), the 3D image is clear, precise, and pure (and most notably, headache-free). It'll be a bit before you'll be able to convert your home theater from stodgy old 2D to super futuristic 3D—they're still trying to find someone to license the whole thing from them. [Via Technology Trends]
Read MoreAn Apple 1? I'll take 2! "This computer, as is documented, was bought from Steve Job's parents garage. The checks for the purchase and the original manual are included. The checks are in fact made out to and endorsed by Apple Computer Company. They were not yet incorporated." What's that? You don't take Paypal? Forget it...
Read MoreYou might be heading to Manhattan's Spectropolis festival this weekend for the Mary-Poppins (well, if she were a Valley programmer) meets Lite-Brite fun that will be UMBRELLA.net, but Urballoon, a floating balloon equipped with WiFi and projector, stands to be just as dinner-theater showy through its user-submitted content which gets projected and lights up the ground space below the balloon at the entrance of City Hall Park. The balloon is tethered to the ground, floating three stories high, so you can be sure that the plug you're going to make for your blog (or whatever) will be nice and big for everyone to see. We're not sure if they'll be censoring the content (probably not), but if you have kid make sure to have your shield-hand ready for the array of explicit and hardcore content they're sure to receive within mere moments of the Urballoon going live. Gotta love the Internet. [Via textually.org]
Read MoreStuff like this is just as scary as innovative; we sincerely doubt someone isn't going to get some mad weird looks when cruisin' around with 24 ounces of fluid in their pants, but if you're really into being lazy and cheap you could probably make the $20 Dr. Sneaky's Sneaky Shorts pay themselves off in no time. And for maximum efficiency, don't forget to pick up a wearable catheter system, too. [Thanks, Adam]
Read More"Enter to win a business professional action figure made to look just like you." Now this is just downright creepy.
Read MoreNo, it's not free. South Korean manufacturer LG has released their new MF-FE422XL MP3 player in both 256MB and 512MB versions featuring USB2.0 support. With a nice, small footprint (68.2x22.2x30.8mm and weighing in at 38g), it's perfect for gym-addicts or people who just like small things (and we know you're out there). We can't help thinking it looks like some sort of faucet attachment, but that's not really what's important here. If we are to believe LG's marketing campaign for this little guy, it's all about "rechargeable energy of my mind." And yours, let's hope.
Read MoreBachelors of the world hear this: this new 908.4-Mhz, UPnP-compliant home automation system from Z-Wave will make your X10 system look so 20th century. Because this system is completely wireless, you won't need to rewire your house (unlike X-10 systems). Each module acts as a repeater, so it re-broadcasts the signal to other hubs. The Deluxe Starter Kit includes two dimmable light switches and a remote. The kit will run you about $150, and additional modules are about $40. So invite the girls over, hit that switch, and let the magic begin. [UPDATE: We've been informed that you don't, in fact, have to rewire your house for X-10. - Thanks, Art!]
Read MoreWe have a feeling this was the result of someone having an "aha!" moment while eating a lot of Pez and listening to some MP3s, though we're not sure it's quite on the same level of inspiration as that whole cookie-dough-meets-ice-cream thing. This guy wants to mesh the classic Pez dispenser with a USB keychain that doubles as an MP3 player, thus creating the world's first PezMP3 player. OK, stranger partners have been produced, though admittedly not by much, and we're thinking he might be waiting a long time before he gets he go ahead from Pez Inc. [Via Boing Boing]
Read MoreYour friends will think you're totally a nerd if you actually know what a nixie tube is (outside of completely amazing looking), but we hope that won't stop you from buying one of these $500 GPS time-synced Nixichron clocks. Screw that 72-inch plasma, let this be the proper centerpiece to your living room. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreVirginia Tech is my hero. Check this out: System X Specifications Nodes: 1100 (!) Apple XServe dual 2.3GHz G5 processor cluster nodes (4 GB RAM, 80 GB S-ATA HD) Primary Communication:24 Mellanox 96 port InfiniBand switches (4X InfiniBand, 10 Gbps) Secondary Communication: 6 Cisco 4506 Gigabit Ethernet switches Cooling: Liebert X-treme Density System cooling Software: Mac OS X, MVAPICH, XLC & XLF No fair! I want one too! Imagine how fast you could rip your CD collection into iTunes on those puppies :)
Read MoreWe've been thinking about selling the farm (well, the studio apartment) and living out our days in the confines of the Barbarella-pod that is the Oculas. It's kind of like if the Chill Out Room was a place you'd actually want to spend some time in, or if you could trick out Metronaps and take it to the next level. You can customize your Oculas however your twisted heart desires, but you know the design team had serious visions when the standard interior options are suede or Scottish leather. Don't forget to include all those needed items like an X-Box, multiple flat screens, retinal-scan entry system with electrical door riser, and massage chair. Awww, yeah. [Thanks, Anthony]
Read MoreA day before Photokina officially began, BenQ's quietly hit us up Monday with two very miniscule, very well equipped little cameras, the 4 megapixel E43, and the 5 megapixel E53. They are both the same size (3.5 x 2.15 x 0.95-inches), the E43 having a 2-inch LCD, and the E53 having a 2.5-inch. No word yet on price, but they're supposed to drop these on America in October, so we'll keep you informed. [Thanks, Al]
Read MoreYeah, you heard us. Everyone's favorite supermegalopoly retailer Wal-Mart is going to start stocking home and car Sirius satellite radio packages under the Sanyo brand (as the CRSR-10 at first, to be exact) starting this month. At $150 it's not a drop in price or anything, but if satellite radio was ever set to take off, it's now and with a dealer like them.
Read MoreYou may know about LA, it's that tangle of thousands of miles of pavement on the west coast with the worst traffic imagineable (apparently now down to average speeds of 35 mph on the freeways). However, if you're feeling crafty you can pick up a TrafficGauge, a PDA-like device with a 3 x 5-inch screen that picks up data from Caltrans and the Dept. of Transportation's 13,000 embedded road sensors (in all fairness, they do have Seattle and Orange County coverage) and reports traffic conditions on some 850 miles of asphalt. And it's a real steal at $80 for the unit and monthly fees of $7, especially when you're sitting behind some jerk who you'd pay any amount to have brutally assaulted for their crimes against humanity in the form awful driving. [Via LA Times]
Read MoreYou have no idea how happy we are to hear that airlines are finally jumping on the in-seat entertainment bandwagon. Against all logic, all the budget airlines have the good entertainment (like Song and JetBlue) but all the fancier more expensive ones leave you sittin' bored in your seat; American Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic will soon join the ranks of Alaska Airlines and KLM in being among the first to offer portable console-like players (PEAs, or personal entertainment appliances) to passengers. AA will begin testing the PEA in November, free for all passengers except coach, and will offer stuff like TV, music videos, and games (movies will be extra). Alaska and those Scandi airlines are apparently already rocking the digEplayer, which is $10 a flight, but has all free content. The Brits at Virgin must be upgrading (the last Virgin flight we took actually already had in-seat entertainment) to the YES! Solo, which out-classes (pun intended) the rest of the devices in screen size and storage. Now if only they could be convinced to retrofit their planes like the sleeper cars in trains, then we'd really be on to something. [Via Popgadget]
Read MoreWhen there isn't much news to report, make crap up. In honor of that Mantra of the Modern Media, we present a link to a discussion about the possibility that Sony has an announcement up its sleeve that will chage the planet's axis, or somesuch. Could they finally be announcing the much-rumored third-party candidate-bot to step into the U.S. election? Perhaps it's the PS 2.23, a console that only plays old Intellivision games. Stay tuned.
Read MoreAir France has a new promotion where they're giving away free iPod minis to people who fly business class to Europe between now and January 15th, but before you get any ideas about picking up your new toy at the airport lounge they won't actually be sending you your free iPod mini until six to ten weeks after you finish your trip.
Read MoreNot content with just designing hard drives attachments, Siemens hired F.A. Porsche to design their the FW 91100 (scales never get any sweet names), a wall-mounted kitchen scale which folds up when not in use. Besides looking like a properly space age kitchen gadget, the FW 91100 can measure up to 4.4 pounds (2kg) at a time and comes with a built-in LCD clock. Someone please introduce George Foreman to these people.
Read MoreCan't remember the last time we heard anything interesting out of Contax, but they're definitely out to get our attention now with the i4R, an impeccably dressed four megapixel camera with a 1.5-inch LCD on the back and sliding non-zoom lens. Not cheap (DPReview lists it at £299), but it is tiny (just 3.7 x 1.5 x 0.8 inches) and they do toss in a 256MB SD card to ease the sting a little bit. Should be out in November. [Thanks, Gabe]
Read MoreThe product page for Giffin's new iBeam poses the question: "Ever use iPod's backlight to find your keys?" iAnswer: iDon't I wrote yesterday about the booming iPod economy. I think it's swell that Apple has made it so easy for all these companies to get a piece of the pie, but there has to be a limit. I'm a geek. I love geeky stuff. I love gadgets and widgets. Most of the gadgets and widgets I have are pretty useless and serve no practical purpose in the real world. My not-husband makes fun of this all the time. He accuses me of accumulating stuff that serves no purpose other than to aid in my accumulation of more stuff. I hate to admit it, but he's mostly right. So why can't I stop laughing at Griffin's new $20 mini light show? Griffin says: "The Griffin iBeam represents a new category of iPod accessories that are fun, functional and easy on the 'iPod gear' line of your budget." I say "The Griffin iBeam represents a new category of iPod accessories that is aimed at suckers who won't think twice about spending twenty bucks on something that does what it does just to prove that it can." I am sure most of you disagree with me. I'm used to that. I trust you will leave some very convincing arguments about why I am wrong in the comments section.
Read MoreThough not as small or light as BenQ's Joybee 102 (still the world's smallest MP3 player at half an ounce), we're willing to bet that Samsung's YP-T6z, which manages to squeeze in a full gigabyte of storage room in a nice little stick weighing in at a full ounce, is the world's smallest 1GB portable music player. The YP-T6z also pops in support for OGG (the open source audio format) an FM tuner, and will play for about 20 hours on a single AAA battery. No price mentioned as of yet.
Read MoreWe have no idea what the current fetish is with inflateable spaces, but hey, we'll bite. First the Cloud, then the Office-In-A-Bucket, now the Chill Out Room, a $400 7-foot tall blow-up PVC honeycomb bubble for getting your relax on in Central Park if you can't make it down to Metronaps in the 30s during lunchtime. Plus its a two-seater so you and your sweetie can mack comfortably under the PVC-filtered stars in a nonbiodegradeable cocoon of blissful ridiculousness. Enjoy. [Via Popgadget]
Read MoreWe are in love. Can we say we are in love? Toshiba's new 37LZ150 MetaBrain (don't ask) 37-inch LCD TV has a network connection (but seriously, what doesn't these days? Not that we're complaining...) for streaming video off your network. We know, it's all that, but they didn't just stop there; it also acts as a proper host itself, and has integrated browsing software so you can get online without the fuss and muss (however small) of an MSN TV 2-like device—we specifically said TV internet wasn't going to be good until it was high-def and on a super fat pipe (you know the Japanese have fiber to the home, right?). If you get email while watching a show, you can pull it up without interrupting your programming. And to sweeten the deal, the TV can record shows (presumably to networked drives) on schedule or by sending it an emails with instructions on what and when to record (in case you forget). And it has an SD port for transcoding MPEG4 video, so you can record your favorite shows as you please, and then watch them on the way to work with your cellphone (assuming it can do that sort of thing). Anyone else feel like they're living in the future? [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreSome things make more sense than others. In this case, we seem to have stumbled upon a plush radio that rests neatly between sensibility and madness. It all makes sense once you realize that your Winnie The Poo bear is lonely and needs some toons (yeah, we spelled it that way on purpose). The radio comes in a variety of colors and receives FM radio on two AA batteries. It has a built in speaker, and measures about 20 x 15 x 22-inches, using touch buttons for controlling volume and channel scanning (as if you there really was any choice about how they could do the button). Unfortunately, AM seems to be lacking, as does enjoying this thing in stereo (there's only one speaker). So close, yet so far. We'll hold out for the XM version. In the meantime, we just want to cuddle with Rick Dees. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreWe figure that Epson is selling this thing a little short by calling it the Photo Fine Player P-2000 since it can be used for a lot of other things besides just viewing digital photos (which you can transfer over to its 40GB hard drive via a CompactFlash/SD memory card slot), like listening to MP3s and watching MPEG-4 videos. But hey, however works for them... P.S. - Probably Japan only, at least for now. Sorry.
Read MoreAnalyst Piper Jaffray [via Forbes article] reports that Apple is poised for greater-than-expected growth in the marketplace over the next 2 years, thanks in part to the popularioty if the iPod and strong demand for the new iMac. The report notes that PowerBook and iBook sales are also selling like hotcakes in retail channels. In related news, Business 2.0 has an article about Profiting From the iPod Economy and how "a slew of smart companies are thriving off the world's most popular digital music player." The article goes on to discuss how peripheral makers and designers of everything from cables to couture are lining up to become part of what is already a $75million market.
Read MoreWe'll admit it, we've been having some trouble keeping up with all the technology-related legislation before Congress these days, so we've asked our pal Wendy Seltzer, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, if she'd be willing to try and address all this stuff related to the Broadcast Flag, the INDUCE Act, and whether the government is really going to outlaw the iPod and throw all of us in copyright jail. And rather than just have her write an editorial, we thought it'd be even more useful if we opened things up and found out what you all wanted to know about this stuff. So fire away in the comments and in a couple of days we'll pick the best questions (and probably toss in a few of our own) and send them over to her. She promises to get back to us with some answers ASAP.
Read MoreIt's the big ol' Photokina trade show in Germany this week, and it just wouldn't be a Photokina without and tons and tons of announcements of new digital camers, would it? We've already seen new ones from Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Samsung, and Konica, today Olympus pounds us into submission with three new cameras of their own, the EVOLT E-300, D-590 Zoom, and the AZ-2 Zoom. The eight megapixel EVOLT E-300 is their second digital SLR camera using their new FourThirds System sensor (basically a new standard for digital SLR technology) and is going to be aimed more at the consumer side of digital SLR market. Also compatible with their entire line of Olympus E-System lenses. They haven't set a price for this one yet. Read - Olympus EVOLT E-300 The D-590 Zoom (known as the C-470 Zoom in Europe) is their new four megapixel entry-level camera which comes with a 1.8-inch anti-glare LCD screen and a 3x optical zoom lens, but no optical viewfinder. Should come out next month and retail for $299. Read - Olympus C-590 Zoom We're a sucker for anything sleek and minimal, so we're completely charmed by the new four megapixel AZ-2 Zoom, which is just eight-tenths of an inch thick and has a nice, large 2.5-inch anti-glare LCD screen and a 2.8x optical zoom lens. Read - Olympus AZ-2 Zoom
Read MoreFor those of you dying to turn your USB drives into MP3-playing necklaces, this is your day. Enter Philips' new GoGear Key014, their wearable MP3/WMA digital audio player (we were disappointed to find out that this had nothing to do with GoGurt). While the idea still has potential, Philips made some bizarre choices with this one. Apparently, it uses a 2.5mm headphone jack rather than the standard 3.5mm, so you have to use the included headphones whether you like them or not (or spring for an adapter). In addition, transport controls are available only on the lanyard, so you're stuck in necklace mode. What's more, the buttons are part of the lanyard itself, making for some clumsy song switching. While the price at $150 is a bit steep for what it offers, we're sure someone, somewhere, needs the GoGear Key014 (not the people at CNET, though, who trashed it).
Read MoreWhile it's not our intention to undermine Midway's significance within the videogame industry, or for that matter, accomplished director John Singleton's mark on American cinema, to call Fear and Respect an "innovative action/adventure game" is a bit of a stretch, no, it's downright blasphemous. How's this for innovation: South Central LA-based gangsta forced to choose between good and evil. Sound familiar? If True Crime, GTA San Andreas, 25 To Life, and NARC (by Midway!) can't satisfy your sensationalized fantasies, then Fear and Respect will be waiting for you by the end of 2005. C'mon Midway, who are you trying to fool...
Read MorePlanetwide Games, Inc is launching its first project, Risk Your Life, a MMORPG that promises to be "completely interactive and immersive". While this may be true, it also looks to be fairly standardized (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). Choose between a warrior, cleric, wizard, or thief and embark on any number of the 400+ quests that RYL has to offer, in order to advance your level and build your skills. There's also a "virtual real estate" feature in case you would prefer to just settle into the feudal lord role. If you're interested head over to the website (link below), it looks like Planetwide is offering free beta testing too!
Read MoreKawaii, neh? A trio of new MP3 players from Toshiba's Gigabeat line pack 10, 20, and 60 gigabytes of storage on 1.8-inch drives in colorful little cases. Currently called the F10, F20, and F60 in Japan, they also sport color 2.2-inch Poly-Silicone Liquid Crystal QVGA screens. Format support will include WMA, MP3, WAV, and DRM WMP. For the fashion-conscious, the 10GB and 20GB offer a choice of iPod Mini-like color schemes—or at least pink and blue in addition to the usual silver (and there isn't a 40GB model in sight). As for why the 60GB model doesn't come in multiple colors, we can only guess it has something to do with those other colors' inability to deal with that much heftiness.
Read MoreMore or less right on schedule, AT&T Wireless bounced out the Ogo today, their new handheld for doing email, instant messaging (AIM, MSN, and Yahoo), and text messaging. They're totally taking aim at a little something you might have heard of called the Sidekick II (and its teen demographic), but the really genius or really dumb thing (depending on one's point of view) about the Ogo is that it's not actually a phone (though it does use GSM/GPRS and it does get assigned a phone number so it can receive text messages), and you're supposed to carry it along with your cellphone. It's being priced at $100 (after a $30 rebate), with service starting at $18 a month. [Thanks, Brian]
Read MoreHear us now: kitchen gadgets are so going to be in this spring. Just you wait. We especially like the exotic stuff, like these $25 bamboo cutting boards (now why didn't we think of that?). The pressed bamboo shoots are supposedly perfectly smooth and (surprise!) extremely resilient. Looks like we finally have something to replace our balsa wood cutting boards with, huzzah!
Read MoreWe don't have any official word on this yet, but online retailer Electronic Express (who has, admittedly, had a Rio Chroma page up for awhile with rumored specs and information on the device) had this image posted to their site. Yeah, we will admit that it does look a little Photoshopped (we won't get in an in-depth analysis, though), but we gave them a call (as a customer, of course) and were able to get some information, most importantly that their web content comes straight from marketing materials given by sales reps; this seems very dubious given how secretive Rio is (we like to call them Apple Jr. around Engadget HQ). However, the person we spoke with said they've not yet been known to publish any falsified information of any kind, and that what's on the site is straight from the horse's mouth. They were also very clear on one point: the Chroma was to be expected to be available in January. (They quipped, "But knowing Rio, it'll probably be more like June or July.") Unfortunately, no one was further available for comment, so as usual, take it with a huge grain of salt and don't hold your breath. [Thanks, Ryan] P.S. If you want to buy into this, EE is offering two previously unrumored details: the Chroma is to be 1/3rd smaller than "previous models" (if they're referring to the Karma, we also find this highly dubious), and that it will include the long sought-after in-line remote.
Read MoreNormally we like to subscribe to the adage of do one thing, and do it well, so we have mixed feelings about the kind of gross-sounding Glanz X-board, a combination bodyboard, surfboard, and snowboard. The thing is, we're pretty sure no one's going to use it for any of the above, but hey, what the hell, apparently people use inflatable surfboards, so what do we know? [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreVarious sites are reporting that Apple Computer may have more than a settlement offer up its sleeve in response to Apple Corps, the company behind the Beatles, taking Apple to court over trademark violations... again. It looks like these two Apples might not fall far from the tree after all. The Beatles company has been floating the idea of finally granting rights for digital distribution of the Liverpool lads' music - although it may be only for a limited time. Given that Jobs is such a huge Beatles fan, he might just be willing to offer a settlement that includes the reported $25million the Beatles are asking for, in exchange for the privilege of creating an exclusive Beatles mini-store within the the iTunes Music Store. At $.99 a tune, we're talking well over 200 million download before the ITMS breaks even. This is no Penny Lane. Lawsuits like these - and deals like these - don't happen overnight, so it may be a while before we know more. Until then, I'll continue to sing... We can work it out We can work it out
Read MoreNormally when you have kid versions of grown-up electronics they are pretty awful; they only vaguely imitate their adult counterparts and are totally unsatisfying, you can just totally tell when the kid opens it on Christmas morning. Sure, there's no way we're giving a five year old a new cameraphone, but still. So you can imagine how stoked we are for the 8-12 year age bracket since they're getting a Mattel-produced $70 personal video player, the Juice Box (clever!). It's got a 3-inch color screen, and plays a proprietary video format, but also has an SD slot for playing MP3s. Apparently movies will be like $25, which is pretty outrageous to get them on some proprietary format, but we'll give it a week or so before it's totally hacked and every nerd around has got one for novelty. [Via Popgadget]
Read MoreHammacher Schlemmer has apparently begun offering a Mikrotek FunView S350, which may or may not have taken a page from what iRiver did (or rather, didn't do) with their iMP-1100 portable video player. The chubby little DVD player has a remote, 3.5-inch TFT LCD, an integrated stand, and video outs, and is being sold for $250 US. You might be happier with one of the many clamshell-style DVD players out there, or even a personal video player, but we ain't gonna harsh Hammacher Schlemmer's mellow on this one. [Via I4U]
Read MoreAs long as we're on the subject today of people giving away free iPods, Gratis Networks, which has this scheme/deal where they'll give you a free iPod if you sign up for one of their partner offers and then get five of your friends to do the same, is starting to feel a little heat. We did a little investigative reporting about this back in July and discovered that it's more or less legitimate (these things are a sliding scale), but Wired News reports that a lot of people who have signed up have complained about either never getting their free iPod, getting tons of spam, or getting sent the wrong product (like an HP iPod instead of an Apple one). The company says, in their defense, that they've shipped out over 4,000 free iPods and that delays on Apple's side are the source of the problem.
Read MoreYou must forgive the Smiths reference, we only save them for stuff we're really excited about. The Caring Cot was invented by one Gary Cho, whose agenda wasn't just keeping that damned baby quiet in the middle of the freaking night, but also safety and preventative care. If the device (which is estimated to cost £150—that's about $270 US) "hears" the baby cry for more than thirty seconds, it automatically begins rocking the cradle vertically (which he claims is more effective at calming a child than horizontal rocking); it also monitors the child's movement and ambient temperature and can sound an alarm if it thinks something's up, which could help detect early symptomps of Sudden Infants Death Syndrome (SIDS). Jeez, you'd think babies couldn't just take care of themselves, or something.
Read MoreAs if the iPod mini isn't status symbol enough for you, the Crystalmini takes it to a whole new level. An actual iPod mini, in the color of your choice, adorned with "One Crystal per song to represent every song you love" is sure to be the hottest thing to hit the digital music and fashion scenes since, well, since the original iPod mini! Each iPod mini is unique, handcrafted, and covered with Swarovski crystals. I was given a preview of these today and they are sweeeet. Expected to retail for about $700 (iPod mini included), these aren't cheap. Then again, from what I saw, they aren't cheaply made either. I am told that each iPod takes about 5 hours to make. Special design requests available too - Jaguar print anyone? I don't usually get too excited about things like this. I'm not a flashy chick and you don't have to know me for long to know that I don't do pink. My ears aren't even pierced! But I have to admit: I want one!
Read MoreEarlier we pointed out a peculiar site called "I Found Some of Your Life" where a blogger had found a digital camera storage card and posted a photo per day and pretended to be that person adding a narrative for each photo. Well, it appears the owner might have found out, because now everything is gone, poof. We expect a new moblog called "I found this storage card, posted the pictures, and then got my ass kicked" coming from a hospital bed as soon as this dude gets out of his coma.
Read MoreDAPreview has discovered that iRiver's H320, which retails for $329, will start shipping October 6. Forget the H320? Well, it's the MP3 player that doubles as a photo viewer with a fairly large color LCD screen, has a built-in FM tuner, USB 2.0, better than average 16 hour battery life, voice recorder, and also supports Ogg Vorbis, which is the audio format all the open source kids are digging on. Too bad they aren't taking advantage of that color screen and adding support for video playback.
Read MoreAfter a year of waiting patiently for the best of both wireless worlds on my Tungsten T3, I have finally achieved wireless nirvana. My T3 is quickly replacing my 12" Powerbook as my mobile mail platform of choice thanks to palmOne FINALLY releasing their Palm OS 5-compatible Wi-Fi card. I waffled a lot before buying the T3 last year after my decrepit Palm Vx finally croaked. Sure, the screen is crisp and colorful, and the stretch display and landscape features are appealing and built-in Bluetooth is an iSyncing geek's dream - but it was missing a critical component: Wi-Fi. I could have gone with the Wi-Fi-enabled Tungsten C, but then I'd give up the stretch display and the Bluetooth. It's not fair to make me choose between the two wireless technologies I covet the most! After Googling for a few days, I found that if I bought the T3, I shouldn't have to wait long to achieve my goals, since palmOne was *this close* to releasing an 802.11b SDIO card for it. I took the plunge. Months later, palmOne's promised Wi-Fi card still nowhere in sight, I was kicking myself, all the while making the most of Bluetooth but still lamenting the missing Wi-Fi link. Bluetooth works well enough for my needs, but to use it effectively for email on the T3, it required use of my phone, the ever-so-stylish Sony Ericsson z600. And if I had to use my phone as a Bluetooth modem in order to retrieve the email on my T3, I might as well just check my email on the phone itself. My z600 is a great phone, but it's a pretty lousy email appliance. It's slow and the screen is way too small and the text input options are frustrating at best. Most importantly, I can't be on the phone at the same time I am checking my email - which is a really tough break for a multitasker like me. :) I could just whip out my Airport-enabled Powerbook, but that isn't too convenient in the middle of Union Square... or in the middle of dinner at Joya. palmOne finally came to my rescue and started shipping their long-overdue Wi-Fi Card 2 weeks ago. Within minutes of tearing it out of the maddeningly stiff (and sharp!) plastic packaging, I was connecting to the internet and checking email from the comfort of my couch, via my Airport network, using nothing but a PDA in the palm of my hand. It was sooooo worth the wait. I can't go more than a few minutes now without whipping out my T3 and checking for unprotected wireless access points as I go about my daily travels. I finally get the thrill of war driving - except I am war walking most of the time. And with Palm Web Pro, I can even sign in to my T-Mobile Hotspot account when I drop into Starbucks for an Iced Venti Skim Caramel Macchiato without having to unpack. Before my shots are even pulled, I'm downloading email. There are still some things I can't - or won't - do on the Palm. Blogging, for example, is tedious on anything smaller than a Powerbook's keyboard :) So don't you worry, Apple, I may get distracted by all the other pretty faces, but I will always come home to you. Now I just have to see how the T3 handles Rendezvous!
Read MoreIt's just about that time for tomorrow's Ask Engadget, and like we've done before, we're asking you guys to send in your most urgent and burning gadget-type question in to us using the Contact Form at right and we'll pick the best one and post it up tomorrow. P.S. - In case you were wondering, last week we asked you to send in your best (or worst) cellphone horror stories.
Read MoreHey, Andy Warhol called and he wants his 15 minutes back. A Japanese artist who makes giant pop art prints of web pages just cashed in by selling a bunch of them to Google. If you want to do something like this, there a few apps that let you print wall sized images (or wall murals, as those crazy interior designers call them) from multiple pages—just don't cover your wall with anything from this site.
Read MoreWe've mentioned this once before, but it's been a few months so we figured we'd remind everyone that we've got separate RSS feeds for each of our category pages (like if you just want the posts from our cellphones page, you can just get those). They're buried a little bit down on each separate page, so we're putting the RSS feeds for all them together here so you can either pick and choose the ones you want or collect 'em all. Engadget main feed Cellphones Desktops Digital Cameras Features Gaming GPS Handhelds Home Entertainment Laptops Miscellaneous Gagdets Peripherals Portable Audio Portable Video Robots Tablet PCs Transportation Wireless
Read MoreSomething to look forward to: Samsung showed off a 2.6-inch version of one of these last month, now Casio hits back with an even smaller 2.2-inch VGA quality LCD screen of their own that sports a super fresh resolution of 368ppi, or pixels per inch (may also cause blindness, or at least plenty of squinting). Should start popping up in cellphones, digital cameras, and personal video players sooner or later. Probably later.
Read MoreWhat the freak is this? Some guy in Florida bought his two and a half year old daughter one of those toy cellphones the other day from a grocery store, no big deal, right? Except that the "screen" on the toy phone has a picture of Osama bin Laden on it, and the word "King" written right above it. We wouldn't have guessed that Osama would be hiding out in a toy phone this whole time; turns out the phone is from the same company that imported those plastic toys of a plane spinning between two towers. [Via textually.org]
Read MoreLooks like Japanese electronics company Milestone has announced their new flash player, the Groovebox Wave. No word on size or price, but the player does feature an integrated swivel USB 1.1 (weak!) plug, plays MP3, WMA, and ASF, and has an FM tuner, voice recorder, audio input, line-in encoder, and playback speed control. We'll let you know more when we can, but it's not like you should be expecting these things out here any time soon anyway. [Via DAPreview]
Read MoreThis whole switchover from analog to digital television hasn't been going exactly as planned (we won't even go there), but Congress is mulling over the most perfectly American solution we've heard yet to get things rolling: buy everyone off. Senator John McCain just introduced a bill called the Spectrum Availability Emergency-Response and Law-Enforcement to Improve Vital Emergency Services Act which sets a deadline of January 1st, 2009 for broadcasters to stop analog broadcasts and completely make the shift to digital. But rather than leave millions of people with a completely useless box in their living room, it would also provide a billion dollars to buy anyone who is still actually watching broadcast TV (nearly 90% of households have cable or satellite) a brand new digital TV tuner (also note: all new TVs sold after 2007 will have to have digital tuners built-in, so it might not be that many people who end up qualifying for the handout). $1 billion sounds like a big giveaway just so people can watch TV, but it's good deal for the government since they'll be able to make tens of billions of dollars by auctioning off the soon-to-be freed up analog TV spectrum to wireless companies (and oh yeah, emergency services should get their own share of that spectrum, too, hence the name "... to Improve Vital Emergency Services Act").
Read MoreWe smell a Viagra or Cialis ad in here somewhere (are we spelling those right, we keep getting emails for Vi4gr4 and Ci4lis), but Front has a concept design for a new lamp called the Gravity that goes totally soft when you're not in the room and then when you walk in automatically wakes up, gets upright, and starts illuminating your world.
Read MoreWe were thinking about skipping on Spectropolis, the lower-Manhattan festival for art and mobile media running the first weekend of October. Afterall, we've covered quite a few of its headliners like Bikes Against Bush and the Hotspot Bloom. But when we saw that the festival debuted UMBRELLA.net—a project with 10 Bluetooth and PDA-equipped umbrellas which make up a mobile network—we had no choice but to stop by. When the umbrellas open the PDA software connects with a nearby umbrella buddy, and display three states: first pulsing red while looking for the connection, second pulsing blue if connected to the network, then thirdly flashing (guess this is different from pulsing) blue if tranmsitting data between umbrellas. The PDAs also enable a chat room so that the players can discuss their reactions during the project. Well hot damn, if only real life were so interesting. [Via Popgadget]
Read MoreWe're not going to make any references to any particular movies on this one (except maybe Akira Kurosawa films, naturally), but we're kind of into these LED-lit acrylic V24 light-sticks, all raverness aside. Maybe it's just the stainless steel finish or the built-in spike, but a few dozen of these in white would be a rad way to light an indian-summer backyard BBQ (hint, hint). Just be sure to bring the Off! and not invite any of your friends really into you know what. [Via MoCoLoCo]
Read MoreWe wouldn't have really seriously considered it before, but Colorware's blackened version of the fourth-gen iPod actually looks pretty good. Or at least better than we thought it would. Or maybe it just wasn't such a great move for Apple to decide to make the click-wheel a different color than the rest of the iPod.
Read MoreWe're all for non-lethal weaponry, and we're not the only ones who found it pretty encouraging when the hardcore Israel Defense Force start developing things like rubber-bullet guns (pictured right). But you've really got to feel for those rock-wielding rioters when they bust some worse-than-lethal non-lethal weaponry, like, say, the ultimate stinkbomb. The IDF is touting a synthetic skunk-spray odor-mortars, which admittedly doesn't sound so bad until you find out that it's so pungent that the stink stays on your clothes for 5 years. Remember, this stuff is way stronger than the real deal, which you've probably only caught whiffs of from a moving vehicle; we hear that few have had their faces doused with skunk-ass and lived to tell the tale. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreRemember this? Well, awhile back somebody made one out of Legos: They even recreated (in Legos, of course) a bunch of scenes related to protests that Greenpeace activists launched to try and stop the excavator from, um, excavating.
Read MoreThis week's How-To Tuesday is the second part of our series on taking digital photos from a kite; last week we showed you how to convert that old digital camera you're got in your closet to one that takes a picture automatically every second until the memory card is full, which will we use in this week's How-To, where we'll put that camera on a kite. There are many other applications once you hack a digital camera to take a shot a second, and we'll also go over those in future How-Tos, for example we've mounted one to a car with a GPS and next week we'll show you how our house pets are now taking photos on their own as well.
Read MoreWe're not entirely sure what these would be good for outside of clocking your little slugger's 25-mph pitch or totally busting your neighbor's chops—you could even write him up a fake ticket (if you feel like getting your ass kicked, that is)—but hey, we're not telling you what to do with a Bushnell Speedster radar gun. Just that for about $160 you can have one, that's all. Jeez. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreMaybe you know 'em from their laptops, Tablet PCs, or even their Pocket PCs, but Acer wants you to buy your next digital camera from them. Maybe they didn't notice that it's a pretty crowded field already, but they're making another, um, grander push into the market (you might recall their earlier stab, the 0.3 megapixel Digital Camera 300, pictured at right) and will introduce three new cameras in December, all of which will have the standard 3x optical zoom lens: a credit card sized five megapixel model and larger five and six megapixel models.
Read MoreMatsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic to you) has announced a couple of successors to its D-snap SV-AS10, a slim, low-budget still and video camera/music player/voice recorder. The SV-AS30 (pictured above) loses a little weight and gains some battery life, but looks more or less like its predecessor; the SV-AS3 goes for a boxier look and longer-lasting battery (36 hours of audio playback), and loses the AS30's speaker. Otherwise, specs are similar—cameras get a bump up to 3.2 megapixels from the AS10's 2.0, the video format changes to MPEG-4 from Motion JPEG, and the maximum frame rate jumps to 30fps from 15fps. The SV-AS30 should be out end-October for about Y34,000 ($310), with the AS3 following at the end of November for Y28,000 ($255).
Read MoreSo we love our XM, we have one in the car as well as the portable boombox one. And while the boom box version is cool, it's not sit-next-to-the-tv cool, which is why we're full of stokedness at the news that PolkAudio has released a componentstyle XM receiver unit, with the fancy fresh feature of being able to display channel number, artist name, and song title on your TV screen. We still wouldn't mind seeing XM for the Media Center PC, it seems like a logical match.
Read MoreHow is it that all the best social commentary is now on eBay? Like new, this Master U-lock is perfect for temporarily attaching your bike or scooter to a pole or bike rack. This temporary attachment is very handy if your bike does not have a proper kick-stand. It's sturdy steel design and black color are intimidating for thieves who don't have a way to open it. Comes with two keys. Keep one with you, and the other safe at home in your desk drawer. For the three people who haven't heard about this yet, here's the backstory.
Read MoreWe're by no means going to defend our reputations as fashion whores, and whereas a Miu Miu robot shirt, Gucci icecube tray, and Prada toolkit were all well and good enough to grace our site, we're thinking of drawing the line at John Galliano's new Dior Eyes contacts. The lenses come in couture (silver box with a sliding case and mirror for $140 US) or ready-to-wear (basic silver box for $95) versions, and apparently they leave your eye tint intact, but create a golden or black ring around the iris, and boast the Christian Dior logo. No word yet on whether or not they have anti-coke-binge sclera protection. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreLast night Ryan and I hit peppy Pepcom's Holiday Spectacular! media event which had some vague Hawaiian theme that pretty much everyone attending immediately ignored upon arrival. But we won't waste your time blathering on about what the atmosphere was like; what you really want to hear about is what we saw there, right? Here are some highlights:
Read MoreAlright, rounding things out, Canon dropped four new cameras on us today, including that EOS-1Ds Mark digital SLR that we speculated about yesterday, the PowerShot SD20, the PowerShot SD200, and the PowerShot SD300. Here's the dirt on each of them: Just like everyone expected, the EOS-1Ds Mark II is Canon's 16.7 megapixel follow-up to the EOS-1Ds, which bumps up the megapixel count by nearly six million and sports faster continuous shooting of 4 fps. Other upside: a new 802.11g attachment so you can wireless beam your photos back to a PC over a WiFi network (yep, Nikon has one of those, too). Read - Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II Canon's smallest five megapixel digital camera, the PowerShot SD20 will come in four different colors (they even have faux impressive-sounding names like Platinum Silver, Midnight Blue, Bordeaux Red and Storm Grey) and is really small and all that, but they cut one big corner to get there: no optical zoom lens. Read - Canon PowerShot SD20 Except for the difference in resolution, the threemegapixel PowerShot SD200 and the four megapixel PowerShot SD300 (pictured above) are essentially the same camera. Both have a 3x optical zoom lens and are just eight-tenths of an inch thick. Read - Canon PowerShot SD200 and PowerShot SD300
Read MoreWe're not exactly sure why the LIKEaBIKE comes without pedals (though it explains the name), or why, as a children's bike (age 2-6, as advertised, to be exact), it's is better than say, one with training wheels. But you know, the Euros do it differently over there. When they get older we take away the training wheels. And they add the pedals. It's just their order of things, okay? And we have to exercise cultural tolerance. [Via Land+Living]
Read MoreHomeLANFed's weekly "Gleaming the mods" feature must be perused and heeded. Lots of good stuff this week, including mods for Unreal Tournament 2004, Battlefield 1942, Far Cry and, of course, Half-Life. I'm downloading an intriguing one now for UT2K4, called Archasis. The mod places you in a medieval setting, with bows and axes, etc. If it impresses, I'll let you know. If it doesn't I'll probably forget all about it and you'll never hear a peep on Joystiq about it ever again. Silence is not golden, when it comes to gaming.
Read MoreSometimes we get insanely jealous about all the cool stuff little kids get to play with growing up these days. Like Louise Wictoria Klinker's new HotWheels prototype (okay, so not so many kids got to play with this, but you know what we mean), the Sketch-a-Move. Draw on the top of the car, and a touchscreen layer interprets the lines as a path to follow, and then drives it. Seriously. It's crazy. We totally wish we could be in Big, except, like, reverse. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreIn the ultimate example of phantom-ware the Phantom game console will not be released in November, as planned. According to Whereisphantom.com, the console that promises games on demand, has hit some more bumps and will not see the retailers' shelves until 2005. That means it will miss the holiday season - but not many people buy games around the holidays anyway. Whereisphantom.com is notorious for blasting Infinum Labs, the owners of the Phantom patent - so the article is worth a read just to soak in the bad vibes.
Read MoreIt's that time of year again. Our significant others know it as that time of the year where for a couple of weeks we don't come home until 4:30AM reeking of wiesse and wearing lederhosen t-shirts (just click the link, ok). You may know it as the time of the year when our website goes straight to the crapper. It's Oktoberfest, and anything that will make it better (as if!) earns a page in our book; take, for instance, The Bavarian Beer Foamer. It's just a milk foamer in "Bavarian" colors that refreshes the head on your beer, but damnit, need it be anything more? And yes, in case you were wondering, the box says it's ideal for beer, milk, and sauce, so you can use it in those off-season months when you're not drinking 17 pints a night. [Via I4U]
Read MoreKeeping with the tradition of giving free stuff to famous people who can already afford anything they want, Sprint gave out Samsung MM-A700 wireless handsets and limited-edition 14-carat-gold-plated phone charms at the 56th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards to all the presenters, while Zenith gave out ultra-thin 15-inch flat screen TVs. Seriously, if you want the hook up on free gadgets, get yourself a slot as an awards show presenter.
Read MoreEveryone goes crazy about cameraphones being snuck into locker rooms and all that, but what they should really be worried about is stuff like the GoGear KEY019from Philips, their new keyring-sized camcorder which besides being able to record about 25 minutes of video clips, can also snap two megapixel digital photos and play MP3s (we had a review of their Wearable Digital Camera a few weeks ago). Way easier to conceal than a cameraphone, and since it doubles as USB Flash drive it's even easier to dump the video clips to a PC for uploading to the web.
Read MoreDefinitely not the first one of these we've seen (VitaPhone's Mobi-Click most immediately comes to mind), but the Personal Securer is the latest version of a stripped-down GSM/GPRS cellphone that doubles as a security device. Like most of the others, this one has a panic button which sends an emergency message to a call center and another button which can be set to call two other pre-set numbers, but they've also tossed a GPS receiver in there so that the Personal Securer can automatically relay your position via text message every half hour. You can hook this thing up to a laptop with a USB cable and use it as GPRS modem or a GPS navigation module. They're aiming at mainly at people in the security business, but with a standby time of a mere 12 hours, it'll need to be charged all the time and won't do you much good finding in someone who has been gone for more than a day. [Via Geekzone]
Read MoreOurselves, we never thought all that gear we keep shut off and plugged in really pulled that much off the grid while in standby, and who would? If you just told us that some 10% of our electricity came from gear in standby, we'd outright not believe you. But PC Mag's Bill Machrone was struck by the notion that small amounts of electricity in aggregate could quickly add up, so he rigged up an AC breakout system to meter the juice sucked up by his gadgets and electronics while not in use. The results are pretty crazy: 9% of his yearly electricity was being consumed by his turned-off computer gear (that figure doesn't include turned-off home electronics like TVs, microwaves, etc.). We doubt most of America has as many electronic toys as he or we do, but even a little goes a long way when it comes to 280 million people. Looks like EnergyStar should start with some belt-tightening right quick.
Read MoreIs this Canon's new 16.7 megapixel EOS-1Ds Mark II digital SLR? We're not sure if it's fake or not, but there has been plenty of speculation over the past few months that Canon is planning a follow-up to their EOS-1Ds digital SLR, and with the big Photokina trade show mere days away (can you feel the excitement? No? Don't sweat it) it wouldn't surprise us if they did drop a big new professional camera on us (figuratively, of course).
Read MoreWe didn't want to touch this one (literally), but it was too good to be true when we heard New Zealand pubs and hotels started putting up heat-activated drunk driving PSAs inside urinals. For these people, sweet relief comes with the price of seeing a catchy slogan like "Which car will you piss off in tonight?" and a silhouetted car turn into a tangle of wrecked metal (unless you have a very small bladder, that is). But we can't help wondering if they might be missing their mark a bit, since a lot of the party people we know seem to get too drunk to read, and often find thir places to go on the, um, street. But not us, certainly no, never. [Via Adrants]
Read MoreTo Jason and Brian and the rest of the Weblogs, Inc. Network: thanks for letting me play in your sandbox. I'm Laurie Duncan, aka the MacSamurai. I'm new to the WIN fold and I'll be posting here regularly from now on. Hopefully you'll find what I have to say interesting enough to keep coming back. I've been reading The Unofficial Apple Weblog since it began and have a tremendous respect for what my predecessors have accomplished. You'll be missed, Sean! But enough about me... oh wait... I haven't actually said much about myself yet! I'm a native New Yorker, currently living in Brooklyn and I have my own Macintosh consulting business, which I won't offend you by plugging here. In my "spare" time, I run a successful online niche community for owners and admirers of Apple's dearly departed PowerMac G4 Cube, CubeOwner.com. I'm passionate about technology, and obviously passionate about Apple technology in particular. But passion needn't equal bias or blind loyalty, so you might find that I can be harsher than even Apple's toughest critics and opponents. Recently, I decided to blend my interest in the Mac with my interest in politics by starting a new hybrid blog, MacActivist.com. I hope to devote more time to MacActivist soon, although it's really just a personal outlet for me, not a new business venture. I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts with all of you and will do my best to bring you news and views that aren't just retreads of what every other Apple-related site doles out. More importantly, I look forward to your feedback - so don't hold back!
Read MoreWe won't get into the whole thing about whether or not they simply ignored the problem for years, but since it's pretty clear now that all it takes is a Bic pen and a little bit of elbow grease to pop open their locks, Kryptonite is responding to the media hailstorm and offering a free worldwide upgrade program for anyone who bought an Evolution lock, KryptoLok lock, New York Chain, New York Noose, Evolution Disc Lock, KryptoDisco or DFS Disc Lock in the last two years (if you've had it for more than two years you qualify for a "sizeable rebate"). You have to have either registered your key number, sign up for their anti-theft program, or have proof of purchase to qualify for the offer.
Read MoreOne of our spies hit the big CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) home entertainment trade show last week and sent us back this photo essay of what he saw there.
Read MoreEither this little fella's getting a taste for hardware (mmm, silicone), or he's getting baby's first gold grill. We're thinking it's the former since it might be a little hard to fit 14 carats onto 3-month old toothless gums. The kid is sucking on the Actifier, a silicone pacifier attached to sensors, motors and a computer, which analyses sucking and swallowing patterns and teaches correct sucking technique (we're not going there). Researchers think that a proper sucking method could boost IQ and reduce developmental disabilities later in life and an NIH-sponsored study is looking into how the Actifier could help. We kind of wish we'd had one of these, then we could truthfully claim we'd been nursed by our PC, (as opposed to our current computer-nursing claims, which are all lies).
Read MoreSome dude found a memory card from a digital camera that was left behind in a taxi, so he decided he'd post a picture every day and narrate it as if he were the person who was in the pictures. Kind of a creepy blog (it's almost like impersonating someone or something like that), but one person's (privacy) loss is our (entertaining) gain. [Via Waxy.org]
Read MoreIt's not changing the fact that they're not present in the U.S. (unless, you know, you go to Korea and bring one home) but, as predicted, the 2.5GB of space on the first personal video player with an OLED screen, the NeoSoltek Cliod, just wasn't enough. The new version should set you back about $485 US (not that it matters; see above) We're gonna try... not to say... we told them so... [Via DAPreview]
Read MoreWar records? So that's what this year's election has boiled down to, eh? Well, it looks like Kuma Reality Games is going to get their two-cents worth on the issue with the release of their newest military simulation title. Still untitled, the game chronicles the February 28, 1969 incident in which Lt. John Kerry's Swift boat was ambushed by the Viet Cong. Fill Kerry's boots as you turn and head straight into the attack, leaping ashore, and valiantly slaying the enemy with B-40 launcher in hand. Kuma's chief executive, Keith Halper, in attempt to sound non-partisan adds, "We will allow the user to play the game to determine for themselves what they think happened." Next up, Bob Dole's WWII heroics, with Senator McCain's capture on the backburner.
Read MoreThe rumors have been flying high for some time now, reaching new heights with word (via industry analysts & retailers) of a PStwo release coinciding with GTA San Andreas, perhaps an attempt to sour Microsoft's Halo 2 launch. Similar to the PSone, the PStwo would be a slimmed down version—by roughly 30%—of the (existing) PlayStation 2, and would allegedly have a built-in broadband adapter. Apparently the unit will still retail for $150, but perhaps it could be lower—probably not before the PS3 debut. There has been no official announcement from Sony of course, but the company has secured a copyright. Still, an October release seems unlikely, but you can keep your fingers crossed.
Read MoreThe Bling kit from Shop Intuition has everything you need to bling your cell phone, iPod, Sidekick, Blackberry, or whatevs. It includes glue setting tools, instructions and real Swarovski crystals. And it comes in a silver fabric or gold lamay (hot damn) case; dreadful matching sequined clothes not included. [Via PopGadget]
Read MoreAt first we thought maybe it was a music player with scents because they plastered Shania Twain all over their site, but after reading their a little deeper we discovered that the Scentstories player just rotates through smells your mom would like. Ho hum. A scent disc ($6 US) will work for about 50 hours on the player ($35 US), gassing you with "Walking in the Sand" and other sentimental stuff like that—c'mon, we assumed since it was Fabreeze it would be something a little more realistic! Like "Sweaty Day in the Park" or "Long Unwashed Jeans". We'd totally buy that.
Read MoreReminding us that they do release products besides endless amounts of DVD recorders, Panasonic introduced their new Onyx XVS series of pricey new high-end plasma TVs, all of which come with built-in HDTV tuners and CableCard slots (which means they can receive digital cable directly without needing a separate cable box). The first three Onyx XVS televisions will come in 42-inch, 50-inch, and 65-inch sizes and cost way more than you'll probably want to spend (but maybe that's just us).
Read MoreWe know you've been itching to have your A/V and home command center do more than just control a few things, so Crestron has answered your call and partnered with Viewsonic to create the TPMC-10 WiFi touchpanel. You're sure to be the only kid on your block with a remote that's got a 10.4-inch touchscreen, 802.11b/g support, embedded Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, programmable hard buttons, an integrated thumbpad, and, oh yeah, it can work those MS Office files. So as soon as watching Family Ties reruns gets boring (as if!) you won't have to go far to get your fix of MP3s, shopping online, and, dare we say, work. No price was announced, but knowing Crestron, it'll be a pretty penny (and worth every cent). [Via Geekzone] //
Read MoreWe'll say right off the bat that if you want a really nice LCD TV than you'll probably have to spend a little bit more than this for one, but Wal-Mart has a 23-inch LCD TV made by Tatung that's on sale for just under a thousand bucks. Probably skimped somewhere, but it does have an HDTV-ready resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels. [Via I4U]
Read MoreWe admit that we're impressed with the Sharp PW-C8000 dictionary's massive info access, using 71 different dictionaries and publications, including the Encyclopedia Britannica, which Sharp claims is the largest collection of data for a handheld electronic dictionary (hey, they said it, we're just blindly repeating it). But we can really do without the PW-C8000's other claim-to-fame feature that it's the first electronic dictionary to be able to connect with a TV to display data and pictures. Do we really need to see dictionary data on the telly? Well, certainly not when Surreal Life's on.
Read MoreAmstrad (remember their PCs from the 80s?) has just released a £99 multi-function videophone in the UK. The E3 works as a regular phone until both parties connect via the "Video" button, at which point the call switches over to a 56k built-in modem connection. You can also surf a limited number of Web sites, send text messages, and write emails, but 56k ain't much to work with in the bandwidth department, so Amstrad is hoping to add broadband support via a WiFi add-on in the future (something which would make it not much different from every other broadband video phone out there). We're not quite as stoked about the 50 pence surcharge everytime a video call is placed, but what can you do?
Read MoreNikon hits us hard this morning: The one for the pros, the 12.4 megapixel D2X is Nikon's followup to their D1X digital SLR and like it's predecessor is compatible with all DX Nikkor lenses and is way more camera than most people would know what to do with. Even better, there's also the WT-2A, an optional 802.11b/g WiFi adapter if you want to wirelessly beam your photos back to your PC or remotely control it from a PC on your wireless network. Next up is the Nikon Coolpix 8800, an eight megapixel camera with a 10x optical zoom lens and a 1.8-inch flip-out LCD screen that's the first consumer camera from them that uses their Vibration Reduction anti-shake system. Retail price: $999. Read - Nikon Coolpix 8800 Fairly similar to the Coolpix 8800, the new eight megapixel Nikon Coolpix 8400 has a wide angle, 3.5x optical zoom lens and a 1.8-inch flip-out LCD screen. Retail price: $899. Read - Nikon Coolpix 8400 Obviously Nikon couldn't introduce all these fancy new digicams without tossing out a little something for the masses, right? The Coolpix 4800 has a resolution of "only" four megapixels, but they do toss in an 8.3x optical zoom lens (it's actually the smallest digital camera with that much optical zoom), which is nice since once most consumers realize they don't need more than four or five megapixels stuff like optical zoom and lens quality is going to be become a bigger and bigger deal. Retail price: $399. Read - Nikon Coolpix 4800
Read MoreIt's back to school time for a lot of our readers and we're here to help ease the transition. Over the summer we tempted you with lots of gadgets and phones, you likely bought a couple and now you need to put them to work... and start reading Cliffs Notes on them. For some reason we're not quite sure why Cliffs Notes has over 150 books to view for free (HTML versions) on their site. We knocked out a couple novels on our SideKick while waiting in line at the coffee joint today. SparkNotes has been doing this for awhile as well. [via MetaFilter]
Read MoreWe know it's all in good fun (and we're not going to claim being above the possibility of using the Roller Coaster or the occasional well-placed whoopie cushion) but use some level discretion; you don't want all that tepid ugly just-beneath-the-surface family drama bursting out in front of the Mr. and Mrs. Wilson next door because your motorized coaster almost drove somebody's glass off the table. Ah hell, who are they to judge? We say do what you please. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreIf you're going to announce your nerd fiefdom to everyone on the street (and why wouldn't you?) by way of your house's facade, this might be a slightly more stylish way of doing it than that huge sat dish and a DeLorean parked in the driveway: LED-display style laser-cut stainless steel house numbers. Expect to see these on our front and office doors next time you stop by Engadget HQ. [Via MoCoLoco]
Read MoreOk, now Konica Minolta's new digital SLR is official. No massive surprises since they'd been dribbling out details for the past six weeks or so, but as of today we can confirm that the Maxxum 7D (they're calling it the Dynax 7D in Europe just to add to the fun), is going to have a 6.1 megapixel sensor, built-in anti-shake technology, a 2.5-inch LCD, and compatibilty with all Dynax AF series lenses.
Read MoreThe deal between Yahoo and Musicmatch has generated lots of reports today. This one from MP3.com has a pretty funny brand for the service: Matchoo
Read MoreOkay, so we've got the real scoop with newly announced Victor JVC's Everio GZ-MC200 and GZ-MC100 cameras, and four high-res shots of them courtesy of our friend David Elrich, of etown fame. Thanks Dave! Click to read on.
Read Morethe2bears, the resident indy game nut, has pointed us to another obscure classic. His taste for the finer things has him scouring the WWW for stuff he can enjoy for mere pennies (or for free, of course). Now he holds up N in our face and dares us to try something that isn't accelerated by our 500 dollar cards. N is a simple freeware title that lets you run around as a ninja in a defiantly 2D world. The touch that sets the title apart from many others is its fascinating physics. The 300 levels you run through provide an infinite number of ways to die realistically. It's hard to explain N's charm. Let's put it this way, if you've ever had flying dreams you'll want to check out N.
Read MoreOne of our very first memories involves a Gravitron, a wad of chewing gum and a very unhappy seat mate with long, flowing blonde locks - thus began our love/hate affair with shoddy county fairs and carnie culture. So when we came across recent work produced by the Grand Arts, a non-profit art space/studio in Kansas City, all those funnel-cake-eating, Zipper-riding memories started flooding back. An artist at Grand Arts created the Good-Time Mix Machine Scrambler Drawings that uses the trusty ol' Scrambler, which they say was one of the first non-wheel rides in the 50's, then-named the "grass-cutter", to airbrush a massive canvas. The artist attached a gas-powered spray mechanism to the passenger seat of one car, which is connected to a bucket of paint that rests on the car floor. When the cars are in motion the artist uses a remote control to control the spray on the canvas and creates the geometric scrambler drawing—sort of like a giant spirograph. The artist has also used classic pinball machines to create pinball motion drawings, and the idea behind marking the paths of rides/machines is kind of infectious — we started to wonder what else we could slap some paint on and stick a canvas under? The Grand Arts studio might be one of the few reasons anyone should visit Kansas City, but since we'll probably never get there ourselves, we'll be thinking of the hidden airbrush opportunities during our next county fair visit.
Read MoreVictor JVC's got two new camcorders about to hit the streets, but since they do not appear to have any official press releases, there's a lot of confusing information floating around out there about the specs of these devices. What seems to be sure is that both appear to support MPEG2 video, Dolby AC3 audio, and NTSC video (take that, Europe!), which will be saved to a CompactFlash drive up to 4GB. But it gets a little fuzzier: apparently they record at less than VGA resolution, (which won't be too amazing for much else than low-def TV), connect via USB 2.0, and have 10x optical and 20x digital zoom. The MC100 should (could?) start at $1,200, and the the MC200 at $1,300. We'll keep you updated once JVC gets their act together on this release. [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreWhat? Don't look at us like that. It's true. Kind of. Sure, you're required to have some sort of late 19th-century handset lying around, as well as a Jabra 250 you don't mind cutting up and cannibalizing for parts. But if you don't want to drop the money on someone else's version, and have both too much free time and a lot of room in your bag for a gadget that'll get lots of (positive and negative) attention, then a late 19th-century Bluetooth handset might be the hack for you!
Read MoreThere are a lot of things to worry about in today's troubled world, but Engadget bestest buddy Paul Boutin wants to know the answer to one simple question: why in the hell can't you switch off the beep on a microwave so you won't have to worry about waking people up when you're trying to enjoy some late night nachos or whatever it is you shouldn't be scarfing down at 3am. Someone out there has to know, right?
Read MoreWhat will they come up with next, you ask? Well, you're looking at it. Yes, it's a giant car seat that rocks, and of course, it's designed with the gamer in mind. Heck, it's even got "Grip-Zone teeth for gripping the ground on sand, snow or dirt." We may be missing something, but what do rocking chairs and videogames have in common? And who plays their games in the snow??? Why AK Rocker, why?
Read MoreWe know etiquette dictates that when someone buys you a drink, you buy em one back, but we've always been a fan of the "yeah, I'll get the next round" trick, followed by the swift disappearing act into the crowded pub. But in London the beer exchange is getting all texty (well for one company), so you'll now be able to send a friend a drink voucher over the phone with BuyMeABeer.com. The site uses Corney and Barrows bars, which with 11 in the greater London area you probably won't have too much of a problem stumbling into one sooner or later. You can buy a SMS-voucher ranging from a $200 Dom Perignon to a $5 Kirin, and the receiver of the voucher just shows the bar staff the cellphone SMS message (what happens if they forward the text to someone else?). We just hope that service doesn't take up a drink reminder service so when we stiff our English friends we'll receive an SMS-IOU. [Via Textually.org]
Read MoreIt's Pentax's turn this week to hit us with a bunch of new digital cameras in advance of the big Photokina trade show which starts in a couple of weeks. In no particular order: The biggest news is the *ist DS, their new six megapixel digital SLR which is basically a budget version of their regular *ist D digital SLR and is meant to go head-to-head with Canon's EOS Digital Rebel. Read - Pentax *ist DS The Pentax OptioSV (and apparently one must italicize the 'SV') is new ultracompact five megapixel model that uses the same sliding-style optical zoom lens first found in the Optio S, though they've bumped up it up from 3x to 5x (freaking finally, too, 3x was getting sorta tiresome). Read - Pentax OptioSV And rounding things out is Pentax's new OptioMX4, a new four megapixel version of their camcorder-style Optio MX which cops a bit of that retro Super 8 thing (you can record up to two hours of MPEG-4 video onto an SD card—though you'll have to be plugged in since the MX4's battery won't last that long) and has a 10x optical zoom lens, a pop-up flash, and a 1.8-inch LCD screen. Read - Pentax OptioMX4
Read MoreSonance, specialist in in-wall audio systems, speakers, and home distributed audio, has very quietly announced the iPort, what is apparently an in-wall docking station for the iPod, compatible with Sonance's line of equipment. We're not entirely sure how it works (or, honestly, what it does) but we assume you use the iPort in conjunction with your Sonance setup, just plugging your iPod into the wall when playing audio. We're also going to assume they'll be releasing an IR remote for this little ditty, but we'll know more shortly, as they plan to release the iPort before the year's out.
Read MoreTaking an obvious cue from the bespectacled dancing sunflower-toys of yore, Let's Corp.'s Ka-on flower music system actually amps audio through a bouquet of real flowers. Apparently the device sends omnidirectional audio up the stem and through your plant's "water tubes" with yet-unknown resolution. No word yet on whether amping Bach will bump your iris up to 175 IQ, or how quickly your plants will melt to a chlorophyllic mush when you face your friend's petunias in a massive bass-off. [Thanks, Matt]
Read MoreThey (you know who we're talking about) have managed to find another place to put advertising: on the hubcaps of the taxi cabs. Not sure how you calculate a CPM for something that'll you'd think would spend most of its time spinning so fast no one'll be able to tell what it is you're trying to shill, but the covers are supposedly mounted in way that they'll remain still while driving. Either way, Virgin Cola and Taco Bell have already had their messages affixed to hubcaps on taxis in LA, and Ad Fleet, the company that started the program, is also talking to New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission about adding them to cabs here. Oh, and they're also planning bigger hubcap covers that'll fit on city buses, so there really won't be any escape. [Via Gothamist]
Read MoreThis week veteran journalist J.D. Lasica spent a few minutes with CEO Jordan Greenhall and President Shahi Ghanem (pictured at right) of DivXNetworks. The San Diego company has morphed from a codec-centered technology startup to a full-fledged CE business. The execs offered tantalizing hints about looming deals with Hollywood studios and Netflix, DivX movie kiosks, high-def camcorders and the coming grassroots video revolution. I'm sure some readers have never heard of DivXNetworks. What do you folks do? Ghanem: First, let's talk briefly about what DivX is. DivX is a compression-decompression technology, a codec. DivXNetworks is the company that invented that technology. We were founded in 2000 in San Diego and now have 110 employees. What's your business model? Ghanem: Our core competency is building intellectual property in the digital media space. That falls into three categories: compression; security and digital rights management to deliver video on demand over secure networks; and advanced multimedia technologies in the connected home to enable consumer devices talk to one another. Companies that you might compare us to include Dolby, DTS or Macrovision, though our potential market is much larger. The reason DivX exists is to empower consumers with the highest quality digital media experience possible. We're a consumer-driven company. Our community base is enormous: 130 million users strong, we add 3 million new users every month. Did you have any key ah-ha moments early on that led to a new direction for the company? Greenhall: I'd say the first insight was the digital media revolution was not going to be led by the major content providers. It wasn't in music, and it hasn't been in video, and really it never has been. The major content companies aren't about innovation, they're about market power. They want someone else to go in, innovate a new technology or marketplace, figure it out, make sure it looks viable, and then exert their economies of scale to go in and take it over. The second ah-ha moment about a year and a half in was the consumer electronics marketplace and understanding how critical consumer electronics is to media, particularly video, from every level: from a consumer perspective, from an economic perspective, from a content provider perspective and from a performance perspective, and then understanding how that marketplace works and the dynamics of it. We came to realize that we needed to be as much a CE company as we are a technology company. And building technology for CE is very different than building technology for PCs or software.
Read MoreOk, first things first. Yes, it's not as nice or as small or as stylish or sexy as the iPod and probably really won't impress anyone (especially the ladies) when you pull it out of your pocket. But RCA's new 40GB Lyra MP3 player has one not insignificant edge over Apple's iconic white lust object: its rock-bottom price. This thing sells for a mere 184 bucks, or less than half of what you'd drop on a 40GB iPod. GideonTech has the review.
Read MoreWith a name like Bod Pod we were expecting something like an iPod vital signs app (plug in the stethoscope FireWire and MP3 your heartbeat!), but no, its really a large pod intended to measure a user's body weight and fat ratio at a highly accurate degree. We can definitely skip knowing the intimate details of our own fat ratio, but other unashamed users gear up in a bathingsuit and goggles (even though there's no water used), shut the door tight (not for the claustrophobes among us), and 5 minutes later the air displacing technology and the pod's sensors calculate the user's exact body/weight/fat ratio. So maybe you're not willing to spend $115,000 on personal humiliation, but the Bod Pod is really meant for hospitals and health centers where, for whatever reason, highly accurate body mass info is needed. [Via PopGadget]
Read MoreYou've might have to be a real shlob to think a "robotic blanket sculpture" would be warm, comfy and dare we say, snuggly, but yes, that is what we were thinking when we first checked out the robotic blankie. All we can say is read the fine print, since the blanket is equipped with a wireless receiver, a PIC microprocessor, and a camera that detects the bodies lying beneath it. When the bodies beneath the blanket move, the blanket uses pressure sensors to creep around and squirm across the moving users. We know this would be a perfect plot device for some low budget horror flick, so with that known we vow we will never sleep in the same room as the thing, let alone sleep under its shuddering weight lest it decide to smother its human master.
Read MorePotentially bringing much joy to tinfoil hat-types (and, well, also legitimate privacy advocates) eager to slow the global introduction of the mark of the beast, a company called Intermec Technologies has started demanding royalties for use of a protocol related to the new standard that is being created to improve compatibility and interoperability of RFID devices (like tag readers and stuff like that). This sort of thing happens all the time in the sue-happy world of technology, but now there's some concern that with the new standard (known as Electronic Product Code Generation 2) about to be finalized next month that everyone with a related patent is going to start demanding royalties as well, potentially mucking up the whole process and ruining the prospects of a royalty-free standard which would have driven adoption of RFID technology. Up until this point pretty much everyone involved had been playing it cool and had agreed to donate their IP in the interests of moving things forward (we love it when big corporations get all lovey-dovey like this), so it remains to be seen whether how much this'll impede RFID's relentless march forward towards world domination.
Read MoreHey, if the adult film world spurred sales of VCRs and convinced many a young man to upgrade to broadband, why can't it help sell personal video players? Exactly, which is why porn star Jenna Jameson is pimping iRiver's new PMP-100 personal video player (the ad text says "Your refined movie collection just paid off"). We did a double-take when we first saw the ad, but ClubJenna (her official personal site, we swear we just go there for the articles) confirmed she did do an ad shoot with iRiver back in May. Since they can't exactly annoy Hollywood and promote piracy in their ads, maybe, just maybe, porn is the next best thing (we know that Jim Louderback thinks this is the strategy). //
Read MoreNot sure if this has been properly announced yet or not (sorta leaning towards not), but some details have popped up about the Gmini XS200, a new 20GB MP3 player which looks like an updated version of the Gmini 220 (except without the CompactFlash memory card slot) that weighs only 17 grams more than the iPod mini and has a 128x128 pixel LCD screen, and a rather disappointing 10 hour battery life. Should be out early next month with a retail price of $249. [Thanks, Pablo]
Read MoreLook, we don't mean to be playa hatas, but we're not so sure about Ricoh's Vivitar DVR390H 6-in-1, which is apparently an MPEG4 camcorder, digital still camera, PVR, MP3 player, voice recorder, and—in a real stretch—a digital photo frame. The tiny 4.17 x 2.8 x 1.26-inch $1000 AUD ($700 US) device has a 20GB hard drive, 3.6-inch color LCD, SD slot, voice recorder, PVR-style video input for sourcing from TV, VCR, and DVD, and a 3.1 megapixel digital still via its rotating lens piece. But it really gets sketch when Ricoh states the lithium-ion battery "can capture an outstanding 15 hours of VGA movies, 24,000 high quality still images and more than 5000 MP3 music files". So it's not that we don't think it can do this stuff (well, we don't think it can shoot 24,000 stills in one charge), it's just that we get a little concerned with the quality when they spread a device this thin. [Thanks Zaphod]
Read MoreEditor's Note: We have a special bonus How-To about hacking your TiVo this week courtesy of Ben Spink, who was running out of bandwidth on his hosted account and kindly agreed for us to repost it up for him here. We were of course more than happy to oblige, especially since we just stopped hosting Engadget on Geocities a few days ago. After reading a post on Slashdot about turning your iPod into a Universal remote control I thought it would be cool if I could control my TiVo from the web. How did I jump to that idea? Well, the iPod hack recorded the IR signals from a remote (such as a Tivo remote) as sound files. You then played them back and the Griffin device converted the audio signal to IR signals. I had already experimented with Quicktime Streaming server and knew how to broadcast a video source on the web. So now with the ability to simulate my remote, I could both watch and control the Tivo.
Read MoreWe're not sure exactly how it, erm, gets in your system (we have a pretty good idea how it gets out), but apparently the Japanese have developed a micro-mini submarine endoscope all Innerspace style. It's 9mm in diameter and 22mm long, has headlights, a camera, and apparently is radio controlled, though we're not sure what kind of propulsion system this thing's going to have. Make that, we're not sure we want to know what kind of propulsion system this thing's going to have.
Read MoreWe were really hoping that a New York-London flight was going to get the next WiFi in the sky since we don't seem to be jetting off to Munich too often, but the CIO of British Airways says that they're going to wait and see how Lufthansa's experiment with putting WiFi into their jets works out before make a commitment. He says the current technology is still too immature and costly and complains that Boeing and Airbus need to build the WiFi platform with the initial construction since grounding planes for a 10-day WiFi installation is way too costly for airline companies already competing in a cut-throat industry. Fine, destroy our wistful dreams of blogging from 40,000 feet—you want some cheese with that whine?
Read MoreWe recently took a trip on Song Airlines, who last year made some waves when they fitted their planes with a Linux-based distributed in-flight multimedia system. It's kind of nice to know that such a trimmed-down airline spared no expense on a system that, judging by its use, was obviously top-grade. And what a fine thing it is to have when you don't have a laptop or book with you. Man, even if you do have a laptop or book, it's a pretty enticing distraction. We dug up some information on the system for you, and we were even lucky enough to grab some shots of the system while the flight attendant staff were looking the other direction. But since we weren't about to get tackled like terrorists to get 'em, forgive us if they're not the best quality.
Read MoreAs usual the New York Times explains a trend just around the time it's finally dribbled down to Hot Topic shoppers. Hmmm, retro gadgets!? Kids are doing the darndest things these days. We do like the guy who bought and actually carries around the brick-sized Motorolla DynaTac phone, which is almost as nice as the Saved By the Bell Zach Morris cellphone we found on eBay. The article also includes those Pokia's handsets that everyone was loving a couple months ago, along with people who buy the old NES Systems and Atari 2600s (guilty), and two precocious kids (15 and 16!) who started the company Facade Computer to put new computers in vintage casings. If those teenagers aren't the sons of insanely wealthy programmers then we're going to start feeling real bad about our high school years spent watching 120 Minutes—how's that for nostalgia?
Read MorePictured above is a map of where we jog in Seattle that we made with our Garmin Forerunner GPS watch along with an application called USAPhotoMaps which uses Microsoft's TerraServer. We showed folks how to do this here, pretty neat huh? This may not be possible to ever do again if a new Senate Bill passes which would take all sorts of satellite imagery like this away from the public because someone could possibly do something bad with it. Are they really worried that Microsoft's TerraServer could be used as a TerrorServer? [via Dan Gillmor]
Read MoreIn obvious homage to the founding father of its primary competitor (the iPod mini, naturally), the $355 5GB MPIO HD200 is far less graceful than its Apple counterpart, in addition to being slightly heavier and larger, at 2.4 x 3.3 x 0.75-inches. But to its credit, it does play MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG, has an FM radio, and a decent 14 hours of battery life (an improvement over the mini's 8). Will we buy one once they're off pre-order? Probably not, but it's nice to know we have choices between dozens of inferior products and a shining one or two good ones.
Read MoreSanwa Denshi, makers of PlayOnline products, has released the details of its USB controller designed exclusively for Final Fantasy XI. The one-handed device is just a D-pad and four buttons, highlighting FFXI's simplistic control scheme. In related news, we're holding a contest to see who can come up with the most creative way to use your free hand. Any thoughts???
Read MoreKorean firm Genex Telecom (what a wonderful name that might have been in the go go late-90s, but where's the telecom come from?) has released the GMP-3000B, another in the growing shortlist of Bluetooth-enabled audio players. It comes in 128MB and 256MB flavors, has an FM tuner, voice recorder, lithium-polymer battery (ding!) and plays MP3 and WMA. It's pretty diminutive at 3.3 x 1.18 x 0.7-inches, and shouldn't take too long to transfer over those files via Bluetooth, so if that's the selling point you may actually be glad it doesn't run bigger than 256MB. [Via I4U]
Read MoreWe think the design is sorta fresh just on its own, but what Sony really hopes will impress us about the Cyber-shot DSC-M1, their new 5.1 megapixel digital camera, is that it can also pull double duty as a mini-camcorder. We'd be all dismissive and everything, since tons of digital cameras can record video clips, but it's not exactly just a marketing gimmick. Yeah, its 2.5-inch LCD can swivel around and rotate 270 degrees, but the DSC-M1 also has this unusual hybrid recording mode where it can automatically record five seconds of video before and three seconds after every time you take a pic, the idea being that this way you won't accidentally miss any of those future precious memories. They use an MPEG-4 video codec to keep the file size down, but either way you're still going to need a mighty Memory Stick to store all those extra clips you'll be recording. Anyway, the DSC-M1 should be out in December with a retail price of $600. (Click to see some more pics.) [Thanks, Naresh]
Read MoreDuring the Smith Barney Citigroup 2004 Technology Conference, ATI's CFO Terry Nickerson hinted at the firm's involvement in next-gen development for both Microsoft and Nintendo. In reference to ATI's involvement with Microsoft, Nickerson had this to say: "We're actually winding down development on some of the Microsoft product." Most likely, this suggests that the design of the graphics unit for the Xbox 2 is nearing completion, and that the expected 2005 release of the console is still on track.
Read MoreWe're always less than excited when someone invents a technology to replace common sense; cue Pittsburg company HyperActive Technologies Inc., who is selling a service called "HyperActive Bob". It uses rooftop cameras and software to monitor customer influx at fast food joints; the bigger the car the more food expected to sell. We guess it just takes a very complicated "system" to prevent explaining "when you see more cars on the screen, then you'll probably be selling more food" to fast-food employees nationwide, but we're going to be very disappointed if the system predicts SUVs are going to be feeding more than one or two people—seriously, have you ever seen someone driving one loaded down with more than the driver and maybe a kid in the back?
Read MoreGaudy control panels and bulky remote controllers are so five minutes ago, so French start-up company Sensitive Object developed a technology to turn any object into an input device, it's kindof like a tactile universal Clapper, well sort of. Tapping the rigid surface of objects like tables, windows, or chairs, can change channels, control PCs, or answer phones. The technology uses sensors and a process called "time reversal acoustics" (most likely doesn't reverse time, but we're looking into it) to hook up the chosen object to the receiving device. We're thinking this might solve the problem of our perminently lost TV remote, since it's a little harder to misplace the dining room table. This picture shows their showroom in Paris, where they've turned the display window into a giant light switch.
Read MoreFresh off the news of Atari's Flashback & Anthology, we've received word that Tecmo is planning a retro release of their own. Due out for the PlayStation 2 on November 25 (Japan), the collection highlights 7 of Tecmo's 80s arcade hits, including: Mighty Bomb Jack, Pinball Action, Pleiades, Senjyo, Solomon's Key, Star Force, & Tecmo World Cup. Yes, we haven't heard of some of those titles either... where is Rygar??? Ninja Gaiden??? C'mon Tecmo!
Read MoreApparently Panasonic has only one goal now: to keep us awash in DVD recorders. We've lost track of how many they've brought out in the past year or so, but they just dropped another five on us today. The most highest-end one, the DMR-E500H, comes with an Ethernet port for hooking it up to a home network and a built-in 400GB hard drive that can store up 709 hours of TV (which is basically as much television as some people watch in an entire year). The rest of the line up isn't so bad either: the dual-tuner DMR-E330H has a 250GB drive, the DMR-E220H and the DMR-E87H both have 160GB drives (oh, and the DMR-E220H has dual TV tuners, just like the DMR-E330H), while the DMR-E250V adds both a VHS recorder and a 160GB drive to the mix. We should also mention that these are all coming out in Japan, at least at first.
Read MoreT-Mobile and RIM rushed a few pre-production models of the Charm out to journalists gathering in San Fracisco before the San Francisco Grand Prix. (A big bicycle race- probably the last race in the US for Lance and the USPS team before they become Team Discovery Channel.) The first article from the AP says confirms everything we've seen and heard except for whether it includes Bluetooth or not. The AP didn't have much more to say because the unit they got was pretty disappointing. It appears in an effort to rush the 7100t out to the journalists, RIM and T-Mobile forgot to make sure they actually work.
Read MoreI'm going to tackle this piece very carefully. We know you guys and gals are touchy about this political stuff. A demo has been released for The Political Machine, a presidential campaign game that lets you play as the Bush or Kerry campaign manager. The title has received some decent reviews (presumably from writers of both parties), and has a nice style to it. Personally, I get enough politics from just watching the news. But for the politcal junkies out there, go forth and download — and may the best man win. And we all know who that is...
Read MoreWe're not exactly sure what the reasoning behind remote rocking chairs is, other than scaring the crap out of ol' granny, but since it's coming out of the Ars Electronica festival it must be cool, right? Maybe not, but that never stopped us before. The remote rocking chairs hook up 2 chairs to a PC running some control software, and both chairs get a tilt sensor and linear motor. When you make one chair rock, the other chair responds by rocking along with it. The picture's a little hard to see, but the wooden chair looks more than a bit uncomfortable, which spastic rocking could only make that much more painful.
Read MoreWe warned you earlier this year that iRiver would be releasing a medallion-style media player, their iMP-1100. But it being a CD player, we think it's going to be a pretty hard sell now that it's finally on its way to America. This thing may go underground with the budget crowd, but we can't help but already sense the world of hurt this thing's going to experience once it hits the shelves: it's got a measly 2-inch 260k color LCD screen, but it does play up to 6 hours of video on its LiIon battery (not that it matters when you'll be lucky to get a couple of hours of video on a CD). Seriously, you have to wonder why they didn't just make the thing a DVD player in the first place; for $280 US, they definitely should have.
Read MoreWhat's the big problem with WiFi hotspots? Well, aside from finding them? It's logging in and getting going, of course, and Pronto Networks and Sweet Spot Solutions are taking aim with their new oh-so-cleverly-titled Pronto Sweet Spot, a USB hotspot key that you pop into your laptop granting you instant network access to the nearest Pronto hotspot. Nah, they're network isn't as big as T-Mobile's (yet) but we have to give it to them, the potential for making WEP/WPA encryption something regular people don't have to fumble with makes this a much better idea than just sending your unencrypted credit card info and login credentials next time you're logged into one of those insecure hotspots out there.
Read MoreWe'll warn you right off the bat that if you do decide to watch this video a few hardcore fans of the new Archos Gmini 400 personal video player made, that you won't ever be able to get that four minutes and 43 seconds of your life back. [Via Digital Media Thoughts]
Read MoreAre we dropping yet another personal video player on you that probably won't ever come out over here? Yep. There doesn't appear to be any real photos of South Korean-based Sellgino's Portable Multimedia Player either, but it is supposed to have a 3.5-inch LCD screen, be 3.38 x 3.54 x 0.79-inches in size, and support playback of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 video files, and MP3 audio files. [Via DAPreview]
Read MoreOk, so maybe it's not quite as big as that 80-incher Samsung was showing off at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January (this thing had its own bodyguard—seriously!), but at least you can actually buy the TH-65DX300, Panasonic's new 65-inch plasma TV. That is if you happen to be in Japan on October 1st. Otherwise you're out of luck. [Thanks, Fenimor]
Read MoreJVC came out with the first consumer high-definition camcorder last year, but Sony has just one-upped them with the HDR-FX1, their new HDV camcorder which records at 1080i and has one of those coveted 3 CCD sensor (P.S. - we should probably mention at some point that HDV is the name of the standard for consumer high-def camcorders). The would-be cineastes in the house should note that the HDR-FX1 doesn't have an option to record at 24P, a high-def format which records at 24 frames per second and is supposed to give more of a cinematic look to digital video (or you could just keep it old school and stick to 35mm). [Thanks to everyone who wrote in with this one]
Read MoreLast week we kicked off The Engadget Interview with outgoing MPAA president Jack Valenti, this week journalist J.D. Lasica tries out the Sidekick II and speaks with Hank Nothhaft, CEO of Danger, Inc., about the device's upcoming release, the market for wireless handhelds, the cachet of having Derek Jeter and Paris Hilton as Sidekick fans, and whether, if forced to at gunpoint, he'd buy a Blackberry or a Treo. Give me the 30-second lowdown on Danger. You started back in 2000? That's right. We're a 3 ½-year-old private company in Palo Alto, Calif., backed by such big venture capital firms as Redpoint, Mobius and Softbank. Most of our 140 employees are in Palo Alto, California, though a handful are in Europe, Japan, and around the U.S. Let's talk about the market before we get to your new device. What's the evidence that people want a converged device that combines email, web browsing, a cellphone and organizer all in one? We came at it from a data perspective. The founders and subsequent management who came on board all worked in data processing and SMS. We were all involved in what I call the wire line or the traditional Internet, so we came at this from the perspective of creating a device that would enable the mobile Internet, not a converged device. We were smart or lucky enough to take on new ideas and vet them with actual customers and carriers. There was enough interaction that we learned that to get to market and have a compelling device, we had to add a voice capability to the device.
Read MoreIt's a sad day in the Tootsie Pop factory when they start rolling out that shoddy 70's owl again. We thought we'd only have to hear that annoying "how many licks does it take" phrase and see that weird scholarly cap on the occasional VH1 nostalgia show. But no, looks like Tootsie still drags the owl out for useless schwag like this "technical" answer to his nagging quest to count lollipop licks. We still can't quite believe they actually used an LED-display for this, but we are relieved they haven't resurrected that un-PC "Indian-shooting-the-star" promotion they supposedly once trotted out (yep, it's an urban legend). [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreSo before you go out and drop a few grand on that new flat-screen TV we should probably tell you that Toshiba is announcing a new line of high-end (read: really freaking expensive) sets using SED that are due out in '05. SED (surface-conduction electron-emitter) technologies really don't get all that much coverage (so we'll forgive you if you've never heard of this), but basically it's a new display tech that gets you CRT picture quality in a unit that's just several-centimeters thick and has about a third the energy consumption of plasma displays. Start saving up now.
Read MoreWresting the title of world's largest LCD TV away from both Sharp and Samsung, LG is showing off a new 55-inch model that isn't just larger than all the others, it also comes with a built-in HDTV tuner (something which is all too rare) and has a resolution of 1920x1080 (but with 1080p capability) which is higher than what you'll find in most other HDTVs.
Read MoreWe're not sure how they do things in Australia, but we can't figure out what's the crazier part of this story: that some guy's cellphone saved his life by blocking the crossbow arrow that was shot at him after some drug dealer there decided to get way too medieval on his ass—or that Australian drug dealers have taken to carrying around crossbows in the first place.
Read MoreYou gotta figure now that cellphones, portable video players, and even digital cameras pull double duty as MP3 players that if you're going to get a Flash memory player the least it could do was toss a little something extra in there to hold our attention. Like Median's new M-Cody MX-100, which has an IR port so you can use it as a universal remote (how you program it to work with your A/V gear isn't exactly spelled out) and a color LCD screen for looking at all your digital photos. [Via I4U]
Read MoreIf you've been looking for a brand new way to communicate your love of WiFi and/or really perplex other motorists, BumperActive is selling an "I )( Wi-Fi" bumper sticker. Plus to make you feel more righteous, they'll even donate a portion of each purchase to Creative Commons.</></>
Read MoreEspecially handy for the currency trader looking for a less useful, but potentially more soothing way to keep up on fluctuations of the yen, dollar, and euro there's now the Datafountain, a water fountain with an Ethernet connection that show the relative relationship—in real-time—between the three currencies (something about the dollar fountain being so low worries us...) We're also digging on their idea of installing fountains that can indicate how long the lines are inside of post offices. [Thanks, Huphtur]
Read MoreIt should be roughly five seconds before Apple's legal team has them in shackles, but for right now THD seems to have gotten away with naming their 4GB MP3 player the "Podi". They also have a sweet new smartphone coming out called the Reot.
Read MoreWhen we spoke with Jason Jepson, CEO of Star38.com, last week, we had no idea that there was a legion of pissed-off hackers waiting to harrass him. Seems like people who've been using the technology on the DL don't want to see its commercialization. While Star38.com has only been commercial for three days, Jepson's already received harrasing emails and phone calls, found a death threat taped to his front door, and had his phone tapped. Because of the harrasment he says he's now planning to sell the business, and he's also had to hire a private investigator to find the harrassers and to protect himself and his family. Damn, we didn't know people were so attached to their caller ID spoofing, but getting out of the caller ID spoofing business is probably not such a bad idea. Our story last week received livid comments from readers concerned about privacy issues and over the legality of debt collectors using the service. We guess making money off tricking caller IDs is not exactly a good way to make friends. Good luck to the next owner.
Read MoreSales of Guinness are down six percent in Ireland and the company's CEO knows exactly what's to blame: gadgets. Rather than while away their hours in pubs, he says that young men have developed another perverse addiction, and are spending their money on "electronic stuff such as iPods". Definitely good news for us and bad news for all the, uh, beer weblogs. [Via TechDirt]
Read MoreA mugger with a heart of gold in the picturesque German city of Koblenz (pictured at right) decided to return the laptop he had just swiped after seeing its rightful owner who was chasing him slip on the sidewalk and break his arm. After the tumble the thief turned around, apologized, then gave back the computer and ran off. That better have been a sweet laptop. (And yes, it definitely is a Friday afternoon before a long weekend.)
Read MoreYou gotta wonder why anyone would put out a product with a name that's difficult for people to write, confusing for the average person to pronounce, and impossible to google, but for whatever reason Olympus decided to call their new ultracompact four megapixel camera the µ -mini DIGITAL (it's always fun to have to consult the old HTML cheat sheet just to write a post). Besides the four megapixel sensor, the µ -mini DIGITAL has a 2x optical zoom lens, a 1.8-inch LCD screen, and will come in six different colors: silver, white, black, blue, red, and orange.
Read MoreCreative must want to keep us busy because apparently they're planning to introduce no fewer than eight new MP3 players between now and the end of the year. Not sure whether that new multicolored MuVo² FM counts for five of those or not (though it doesn't sound like it), but for right now they're keeping quiet on the specifics.
Read MoreYou'd think this thing came off the inevitable Marc Jacobs frat line; an expertly designed $33 fridge magnet bottle opener (though if MJ designed it, you'd have to append a zero to the price). We're slightly concerned that it won't stand up to the pulling power required by some of those tougher imported brews, but at very least it will look incredibly attractive stuck on the fridge door next to your shopping list and your kid's report card.
Read MoreWell, it looks like soon the ever-infamous Toto will have some competition in the form of Matsushita Electric Works' Shower Rain TRES. The decked out ¥241,500 ($2,200 US) toilet was designed around a recent Japanese study which widened its, um, aperture, making the seat more ergonomic. But perhaps the most, er, interesting aspect of the study (also confirming that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode), is that apparently now 30% of Japanese men now sit to, um, evacuate themselves.
Read MoreHere we go again. Will it never end? The doom-sayers are out in full pre-holiday force, with estimates of doom and predictions of gloom. The latest is another analyst who claims that this gift-giving season will be the death of many publishers. In a nutshell, the firm says that anyone who doesn't have one of the A titles in their arsenal, will have a hard time making it in the new year. We're sure there are lots of numbers to back them up. We're sure there are lots of industry officials who agree. We're sure they're wrong, too. Every year sees a record number of games. Every year sees a record number of A titles (though the press may cover it as "not enough A titles"). And every year the pundits and pros forget about the previous year, where the sky did not fall. Our best guess (yes, it's all from the gut) is that the residual purchases from picking up A titles will be more than enough to support the industry.
Read MoreSo Elumens is working on a more wraparound version of their Visionstation called the TopDome that offers a 180 degree field of view. You know we won't really be happy until they have one with a full 360 degrees, but until then this'll suffice for all the armored vehicle simulation training we're going through right now. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreThere might be WiFi on the bikes outside (or at least there might have been), but the one place you definitely won't find 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11g is inside Madison Square Garden where the Republicans are holding their National Convention. Why? The guy in charge of technology for the convention believes that WiFi's "unproven technology" carries too many security risks and might also cause too much interference with "remote control technologies" used by television networks covering the event. The interference issue might not be a red herring, but we heard this crazy rumor somewhere that you can add encryption to WiFi.
Read MoreIt's no Lady-Comp, but it does look a bit like a Cup-O-Noodles, (peel back cover, add ingredients and wait 10 minutes). Pria Diagnostics is producing the Element, a male fertility test, and you know you're just a tad bit curious. Boxers or briefs—maybe this at home DIY experiment will finally convince you to ditch those tighty whities. We're hoping Element parties will be next season's big hit.
Read MoreYou may have to travel to Hong Kong or Macau to find this gold-plated, limited-edition, "Gold Lightan" "transformer-style" robot made by Hung Hing Toysthat converts into a lighter (well, a fake lighter), but we do believe it'll impress the ladies. [Via Sensory Impact]
Read MoreWe guess all Japanese women really wanted in their salary men was a place to rest their heads. Replace that and you get the natural result: Boyfriend Arm Pillow, the plushie cross sectional chest, 90 degree outstretched arm and puffy-white sausage fingers. Looks like it comes encased in an office-casual classy button down so naps at work are not out of the question, and the arm contains an alarm which vibrates you awake (avoid salacious use). Only available in Japan for now, but the manufacturer Kameo is looking to expand to other countries.
Read MoreBefore you try and hook this bad boy up to a game console or something or other we should probably mention that the Sticksound only masquerades as a joystick. It's actually an FM radio with a joystick that you use to search for stations and control the volume. No actual gaming involved.
Read MoreThey may be keeping quiet about their new Pocket PC, but Dell definitely has a new 26-inch LCD television coming out. The W2600 looks a touch better than their earlier LCD TVs, and while they still don't include an HDTV tuner, it does have an HDTV-ready resolution of 1280x768 pixels and DVI and VGA inputs, so we're happy.
Read MoreSo Ken Kobin's obituary in the St. Petersburg Times says all the usual stuff about how he loved his family and which relatives he's survived by, but then right at the end drops this little extra bit of too-much-information on us: that "His remote was cremated with him". We were all set to take the piss out of this, but then we realized that if we didn't see the end of today we'd probably want to be buried with our Treo 600. That and we'd want "Crossroads" by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony playing on a boombox during the memorial service.
Read MoreGuess the NYTimes was figuring on a real slow tech news day, since tennis court drying machines at the US Open are about as sexy as mom's meatloaf. Those ballboys (ballpersons?) do look bitchin', though the price for riding these oompaloompa roadsters does mean toeing the USTA line (too bad their vast task of drying the courts dwarfs any real fun that could had from zooming about on boxy green go-carts). On second thought though we're sure riding those drying machines sure beats out doing it with a squeegie while on all fours.
Read MoreWell, it was a short run. Rather than allow their subscribers to get away with something as heinous as recording the satellite radio streams they're paying for, it appears that some of XM's retail channels are pulling the XM PCR, that PC satellite radio tuner which when combined with the Time Trax application can record satellite music streams into a tidy little MP3 library, off the shelves. Apparently XM is probably going to pursue legal actions against Time Trax, but in the meantime if you want one of these babies, you better get it while the gettin's good—the $50 XM PCR is reportedly now going for upwards of $350 on eBay. [Via ArsTechnica]
Read MoreDeclaring it to be a legitimate challenger to the iPod (as opposed to all the illegitimate ones—you know who we're talking about), CNet gives some love to Creative's new 20GB Zen Touch MP3 player. We already knew that it had a startlingly long battery life of 24 hours, but what we really want to know is whether that vertical touch-sensitive scroll pad is all it's cracked up to be. Sound like it definitely makes scrolling and navigating a lot easier, but when you're thumbing through a library of several thousand songs it's still easier to use the circular touch pad used in the iPod. [Thanks, Jackee1]
Read MoreSnoop's WRFFing it, so you will too, right? No really, please. Someone buy one before they try and make another street cred video (made in Mexico City no less!, we're sure that had everything to do with being edgy and nothing to do with low production costs). While we were thinking about investing in a "new flava", we're not really sure tricycles say bling. Maybe it's just us though, we're still putting Neosporin on all the scraped knees we got riding those friggin' pocket bikes. Reassuringly they make it clear that they're releasing WRFF "on the underground" (translation: Toys-R-Us will finally be getting its well-deserved props as gritty urban dealer). [Thanks, disco]
Read MoreEspecially since it follows in the tradition of Japanese Chindogu (useless innovation), we're not sure why it was a German designer who invented these sushi specs rather than someone in Japan—can you eat a Berliner with chopsticks (the pastry not JFK)? The shades' frames don't use screws so they can detach for easy sushi eating, though that probably makes them rather fragile. The company also says that if you're chopstick-challenged you can get these with forks attached, but buyers, for the love of dignity please don't get this option. Post-meal remember to watch for that wasabi behind the ear.
Read MoreSo maybe paying with your cellphone isn't for you. That's ok. No really it is. Just don't go and try to pass off a bad check because JustChex will totally bust you on it. They offer a service called chexmessaging that lets subscribers use text messaging to send the routing and account numbers on a check through a whole bunch of databases which then spits back a simple yes or no answer to whether or not it'll bounce or not. Of course it does mean it'll no longer be safe to engage in the time-honored practice of paying with a check to give yourself a few extra days to come up with the money. Not that we've ever engaged in such behavior.
Read MoreDuring a recent press conference, Nintendo's former president Hiroshi Yamauchi proposed launching Nintendo into the animation world. He added that an overseas appeal was paramount. But don't expect to be seeing a Zelda anime popping up any time soon. Yamauchi is interested in adopting the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. No, that's not how we say 'Super Mario Brothers' in Japanese. Rather, Yamauchi is referring to a collection of 7th & 13th century Japanese poems. While it may seem puzzling at first, the proposal does make sense since Yamauchi is now the president of the foundation that promotes these works. He plans to pitch the idea to Nintendo next month.
Read MoreNintendo has finalized the DS packaging, complete with standout Metroid demo plug. While it's difficult to make out, the side panel focuses on the built-in PictoChat feature and reads, "Draw, sketch, write, and send wireless messages with the built-in communication tool, PictoChat." Look for the DS to hit retail on November 21 bearing a $150 price tag.
Read MoreWhile it was just yesterday that Nintendo shipped Donkey Konga off to retailers, the reviews have been piling up for some time now, and it certainly looks like this latest ape adventure is a mixed bag of bananas at best. You've got to hand it to Nintendo for being a risk taker, often lending to worthy innovations in the industry, but how significant is an undersized plastic drum-controller? Konga offers the kind of novelty that quickly wears off and doesn't offer enough complexity to satisfy true rhythm-heads. Cop this for your kids or younger siblings, otherwise find a different jungle to play in.
Read MoreAccording to the latest rumors, Nintendo may be holding back on yet another intriguing feature packed into the DS. Apparently, the secret (if there is one) was leaked by N-Sider and Warp Pipe staff. Notably, Dean Bergmann of N-Sider posted a few cryptic notes concerning a "matching system", and then over at Warp Pipe the staff threw up a bunch of rather disturbing images of marionettes. So naturally, put two and two together, and what we have is a revolutionary online multiplayer format. Naturally. If you're into the whole gossip-thread thing you can find out more by visiting the link below.
Read MoreA recent flurry of rumors and pictures has handheld gamers going nuts with speculation over the thought that Nintendo still has a huge trump card up its sleeve. A batch of pictures featuring creepy marionettes with the words "Find(s)me" along with a shot of a lone boy in a forest using a DS as some sort of navigation device seem to point to the possibility of a massive DS wireless network that's bigger and badder than we previously thought. The DS could act as both a wireless 802.11 device and as a repeater hub. In other words, you won't need a wireless router nearby to get online with these things - you'll just need someone close enough to connect to, and he'll be able to connect you to someone just as close to him even if that person isn't so near you, and so on. Potentially-huge networks of gamers could appear organically and play against one another regardless of pre-installed routers or proximity. While we worry a bit about the lone boy in the forest (should people know he's out there alone, and should his DS be announcing as much? Go home, boy, go home!), the possibility of a spontaneous wireless gaming network of multiple hubs is straight up amazing. Or is it downright creepy? [Thanks, Badtz]
Read MoreWe couldn't be more psyched (in a somewhat embarrassing way) about this recent update to an already-cool little accessory for the Gameboy Advance. The newer version of the GBA Movie Player is smaller, cooler, and badder than ever. This little cartridge plugs into your Gameboy Advance and uses Compact Flash cards to play movies, audio files, e-books, and game emulation ROMs (legal, legal!). The included PC software will even rip DVDs into GBA Movie Player format. So check it: for $25, you can play MP3s, watch movies, play SNES ROMs, and come up with anything else you and your 31337 friends figure out (the unit promises to work with "homebrew" applications). And if you haven't ordered one yet, wait! There's more! You can also multi-task, meaning it will let you read an e-book while listening to music. It also comes with a CD that's chock-full of movies and all necessary software. Compact Flash cards are not included. So go forth and geek out. Because, after all, it is a "good and cool device for your GBA." [Via PortaGame]
Read MoreWe're not down with the 99-cent store quality of Mad Catz's stuff, but since it's early on yet in the Nintendo DS's life, we're clamoring for just about anything going on with it. Apparently they've got a case for the DS, a "screen protector" (read: $0.03 static-film plastic sheet), carrying cases for the game disks, AC adapter, earphones, replacement stylus, and a "mobile-kit" which has, well, most everything listed bundled up. Sorry, no pictures yet, but we're sure you'd probably be kind of disappointed anyway. [Via DesignTechnica]
Read MoreWario Ware was a smack in the face for a lot of us. Who would have though that a game made up of silly mini-games would be one of the most refreshing experiences in any media in years? Now Spong has posted the first screenshots for the sequel, Wario Ware Inc. 2. It doesn't look like much of a departure from the original. But who the hell would want it to be a departure? Shave, little avatar; shave like you've never shaved before!
Read MoreNo more carrying around that wad of paper with all your Game Boy passwords scribbled on it. Yes, in a welcomed announcement, Nintendo revealed that all DS cartridges will have built-in memory save. Although this is an option for current GBA cartridges, many publishers opt out of it to cut costs. Nintendo is no longer giving them that choice. At the least there will be a whopping .5 KB crammed in there, but if necessary, developers have up to 64 KB to work with. Kiss those passwords goodbye!
Read MoreWhatever happened to getting a free game when you purchased a new system? I mean, how cool was it to know you already owned Super Mario Bros. & Duckhunt (and that's not even counting two controllers and the zapper!). To be sure, those days are long gone. But Nintendo has decided to make a (halfway) return with the announcement that the DS will come with a demo of Metroid Prime: Hunters, called First Hunt. And let me tell you, we're halfway excited. Alas, beggars can't be choosers, right? At least the demo will showcase both single player and wireless multiplayer modes. We suppose we'll give you a few props for that Nintendo, thanks.
Read MoreRumor alert. Nintendo may use a press conference this October 7th to answer some outstanding questions about the portable device. Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto will be attending; who better to handle the pressing issues at hand? The press conference will be followed by a tour of the Nintendo DS around Japan. With the Sony PSP peeking over the horizon, the DS needs to watch its back. We hope the press conference puts our small misgivings about the device to rest. Like how the hell a stylus interface on the bottom screen will hold up to a spastic six year old...
Read MoreThis just crossed the wires moments ago (occasionally insomnia has its plus side): the double-screened Nintendo DS portable game console hits retail stores on November 21st (just in time for you-know-what) and is going to sell for $149.99, which is about fifty bucks less than we'd expected. Even better, for once we'll get it before the Japanese—it goes on sale there a few days later on December 2nd. Other juiciness: it'll come with a software app called PictoChat which'll write you draw pictures and write messages with an on-screen keyboard and wireless beam them to other DS users. They'll have 20 titles initially available, and as mentioned before, the DS will be backwards-compatible with Game Boy Advance SP games.
Read MoreThey just keep coming. The 19th of November will bring us yet more GBA SP editions. This time around you'll have your choice of Zelda or Donkey Kong versions. The special editions will include an actual game, which should send sales through the roof. The aesthetics of the devices may not be as appealing as some past editions, but the Zelda version may pass muster with some of you. With the upcoming GBA SP price cut, you can be sure this will be another hit holiday season for Nintendo.
Read MoreWithout announcing an official release date, Nintendo plans to begin its television ad campaign for the DS starting this Saturday (September 18) in Japan. The first round of ads, being called "Step 1/Appearance", will simply introduce consumers to the hardware. Nintendo has signed on Japanese pop icon, Hikaru Utada, to promote the product, and will feature her latest single "Easy Breezy" in the ad alongside the platinum edition of the DS. Later ads will feature actual games.
Read MoreIt seems fairly reasonable, given what it is we're supposed to be getting out of the new Nintendo DS portable game console, but apparently Walmart probably-not-so-accidentally put up (and left up) their pre-order page for the DS, which they're asking $200 for, and saying it "should" ship November 30th (i.e. just in time for the holidays). We're pretty sure this is a marketing ploy, but hey, we'll bite. And if this $200 price-point sticks, it's very likely to put the hurt on Sony, which has yet to commit to a domestic price for the PlayStation Portable.
Read MoreIt looks like Wal-Mart has just spilled the beans, perhaps. Everyone's favorite (or-not-so-favorite) super store is now accepting pre-orders for the Nintendo DS. The price: $199.82. Ship date: November 30, 2004. While Nintendo has made no official announcemnet concerning the price and release date, Wal-Mart's figures could certainly be accurate. However, Wal-Mart has added a suspicious "should ship" in reference to that date, but it now seems more than likely that the DS's price will be fixed around $200.
Read MoreSega has revealed plans for a Nintendo DS exclusive by way of Team Sonic. Tentatively titled, I Would Die For You, the game is set in a swirling world of color where a young couple must perform tasks(?) to progress through the various stages. It seems that the game will be played via the touchpad only. At this stage, Sega has been careful not to release any further details. But they certainly have our attention.
Read MoreMajesco recently announced their first enterprise for the Nintendo DS, Moonlight Fables. As the title alludes, the game centers itself around a female werewolf as she battles it out against other humanoid creatures—Altered Beast, anyone? Well, you're packing the 'Moon Sword' in this one, plus there's the whole 2D/3D art style going on... yeah, okay. But what's really exciting, is Majesco's plans to make use a multitude of DS-specific functions, like the touchpad, wireless networking, and of course the dual screens.
Read MoreAnd here you were, thinking how much better the Gameboy Advance SP was over the good ol' GBA. Good god, how wrong you were. Didn't you know that the GBA can interface with Neo-Geo controllers, a PSOne LCD monitor, and your TV via video out? Well, it can now, anyway. See? Old dogs do learn new tricks!
Read MoreOkay, so we're not exactly sure what you're going to do with Unix© running on a Gameboy Advance (besides drive your significant other into someone else's arms) but if you're really that into root on your GBA, don't let us get in your way. Go forth and grep .roms, young one! [Via Slashdot]
Read MoreThrough a recent survey, Nintendo announced that 2,100 parents believe that Pokemon helps their children to learn "important values and skills". Specifically, more than 75% believe that Pokemon promotes positive values and enhances strategic thinking. Nearly 70% agreed that it improves memory and promotes teamwork. And over 60% think that Pokemon increases mental agility & awareness, while promoting cooperation with peers. If only our parents had been so naive...
Read MoreCharizard and Bulbasaur are back! This time the two Pokemon critters are being exploited for the purpose of two brand new GBA SP colors: FireRed and LeafGreen, respectively. It looks like Nintendo is trying to cram in a few extra sales of the GBA SP before the release of the DS. But you can't get the new Pokemon models just anywhere, nope, the two GBAs will be sold exclusively at the new Pokemon Center in New York (and its online store too). Currently, they're still being sold for $100 (pre-purchase), but we suspect that price will fall when the official price drop goes into effect.
Read MoreIn an effort to raise money for charity-and promote their new game-Nintendo invited some celebrities to play Donkey Konga before the MTV VMAs last week. Joining the luxury suite foray were the likes of OutKast, Good Charlotte, Lil' Jon, Matchbox 20, Evanescence, Fabolous, and Chingy, among others. Each celeb was competing for a chance to contribute $10,000 in his/her name to the Red Cross, supporting the victims of Hurrican Charley. "It's not often you get to see Billy Martin (of Good Charlotte) playing music with Chingy!" exclaimed Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo's VP of Marketing & Corporate Affarairs. Now that 'Right Thurr" sounds like a 'Motivation Proclamation'. (FYI: Big Boi (of Outkast) was the winner of the private competition)
Read MoreHow shameful—most likely your Nintendo DS is going to pull double as a WiFi VoIP phone before your cellphone will. It's been reported that you'll be able to use the headset port on the DS along with its built-in WiFi to make VoIP calls, but it's not yet clear whether it'll be possible to use it with something like Skype or Vonage or whether it'll only work with some other proprietary (read: Nintendo-owned) service for chatting during online gaming. So many questions, so few answers...
Read MoreThe Nintendo marketing machine marches on. Somehow, the folks at the video-toy company got a bunch of folks to go on a summer-long quest to prove they'd do anything for some dough. From scavenger hunts to flash mobs, the 8-person Dallas wing of the Nintendo Street Team went all out in the name of all that is Nintendo. The team beat out groups in Chicago, New York, Seattle, LA and Atlanta They're splitting up a hefty $40,000 for their efforts. It actually sounds kind of fun. We're just jealous.
Read MoreWith the DS on the horizon, Nintendo has decided to drop the price of the GBA SP by $20—now to retail for $79.99. Competent sources have sited that the DS could sell for as low as $150 stateside, and should definately remain under $200. But still, this rather hefty pricetag (especially for a portable) will probably lead a number of consumers to the more afforable GBA SP. Nintendo looks to profit by keeping these two products in distinct pricing ranges. [For your enjoyment: check out the link that was supposed to be for this news story, it looks like IGN has finally had enough...]
Read MoreCalling all Star Fox faithful, Izzy needs your help: "4 Player battles on Star Fox 64 were classic. Eventhough the game is outdated, the gameplay is perfect. It should be no question that Star Fox 2 for GC will be amazing. But one thing that was not mentioned for its gameplay is LAN support. LAN support could enable perhaps 8 players or more to battle it out on land and/or air. And, through the efforts of Warp Pipe, LAN support also means... NET PLAY. Yes, that's right, Net. Play. For those who aren't familiar with Warp Pipe, Warp Pipe is a website that was created for Free Gamecube Net Gaming. The program that was created tricks LAN supported games into thinking that it's doing a typical LAN set up, where in reality, it lets you connect with others online through the use of a DSL connection. Now, this is the important part. Star Fox 2 was initially due out November, but it has been DELAYED until 1st Quarter 2005. Warp Pipe and its supporters have begun sending out letters to both Namco and Nintendo in order to help the companies look into LAN support for Star Fox 2. So this is what my story is really about: Gaining support for LAN on Star Fox 2 for the Nintendo Gamecube. By posting this on your site, you could encourage Star Fox fans to help the push for LAN on Star Fox 2 by e-mailing both Namco and Nintendo about the matter. I also included a link to WarpPipe.com [see link below] where you can see their latest developments. In the link, WarpPipe has a series of various places one could e-mail, such as NOA, NOE, NOJ, Namco, etc etc. So please, get the word out. Make gaming history by letting gamers to impact the outcome of this game! The struggle for LAN on Star Fox 2 has begun, and your assistance could make all the difference! E-mail me [bluesky1607@peoplepc.com] if you have any further questions. Thanks! -Izzy"
Read MoreThe upcoming expansion pack for Dark Age of Camelot is called Catacombs, and if this piece from Gamespy is to be believed, it's going to be packed with enhancements. The preview covers a pre-beta version of the product, so there's lots of room for improvement. Still, they liked what they saw. There will be a significant improvement in the graphics for the 2001 title (always a good idea at around this time in an MMO's life). Character models and terrain will be on par with other games in the genre, which should make fans happy. Perhaps more importantly, though, there will be a slew of new characters and environments as well.
Read MoreNexus: The Jupiter Incident may have a dinky name, but its promise is what intrigues us. We're Homeworld fools, and any game that claims to have a piece of the Homeworld magic will guarantee a peek. This preview of a one level demo that the author snagged, is filled with the kind of excitement that you hope is warranted. Sure, it's easy to find lofty claims on the WWW but the run-down of the game dynamics sounds intriguing. You don't have direct control of individual ships in your fleet, as you do in the Homeworld series, but you can mount attacks with groups, which adds a tactical element that could be fun. The interface gets a couple of strikes against it, but if the game is as good as this guy says it is, we may be willing to forgive it.
Read MoreAs promised we're providing you with a link (below) to the multiplayer demo for Tribes: Vengeance. The demo includes four maps and five gameplay modes, which will give you a tiny taste of what the retail version has to offer. Irrational Games has packed in a mod tool, so the gameplay options will be virtually infinite when Tribes: Vengeance hits in less than two weeks. What are you waiting for?
Read MoreGabe Newell has posted the announcement we've all been waiting for, well, at least part of what we're waiting for. Half-Life 2 will be hitting retail in five(!) different bundles. There will be two retail boxes and three Steam packages. Although no offical prices have been confrimed, the Steam packages will be on sale next week. But here's the catch... only Counter-Strike: Source will be made available. In other words, the single-player campaign for Half-Life 2 will remained locked until pending legal issues are worked out. Still, the fact that we'll be playing the multiplayer component within a week is a big relief.
Read MoreLove him, hate him, do whatever you must to get through the day. Some of us have a hard time accepting that Chuck Osborn of PC Gamer has already played Half-Life 2. To him, it's old news, water under the bridge — he's probably wondering when the hell Valve is going to get around to announing the sequel. Well, now you can get the next best thing to reading the review, and read an interview with the reviewer. Sweet! Some interesting tidbits pop out from the mini-piece, not least of which is the verification that CS: Source is the one multiplayer element of the game.
Read MoreHalflife2.Net has posted a brief interview with Chuck Osborn, the Senior Editor of PCGamer and first official reviewer of Half-Life 2. He's inked up a nine page review that we'll be pouring over soon enough, but for now, you'll have to settle with the interview. Osborn reveals that the multiplayer for Half-Life 2 is Counter-Strike Source (no deathmatch)—with a few added surprises on top of the beta version. But, as we all well know, the real multiplayer will surface when the mods start to hit. Oh, and just to reassure you, Osborn had this to say: "Trust me... you won't be disappointed."
Read MoreWe're all on edge of our seats here. Hot on the heels of rumors that Half-Life 2 may be delayed again, due to litigation, there now comes some nice warm fact to soothe us. Steam News has announced that the fourth installment of the game's pre-load started yesterday. This round includes the majority of Counter-Strike: Source (in encrypted form, of course), which makes the game seem much closer now. We know a number of people out there who have signed onto this pre-load initiative, and are very impressed with what they've seen so far. Valve may very well be on the cutting edge of game distribution. Think about it, no more trips to Gamestop, unless you want to hear a lot of loud chatter about this week's "best game ever!" Yeah, it's snobby-mood night. Sorry.
Read MoreThe demos continue to roll. I've made a special folder on my desktop to store the ever-growing pile of free fun. The latest addition is RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, the next installment in one of the more addictive games ever made. The three-dimensional look should (hopefully) add an extra level of immersion. In fact, the player will be able to hop into his rides from the point of view of a customer. Nice. Also promised in the sequel are improved AI and added group behavior. The 184 MB demo gives you a small taste of pimping your own ride.
Read MoreAAARGHH!!! Sigh, it turns out that the court battle may take its toll on Half-Life 2's release after all. While rumors across the net are swirling, the simple fact is, a dispute like this could keep Half-Life 2 on the backburner for some time, like 6 months! We'll keep you updated, in the meantime, keep your fingers crossed...
Read MoreGadgetMadness is offering a beta account for the World of Warcraft, courtesy of an anonymous donor. But be warned this is no name and address affair, in order to win, you'll have to put your Photoshop skills to the test. GadgetMadness has posted three of their favorite WoW screenshots. Contestants must doctor these images to make them as "outrageously funny as possible". Think you got what it takes? Follow the link below for more details.
Read MoreCheck out the latest map from Blizzard for their opus, Warcraft III: Frozen Throne. The map's name is Bandit Ridge, and it's descibed by the site, as follows: "The cobbled road that cuts through this bandit-infested ridge is perilous and unsafe for travel. Restless thieves prowl in the night, paying their Ogre and Troll allies with the heads of foolhardy adventurers." The design is very elegant, and it's certainly worth a download if you are looking for some solid one-on-one action today.
Read MoreJapan is not big on Microsoft games. Japan is not big on Mac games, which are mostly English titles. So what better way to get the Japanese playing games on their Macs than to offer the Microsoft Mac Game Collection? Two negatives must make a positive. The first game in the MMGC line-up is Halo: Combat Evolved. The Japanese version of the classic is the beginning of a string of ported games to be released for the Mac by Microsoft. For those who are new to the scene, MS has been looking to make good with Japan — which has not been receptive to their gaming initiatives, at all. So the goliath company has decided it's going to win their hearts through their much-adored Macs. Wow, Microsoft using the Mac to help Apple and Microsoft tap into one of the most lucrative markets in the world. There are just so many ironies in this story it makes the head spin.
Read MoreJust in time for the weekend, Epic Games has popped a piece of candy in our mouths. The Editor's Choice Edition bonus pack for Unreal Tournament 2004 is a plethora of improvements for us fans to enjoy. Instead of just giving us a bunch of maps, they've thrown in new characters and vehicles as well as a few new Onslaught maps. You should know that the download requires the latest patch (3323) so grab that here first.
Read MoreSure 2006 is a long ways away, but it's never too early to get the hype rolling. And so, fresh off of Bioware's news that it will be implementing the Unreal 3 Engine in an upcoming game, Smiling Gator Productions has announced that it will be using the Half-Life 2 Engine to craft the first-ever MMORPG that will feature an integrated FPS interface, thus spawning the latest in genre crossover: MMORPGFPS. Now try saying that five times really fast, betcha can't... Titled, Twilight War: After the Fall, the game is based on the premise that Earth has been decimated by an oppressive alien race, the Skel, leaving humans scattered about in nomadic tribes, fearful of lawless bandits and outcasted mutants, and of course, the evil Skel. Find, trade, buy, steal, fight, survive... you know, ain't nothin but a MMORPG-thang (baaay-bee).
Read MoreEven our vitrual worlds aren't immune to Mother Nature's latest freak-out. The datacenter in Virginia, where the World of Warcraft servers reside, has been hit by a tornado. Last night the beta was delayed as they removed the severs from the building. Unfortunately, the latest update is that the servers did indeed take water damage. Until they determine how much damage has been done, the beta will not get back into full swing.
Read MoreAccording to this press release, THQ announced that Dawn of War went gold close to two weeks ago. However, over at IGN it seems that this real-time strategy was actually cancelled. What's going on here? Well, according to several major retailers Dawn of War is hitting stores today. So what gives IGN? (Not that we expect an explanation...) In terms of DoW, it's actually an extension of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. So if you're looking for that dark, futuristic edge combined with quality RTS, then look no further.
Read MoreRPG Vault geeks out on the nasty topic of player versus player violence in Blizzard's upcoming mega super-duper fantastic hit-o-rama, World of Warcraft. Why would anyone want to kill their fellow man? Well, because it's Warcraft, not Lovecraft. So Blizzard has put a lot of thought into how to balance out the play for customers who want to wander and look at the butterflies with the dark, bloody thoughts of normal gamers. In typical Blizzard fashion, they've adopted an intriguing solution. Their PvP system will reward players who kill other players in their same level range — with honor points. Now, who would want to deny themselves honor points? This touch, in combination with the premise of team-based PvP, could actually end up satisfying all players. Except those who are never satisfied. We all know who we are...
Read MoreNCsoft and Cryptic Studios have released the second expansion pack for their insanely addictive, MMORPG City of Heroes. Titled, A Shadow of the Past, this latest update brings capes to the scene, but only available to players that have reached level 20 and above. You'll also have a chance to adjust your powers (Level 24) in a special mission, and add other effects like auras (Level 30) to your character's appearance. Besides the fashion trends, the gameplay will see some additions too, as all players will participate in fending off the Shadow Shard invasion (effective immediately). Also, a new hazard zone, the Hollows, has been specifically created for levels 5 to 15 featuring several new threats, the Magmites and Pumicites. On top of this, a whole slew of new trial missions have been scattered about, and a lot of the interface has been updated, including the sidekick system. Finally, a new chat system was created to provide communication across servers and to allow custom chat channels. In our humble opinion, this is one heck of an expansion!
Read MoreGamespot has gleefully dug into the Everquest 2 beta, and we resent them for it. It seems like everyone is getting their hands on the title these days. The preview touches on the beginning of the adventuring, including character creation and their initial impressions of the overall look and feel. The bastids promise more insight into the game later, just to irritate us. The game is still slated for later this year, but there isn't much year left. When will we really see it? Don't look at us. The piece also includes some new gameplay footage. You'll see the link at the end of the article.
Read MoreCity of Heroes is fun in so many ways that it's tough to think how they could make it much better (fanboy alert!) But now a new trend is emerging within the game. Players can join their fellow heroes for some boogying at Pocket D. The time and place of the rave parties change, but word of mouth is getting around. DJZero, the party organizer is taking his charge very seriously. " No advertisement. No publicity. No set schedule. Word of mouth stuff, " he says in The Paragon Times. "Pocket D will be a sort of movable feast, where the entrances could popup anywhere at anytime. I plan on going 'official' soon and maintain it year round. I hope the Heroes of Paragon City will make great use of it." Our only hope is that the whole town doesn't become a mess of disco adults in tights. Though that could be worth the subscription rate, on second thought.
Read MoreMassively multiplayer online games are an odd breed. They tend to 1) start big and then collapse 2) start big and get even bigger, and, now, with the announcement of EVE Onlines 50,000 customers, we know they can start small and grow large. Even against all odds. EVE Online is an open-ended MMG that doesn't require you to do much of anything but be yourself — in an intergalactic environment. The title didn't catch on at first. Official subscriber numbers are never easy to come by, but most estimates put it around 15,000 a few months after launch. I reviewed the game and was saddened by the idea of its failure. The fact that the title has caught on should show all of us that a good idea may not hit fast and hard. Sometimes we have to be patient. Publishers, take note.
Read MoreYeah yeah it's a bit heavy on UT2K4 today. But lots is happening, so lots is getting our attention. The next phase of the Make Something Unreal contest has just passed its deadline. You know what that means — all the last-minutes entrants are now flaunting their wares for us to enjoy. HomeLANFed, as usual, is on the case, and brings us a handly collection of links. The list of mods includes the Tastelikechicken effort which could be great with some minor tweaking. Also of note is the Call to Arms mod. Here's our latest fanboy rave...For those of you out there who haven't partaken in the holy love that is UT2K4, give in to the pleasure zone. Join us in nirvana. Buy one game, get 1000 free.
Read MoreAs expected, San Andreas will be ported to the PC, but not until next summer?! GTA III and Vice City made their PC debuts within months of the PlayStation 2 releases, but apparently San Andreas will need more time. In related news, the PS2 version has been pushed back from its original release date. We can all relax though, it's just a week. No word yet on a possible Xbox port.
Read MoreContinuing the Unreal Tournament 2004 flavor of this Monday morning, check out the latest mod, Eden Eclipse. The mod, by Renegade Gods, puts you in the shoes of a feminine, yet deadly army chick with a gun in one hand and a mission in the other. The 233 MB download is worth a look. It has well done level design and some nifty visual tweaks. The vehicles are especially well done. They got the project done just in time for the next phase of the Make Something Unreal Contest. Seems to us they have a good shot. There are a number of mirrors posted on the page, so just scroll down to get a link.
Read MoreNew beta patches are available for Unreal Tournament 2004, Windows and Linux versions. This brings the game up to build number 3323, for those who are keeping count. The changes in the patch are mostly Onslaught gameplay and AI issues. Of special interest is the fix titled "UT2K4 works with WinXP SP2 firewall". Nice to see they're on top of it, since many of us, this writer included, opted into the Windows Sevice Pack far too quickly. As usual, we have to remind you these are beta patches, so update with care, and be ready to reinstall the entire game if things go awry.
Read MoreAll you Warhammer fans out there now have the chance to check out the brand new demo for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. The 319 MB demo includes a single-player campaign, as well as a couple of skirmish maps to test out how well the game has translated to the PC. We've taken a preliminary look at the game and can tell you it's worth checking out for a measly 319 MB.
Read Moreid Software released the first patch for DOOM 3 yesterday. Nothing too exciting, a few single and multiplayer bugs were fixed, and some gameplay and interface tweaks were added—you can use the link below to download the patch. In other news, the demo (three full levels) should be "coming in a few days", according to Robert Duffy, an id programmer. He also added that the DOOM 3 SDK is complete and will be available for download as soon as the update is in nonbeta form.
Read MoreHalflife2.net has a couple of exclusive Half-Life 2 shots on their site. The pics shows off some action scenes, with lots of guns and aliens and weirdos on fire. Well, they're not exactly exclusive pics— these are the same shots PC Gamer has in their Half-Life 2 issue. But this is the first time you can grab them digitally, and make them into wallpaper. And minimize your windows every few minutes. And pretend like you're playing it right now.
Read MoreNote: A little change of pace this week. Today's HOW-TO is a little special, so we're running it over at Joystiq, our sibling site which is just as obsessed with video games as we are with gadgets. This week's How-To is for all the PC/Mac/*nix gamers out there who want to use an old school Nintendo controller with their current games, or enjoy using NES emulators and want to take the game play to the next level with an old school NES controller. In this HOW-TO we show you how to build your own PC NES controller, which emulator software we used for PC game play, and where to buy the kit or a finished controller if you'd rather not solder one up. Continue reading: "HOW-TO: Make a Nintendo controller into a PC Joystick"
Read MoreA new tweak guide for Doom 3 has been posted on Boomtown. The guide points out game tips and cheats that let you work your way through the id masterpiece as you see fit. You can alter refire rates, run speed and damage parameters, among others. In other words you can make the game your bitch. Seems appropriate that we should be able to turn the tables on the game that has owned a lot of us for a month now.
Read MoreThose sillies over at Blizzard have a new map for your Labor Day pleasure. I was planning on getting some work done today, but I suppose those plans are squashed. The map's name is Sunrock Cove, and it looks to be heavy one of those resource-heavy deals. My favorite.
Read MoreHere's a nice development. The highly-anticipated first person shooter, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, by Publisher THQ, will be designed with 64-bit technology in mind. This press release claims that the compatibility will allow certain players (with 64-bit AMD chips in their system) to have a larger world to run around in, and more baddies to kill. And, in the end, isn't that all we can ask for?
Read MoreThe City of Heroes expansion pack promises to add the kind of content that fans have asked for from the start. One of the main complaints about the game is that it didn't have enough to do. Sure, the game played great, and battles were fun. But fans want variety. They got it in the first expansion pack, but much of the stuff was for experienced players. Now everyone is about to get a taste of what this game can do. IGN does a nice write-up of what the plans are for the "cape" expansion.
Read MoreIt just got a lot more fun to train as a Jedi. Starting today, subscribers to Star Wars: Galaxies will get the chance to climb the spiritual ladder via a series of quests. The path is no longer a linear one, filled with repetitve tasks. Now you can set out on adventures that will let you sow your Medicolorean count. The process will still include studying certain professions, but the focus on menial stuff has been diluted to make way for more action and exploring. It sounds like a good balance, and the folks at Sony seem to believe they're on to something. The beauty of MMGs is that they can evolve like this. Suddenly, we want to try the title again.
Read MoreGamesIndustry has an interesting piece about the Sony PSP's battery life, and the pain it may inflict on developers. It looks like the specs for the device are being circulated to prepare game makers for the inevitable rush to create content. But instead of having specifics, the guidelines provide some mushy numbers like "around 10 hours for music and two hours for movie playback." This should make the certification process a lot of fun for smaller developers as they submit their years of work to Sony for approval with only a general idea of what Sony is looking for. Such is life in the game development business.
Read MoreIf you're feeling a little lucky (or should we say, daring?), head over to Wireless Watch Japan and check out the vids they took at the PSP exhibit at the Tokyo Games show to complement those hilarious photos we showed you earlier. It took us forever to download the short 12MB video, but we gotta say, we (you know, for the most jaded tech site in the world) have high hopes for this thing and it looks like it may well live up to or surpass them. Sony, just make sure it plays DivX and MP3, for chrissakes!
Read MoreLooking for a new project with that upcoming super-slim PS2? Here's one that might be easier to pull off now. Car Audio Mag has a step-by-step of adding a game console to your car, as well as an LCD panel. We think the new PS2 will find itself in more vehicles with its smaller form factor, but it might be cheaper to pick up the "old" version (you know, the one that hasn't been discontinued yet) on eBay too for other projects, so expect to roll up behind a lot more Burnout 3: Takedown action at stoplights in the near future.
Read MoreWe'd reported earlier on Sony's shift to finally start supporting MP3 in some of their digital audio players. Now comes word that even better still their new portable gaming console, the PlayStation Portable will support MP3 as well. So in addition to supporting Sony's proprietary ATRAC format (for all five of you that use it), it will play all those pirated MP3 files that the rest of the world has been downloading (now the big question is whether they'll let us burn our own Universal Media Discs, which are the 1.8GB shiny pieces of plastic it uses). In the new spec sheet released, the PSP will also support H.264/AVC format, a video codec which is to be used in the next generation of high-def DVD players. Now all they gotta do is pop a hard drive in there, or offer one as an attachment, and you'd have a heck of a portable video and audio player.
Read MoreA federal jury has ruled that Sony must pay $82 million in damages to Immersion Corporation for violating "haptic feedback" patents—basically, using computer-controlled vibrating motors to stimulate users. Immersion filed against both Sony and Microsoft two years ago, but settled out of court with Microsoft for $26 million, in turn allowing the Seattle-based giant to license the technology (and own a portion of the firm). This turned out to be the right decision, as Sony will be hit for more than three times that amount, not including legal fees and of course, future licensing of the dual shock technology. See where stubborness (and greed) gets you...
Read MoreWhile we're on the topic, did Popular Science get the scoop on the PlayStation Portable's battery life? A little blurb turned up in the October issue of the magazine that lists the little wonder as having enough juice for 10 hours of music playback time, 8 hours of gaming, and a mere 2.5 hours if you want to kick back and watch a movie on this thing.
Read MoreSony's been showing off the PlayStation Portable at the Tokyo Games Show and AV Watch was there (with tons of pics, of course). Most disturbing part: to prevent anyone from "accidentally" walking off with one, Sony kept all their PlayStation Portable demonstatration consoles strapped to these trade show girls, forcing geeks to make friendly with the fairer sex if they actually wanted to play with one (a PSP, that is).
Read MoreThis little magazine clip theoretically shows off the running-time of the upcoming handheld, the Sony PSP. The snippet from a Popular Science magazine breaks down how long you can play games, music or video on the device before you need to jack it back into the wall. Take it for what it's worth. We find it hard to believe that Popular Science would be the one to break such Top Secret news. But maybe we're just jealous.
Read MoreWhen Sony dropped the skinny new PStwo on us we (along with just about everyone else, it seems) started to wonder if it'd work with the current Hard Disk Drive attachment. Now it's been confirmed by Sony Computer Entertainment America that it most definitely won't. Their reasoning is that the hard-core gamers (the ones that would actually buy the PS2 hard drive) already have a classic PS2 (dare we dub it the classic already?) and that the focus with the PStwo will be on new customers that haven't yet purchased the console and probably won't miss the hard drive.
Read MoreKonami has confirmed that the Japanese release of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is set for December 16 (roughly a month after the projected US release). But there's a bonus in it for Japanese fans, that is, fans with deep pockets. That's right, for 12,800 yen (or $115), you'll secure yourslef a limited-edition MGS, complete with DVDs, booklets, and a model figurine. Expect Konami to reveal more details at the Tokyo Game Show this Friday.
Read MoreThe Sony PSP hardware has been finalized, and will be ready to go on schedule. The great news comes from the top of the company and is accompanied by some more good news — in the form of several new titles. SNK and Namco are among the developers who will be offering up some early games. Though the console still has no price, there are rumors it could be around 250 USD, That would make it somehwat competitive with the Nintendo effort, but could turn off poor people like me.
Read MoreLost in yesterday's PStwo frenzy was another announcement regarding the Blu-Ray Discs to be used for the PlayStation 3. Sony simply made its commiment to the Blu-Ray technology official. And with the statement, came some specific details regarding the discs, most significantly, that they will have an impressive 54 GB storage capacity—compare that to the PS2 DVD-ROMs' 4.7 GB capacity, wow! The discs are dual-layered and single-sided, and will have the capability to store high-quality video using MPEG2-TS compression technology. While Blu-Ray was initially designed to record hi-def television broadcasts, Sony will not be implementing a recordable feature on its discs. In related news, the optical device for the PS3 will be able to read CD, DVD, and BD formats, but Sony has refused to comment on the possibility of backwards compatability.
Read MoreWhile Sony has still not made an official announcement concerning the price of its upcoming portable (promised after Sony hears the "voices" of the TGS), the PSP has just gained a bit more credibility with the addition of 46 new games to its lineup, bringing the new total to a whopping 105 games (in development)—for a complete list of the new titles visit the link below. Most notable were a Persona RPG from Atlus, a King of Fighters game from SNK, a Tenchu title by From Software, and the drum/music hybrid by way of Namco. Sony plans to have 22 playable games on display for the Tokyo Game Show. (Be sure to check out IGN's latest hands on)
Read MoreWe think he may have put his foot in his mouth when he let slip that the MSRP for the Sony's portable PSP gaming machine will be ¥33000 (just over 300 of our American dollars), but we thank Sony's German Managing Director anyway—we live for these mistakes. Since Nintendo announced its DS will be priced at $149 yesterday morning, Sony will have quite a fight selling the PSP at double the price. We reported that Electronics Boutique was taking pre-orders for the PSP for $299 back in July and, hey, maybe they did know what they were doing. We feel comforted in knowing that those analysts claiming the PSP would be five bills were totally wrong.
Read MoreApparently it's old news to most of you, but Sony made the official announcement earlier today during a Tokyo press conference. The new PlayStation 2 will be 1/4 the size and 1/2 the weight of the original and features a built-in network adapter (including an analogue connection in the US/European version). Unfortunately, the new model won't have hard drive support, rendering some software incompatible. It will ship November 1 in the US and Europe—followed by a Japanese release two days later—with the current PS2 price tag. Oh, and another thing, it's not being called the PStwo. Nope, we're to refer to the new model as the SCPH-70000(CB). Excited, aren't you?
Read MoreNews of game delays has been overwhelming of late, and now, according to a recent website update, GT4 could be pushed back until early 2005. Sony Japan has altered its release date from "Fall" to "Winter", leading most analysts to believe that the game won't be released before the new year. Of course, it is still unclear if this news has an affect on the US version, which was recently targeted for a November release. Some speculate that the Japanese delay could be related to the (somewhat mythical) PStwo and a possible packaged deal now that a GTA San Andreas package is more than unlikely.
Read MoreAs promised, some better pics of Sony's new slimmer PlayStation 2. Click to see the rest of them.
Read MoreLooks like we picked the perfect night to not get any sleep: hot on the heels of Nintendo dishing out some concrete details about when their DS portable game console will go on sale, Sony just officially announced a new smaller version of the PlayStation 2. Despite the rumors (or our best wishes) it's not actually being called the "PStwo" (at least not as far as we can tell), but it is about 75% smaller in volume than the original PS2, is just 2.8 cm thick (the original is 7.8 cm thick), and comes with a built-in Ethernet port for networked gaming. Hits stores on November 1st in Europe and North America, with Japan following (once again, what is this craziness?) two days later. (We promise better pics later.) UPDATE: Way better pics are here. [Thanks, Brumm]
Read MoreNot quite up there with the guy willing to buy an iPod for any girl willing to pretend to be his girlfriend for a few days while his parents were in town, but some (apparently desperate) young man in New York is offering up his modded Japanese PlayStation 2 (with three games) up to the person who successfully finds him a mate: That's right. I'm giving my PS2 away along with some games all in the name of charitable contribution. Well ok, more like I scratch your back - you scratch mine. The premise is simple: When it comes to meeting girls, matchmakers always seem to deliver better than self-service. I am asking you to play matchmaker for someone who you think is suitable, eligible, and preferably legal for a late 20 something guy with lots to give and no one to give it to. I - after a yet to be determined period of time, will award (by hand delivery if I must) said PS2 to the matchmaker responsible for the most 'successful' match. About the guy: Fun-loving, adventurous, laid-back yet responsible, Asian guy with a big heart possessing nice cushy full-time employment, living on his own in the big city, and solemnly losing all of his best friends to marriage and them becoming old farts. About the PS2: Japanese modified PS2 which will play any/all PS2 games regardless of region. Includes 1 controller, 1 memory card, and 3 games. Kindly direct all your match inquiries, requests, comments, and of course matches to: helptheguy@rayswheels.com Guess it beats offering a girl's father 15 gallons of insecticide. [Thanks, foo]
Read MoreWe first reported on the speculation about this a couple of weeks ago, now everyone is aflutter of the news that Sony is supposedly (big emphasis on the supposedly, ok?) going to unveil a smaller version of the PS2 called the PStwo on October 26th (just like they did when they replaced the original PlayStation with the PSone). It'd be just in time for the big deal that is the holiday shopping season, and the Hollywood Reporter (of all places) says that the PStwo will have the same retail price as the regular PS2 of $149, but be 30% smaller. Sony, of course, has kept quiet about all this, but if the PStwo is for real then we bet it'll be next to impossible to keep pics of it from leaking out between now and October 26th. 39 days is a long time in our world.
Read MoreDespite the PSX being a big failure, (we genuinely thought they were going to kill off the system), Sony is set to launch two new versions of their multimedia juggernaut in December for the Japanese market. The DESR-5500 and DESR-7500 will up the size of the PSX's internal hard drive to 160GB and 250GB. Not just content with just supersizing the HDD, the system now includes a pass-through for antenna signals (one of the biggest gripes users had), the DVD recorder has DVD+R format support, and it will be more TiVo-like with recording by keyword search. The new boxes, oddly enough, have no suggested retail price; instead, retailers can sell it for what they want to—we're not entirely sure we believe this, but if it's true Sony must be getting pretty desperate to unload these things over there. Sony? Desperate? We had no idea...
Read MoreAnother Final Fantasy spinoff was revealed in the latest issue of Jump Magazine (Japan). Set to star Vincent Valentine, vampire and former Turk member, Square looks to be taking a page from Capcom's Devil May Cry, although genre-specific details are still unknown. What we do know is that that game takes place a year after Advent Children (the CG DVD movie continuation of FFVII), when a group calling themselves "DG" attacks a peaceful town. Enter Vincent, our hero, determined to rid the town of this evil scourge. Square Enix has titled the game Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, and it will be due out sometime next year. More details to come.
Read MoreSony announced that two new models of the PSX will be released this December in Japan. The primary new feature will be the inclusion of "x-DJ" music & video mixing. Other than that the new models (DESR-5500, DESR-7500) will be packed with the latest interface updates Sony has been adding to earlier models via firmware. The difference between the two models is merely the size in hard drives. The 5500 will feature 160 GB, while the 7500 weighs in at a hefty 250 GB. Sony will not be suggesting a retail price, leaving it "open" for retailers to judge for themselves. This may be due to the fact that earlier models have been marked down as much as 50% from Sony's suggested price. In related news, sales of the PSX are unlikely to reach Sony's goal of one million units by the end of the year, perhaps persuading the delay of Europe/North American launch into next year.
Read MoreNext week's Tokyo Game Show will mark the debut launch of Sony's much anticipated portable device, the PSP. And while Sony has plans to feature a number of playable games, several big name developers have already acknowledged that they will also be joining the party. Among them, Capcom has announced that it will be presenting some of its PSP software on the main stage, but specifics are still unknown—we could be getting a taste of Viewtiful Joe, Darkstalkers, or perhaps Devil May Cry. Luckily, Konami has already made it clear that it will be featuring playable versions of at least three games, including Metal Gear Acid. And finally, Taito is expected to reveal more about its Bust-A-Move title.
Read MoreThis is what happens when the Swiss multi-task, though milking cows and playing Grand Theft Auto sounds a bit rough. Actually we don't even know if the controller works, but the stool is part of an exhibit of retooled milking stools currently in San Francisco.
Read MoreToshiba announced that development for its next-gen multimedia processor, or 'CELL', chip is entering its final stages. Toshiba has been working on the chip since spring 2001, along with Sony and of course, IBM. The CELL is capable of handling both demanding graphics and high-bandwidth communication, and is expected to be the processor of choice for the PlayStation 3. Toshiba's president, Tadashi Okamura, assures us, "It will change the world."
Read MoreSo after retailers themselves started cutting PSX prices because it is tanking in Japan, Sony quietly cut the price on their monsterized Playstation 2 to ¥44,800 ($410 USD) for the 160GB model and ¥59,800 ($545 USD) for the 250GB one. In addition to playing PS2 games, it has TiVo-like features, photo album support, music library (using Sony's dreaded ATRAC), a Broadband Adapter, and can record shows onto its included DVD recorder. The price cut may spur sales as now the PSX is one of the lowest priced DVD-HDD recorders on the Japanese market. We woudn't mind testing one of these puppies out when (or maybe if?) it hits US shores.
Read MoreSony has released the first screenshot of the Ico pseudo-sequel, Wanda and the Colossus. The new game is thought to have no story-based relation to the cult classic Ico, but nonetheless shares certain aesthetic likenesses, as it's being created by the same team. As the title suggests, the game stars the two characters revealed in the screenshot above. In addition, a cryptic text line was released with the screen, "We will fight to meet you again". Just who "we" and "you" is referring to is still under speculation, but we should be getting some more clues when the game is officially unveiled at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show.
Read MoreWell, looks like Sony is slowly unwrapping the PSP for us, this time some bits at the Austin Game Conference; if you're not a fan of specs, keep on movin'. So as we now know, apparently this thing is going to be able to match or beat the PS2 in performance, but here's the news: a USB 2.0 port (probably for connecting up to a PC), will have 10 digital buttons and an analog joystick, a 24-bit, 480x272 pixel screen (no video out, why doesn't that surprise us?), a 1800mAh lithium-ion battery (which seems a little on the light side, in our opinion), 802.11b (not yet sure if this is going to be crippled, but it's something Sony would totally do), a Memory Stick port, and on launch acecssories will include a camera, a GPS module, and a (hopefully foldable) keyboard. Whew. Now can they please just release it already?
Read MoreGame Developers Conference Europe is a great chance to mingle with some of the best European gaming talent. Spong has a nice insider's look at the Sony PSP's presence at the show. The screen was so bright that Nintendo was screaming bloody murder, which paints a funny picture in my head. Sony promises to reveal much more at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, which is, traditionally, a place where big announcements are made. Among the expected details will be the battery life of the handheld. The fact that Sony hasn't said anything about it, probably means they haven't figured it out yet. Give the poor guys a break.
Read MoreThe domestic release of the PSX, Sony's souped-up version of the PlayStation 2 that comes with a built-in hard drive and can double as a digital video recorder, keeps getting pushed back and pushed back (the earliest we've heard it might arrive here is 2005), and the latest news that sales have been so god-awful bad in Japan that retailers there have slashed prices almost in half, certainly isn't going to encourage the wise men who run the company to bring this out here any sooner. That is assuming they haven't just killed the thing altogether, which might not be such a bad idea at this point.
Read MoreReader David Anthony writes in with a question: I'm wondering what the official story is. Gamestop and EB have no PS2s available for purchase and there's even short supply online at GameStop.com. I was told by employees that this was due to the fact a portable version of the PS2 coming (not the PSP) that will be much like the PSone and there will also be a price drop to $99. It was pretty easy to debunk the part about the PlayStation 2 being in short supply—Amazon, EBGames.com, and other online retailers seem to have plenty of them for sale—but anyone know if there's anything to this rumor that Sony is planning a slimmed-down version of the PS2? We haven't heard anything too specific about this (besides the usual rumblings), but sales are definitely flat, so it wouldn't exactly be shocking to discover they were planning a PStwo to follow in the footsteps of the PSone. UPDATE: It's for real. Get yr PStwo photos here and PStwo details here.
Read MoreIn response to recent concerns voiced by EA about the apparent high cost of next-gen development, Sony has issued a statement saying that the PS3's Blue-Ray discs will cost half of what it costs to produce a DVD. Blue-Ray discs take advantage of cheaper plates (made from silicone) than the glass ones that are used for DVDs, plus the production machinery is roughly 20% smaller, which increases floor space or reduces property costs. If these figures are accurate, it could help to balance the crippling costs of next-gen development that EA predicted.
Read MoreEidos has filled us in on which tracks we can expect to appear on its upcoming "pure rap" game. As expected, current hip-hop icons have made the cut, including Dr. Dre, Snoop, Jay-Z, Missy, Kanye West, & DMX, but Eidos has also added some throwbacks to the mix, like classics from Public Enemy and the Sugar Hill Gang. B.I.G. and Pac will also be featured. Actually, the track listing is pretty impressive, as Eidos has picked up pseudo-underground legend Talib Kweli, and the UK's own Dizee Rascal. Get On Da Mic will feature a few other hip-hop celebrites, as Sway (the Wakeup Show) & DJ Green Lantern will lend their talents. Finally, D-Block gangsta, Jadakiss, will be the official product spokesperson. Better polish your flow, On Da Mic will be here Tuesday.
Read MoreWith a sleek aluminum body, the new Sorell SF1100 MP3 player is a welcome entry into the crowded DAP market. It's small (56.4 x 56.4 x 16mm and weighs just 37g without batteries) and comes in 256MB and 512MB models. It's feature-rich for a player of its size, with an EQ, FM tuner, direct encoding, and what appears to be a pretty decent LCD screen. Rather than housing a rechargeable battery, the SF1100 runs on three AAA batteries. That's not necessarily the greatest thing in the world, but it does mean that you won't be stranded without music at an airport when your batteries run out - just buy new ones at the news stand for $10 a pop.
Read MoreEngadget pal Nick Bicanic liked his new Sager 3790 laptop so much that he threw together this review/rumination for us about the PC and how why he ended up buying it: I love laptops. I've been a "laptop-only" professional since oh about 1996, when I owned an Olivetti Echos P120S. Interestingly, the S designation meant that it was the TFT model—back then you had a choice of buying "active" matrix or passive screens; it seems amazing to think about now. What made my quest a little out of the ordinary was that I always insisted on using laptops for tasks they were quite specifically not designed for – such running heavy duty multimedia apps on it like Premiere, Photoshop etc. I was quite stubborn in this regard and edited my first short film in its entirety on the trusty old Olivetti (this was all before the fancy days of FireWire and USB 2.0, mind you). With that in mind, I've always been on a quest for the fastest machine I could afford (like anyone, really). After the Olivetti I went with an IBM Thinkpad T21 (like many others I imagine, the T series represents the pinnacle of PC laptop engineering). I then moved to the Winbook J4, which had phenomenal sound and was very quick; the Pentium M had been officially released, but I stuck to my guns and only bought "desktop replacements" with screaming-fast CPUs).
Read MoreLast week on "Watch this Wednesday" we stepped to it with the Suunto n3i SPOT watch. With all these watches to choose from it might be difficult to decide which gadget watch is the right one for you. Luckily there's a watch that can help, The Decision Maker Watch by OVO.
Read MoreIf you couldn't get one of those hacked Muvo² 5GB drives to work in your digicam, have no fear because Kingston has a 4GB Compact Flash card just for you (it'll just cost a bit more). Our pal Jason over at Digital Media Thoughts likes the one they got to play with, and found that the card writes very fast (even faster than Sandisk Ultra II rates) and that they could squeeze in more than 2000 pictures taken with a 4 megapixel digital camera set at maximum quality. This little square of storage'll set you back around $500, so probably not for your mom's camera (unless she's a pro photographer, of course).
Read MoreThat's it. We're done. We have reached tech nirvana, and there is nothing left to be designed, built, or even thought up. This high-tech throne of eternal happiness, first brought to us by the guys at Trick Anything, features drink holders, lumbar support, and a multi-positioned adjustable bowl (after all, some people are bigger than others). Unfortunately, there are no rockets to propel one to Mach five, but it does have a security system to alert you of any unauthorized poopers. Be sure to see what other madness has been committed by these guys – perhaps a gold-plated photo stick is more to your liking. [Thanks, Skot]
Read MoreWe still have a 14-hour TiVo kicking around here somewhere, which is why we were almost ashamed to discover the RD-X5, Toshiba's new DVD recorder with a 600GB hard drive that just came out in Japan that can store up to 1,071 hours of television. Or just to break that down for you, you could record TV shows 24 hours a day for over a month and still a few hundred hours of recording time left over. We'd mumble something about overkill, but we're sure that the switchover to HDTV will kill any notion that you can ever possibly have too much storage space on your digital video recorder.
Read MoreIt looks almost like a total rip of Kyocera's FinePix SL300R, but Contax dropped another new ultracompact camera on us. The four megapixel U4R isn't quite as small or as fab as their new i4R, but it does have a swiveling-style lens with 3x optical zoom and a decently-sized 2-inch LCD screen around back. Should be out next month.
Read MoreEquipped with a 3LCD panel, the new VPL-HS51 is making home theater buffs around the world re-think their media rooms. The little projector features a 6000:1 contrast ratio, which is quite an accomplishment for a front projector. It's optimized for HD signals with a 1280 x 720 resolution - this means it can do 720p native on screens anywhere from 40- to 200-inches. What's more, a 1.6x zoom lens means that you can mount the thing with relatively short throw distances and still generate a decent screen size. In other words, you don't need to live in a giant hallway to get a decent screen size out of this thing. It also has the latest connections including the soon-to-be-standard HDMI interface. Available in October for about $3,500, just in time to catch TNT-HD on digital cable.
Read MoreIt isn't a digital SLR, and at just four megapixels it might seem a little light in the resolution department, but FujiFilm new prosumer FinePix S5100 more than makes up for it with a 10x optical zoom lens. Should be out momentarily, or at the very latest sometime next month.
Read MoreThere are few details and even fewer pics, but apparently Olympus is going to challenge FujiFilm's FinePix 40i and come out with the m:robe, a new multipurpose digital camera with picture viewer that pulls double duty (or is it triple duty?) as an MP3 player. You can even attach music to your images, so we can't wait to have "Ice Ice Baby" paired with all those pictures of us breakdancing on cardboard that we're planning to take. Pricing isn't set yet, but this one should be out in early 2005. Okay, we give up, who thinks up these names? We were honestly expecting a pair of silk pajamas with a built-in camera when we heard the name.
Read MoreWe don't know anyone but the most seasoned bootlegger who's going to drop five and a half Bens on this thing, but how very, very much we wish we had one of these for when The Ramones were still alive and playing. The Edirol R1 has just about everything you could ever want in a portable digital recording unit that DAT, MD (which actually doesn't even really count, since most any consumer MD won't do digital output), and a handful of portable audio players (like the Nomad Jukebox 3, for instance) haven't gotten together: 24-bit/44.1kHz audio processing with loads of effects and tweaks, MP3 encoding, a USB 2.0 port, S/PDIF optical out, and two integrated mics and line-ins (stereo, man) all in a 4 x 5.5-inch box that runs on two AA batteries and stores on CompactFlash. Unfortunately the largest supported CF card is 2GB, so if you're planning on taking it to a Sonic Youth show and doing 24/44.1 raw, it's probably best to bring a couple of cards to change out at the second or third intermission. [Via DAPreview]
Read MoreTurns out MacMice, scam or no scam, actually did have a product to send over to the Gadgeteer for review: The Mouse BT, a Bluetooth-enabled optical mouse we told you about before. It looks like a bit of a cheap knockoff of Apple's Wireless Mouse (which is also Bluetooth and $70), but hey, if you're up for a crap shoot, maybe this thing is a must have if you've got to get that scroll wheel and second button.
Read MoreOn the off chance you were dying for better look at it, here's another look at that new super-small 20GB Gmini XS200 MP3 player Archos has on the way. The information we have remains pretty much the same as what we knew before, although we did get some numbers putting its weight at a slight 120g. In this shot, the screen appears to actually be working with more of a green backlight, which is potentially disappointing for all those fans of blue. [Via DAPreview]
Read MoreWe honestly never thought we'd see something like this, but we can kind of understand wanting to replicate that bumpin' in-car experience at home. With your PC. Nah, no we can't. But it's still pretty funny seeing a DVD player with a head unit, especially one that has an FM tuner, plays MP3s, and has an expansion board and remote control. Anyone got some dubs we can throw on our box, too? [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreDesigned mainly for getting grandma and grandpa (GM+GP) online, WebTV never got much respect from early adopters who scoffed at the whole idea of surfing the Net on a TV screen, but it did get a lot of people online who couldn't afford a proper PC (or who didn't want to deal with one), with its subscriber rolls topping out around a million when Microsoft snapped it up in 1997 and renamed it MSN TV a few years later. Fast forward to 2004 and Microsoft's new MSN TV2 Internet Player can still do dial-up, but they've added an Ethernet port and are positioning it as a way to get online for the 51% of Internet users who do have a broadband connection but don't want to spring for a second PC just so they can check email and read websites. Better still, it can pull double duty as a wireless media adapter that can stream audio and video from the hard drive of your PC to your home entertainment setup. They're launching it October 5th, so click on to read our hands-on review, Gear Eye-style.
Read MoreWe reported on the return of the Sega Mega Drive (aka Sega Genesis in the US) at the Tokyo Game Show, and now this plug-and-play system which squeezes that whole 16-bit game console, plus a mess of games, into a replica of an original controller, has been released in the UK (there are similar ones for the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 already available here). Pocket-Lint likes the nostalgia factor of this system from a decade back, but they suggest you just pick up a used system from eBay, as a few of games included are real throwaways (namely Kid Chameleon and Flicky). Too bad you can only play solo in all these games, too, since Golden Axe and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine were solid multiplayer games.
Read MoreSince efficiency is king in the land of the rising sun, and the bath is central to their daily living (not to be confused with the shower, which is how they get clean), we're still kind of unclear why this kind of thing went overlooked so long while they were souping out their toilets. Anyway, Toto's new Furopia bathtub is specially designed to insulate the water temperature, so your steaming hot bath stays that way for up to 6 hours between the shifts you take in sharing with your family. Not bad, but honestly you could sell us just about anything with that crazy bathtub monster at the helm of your advertising campaign. [Via MoCoLoco]
Read MorePC Magazine takes a gander at the ZR90, Canon's entry-level MiniDV camcorder and finds that while it's adequate on its own, it's no match for Sony's DVR-HC40 in terms of picture quality. It comes with a sweet 22x optical zoom and a wide-angle lens attachment, but some of the badly placed buttons led to inadvertent pressing, while color output was slightly grayish and faded at times. We can deal with a little grayishness here and there, but you really don't want to discover that you accidentally pressed the mute button while capturing some of those precious moments.
Read MoreWe have a few of these NEC ND-3500A DVD recorders around Engadget HQ and have found them to be highly reliable for the almighty backup. This burner can do 16x recording on DVD+R or DVD-R media, which some other drives already do, but it can also burn DVD+R Dual Layer discs at 4x, meaning 8GB of data can be burned in roughly 25 minutes. TrustedReviews was quite fond of this multi-purpose drive, but the real bonus is that it comes in at under $100, which is a pretty amazing deal, any way you figure it. [Via DigitalMediaThoughts]
Read MoreTom Whitwell of Music Thing, our favorite pro music gear blog, is contributing a new column highlighting the best of what's coming out these days. Here's his first one, about Live6's new PODxt Live: The bad thing about technology is that, these days, everyone has it. Back in the 80s, you had to be Andy Summers or some guy from Pink Floyd to have a huge custom-built effects board with loads of pedals and switches. But Line6 are about to announce PODxt Live, a digital pedal board that contains the sounds of 36 vintage guitar amps and a bag full of retro pedals. For £399. So everyone can have one. Line6 are the Dyson of the music-gear world. Guitarists are a stone-aged bunch. The vast majority of new guitars are copies of designs from the late 40's and early 50's, and the hottest thing in high-end amps is hand-wiring (circuit boards are just too high-tech). So Line6 are different. They were founded by a couple of synth designers. Their CEO is a former professional trumpet player who worked at Apple for 11 years. In 1996 they invented modelling guitar amps, which use digital processing to capture the essence of a 1966 Fuzz Face pedal or a 1968 Marshall stack. The technology is simple, and incredibly complicated. The output of the guitar is digitised, run through some algorithms, then turned back into an analog signal to feed into your headphones (or whatever). The algorithms are the clever (and secret) bit.
Read MoreHarper Reed got to play with the OGO, AT&T Wireless' new handheld messaging device which has a phone number (but isn't a phone) and is aimed mainly at the ever elusive market of pesky kids who live and die by instant messaging (you can do text messaging and email on it, as well as sign up for up to three of the big IM services). It's actually about the same size when closed as the Sidekick (it's clearest competitor—it dwarfs the BlackBerry when it's all unfolded) and he likes the bright LCD screen, but he wasn't able to try the OGO's whole Bluetooth-based Personal Mobile Gateway, except to pair it up with his phone. Oh, and that it could really stand to have a web browser.
Read MoreMan, oh man! Our new Roomba Discovery Robot Vacuum just arrived. Yah, I'm that excited about a robot that can vacuum. The Discovery might just be the robot hobbyist's robotic platform of choice (more on that later) but here's the short review, some photos and a video of our new dirt sucking clean-bot.
Read MoreThe AP has a review of a couple of new mice from Logitech, the MediaPlay Cordless Mouse and the MX1000 (pictured at right), which uses a frickin' laser beam instead of the LED you'll find on lesser optical mice. Because of its laser the MX1000 captures 5.8 megapixels of detail per second, is about twenty times more sensitive than the average mouse, and works on almost any flat surface. They like it, but they didn't dig on the MediaPlay Cordless Mouse so much. Not that they didn't like the six dedicated buttons for controlling Windows Media Player or RealPlayer, it's mainly because that Logitech puts a bunch of junk on your PC's desktop when you install their software.
Read MoreAnandtech got their hands on Sony's DSC-F88 five megapixel, 3x optical zoom, and 300 degree rotating lens digital camera (yes, the one that's perfect for all the narcissists in the house). It can also shoot video at VGA 640x480 resolution at 16 frames per second and since the optical zoom works internally there's no unsightly lens protrusion to deal with. They liked the fast startup time, the short time between shooting consecutive pictures, and the great battery life.
Read MoreYesterday on our weekly "Watch this Wednesday" feature we spotted the new Suunto n3i SPOT watch. We posted a few pictures but some of you wanted to see the watch with the back plate removed, battery exposed and the innards for replacing the band. Well, it's our pleasure to indulge your watch pr0n fetish, so here it is. We'll have a How-To on replacing the band later.
Read MoreSpeaking of tearing apart the new iMac G5, there are duelling reviews of Apple's new desktop, one from Walt Mossberg (here's a surprise: he loves it), another where Matthew Fordahl of the Associated Press, um, tears it apart (with words, that is), at least to a small degree. Yep, he loves the design, but he says that Apple skimps too much on memory and other stuff and that to really "finish the job" you'll have to spend an extra $275 to double the RAM, add WiFi and Bluetooth, and pick up a wireless keyboard and mouse. Mossberg's love is almost completely unqualified, though he does also note the iMac's lightness on the RAM side. Read - Wall Street Journal Read - Associated Press
Read MoreDPNow has a first look at Canon's recently announced professional-series 16.7 megapixel Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II (the name is a wee bit long, but what can you do?), which is an upgrade of the EOS-1Ds, just with double the resolution, 802.11b/g support via an add-on, and new image processing software. If you just have to own the latest, highest resolution digital camera, and have ten large to drop on a digital camera, this would be it. Then again, DPNow does point out that Nikon's 12 megapixel D2X is cheaper, faster, and lighter, so comparisons are bound to happen when both cameras are officially released. Gotta love the rivalry. [Via Photography Blog]
Read MorePC Mag has a review of the new LL-151-3D from Sharp, another one of those LCD screens that get all three-dimensional without requiring you to compromise your appearance and be caught wearing some goofy-looking special glasses. We've seen demos of a few 3D LCDs here and there, and yeah, while they did sorta deliver some level of three dimensionality, you had to sit in one very specific spot to get the most benefit and even then 3D effect wasn't really all that super amazing, but they say that while the Sharp still has those same sweet spot issues (they're largely unavoidable), that the 3D images it displays are nothing short of "dramatic".
Read MoreLast week we kicked it blinkity blink style with the PIMP watch from Japan. This week we have some exclusive pictures of the new Suunto n3i SPOT watch. What it is: SPOT watches (Smart Personal Object Technology) receives personalized content such as news, weather and stock updates, calendar appointment reminders from Outlook, instant messages from MSN, sports, daily diversions, horoscopes and lottery information. Why we like it: SPOT isn't for everyone. A lot of people use their phone or PDA for all their content, we actually like to think our data as a funnel; sometimes whipping out a phone or PDA isn't that convenient, while glancing down at a watch is a bit faster. And besides if you're going to wear a watch, why not have it do something more than just tell time, right? If you're in to hacking around you can also grab some code from SPOTDev or use their web site to get AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) or email on your watch. Oh, bonus—the SPOT watch Solar charger hack works with this Suunto too. Where to get it and how much: $299, plus $9.95 per month for the MSNDirect service. Amazon and CompUSA are pretty good places to shop around, the new Suunto should ship in October.
Read MoreIn part two of our Lucas hands-on preview, I'll give you my impressions of Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Light Speed. Lucas is back in business, and clearly having a lot of fun making games. Don't miss part one of this series.
Read MoreWe have slightly mixed feelings about the thing, but make no mistake about it: the MSI Megabook M510c is a pretty notebook. It's not the smallest, lightest, or best equipped laptop you'll find, but it comes reasonably well equipped with an Intel Centrino 715, ATI Mobility Radeon 9600, 4-in-1 card reader, and a nice SXGA+ screen (among other things). At $2,500, it's a bit on the pricier end for what you're getting (after all, you could invest in an Asus W1000N), but it's a nice Dell/Gateway/Compaq alternative. Plus it's kind of like if a Sony TR3A and a 15-inch PowerBook had a baby.
Read MoreToshiba's Qosmio E15 (being one of the only laptops around we know of loaded with Windows XP Media Center Edition) no doubt has a multitude of goodies, ranging from a 15-inch TruBrite screen, DVD burner, 802.11g, Harmon Kardon speakers, to abuilt-in TV tuner . And from the looks of it PC Mag was quite impressed with the E15's screen at least, it apparently being one of the brightest displays they've yet seen. But battery life is on the weak end lasting no more than 2 hours a charge, and the $2700 pricetag is still a little more than prohibitive. Still, if mobile multimedia computing is what you want, the Qosmio is a top contender (though we were really into the HP's dv1000 when we saw it last night).
Read MoreOnce in awhile Lucas crosses the Mississippi and joins us in the big bad city. New York has its share of hotels that have hosted the Lucas press events. I've gone to the last couple and seen some real winners. And some real duds. But the one thing you can say about Lucas is that they keep on trying. For years they had a drought of bad product. The Star Wars franchise was being treated like some second-tier IP, especially around the time of Episode 1. But as they saw their sales (and reputation) plummet they got their act together, and now they're providing consistently good material. This current line-up offers something for fans of Star Wars, sure; but more importantly it offers a lot for fans of fun games. This time around I was shown Knight of the Old Republic II, Star Wars: Battlefront, Star Wars: Republic Commandos, Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Light Speed, and (perhaps the most intriguing of them all) Mercenaries. Today's round up will give you my impression of Battlefront and Mercenaries.
Read MoreIn every school there was a guy who was almost a year older than the rest of the class. He didn't get held back or anything, he was just born a few days too late for his parents to register him the year before. In grade school no one noticed, but in jr. high he hit puberty before everyone else. When he was gangly and awkward, everyone else in his class made fun of him, but by high school he was one of the cool kids. He started growing bigger than the rest of the guys in his class. He wasn't stupid, just bigger, so he he used his size and age to his advantage. He was probably the first guy you knew who could buy you some beer with a fake ID. Girls all wanted to date him, guys all wanted to be his pal, but somehow he was never a popular kid - just the cool guy. The Sidekick II (SK2), well, it's exactly like that guy. The first Sidekick was a bit awkward and gangly, but the SK2 has matured into a smooth operator that just happens to be a bit bigger than his classmates. It's really not fair to just judge the SK2 as a phone, when it does and has so much more than your average phone. It's really more of a laptop in your pocket. Because of this, we're going to make a few exceptions on our ratings, but we will make them consistent across smartphones-promise. The Sidekick II will be available exclusively through T-Mobile for a while. If you don't score one in Santa Monica today, you should be to get one at your local T-Mobile store in the next day or two. Our man Jacks got us one a few weeks early so we could give you something to drool over while all the Paris Hilton wannabes are down in Santa Monica gettin' their new SK2s blinged out.
Read MoreWe're taking it with a grain of salt since we've seen things like this before that really didn't work, but the Accupix MPG-230M claims to be able to realistically simulate a 30-inch TV viewed six feet away in the wearer's field of vision. The miniscule 0.24-inch LCD display displays an NTSC signal at 800x224 pixels (we have no idea how that's going to work for standard aspect ratios, so don't ask) in the visor, and kind of makes you look like a cross between Jordi LaForge and Ray Charles. Except way more stupid than either or both. [Via GeekZone]
Read MoreThe X-Men remains one of the most promising franchises for videogame adaptation. With a seemingly unlimited universe of unique characters blessed with equally unique mutant powers, all tied together in a soap opera-like drama, it's a developers dream. However, it's no secret that the majority of X-Men games are-simply put-terrible. So when Raven Software announced it was developing an RPG based on the X-Men we pretty much threw hope out the door. But as more and more details emerged, we became pleasantly surprised with the ways in which the title was shaping up. Now, X-Men Legends is at our doorsteps, and X-fans may finally get what they've been dreaming of for so long. Head over to IGN to peep the first official review.
Read MoreJust met up with the good people at palmOne about an hour ago, they wanted to show us that new Wireless Keyboard they announced today (and we were happy to oblige). In response to our earlier query, they said they have no plans for a Bluetooth version, mainly because it'd have to cost a lot more and wouldn't have the battery life of the infrared version. Click to see another pic of it all folded up (and yes, our Treo has been making a lot of guest appearances on the site lately).
Read MoreIGN has posted a review of Star Wars Battlefront. The Battlefield 1942-in-space has had a lot of us Star Wars fans hungry for some head-to-head warring. If the review is to be believed, the title is not going to rise to the top as we'd hoped. The overall polish is below standards, the AI is rocky, and the game is "too easy". Take it for what it is...a review. But it's always more fun to see a gamer excited about an anticipated game like Battlefront The IGN reviewer gives the game a 7.5, but there doesn't seem to be very much in the actual review to back up a score that high. I'll reserve judgment until some more reviews (and maybe a patch or two) comes out.
Read MoreA good, sturdy summary of the upcoming Ghost Recon 2 for Xbox is posted over at Gamespy. The article gives us a simple rundown of the weapons, multiplayer modes and other details of gameplay. The conclusion we draw is that the Xbox version may be the one to buy, if the buzz is even close to accurate. In fact, it looks like the title has been custom-made for console action. Indeed, if you're a fan of the original PC version you may be turned off by the changes to the game dynamics. Such minor details as POV-switching are rumored to be gone from the title, making it much less appealing to those of us who adored GR1. The developer is still keeping details of POV-switching hush-hush, which gives us some hope that they'll do the right thing.
Read MoreNah, we hadn't heard of them before either (and we sorta make a habit out of having to know these things), but Dallab has a new Pocket PC Phone coming out called the DP900. Except for being able to hot swap the battery without turning the phone off, the specs on this thing are nothing to sweat over: tri-band GSM/GPRS, a 300MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, 64MB of Flash ROM, a 3-inch, 240 x 320 resolution LCD screen, a built-in digital camera with a rotating lens, SDIO expansion card slot. The big disappointment: no Bluetooth or WiFi.
Read MoreOk, let's get it out of the way first: no matter what there are going to be a bunch of people out there that will never ever accept the whole concept of a personal video player or the prospect of watching video on a very small screen. And that's fine. Not every gadget is right for every person, which is why we here at Engadget try not to take the one-size-fits-all approach to this stuff, and why we're going to skip most of the pseudo-philosophical arguments about whether there really is any demand for a "video iPod". Either way, it's probably best that you don't think of the new Gmini 400 from Archos as a personal video player in the first place. Just completely push that thought out of your mind and try and think of it as a 20GB MP3 player that's roughly the same size and price as the iPod (or at least at $400 it was before they dropped the price of the 20GB iPod down to $300) with a nice 2.2-inch color LCD screen, and a few extras (like being able to handle video clips and play games).
Read MoreFight for NY is the sequel to last year's hip-hop wrestling title Def Jam Vendetta. This time around, Aki has added a classic fighting-genre dimension, but the grappling system remains the key to bringing blazin' amounts of pain. The roster is perhaps the most impressive aspect of the package, featuring over 70 fighters (more than 40 of which are real-life celebrities), including Snoop (or 'Crow') your nemesis in story mode. And speaking of the story, "Fight for NY's story is better than Fable's" (IGN). Believe it or not, this game could be a legitimate contender if not for spotty framerate and camera issues, not to mention no online support. Still, it's worth a play, especially if you've got some friends around.
Read MoreNo matter what anybody says, it's still gonna be at least year before the first HD-DVD players start hitting stores, but if you're looking for something that takes advantage of that fancy high-def plasma TV that's been causing you months of buyer's remorse, V Inc.'s Bravo D2 DVD player scales the video signal up to high-definition level of quality (either 720p or 1080i). You can't exactly create something out of nothing, but it is suppose to be about as good a picture as you'll get out of a DVD player. We'll probably just wait until the V3, a newer version which adds support for WMV-HD, the high-definition version of Windows Media Video, comes out in a few months.
Read MoreLooks like Techspot has a pretty intense review of LG's beast of a 23-inch widescreen LCD monitor/multimedia system, the Flatron 2320A. To list its features would take a great deal of time, so if you want the nitty gritty on this $2,500 remote-controlled HDTV-tuning multimedia monster, best to get it from the horse's mouth. In the mean time, start saving your nickels and dimes unless you're going to plant this thing in your living room instead of that HDTV you were planning on getting.
Read MoreThere are now officially too many ways to listen to the MP3s trapped on our PC's hard drive on your home stereo system, and Tom's Hardware Guide has a head-to-head competition between two of them, Creative's SoundBlaster Wireless Music, which is 802.11b wireless only and only works with PCs; and Slim Devices' Squeezebox (at left) which lets you stream via Ethernet or wireless (802.11b/g is supported), has support for non-Windows users as well, and can play more audio formats than the SoundBlaster Wireless Music. The Squeezebox would win it on specs alone, but at $300 it also costs twice as much.
Read MoreTo complement their rather nice small form factor // (SFF) PCs, Shuttle has released a beauty of a 17-inch LCD monitor, the XP17. Targeting the gamer's market, it runs at 1280x1024 with a 16ms response time, which is one of the fastest out there. However, Shuttle wants a cool $650 for the thing, which is pretty huge, but they've apparently hooked up a $100 rebate, and they will also offer a budget-minded version without the sexy glass panel for under 5 Bens. Either way it's going to be a hard sell conconvincing mommy or the wifey on its merits, but you've got to do what you've got to do.
Read MoreWe haven't see all that many photos floating online of the soon-to-be-released Sidekick II next to the Sidekick I, so we took some. We'll a review of the new Sidekick II and some very special How-To articles just for it coming out very soon. If you want to know something specific about the new Sidekick II, post it on up in the comments.
Read MoreAs long as Apple keeps making the packaging of their products like a high-tech visit to Tiffany's—only to be touched with white gloves, oh so careful to admire each part—people will invite friends over, take photos and share the whole unpacking experience. Hey, we've done it, we're not ashamed. Well, maybe a little.
Read MoreOlympus just rolled out their new C-7000 Zoom, the world's smallest 7 megapixel digital camera, or at the smallest one that also has a 5x optical zoom lens. Also has a 2-inch LCD screen, and the ability to record video clips for as long as there's space on its xD-Picture Card.
Read MoreThe Logitech Rumblepad 2 Vibration Feedback Gamepad (LR2VFG, for short) gets a serious tongue kiss from Tweaknews. I'll give away the ending and tell you they found zero wrong with it, and long list of nice plusses. I wish it were easier to get excited about a gamepad for the PC. But if you don't play sports titles or flight sim games, well, what's the use of them? The price tag of $25 is low enough to make me consider it, just in case I can make it work with Far Cry or something. The review makes a convincing case for those of you who are looking for a new way to control that console-like PC game.
Read MoreJust released to retail, Sly 2: Band of Thieves has been gaining critical acclaim over the past week or so. The first Sly may have slipped under your radar, but the sequel is well worth a play. As one reviewer noted, "It's not a mere continuation, it's a reincarnation" (Cheat Code Central Platinum). That being said, Sly 2 features some of the most creative character and quest, er, heist design to date, that all comes together in a perfectly integrated package of gameplay and storyline. Sucker Punch Studios has really proved the value of care and dedication with this one. Even if talking, fury animals isn't your idea of gaming paradise, we recommend breaking the rules, at least this one time.
Read MoreWe got so excited over Konica Minolta's new Maxxum 7 yesterday that we completely forgot to mention their latest 8 megapixel prosumer digital camera, the DiMAGE A200, which looks to be based on their DiMAGE A2. This one has a 7x optical zoom lens, is a bit smaller and more contoured, but the neat feature is the flip-out LCD which swivels around, very similar to Sony camcorders. No price announced, but it should come in under the A2's price (at least it better).
Read MoreWe had the scoop on these back in July, now Oakley finally has their MP3-playing Thump Sunglasses up on their site. The official specs: USB 2.0, 128MB/256MB of storage, comes in 7 colors, with polarized tinted lenses. The site has a bunch of metal teeth sporting, tattoo mofos—so make sure you're hardcore enough to wear music on your glasses man. While we're on the subject, Oakley, how about making a digital camera version so when you tap the side of the glasses they take a picture? Hmm, maybe we'll just need to hack a pair of these when they come out...
Read MoreThere seems to be a certain type of girl in every school or every movie about high school. She's not the absolute hottest girl in class, but she's hot enough that no dude would ever turn her down for a date. She's not just good looking, but she's smart too. Not like Angelina Jolie in Hackers smart, but still smart enough to be an honor student kicking most people's ass GPA-wise. If you were a nerd, you wanted to hate this girl - she was too pretty to be that smart and too smart to be that pretty - but you couldn't because she was nice too. She would talk to you like you weren't a loser. She might have even done something really nice for you once or twice. She was hot and smart, and somehow it didn't all go to her head - she was your dream date. The K700 is that girl. Some people may not like the new style compared to the T610/T630 but it's still good looking. Sony Ericsson has beefed up the camera, the processor and the software, so it's smart. And to put the phone over the top, Sony Ericsson has added a hundred helpful touches to the interface, making it the kindest phone in the English-speaking world. It's not fair. The K700i is available through many importers like Expansys, and soon it will be available directly through Sony Ericsson's US online store.
Read MoreWe don't normally post stuff like this, but we have to admit it's pretty insane that through Gateway's massive restructuring, they've managed to hawk a 5.25-megapixel digital camera (their DC-T50) for $150 US. As in, you can get it right now at that price, no joke. If you weren't paying attention, that's about a full hundred less than it's nearest competitor on price. So you kind of have to be surprised the camera didn't cheap out and has fully manual settings, 3x optical zoom, a 1.5-inch TFT LCD with optical viewfinder, is bundled with a 32MB SD card, records video and audio, and has its own rechargeable lithium-ion battery. In other words, go buy this thing before they realize their error and change the price to what it's probably supposed to be: in the $400 range. [Via TechBits]
Read MoreWe know being a PC gamer can hit hard on the wallet (we understand how very grueling it can be) but since when is 2,900 clams a "budget" machine? And we want to know why for the Polywell Poly 925CV-3600's price you're stuck getting a Creative 7.1 audio system and not an LCD monitor (you can see where our preferences lie). All that said, at the end of the day PC Magazine gives the 3.6GHz P4, GeForce 6800-based Polywell a pretty good overall rating, and a 94/100 in the gaming category. Whatever.
Read MoreLast time we checked, most Arabic-speaking nations weren't, er, Taiwan, but it looks like someone out there somehow got their lucky little mitts on our gadget crush du jour, the Mobinote DVX-POD 7010 personal video player. They've posted a boatload of pics, but for obvious reasons we can't exactly read the review the author gave of it. We're going to put words in their mouths and say they absofreakinglutely love it. [Thanks, Alkandery]
Read MoreIt was only yesterday that Sony dropped their new PEG-VZ90 handheld on us and already ClieClubJp has a first look at it with tons of photos (especially of its hot, hot, hot OLED screen) of what is without a doubt the freshest Clie you'll probably never ever get to see outside of Japan.
Read MoreWe had serious doubts about the usability of an inflatable surfboard (like ULI's above), but then we saw the video of some dude blowing it up and then totally carving a wave with it, and we were all, "Okay." That's all, really. [Via CacheOp]
Read MoreSteve's Digicams reviews the PowerShot S70, the latest 7.1 megapixel camera from Canon, which features a 3.6x optical zoom (28-100mm), along with Canon's proprietary Ultra High Refractive Index Aspherical (UA Lens) technology which produces better sharpness and clarity. The S70 might not be as sexy as their ELPH series (known as the IXUS in Europe and Asia), but it offers more manual controls for the more serious amateur photographer. The S70 also includes VGA video capture ability, continuous photo-taking at 2 frames per second, ISO settings up to ISO 400, and it accepts Compact Flash, which we like since CF is under $1/MB now. Street price should be just under $600.
Read MoreWe're patiently expecting them to make the actual announcement at the big Photokina trade show which starts in a couple of weeks, but for right now Konica Minolta is confirming that their new Dynax 7/Maxxum 7 digital SLR camera (it sounds like they're still settling on a name) will most definitely have a resolution of 6.1 megapixels.
Read MoreWe'll spare you the Wang jokes this time around, but yeah, we've been scratching our heads at Packard Bell's recent resurrection as a purveyor of MP3 players. NEC must be determined to get some value out of what they paid for when they bought them back in 1996, this despite the fact that at best the brand name must mean next to nothing to most people buying an MP3 player these days (Packard Bell dropped out of the US PC market four years ago but lives on in Europe). Maybe they're trying to corner the ironic hipster market or something (we hear they're crazy for that retro stuff). Anyway, there was a point to this post, and that's that Packard Bell has a new MP3 player out called the AudioDream that comes in 128MB and 256MB versions and seems perfectly alright except for the tragic flaw that its playback volume is distressingly quiet.
Read MoreThey're billing this as a "Personal Video Recorder", but don't get the idea that Plextor's new ConvertX PX-TV402UC is exactly like a TiVo or anything like that. It's really just a box with a built-in TV tuner that you connect to your PC over USB 2.0 that captures broadcast, cable, or satellite TV signals and convert them on the fly into DivX, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, or MPEG-1 files that are automatically saved on your PC's hard drive. Big deal, right? Well, the main advantage this has over simply adding a TV tuner card to your PC is that this thing does all the heavy lifting so your PC's processor won't be overtaxed trying to capture and compress all that video. That and the general niceness of being able to automatically save everything in the DivX format without having to deal with the headache of converting everything from a bulkier format later on. Oh, and they toss in some software that pulls down program listings off the web so you can program your PC to record shows just like you would with a regular digital video recorder. So it is sorta like a personal video recorder. Except for the part about having to add a PC to the mix.
Read MoreSip some morning coffee and enjoy Gamespot's thorough and welcome review of Sims 2. If the article is to be believed, then we have another hit on our hands. After the disappointment of Sims Online, many fans have been waiting for the official sequel to the best-selling game in all of history with bated breath. According to Gamespot, the title delivers on its promise and should succeed in sucking all our free time (i.e. between meetings). There seems to be some room for improvement, but the inevitable expansion sets should guarantee that this game is worth the 50 bucks you've been saving in the piggy bank.
Read MoreWe don't exactly live in the part of town where we might be able to use Sharp's new NP-20CX-S kitchen waste composter (most of the organic composting in New York takes place on the sidewalks or under your shoe), but we'd really like to see it in action. Apparently you feed it some Composting Bio Mix (no comment) in an odor-sealed chamber which should quietly break down all your organic refuse for you (don't even think about feeding it styrofoam, young man!). [Via GadgetMadness]
Read MoreReader Kai Cherry tossed us this quick appraisal (with a bunch of pics) of his new lust object, Siemens' slider-style SL65 cellphone: The display on this thing is sexy and has a nice fade out effect. The camera didn't come with a data cable or a flash attachment. The joystick is too small, and it's too easy to hit the browser button underneath it by mistake (I'm looking in the manual to see if it can be changed). Also, this little phone is LOUD..they aren't kidding!* There is even a note in the manual warning you to make sure YOU ANSWER THE CALL before you put it to your ear. I like loud, though, it helps when you're blasting music in the car. *Note: There have even been warnings that under some very specific circumstances the SL65 might cause hearing damage.
Read MoreIt'll be perfect for pervy-types who want to focus on, um, very specific parts of the video they're enjoying, but Sony says they're hard at work (and you can bet on that) on Digital Reality Creation Multifunction v2, a new technology for televisions that'll let you pan around and zoom in on something while keeping the image crystal clear.
Read MoreLogitech speakers came out of nowhere a couple of years ago, and have been setting the standard for affordable quality ever since. Their premiere THX line-up put speaker makers like Klipsch on notice. The end result has been innovation and reasonable prices in one of the most important aspects of gaming — sound. I wax poetic because this past weekend I finally set up the rear and center speakers on the old gaming rig. What the hell was I thinking? Why did it take me months to set them up? I don't know how I played through Doom 3 without that all-encompassing sound. The Z5300s, barring some disaster in the Logitech R&D labs, will probably do their forefathers proud. Adrenaline Vault certainly likes them, saying "The Z5300s do a credible job at pretty much every task you throw at them, all at the cost of a decent set of quality stereo speakers."
Read MoreImaging Resource has a review of the DiMAGE Z10, Konica Minolta's new 3.2 megapixel with an 8x optical zoom lens and a startup time of just half a second which is meant as sort of a budget-entry to their Z-series of cameras. They like it, but they suggest that if you can afford it you're better off spending a little more and picking up the DiMAGE Z2 instead. [Via Photography Blog]
Read MoreWe're not entirely sure how she got a Beemer with the iPod option on loan for a week, but Xeni at BoingBoing makes no mistake about it: digital audio players properly interfaced with your automobile is the future. She complains that BMW's implementation is a bit lacking (which is disappointing, considering the five hunnies you've got to drop for the option), but we can understand as your iPod is left unsecured to fly around in the glove compartment, and track information isn't transmitted to the deck head, as promised. All the same, just like the iPod itself, in another couple generations it's not just going to be hot, it's going to be totally essential. Next up: the Rio Karma Hummer, and the iAudio M3 Mercedes?
Read MoreI had a friend who taught high school, but not just any high school though. He taught at a school for kids who were training to be Olympic athletes. They have schools like that, you know. Often times the students, as well as people from other schools, would refer to this academy as "the school for strong stupid kids." Because of their physical prowess, many of the students there had been told they were stupid so often that they came to believe it, even though it wasn't true. These kids were smart, but they needed the guidance of the academy's teachers to make the most of their wits as well as their bodies. So the Samsung D415 needs to spend a little time with some insightful teachers. It has power, it has looks, but it needs some guidance to release its inner intelligence. Like the "strong stupid kids," the D415 is already good, but a better user interface could do wonders for this phone. If you like what you read about this phone, it's available now through T-Mobile.
Read MoreIt's awfully ironic. In order to write a good review of a cell phone, you have to be a geek, but geeks don't use cell phones the same way that 90% of the people out there do. We're tired of reading reviews that most people can't relate to, so we're bucking the trend. We spent weeks asking normal people what they do on their cell phones, what factors matter to them, and how they choose phones. Then we compiled those factors into our reviews, which will be written in plain English - promise. Each review will start out with a little fun - every phone will be a person you went to high school with. Not some generic Breakfast Club stereotype - more specific - like a person we bet you actually knew back your salad days. Then we'll rate each phone in a series of categories, giving it a score for that particular aspect, and telling you a few specifics about why we scored the phone that way. Our scale isn't some arbitrary numeric nonsense, it's simple to understand. Nope - The phone doesn't have this feature. Ugh - The phone barely does this or does it so bad you wish it didn't do it at all. Yup - The phone does this as well as any other phone Oh Yah! - The phone kicks ass in this department. We will only assign these "grades" to each of our categories, not to the phone as whole. If you didn't like the person from high school we compare the phone to, then maybe it's not for you. We know it sounds crazy, bet we bet it just might work. Our first Phone Factor, the Samsung D415 for T-Mobile will be available in a few hours. We just wanted to prepare you. Update: the first Phone Factor is online now.
Read MoreThe ultra-connected Xeni Jardin gets behind the wheel(s) of a BMW 3-Series coupe with an iPod sitting in the glovebox, controlled through the steering wheel, and displayed (sort of) on the radio while cranking out bluegrass (mmm.. bluegrass) and funkadelic roller disco. She talks about it on the NPR radio show, Day-to-Day and, on BoingBoing, writes, "So, bottom line: super-fly car, and a fun first edition of a system that needs a few finishing touches to live up to feature demands of discriminating geeks." Great look at the car from an in-touch, techy point of view!
Read MoreGoVideo has been showing off their new D2740, a networked progressive scan DVD player with 802.11g that can stream all those video and audio files that are trapped on your PC's hard drive and just waiting to move around the house (Gateway, KiSS Technlogy, Apex, and others have something similiar on the market already). Should be out sometime next month.
Read MoreSo far only a couple of reviews of that new BlackBerry 7100t have trickled out, but both PC Magazine and hoary old Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal mainly have nice things to say about RIM's new smartphone (or whatever you want to call it). Of course they focus mainly on the unusual newfangled keyboard they've grafted onto this thing, which squeezes two letters onto each key and uses software to guess which one you want, with Mossberg saying it's not quite as easy to use as the one on the Treo (why are we not surprised he'd say that?) and PC Mag finding that they were typing with ease after the first 15 minutes. Read - Wall Street Journal Read - PC Magazine
Read MoreNah, it doesn't run on Microsoft's Media Center PC operating system (which may be a plus or a minus depending which way you swing these days), but OMWAVE's new EH1 Media PC does have that A/V component-look you'll want so it won't look all out of place in your living room. Comes in three versions (they get all cutesy and call them "XL", "L", and "M") with up to a 3GHz processor, DVD burner, and up to 1GB of RAM, plus they also toss an RF remote and a wireless trackball keyboard in there for some proper couch surfing.
Read MoreA source who prefers to remain anonymous just sent us some real live pictures of the new Nokia 9300 alongside the previously annnounced 9500 so you can see just how much smaller Nokia could make the Communicator by leaving out Wi-Fi and a camera.
Read MoreWe can feel it must be getting pretty close now, and though we still haven't gotten any official word from any of the carriers (at least not any of the ones here in the States) about when Motorola's new MPx220 Smartphone might become available, spiky-haired Canadian cellphone powerhouse Howard Chui produced a sizeable ten page review of the one he managed to get his hands on. No surprise that it improves on its predecessor, the MPx200 (imagine how pissed we'd be if it wasn't), but while the Mpx220 is fast and handles stuff like playing videos or music without a hitch, it still manages to take terrible pictures. Oh, yeah, and it gets slightly better reception than the MPx200, too. [Via Smartphone Thoughts]
Read MoreIf you haven't already, we recommend you give this one a spin. Yes, Burnout 3: Takedown is by far the badest, fastest, craziest arcade racer ever concocted. Simply put, it's addictive. Criterion and EA have teamed up to deliver a sure-to-be classic, in line with genre defining titles like F-Zero and Wipeout. It's the total package: gameplay, graphics, multiplayer, replay value, and it's running at 60 frames per second!... If you still don't believe the hype, use the link to find out why the critics are saying, "There is no better racing experience on Xbox or any other system and anyone who ignores Burnout 3 is a fool" (Hilary Goldstein, IGN). 'Nuff said.
Read MoreAnd here's a lengthy review up of the S700i, Sony Ericsson's new swivel-style 1.3 megapixel cameraphone. And playing to Sony Ericsson's decision to hype the camera part of their cameraphones, the S700i does sorta almost look like a Sony Cyber-shot digital camera from the back, and he says it's the "best camera with a phone built-in you can buy and use outside of Japan." Could this phone please come out here soon? [Thanks, Rishi]
Read MoreCourtesy of another reader we've got a second hands-on report about the "Charm", RIM's codename for a new, more, cellphone-like BlackBerry they have coming out later this year which puts two letters onto each key to try and shrink down the size of the keyboard. He had this to say about it: I've played with it and love it! The PROs This thing is awesome! I just came from a tradeshow where T-Mobile was exhibiting. I spent an hour with this thing and couldn't put it down. The predictive text is unusually accurate. And the more you type, the better it understands your writing style. It also seems to build a custom dictionary for you. The only hard thing to get used to is not watching what you type. At first, the random key assignments start showing up (rs481xcwo) , then once it has enough info, it resolves what you've typed. Once you get the hang of it, it's about as fast as shorthand. Next, the screen is awesome. I had no trouble reading anything under intense floor lighting. My phone was washed out but the RIM phone was crisp. The browser has been refined. I hit some of my usual URL haunts and this thing did a great job of translating content. Much better than the weak WAP browsers they have now. The CONs The engineer that owned this one said it did not have bluetooth, or camera. I guess if all you really need is good corporate email bouncing and a decent browser this fills the bill. A little on the heavy side. But not too bad. I would rate it a bit heavier than the Treo 600. All-in-All I have a Treo 600, a RIM 7230 and a Siemens SL56. I've seen the new Treo 650 but my vote still falls on the new RIM. Why? Treo relies on typical POP or IMAP to ger mail. My network cops keep our Exchange Server locked down tight. No forwarding—no POP—period! The only way around this is with RIM's redirector. My 7230 gives me better access to what I really need. The Treo is nice but I can't use POP alone. The T-Mob guys said there was another unit in route. Not sure what it's fixing but he thought t-mob would drop this on the market before Christmas.
Read MoreBreaking away from the corporate image, the HP's is aiming their new iPaq rx3715 Mobile Media Companion squarely at the home user. Besides some cosmetic differences (a new casing and a brand new multimedia-focused welcome screen), and the usual PDA stuff (Bluetooth, 802.11b WiFi, built-in digital camera, an SD card slot), the big deal is that it has special media software for audio, video and streaming, and a more powerful IR blaster so it can double as a universal remote control. Not too shabby, but at $500 it's not quite an impulse buy just yet.
Read MoreEveryone (including us) has mainly been focusing on Creative's first foray into the category, but PC Mag has a review of one of the other new Portable Media Centers introduced yesterday, iRiver's PMC-120. Just like with Creative's Zen personal video player iRiver couldn't manage to fit more than 20GB of storage in there, but at least they were able to attach a kickstand to the back so you can prop the PMC-120 up when you're watching a movie rather than having to hold it in your hand for two hours. P.S. - Why has Finding Nemo become the default demonstration video for these things?
Read MoreGreat! The first thorough review of Fable has hit us, and it looks like we better whip out the credit card. They give it an 86/100 and praise it for its personalization, great audio/video package and overall gameplay. Not bad for a game that took a measly four years to make. Head on over to get the details. If we can lay our mitts on it, some of us may skip work today and make it a long and laborless Labor Day weekend.
Read MoreYeah, PC World has a review of it too, but what we're really digging is AV Watch's take on the new 5GB Rio Carbon that shows it side-by-side with Creative's 4GB Nomad MuVo² (the one on the left) and the iPod mini (the one on the right if this is your first time reading Engadget). Read - PC World Read - AV Watch
Read MoreAs long as we're talking about the debut of the first Portable Media Centers today (see Phillip's review from earlier today of Creative's first entry), Portable Media World (guess what that site is about) got hands-on with the PMC-100, iRiver's new personal video player running on Microsoft's new Portable Media Center software.
Read MoreSony's new projector, the VPL-CS7 is small, light and comes with a bunch of not too shabby features. With 1800 ANSI lumens the picture is bright enough to look good in any light. It's also got a 2.3m focal length, a whole bunch of presets, and password protection. But the best part is really the fact that it's HDTV-ready, so if you can convince your boss to get one make sure he or she likes you enough to let you take it home at night. Won't be easy, since the projector is $1,400, but it's worth a try.
Read MoreIt was a long time in coming, but the first personal video players running on Microsoft's Portable Media Center software are just about to arrive. We managed to get our hands on one and have been playing around for it for the past few weeks, and our review has tons of photos, exclusive screenshots and even show how to get DVDs on this puppy. The soundbite is that we think the Portable Media Center is good for folks with Media Center PCs and PCs with TV tuner cards which can record TV-that's really the one killer feature of these new devices. If you don't have a Media Center and don't record TV to your PC (or don't download a crapload of movies) then this device might not be quite as useful for you.
Read MoreBoy, they sure do know how to make some scary videocards at Sapphire. The Sapphire Radeon x800 Pro Toxic is a mouthful, and an eyeful at the same time. The company may not be subtle in their packaging, but the Avault review finds a lot to like about their utilization of the hardware. Sure, it takes up two slots, but isn't it worth it if you can play Far Cry at maximum settings? The eight page review touches on just about every aspect of the card. Which is what you want to see before you go out and spend your inheritance on a piece of computer hardware.
Read MoreIt clearly is open season on cellphone headsets in Japan now that the November ban on cellphoning while driving is approaching. Among the bunch is the slightly unusual tel-tel-bone (Japanese product law states that all consumer goods must have a pun somewhere in their names, if you were wondering), a bone-conduction headest mike. The selling point is that since you don't have anything covering your ears it's still possible to hear what's going on around while you drive, though we suspect that the risk of people pointing and laughing at the boxlike protrusions stuck to the side of your head still exists.
Read MoreSteve's DigiCams takes a first look at the Cyber-shot DSC-L1, Sony's dimuntive new 4.1 megapixel digital camera that's a mere 3.75 by 1.75 by 1 inches in size but still has a 3x optical zoom lens. Gotta love that brushed aluminum (or faux brushed aluminum as the case may be). [Via PhotographyBlog]
Read MoreIt might cost you $25 to pick up a wireless access point at Circuit City, but if you want to fool around with some enterprise-level WiFi you normally gotta shell out the big bucks for some commercial-grade ceiling-mounted gear. Which is why Aruba Wireless Networks and Ortronics collaborated on the Wi-Jack Wi-Fi Outlet, a wall-mounted WiFi access point that gets the cost down to about to around $125 and comes in two versions, one with a WiFi access point alone and another with an access point and two Ethernet jacks. They each come in 802.11a and 802.11b/g flavors so everyone can play along.
Read MoreWe're not entirely sure why you'd want a Muscle Arm VESA stand over something a little more, how do you say, classy? And we're not even going to get into how suggestive the packaging is (yes, that would appear to be a naked-clad body builder straddling the thing) but hey, it's your LCD screen monitor. You can mount it (pun intended) however you like. [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreWe know this unhinged, genius Dutch artist created these At-At-Walker-looking creatues just so he could play lion-master with his walking stick (argh, stay back unruly beasts!), but that's definitely the first thing we would do if we encountered one of these creatures lumbering around the beach. The artist created these skeleton things, which he named Animaris Rhinoceros Transport, out of a steel skeleton and polyester skin and since they're almost 5 meters tall they actually move (must look at the videos) by wind power. The Animaris' weigh about 2 tons each and can carry passengers, though the artist says that he's going to make living quarters in the beast since travel can only be accomplished during strong winds. Right, good thinking, the artist also wants to set the beasts free on nearby beaches so that they can "live their own lives". Alright so he's completely loopy, but in that brilliant "It's Alive!" kind of way. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreSome guy who works for KISS Institute for Practical Robotics chronicled his ordeal of having to buy 350 GameBoy Advance units to turn into robots for Botball, a high school and college robotics competition. Apparently after a number of stops, he ended up just ordering them en masse from Gamestop; the army of GBAs will be powered by our favorite GameBoy robotic kit from Charmed Labs, and we're assuming will be the most unbelievable thing anyone's ever seen with a bunch of commodity videogame hardware.
Read MoreWe told you before about Vstone's super-expensive (uh, that would be about $4,500 US) Robovie-M. Nothing much has changed with the 4.2-pound robot, just that you can see a whole ton of movies of it in action on Vstone's site, like this one of it standing on one foot, "stretching" like before a jog. Trust us, they're totally worth it. [Thanks, Mr. Igneous]
Read MoreWe'll spare you the obvious jokes about hospital food (but probably won't avoid making one about the prospect of sexy nursebots), but the Delta Regional Medical Center in Greenville, Mississippi is using the Pyxis HelpMate SP Robotic Courier System to move stuff around in the hospital like meals for patients, medicine, lab samples, supplies, and medical records. Once the hospital's floorplan has been programmed into it (along with info about how to deal with the elevators), you just load the robot, which they've nicknamed the "EMMA" (which stands for Electronic Materials Management Associate") up with whatever you want to sent and then tell it where you want it to go. Too bad it looks like a photocopier on wheels, it's really ruining our secret fantasies about being tended to by futuristic nursebots. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreWe know this sounds crazy, but pretty soon rats with probes wired into their brains will be deployed to earthquake and other disaster areas to help try and help locate survivors. The rats are trained to recognize the smell of humans (they do this by using another implant to directly stimulate the "reward center" of their brain—where do we sign up for one?) and when that human-smell recognizing part of the brain is triggered the signal is then relayed to a little radio trasmitter, which beams the info back to rescue workers. The rats can also be trained (and wired) to look for explosives. Sounds a little bit like someone's been rereading The Secret of Nimh to us.
Read MoreThe soccer-playing Segway made its debut at the RoboCup in Portugal this past July. The soccerbot uses a Segway P series (smaller model) and sports a Linux-powered laptop to handle all the gooey stuff like ball tracking and locomotion. We can only hope this inspires some sort of 80's style feel-good movie where a rag-tag group of robots dream of making it to the "big time" and practice each day to fulfill their dream of going to the World Cup. Maybe Steve Guttenberg can be the coach, since he already knows how to deal with robots. [Via SegwayChat]
Read MoreWe'll be posting our review, photos and video of the new Roomba Discovery Robotic Vacuum later this week, but for now we'd like to call attention to something very special—the new Roomba has a port on it, which is just asking—in fact begging—to be interfaced. We can't think of a better addition to a robotic product, and all that time it's going to be saving from not having to manually vacuum we can now squander on hacking away the very same device.
Read MoreWe've had vague nightmares about this sort of thing, but now that it's been done we have to admit we're pretty stoked (in that looking over your shoulder all the time kind of way). Some insane Germans who go by Team NimbRo made a neck interface for a Robosapien, removed the thing's head, and replaced it with a PocketPC and a LifeView FlyCam. And it's ugly. As if that wasn't enough, they wrote software to make it totally autonomous, and posted the API and how-tos available online. If we didn't think this was so amazing we might be really, really scared right now. [Via GadgetMadness]
Read MoreIt looked like a joke to us when we first spotted the RoboLobster (c'mon a robotic lobster?), but this bot actually has a useful purpose: to find mines. The US military developed these bots, which copy the great grip real lobsters have, allowing it to get under or over rocks with ease to find that hidden mine. Sometimes it makes more sense to just copy nature rather than create something entirely new, and the concept of biomimetics has totally caught hold of the robotics field lately, with robotic mules, snakes, flies, and geckos all crawling and wriggling out of laboratories.
Read MoreThey could get creative and just market it as cybork, but a meatpacking plant in South Dakota just recalled about 1,100 pounds of pork from pigs that had had microchips implanted in them for a research study, since they're worried somebody might accidentally get a little silicon in their sausage. [Via BoingBoing]
Read MoreUnless our worst nightmares about our robot underlings finally rebelling against us have come true, this photo of a giant robot in Times Square that Jason Kottke snapped with his cameraphone is probably just some sort of promotional thing for that new movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. [Thanks, Alex]
Read MoreThis is definitely the happiest looking robot we've seen in a long time, which is fitting because Fujitsu's vocation-bot is intended to take over some of the lesser-enjoyed lots in Japan, where we're sure turnover is high and a smile is rare. We can see this thing greeting, helping, and accomodating guests, but have to admit we're throughly unintimidated by a happy-smiley robo-security guard. [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreYou have to feel a little hurt that Sony's best product is something that they will never, never sell. And it's not that we're jealous that British journalist Simon Perry got to hang out with the QRIO backstage and we didn't, because we're not, we swear (oh, god yes we are); it's that the QRIO is just so good. We had no idea that it weighs 15½ pounds without its battery, and that it expends so much energy and AI time on keeping balanced—if it can't keep itself up, it knows to fall on its hands and arms to keep from damaging the all-important stereo cameras and head sensors. But perhaps the best part is that if the QRIO demonstration team isn't nice to QRIO before the show, it refuses to cooperate in front of the audience. So you kind of have to wonder how it feels about being shut down and put in a case every night (we're guessing not too keen).
Read MoreActually not the same one as that water striding robot that some scientists at MIT created last year, there is actually another insectbot which is able to walk on water, this one courtesy of researchers at Carnegie Mellon's NanoRobotics Lab. This one is just half an inch in size, with eight 2-inch steel-wire legs coated with a special water-repelling plastic. Someone needs to mate one of these with the EcoBot II, that insect-eating tobot from yesterday. [Via Slashdot]
Read MoreWe know what you're thinking. A robot that totes around human sewage, digesting living beings for energy? What, you're not inexorably excited about this? The EcoBot II (ah, what a benign, nonthreatening name) is fed flies into 12 sewage-based bacterial fuel cells, which break them down, digest them, and use the electrons released as current. And we don't wanna hear no jibberjabber about how it's only a matter of time before these bots turn on their human masters, because if you're gonna go, what's so bad about being slowly digested in human feces by giant robot oppressors?
Read MoreWe're getting a little tired of all the robot vs. human games out there, but hey, we guess robotic foosball (that's table football for those that haven't visited a frat lately, or table soccer for those who haven't visited America lately) is just one more to add to the mix. German roboticists at University of Freiburg connected the rods on one side of the table to motors and an electronic control system, which they say can beat 85% of casual players; we don't know if it's sadder to play foosball against a robot, or to just play foosball at all. We were thinking of getting Bobby Fischer's take on the whole subject of robot competitors, but we're not sure he can receive calls from inside that Japanese jail cell.
Read MoreCheck out this robot created by Charmed Labs. Apparently, they took a GBA and strapped it to a bunch of LEGO blocks, and of course... it's a robot! The 'creature' is controlled by Bluetooth and is used for genreal robotics experiments, education, or just everyday robot wars. You can bet we're adding this one to our wishlist!
Read MoreAlright, alright, alright. Please promise us that if you shell out the $1,645 for the Kondo KHR-1 build-your-own fighting robot kit that you'll only use it for kicking the asses of lesser robots and won't make it dance around or perform tai chi or greet foreign dignitaries or any of that more civilized crap they've suckered the QRIO into doing.
Read MoreToshiba (and GS Magicstor) aren't the only ones that have figured out how to build a 0.85-inch hard drive—Samsung says they have one in the works as well but wouldn't say a thing about how much storage capacity it might have or when it would start showing up in gadgets. But they definitely are working on it, and they did just introduce the world's first cellphone with a built-in hard drive, if that gives you any idea of where they're going with all this.
Read MoreWednesday night Ryan and I hit the big opening party for the Samsung Experience, Samsung's brand spanking new electronics showcase on the third floor of the Time-Warner Center here in New York. Rumors of a Jon Bon Jovi appearance never panned out, dashing our hopes of harrassing him into riding that blaze of glory and playing that song from Young Guns 2 for us, but it was probably for the best since it forced us to buckle down and focus on the gadgets. It's sounds weird, but you can't actually buy anything here. Samsung realized that anyone who is serious about buying electronics and getting the best possible deal is going to shop online, so rather than try and sell any anyone they just set up a place where you could go and check things out and ask your questions without feeling pressured to buy. It completely eliminates all the guilt of going to Circuit City to scope something out but then doing a Froogle search and paying way less for it than you would have in the store. If we were them, we'd set up tons of free Internet terminals where people could just buy what they wanted right then and there from whichever online retailer had the best price. Anyway, on to the gadgets:
Read MoreThey're more about cameraphones than cameras, but Samsung does actually have a line of proper standalone, you-can't-make-a-call-with-them digital cameras, and word that they're adding six more to their line up has leaked out in advance of the big Photokina trade show which starts a few days from now (anyone going and want to send us back a field report?). Here's the dirt: The flagship is the new seven megapixel Digimax V70, which has a 2.0-inch rotating LCD screen and can record MPEG-4 video clips. The five megapixel Digimax A5 and six megapixel Digimax A6 (pictured above) are their new mid-range models. Both have 1.8-inch LCD screens and optical zoom lenses, though the press release we saw didn't mention how much zoom you're getting yourself into with either one (we assume, as always, 3x). The four megapixel Digimax A400 (pictured at right) is their new entry-level camera, which has a 2-inch LCD screen, 2.8x optical zoom lens, and all the usual basic stuff. The Digimax U-CA 505 (pictured at right) and the Digimax U-CA 501 both have a resolution of five megapixels, a 2.0-inch LCD screen, and can record video clips for as long as you have space on your memory card. Downside: no optical zoom lens, at least not as far as we can tell; the main difference between the 505 and the 501 seems to be in that the 505 has a silver casing and the 501 has a white casing. But we could be wrong. [Via Photography Blog]
Read MoreWe got the hook up on the specs for Samsung's new SPH-V5400, the world's first cellphone with a built-in hard drive which they just introduced in South Korea. Besides the 1-inch 1.5GB drive, the SPH-V5400 works on high-speed EV-DO networks and has a 262,000 color, 240x320 LCD screen, a built-in one megapixel digital camera, MP3 player, digital video recording and playback with a video-out function for connecting it up to a television (and there's room enough for 42 hours of video on the hard drive). Better still, courtesy of a USB cable it also pulls double duty as a portable storage drive. Of course, the caveat with the SPH-V5400 is that this isn't really something you can just buy over there and expect to be able to use over here (you probably already knew that), but that said there are tentative plans to release the phone outside of South Korea (maybe when either Verizon or Sprint build a nationwide EV-DO network?). [Big ups to Ethan for this one]
Read MoreThis week's How-To is something more of a glimpse in to the future, a future where your dog has a cell phone, webcam and electronic tag, and maybe even talks to you. Maybe. Some of this dog-tech isn't available yet, and some of it is (oh, you Japanese...); our overview includes some interesting iterations of pet technology, and we even made our own version of a dog webcam along with the first ever canine photographer's photo gallery.
Read MoreKind of like the Ambient Orb (though certainly a lot less electronic), the Kelvin Vase subtly reacts to its environs, changing color according to slight temperature and atmospheric variations. It's a chunk of change for $90, but who can put a price on your love for your science-nerd girlfriend? Don't let her get away, man, seriously.
Read MoreNot content with just seeing through walls, researchers in Australia have developed technology that will eventually lead to a camera being able to see through fog and smoke. We'd love to be able to see this in action, but for now, they've told us that this thing can capture 3 images simultaneously from one lens, then the camera filters through smoke, fog, and dust particles to obtain the target image. [Via Slashdot]
Read MoreYou know the Pentagon has been mining old sci-fi flicks when the good old ray gun shows up as the latest Iraq-intended weapon of the day. (full disclosure: the cartoon image is not the real Raytheon product). We understand that these non-lethal weapons are supposed to be the nice version to putting a bullet in you're opponent, but do they all have to be so disturbing? Raytheon's Pain Ray shoots an invisible beam of energy that burns the skin, they say like touching a light-bulb all over your body. That might sound all warm and fuzzy, but it's probably more like falling on a searing hot grill. We're thinking that the Pain Ray probably won't turn Fallujah into an American-loving Wal-Mart haven, but could really piss off a lot more peeps who don't appreciate the kitsch factor of the ray gun.
Read MoreIt's nice to see so much going on in the field technology for the disabled today, kind of makes you think mankind is actually doing good or something amongst all the embroilments and political turmoil. An Israeli company has developed a $200 cellphone for the lip-reading deaf; the caller's voice is electronically mimed by a character on screen, whose lips can be read. Well hot damn, why didn't we think of that? Guess we'll just have to put all our brainpower to work figuring out how to make the thing expressively swear or spit invective, kind of like with those awful Oddcast ads. [Via textually.org]
Read MoreBeing a dentist can be tough enough as it is, but do you really want to have to explain to your patients that no, they don't need to wear headphones if they want to listen to music because your new dentist chair has a built-in CD player and uses bone-conduction to create the sound they'll enjoy? Just tell 'em it has a built-in speaker or something because seriously, telling people you're going to use ultrasonic waves to vibrate their skull to create sound just doesn't work. Hopefully Yoshida Seisakusho KK, (the Japanese company that is hawking these) will have better luck over there where things are, you know, different.
Read MoreThey're not really all that smart (yet) or as actually small as dust (yet), but smart dust just officially exited the lab and become a commercial reality. Dust Networks has begun selling their SmartMesh Evaluation Kit, which comes with 12 low-power radio-enabled "motes" which are basically sensors that collect data and then create a wireless mesh network to relay it back. The motes come with sensor plug-ins that can monitor temperature, light, and tilt, but eventually you'll probably to rig a smart dust sensor net to cheaply and easily keep tabs on pretty much anything that can be measured or detected.
Read MoreWe have a feeling Microsoft is going to be none too happy about this, but Matsushita Electric Works has already commercialized technology that uses human skin as a data transmission medium to a number of manufacturers. Apparently some company called Teraoka Seikou will use the system to help butchers measure and sell meats. Which is an unexpected fit for the technology given the millions of other possible uses, but we won't deny how eerily appropriate it is for a meat-seller to be using skin-transmitted data devices. We can't wait!
Read MoreWe're not sure we really want to know the large degree of pollution we suck into our lungs everyday, or that unfortunately our bedroom window remains just over a bus stop causing our own imminent urban emphysema. Well we do, but we'll be forced to move to Alaska when we see the exact numbers. But that's what the British Urban Pollution Monitoring Project is testing out, bike-mounted smog sensors which monitor carbon-monoxide levels at locations throughout a city. To advertise and recruit bike-riding volunteers, the project places pollution sensors around the city which texts passersby explaining the pollution-level at their exact location. The project is a collaboration of environmental scientists at a range of universities and the group is looking to gain a manufacturing contract to make the pollution sensors. [Via The Feature]
Read MoreAn inventor in the UK has developed a new type of aircraft called the Fan Wing that uses blades that look like they were swiped off a wheat harvester to increase lift and allow for a more flexible propulsion system so it can carry heavier loads than regular airplanes. It's in development now and we might see one in commercial use in less than 5 years. Some in the aircraft industry are already hailing the FanWing as "the fourth great breakthrough in aeronautical science", but if we've gone from the Concorde to this you can't expect us to be just a little bit disappointed. [via BoingBoing]
Read MoreTo hear the commercials tell it Lasik surgery can work for anyone. Guess you can't trust advertising, since those with severe myopia are out of luck as far as getting their eyes cut up with lasers is concerned. Now, with the invention of STAAR, a permanent contact lens implant, they too can join the party. The lenses are made of a collagen/polyhema blend and are currently in the last stages of FDA approval. Oh, and if something goes wrong; the lenses can be removed or changed. (Good call on that one.) The process is expected to cost about 20% more than Lasik.
Read MoreIt quite literally is another day, another cameraphone here at Engadget HQ, but worth noting is the news that tomorrow Verizon Wireless is going to roll out the Audiovox CDM-9900, which besides being cheap (you can pick it up for $50 with a two-year contract), a high-resolution 240x320 pixel, 262,000 color LCD screen. The camera might only be VGA quality, that's way cheap for a phone with that nice of a screen.
Read MoreWell, looks like the way, way long overdue Motorola A630 (that would be their tiny-like pocket communicator folding phone) has made its debut appearance on Amazon starting at $280 (the price drops to a hunnid after rebates and with a year service-contract with T-Mobile). In case you've forgotten (not that we'd blame you since it was supposed to be out months ago) the A630's got Bluetooth, MP3 ringtones, a 176 x 220 65k color display, and quad-band GSM. Better snap it up now before we hit the holiday crunch and you actually have to spend your money on other people (ugh!). [Via MobileTracker]
Read MoreDigital terrestrial broadcasting to mobile devices is supposed to be starting in Japan this October (though the wires have been awful quiet recently), and right on cue, Sanyo hits us with a prototype cellphone that will receive broadcasts in the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format that Japan has adopted. There's enough battery life for two hours of viewing, it'll record and play back programs to a miniSD card, and it also supports data broadcasts to allow all sorts of funky interactiveness while you view, though on a screen that size we cynically suspect that the level of funk may be more uncle-in-bellbottoms than Marvin Gaye.
Read MoreWe almost don't care how he got his hands on one, but a poster over at TreoCentral got an hour to play with Sprint's version of the new Treo 650 and fortunately for us, he took lots of pics. Unfortunately for us, he doesn't seem to have had much experience using a camera and almost all of the pics are frustratingly blurry. But we'll take what we can get. What we can confirm from these pics is that it does have removable battery, a much higher resolution display, and runs on Palm OS Garnet 5.4.5 (at least this one does). Make sure you click to see the rest of the pics. [Thanks, Colin]
Read MoreNot sure if you noticed but flipphones are way out and swivelphones are way in, as evidenced by the Koi/KX2, Kyocera's new one megapixel cameraphone which may or may not be offered by a certain carrier that starts with "V" and ends with an "N". PC Mag wasn't particularly impressed with the shots it took or how large it is, but they sure are mesmerized by its swivelingness.
Read MoreNormally these things are sold mainly to business and military customers, but Node (a company based in the UK) has just come out with the Explorer v2, a ruggedized PDA aimed at a consumer market which we're not sure has exactly been clamoring for a ruggedized PDA (ruggedized cellphones are a different matter). Anyway, if you've been looking for a way to check your calendar while hiking or rappelling or kayaking, the Explorer v2 is waterproof, shock resistant, and has a six-hour battery life, a 400MHz Xscale processor, a color LCD screen, and built-in WiFi (which you probably won't find out there in the woods). Too bad it's running on their own proprietary system, it'd be nice if the Explorer ran Windows Mobile or Palm OS since there's plenty of software available already for those platforms. Are we getting super nitpicky or what? [Via Slashdot]
Read MoreWe have a funny feeling that the people at Sprint aren't going to be thrilled to hear about something that'll suck up so much bandwidth on those "unlimited" PCS Vision data plans they offer (which are really only unlimited if you don't start using up inordinate amounts of bandwidth), but a company called Quadline is offering a little software app called Catahoula Streaming Audio that'll let you stream your MP3 and WAV files directly from your PC to your PCS Vision-compatible Sprint cellphone (note that it doesn't work with any of the Sprint phones that run on the Palm or Pocket PC operating system).
Read MoreFor right now the only Palm-powered smartphone with a one megapixel digital camera (at least until the Treo 650 comes out), Qool Labs' new Qool QDA-700 (dude, that name is so not cool) also has tri-band GSM/GPRS and a 2.8-inch color LCD screen (and apparently has never been photographed). Will not be rocking your world Stateside—this one's aimed exlcusively at Europe and Asia. UPDATE: Apparently the QDA-700's soul has been stolen by a camera—Mobinaute has a few pics of it here. Looks a lot like those Motorola PDA phones that are popular in Asia. [Thanks, Pat]
Read MoreDon't ask us why it took them so long to get around to it in the first place (especially considering their target market of go go go business people), but Research In Motion just rolled out the first BlackBerry with Bluetooth. So the good news is that you'll be able to use the BlackBerry 7290 with a wireless Bluetooth headset, the bad news (at least for anyone here in the States) is that the only carrier who'll have it for now is O2, which'll offer it in Britain, Ireland, and Germany starting in November. They've also made a few other small improvements, like a brighter backlight and upping the amount of memory to 32MB. UPDATE: Bad news become good news. Cingular will have this here in the US starting next month. [Thanks, Chris]
Read MoreWe'll toss out the usual caveat that there is zero official confirmation for this, but we're now hearing that Verizon Wireless is likely to start carrying the new Treo 650 sometime in mid-November, which sorta makes sense since we got confirmation that Sprint should be getting it sometime in late November. Still haven't heard much about when any of the other carriers might be getting, and as is all too common when it comes to these things, they could always push back (or move forward) the release date.
Read MoreOk, from the looks of it this is way less of a Sidekick competitor than we'd originally thought (or hoped), but another, even better pic has leaked out of Nokia's new 7710 cellphone. Just like its predecessor, the 7700 (which never actually saw the light of day), there is no keyboard or keypad to be found, and while we've heard that no sidetalkin' will be required, you'll probably want to pair this sucker up with a Bluetooth headset rather than press your (oily) face against its large LCD screen. The 7700 never made it off the ground for a variety of reasons, but it did sport a passing resemblance to a stormtrooper helmet, and have some fully rad specs: a huge 640x320 pixel touchscreen, a built-in FM tuner that worked with Nokia's new Visual Radio service, an MP3 player, and the ability to stream video off of the web. It was also supposed to be the first handset to run on the new multimedia-centric Series 90 operating system and we'd be surprised if the 7710 didn't share most of those traits. And just to be clear, none of this has been officially confirmed by Nokia and we don't know how much it'll cost or when we might expect to see it properly announced.
Read MoreMobile Gadget News reports that not only should AT&T Wireless finally start carrying Motorola's MPx220 Smartphone within about a month or so, but that even sooner than that they'll also be offering a second handset running on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system, the white hot C500 (a phone you might know under a variety of other names, including the i-Mate Smartphone 3, the Qtek 8010, and the Dopod 565—this thing has got so many aliases you'd think it was on the lam). Adding to the confusion, AT&T Wireless should be selling it as the Audiovox SMT5600, which is the name it was listed under when it scored that oh-so-coveted FCC approval earlier this year.
Read MoreHow badly do you want to get your hands on Motorola's new MPx Pocket PC Phone? Really bad, right? Well, probably not enough to drop $4,448 on one, which is what one online retailer is selling it for. We figured maybe they were talking Taiwanese dollars or Hong Kong dollars or some other kind of dollars, but they're clear that it's $4,448 US, despite how crazy that sounds (though there was that Motorola MPx 220 that someone was selling for $1,400...). Anyway, they don't mention how they got their hands on 'em or whether they're selling final production versions or just engineering samples, but they were kind enough to note that the phones are unlocked, which means you should be able to use your pricey new love object with any GSM carrier.
Read MoreSo Audible, who we usually use to download our audio books through iTunes, is getting a client on a Windows Mobile based SmartPhone from Sprint, the Samsung SP-i600. While we don't expect to see iTunes on a Windows Mobile based phone any time soon, it'll be interesting because while we kinda think downloading music to a phone won't soon be the method choice of most folks (until everyone's MP3 player is in their phone, anyway), audio books makes a whole lot more sense. Combine "teach-yourself" style language audiobooks and a cellphone, then you've got something good—plus everyone will assume you're talking to your new Chinese friend, and think you're so smart. [Via MSMobiles]
Read MoreSo PalmSource, the company which oversees and develops the Palm operating system, is announcing a new version of their software that's specifically for smartphones that they hope will end up on lots of other cellphones besides palmOne's Treo 600 (pictured at right). Not exactly a total surprise since they'd revealed their plans a little while ago to continue to develop Palm OS 5 (now known as Garnet) specifically as a smartphone OS, and this signals the beginning of what will probably shape up to be a big three-way battle between PalmSource, Windows Mobile, and Symbian for control of the smartphone market. The Treo obviously already runs on a customized-version of the Palm OS, but apparently they're adding all sorts of stuff to make it even more suitable, like BlackBerry-like email software, a new browser designed specifically for cellphone screens, and better support for Bluetooth and WiFi. Of course, there's no word on what non-Treo smartphones will end up with the new OS first.
Read MoreWe spotted this at that Pepcom press event we kicked it at the other day, but here's the official dirt on the Siemens S66, their new GSM/GPRS multimedia phone which is due out next month. It's got a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, a gorgeous 65k TFT screen, 15 frames-per-second video capture, Bluetooth, an MMC memory card slot, and something called five-step digital zoom (which can't be too good). We're glad to see the MMC card slot, we've not been digging on how the cellphone carriers have been "locking down" phones so that their customers have to upload media via MMS only and pay for it each and every time— carriers, you know who you are!
Read MoreIs there a problem with the new Sidekick II? It only just came out a few days ago, but already some users are complaining of defects, specifically that not all of the characters (specifically the symbol and alt keys) are backlit on its keyboard. Not everyone is reporting the problem (and to be fair it could be intentional that some keys don't light up, rather than a production defect), but there are definitely some pissed off people in the forums over at Hiptop.com. We checked the Sidekick II we'd gotten for review and all of its keys light up perfectly fine, which makes us think they might have shipped out two different versions of the keyboard on this thing. We're investigating... [Thanks, Lee]
Read MoreWe just got some nice scoopage from a reliable source that the release of the new Treo 650 won't spell the end of the Treo 600—palmOne is going to keep making both, they're just going to drop the price from the $549 or so that the Treo 600 retails for now without a wireless contract. Not sure how much it'lll end up going for, but the news does jibe with what we'd heard already about palmOne planning for there to be a family of Treo smartphones with different price points and capabilities. Now if they'd only make our geeky dreams come true and make a Treo 700 with built-in WiFi...
Read MoreWe have all of our old cellphones (and PDAs, and digital cameras, and laptops, and MP3 players) stacked away in a closet here at Engadget HQ, just like 60% to 70% of the 100 million cellphones in the U.S. that end up being tossed aside when people go for the upgrade. The cellphone makers love it that people are always looking for the next new thing (and dude, we at Engadget admit that we are seriously a HUGE part of the problem), but only 5% of those 100 million phone are getting recycled are refurbished, with the rest (at least 25 million) ending up in a landfill somewhere. Just remember to cancel your service when you recycle your phone or you could be in for a nasty surprise.
Read MoreAs per usual, take it with a huge grain of salt: we received a tip that Sony Ericsson has finally gotten their act together, and are prepping for the release of the P910. We know, we know, there's nothing much out there to substantiate these claims, but supposedly in the UK the P910i ready to go now, and will start at £555 (around a cool G, for you American citizens); here the P910a is to start at about $830, and will ship in November. We're not sure if we believe this, but don't say we didn't warn you.
Read MoreAlmost a year or so after Verizon first got it, Sprint has finally started carrying Samsung's i600 Smartphone which runs on Microsoft's Windows Mobile 2003 operating system. Not sure what took them so long (besides the usual stuff about wireless carriers taking ages to test phones before they'll release them), but if you were hoping that at least after waiting all this time that the price would have dropped a little bit, you're in for some disappointment, since Sprint is listing this thing at $649.99. And remember, that's for a phone without Bluetooth or a built-in digital camera. [Via PhoneScoop]
Read MoreIt looks like the bastard child of the 6600 and the 7610, but Nokia just bounced out the 6670, a brand new one megapixel cameraphone meant for business types that comes with a 65,536 color display, Bluetooth, a web browser with PDF support, and a hefty price tag (around $600 or so, at least without carrier subsidy). Should be out sometime early next month.
Read MoreThe standard cellphone is understandably a barrier for the sign language folks, but now that video-streaming cellphones have started getting better, new devices could mean easy access to cellular signing. And since Sweden has always been known for its socially progressive culture as well as its kick-ass cellphones, it seems natural that they would be the locale for a new 3G cellphone service for the deaf populous. The Scandinavian mobile video communications company 3 (named after 3G) has teamed their Swede crew with the Swedish deaf organization Sveriges Dovas Riksforbund (just add a few diaereses to that) to create future 3G services for Swedish signers. We're not exactly sure of all the details, but 3 has added sign lanuage video to its site to launch the collaboration.
Read MoreOne of the lone bright spots of news on a sluggish post-bank-holiday Tuesday in Japan comes in the form of Kyocera's A1403K (we wish they'd dropped the numbers and just called it the Blob or something). As are most experiments at "reducing the distance between human and machine", it's round and clearly wants to be your friend. Unsurprisingly, it sounds like KDDI is pitching it at higher age brackets, with a user interface that makes key features easier to access, and the ability to have it read out email or your call history aloud. By no means should older users take this as implying that all of them have bad eyesight and are not to be left alone with objects that have corners.
Read MoreWe're not sure we buy his argument that if it doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard it isn't a smartphone (in fact, we sorta reject it out of hand, even if we personally wouldn't buy a phone without one), but Stephen Manes has a good overview of the three new handsets with keyboards that T-Mobile has coming out, HP's iPAQ h6315 Pocket PC Phone (which technically has the keyboard as an attachment), Research In Motion's BlackBerry 7100t, and the Sidekick II. [Via Smartphone Thoughts]
Read MoreOk, we just got off the phone with Sprint customer service. We played a little dumb with the rep, who told us that they have the new Treo 650 listed as going sale in "late November". This could change (they could move it up or they could push it back) and the rep didn't have any more info about what it'd be priced at.
Read MoreVirgin Mobile is getting all up on that cameraphone thing. Next month they'll start carrying Audiovox's new Flasher V7 handset which comes with a built-in flash (hence the name), a 65,000 color LCD screen, speakerphone, and the usual array of MTV and Comedy Central-themed tie-ins. It's also their first phone to work with Sprint's 1xRTT data network (they don't talk about it much, but they lease network capacity from them), which means faster downloads of ringtones, games, wallpapers, etc.
Read MoreJust got the official word from on high that the Sidekick II goes on sale to the general public on Wednesday, but if you're in Santa Monica you can get it a day earlier than everyone else. They're having a big launch there on Tuesday with a bunch of second-tier rappers and a "celebrity stylist" who can bejewel your new Sidekick on the spot. Doors open at the Santa Monica store (335 Wilshire) at 9 am. We wonder if people will line up overnight to get their new Sidekick II like they will to get an iPod Mini.
Read MoreNot sure that the world was exactly clamoring for a 1920's revival (last time we checked, Eighties retro nostalgia was giving way to early Nineties retro nostalgia), but infoSync has a first look at Nokia's new art deco-inspired 7260 cameraphone, which comes with a low-resolution built-in 0.3 megapixel digital camera and an FM tuner. You're either gonna love this one or hate it, but we'll hand out some respect to Nokia for taking a risk and realizing that if you try to please everybody than you'll probably please nobody.
Read MoreStill not even close to plausible photos (just some fakes, but we won't ever speak of that unpleasantness), but a listing for palmOne's new Tungsten T5 handheld has supposedly turned up in Staples' electronics inventory database, which is usually a pretty good indication that something is coming down the proverbial pike. Either way, we're hardly hearing anything about a possible Tungsten T4 anymore, sounds like palmOne is just skipping over that one entirely (back when it was just Palm they went straight from the Palm III to the Palm V). The only big question is whether or not it'll have built-in WiFi or not.
Read MoreLooks like the 1.3 megapixel, VGA resolution Asus A730 PocketPC has hit Taiwan bigtime. So naturally some dude took a load of pictures of opening the box and taking the thing out, what else is there to do? The unit looks kinda sweet if PocketPCs are your thing, we can't imagine going this way unless it was a phone. But that's just us. [via PocketPCThoughts]
Read MoreYo, check it. For £20 you can unlock your Orange C500 (or whatever the hell else they've relabeled the HTC Typhoon as) and use any SIM with it, which means any carrier. The unlocking application wouldn't be complete with the obligatory "we know where you live" warning from the developer: Fraud Warning: Remember, in case of any fraud we have your IMEI... [Via MSMobiles]
Read MoreOk, now we're starting to feel pretty confident that all those pics of the Axim X50 that have turned up are legit (well, except for that first one which turned out to be totally fake), especially now that a couple more photos have surfaced that don't appear to be photoshopped or rendered or any of that other digital trickery which might cast doubt on their authenticity. Dell is, of course, conspicuously silent.
Read MoreWe won't delve too deeply into the short, checkered life of the V600 (endless delays combined with a partial recall by Cingular shortly the phone finally did surface), but it looks like the latest chapter in this saga is that AT&T Wireless is dropping the phone altogether in favor of another Motorola handset, the V505. Anyway, it's not officially on sale yet, but it is supposed to have a VGA quality camera, 5MB of memory, and a 176 x 220 pixel LCD screen.
Read MoreIt's not the first time a cameraphone has surfaced with a stylus-complemented interface, but Philips' new 755 is the first non-smartphone handset to integrate these kinds of features without the smartphone price; the 755 will start at £100 (about $180 US). It should have Philips trademark insane battery life (5+ hours talk time), a TV-out mode, a VGA camera, 7MB of memory, a 65k color screen, and an e-mail client; we can't corroborate the specs on the 755 yet, as Philips has apparently yet to put out an official press release. But what's really going to make waves with this handset is the integrated image-tagging software. You'll be able to mark up your cameraphone shots all graffiti-style, just don't think it's going to make you the next STAY HIGH 149 or REVS or anything. And try to resist the temptation to draw smiley faces on all of your pics.
Read MoreLooks like NTT DoCoMo pulled a fast one on us and slipped out three stylie new phones; we're just not so sure about the Winnie the Pooh theme on the N253i, but what do we know? In order of left to right as pictured (be ready for some stats overdosage): the D253i slider has 2.0-inch, 265k color, 176x240 pixel TFD LCD, and is 3.68 x 1.8 x 0.95-inches in dimension. The clamshell ladyphone N253i has a primary 1.9-inch, 65k color, 160x216 pixel TFT LCD, a second 0.8-inch, 4k color, 66x88 pixel STN LCD, and is 3.6 x 1.9 x 1-inches. The blockish plain white P253i (our fav of the trio) has a mini-SD port, 1.9-inch, 65k color, 132x176 pixel TFT LCD, and a second 1.1-inch, 65k color, 96x64 pixel LCD and is 3.5 x 1.8 x 0.87-inches. Being that all the information on these phones is in Japanese as yet (what, you actually think you're going to be able to get a DoCoMo phone?) no word on their digital cameras or any other fancy features they may or may not have. [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreAnd wouldn't you know? European wireless carrier Vodafone gets its own version of Research In Motion's new more cellphone-like BlackBerry that uses the same type of predictive-text keyboard as the one T-Mobile is carrying here in the States (where they put two letters on every key rather than trying to squeeze in a full QWERTY layout), but looks completely different (read: less fugly) than the 7100t. The 7100v (guess what the "v" stands for?) is otherwise about the same as the 7100t; it has the same built-in Bluetooth, 65,000 color screen, and quad-band GSM/GPRS, and fortunately no other significant extras that might cause some major jealousy, like a built-in digital camera or a memory card slot. [Thanks, Joe]
Read MoreThat was fast! T-Mobile just sent out this email: Your response to the new T-Mobile Sidekick II has been nothing short of amazing! In just a few days, we've already sold through our first allotment of devices. We are quickly working to replenish our supplies so that more of you can take advantage of this same special offer in the very near future. T-Mobile will send you an e-mail as soon as we have more devices to sell. In the meantime, we ask that you refrain from calling the special toll free Sidekick Trade-in line or Customer Care. Thank you for your loyalty and enthusiasm for the new T-Mobile Sidekick II! Your T-Mobile Sidekick II Team No indication about how long they'll be out of stock or whether this "first allotment" was only related to the trade-in program and that they'll have another batch ready for when the Sidekick II goes officially on sale in a few days, but we'll post up any new info as soon as we get it.
Read MoreBack in June, realizing that palmOne would never get around to releasing the necessary drivers, the good people over at TreoCentral started offering a bounty of $500 to anyone who could get a Bluetooth SD expansion card to work with the Treo 600. Readers added their own contributions to the pot got as high as $5,812 before the bounty expired on September 6th, forcing them (and all fellow Treo fanatics) to finally face up to the cold hard reality that the Treo 600 is wired up in such a way, so to speak, that it'd be impossible to ever use it with a Bluetooth headset. You can keep the mourning to a minimum: the new Treo 650 is supposed to come with Bluetooth built-in.
Read MoreWhile we're talking about new phones from the non-USA division of T-Mobile, we should also probably mention that they're also rolling out the MDA Compact, a tiny new Pocket PC Phone which was first spotted in the wild a couple of weeks ago. No slide-out keyboard or keypad of any kind, but the Compact definitely lives up to its name (it's just 108 x 58 x 18 mm), and has a 2.9-inch LCD touchscreen, quad-band GSM/GPRS, a 416MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, and an SDIO expansion card slot (so you could add WiFi if that sort of thing floats your boat). [Thanks, wirobro]
Read MoreUsually a cellphone that can play MP3s isn't such a huge, massive deal—c'mon, all you usually gotta do is install some software in there, and, boom, you've got an MP3-playing cellphone—but T-Mobile (at least the Euro T-Mobile) is coming out with another version of their new SDA Smartphone called the SDA Music that comes with dedicated buttons for music playback, which means no more fumbling with cellphone menus when you just want to pause or skip tracks or whatever. Wish we could tell you when this was coming out here in the States, but there's nothing official about that yet.
Read MoreNot sure how much of a bite they were really trying to take a bite out of Apple's digital audio player (not that the association would hurt), but Siemens' new SF65 cellphone definitely shares some of those same minimalist white plastic aesthetics. The SF65 Also sports a 1.3 megapixel digital camera (with flash), but there is one big difference between this and the iPod (besides the most obvious one): the SF65 definitely will not play MP3s. Comes out in Britain in January of next year. (Make sure you click to see a shot of the SF65 in action. Thanks, Dan.)
Read MoreNah, it's not compatible with any US wireless carriers and so it won't be turning up over here (curse all these dual-band GSM handsets), but we'll tease you anyway with the news that GSL's been showing off a new Palm-powered smartphone in Hong Kong called the Xplorer M28 that runs on Palm OS 5.4, and has a 2.2-inch, 260K color LCD screen, a slider-style keypad (which is all the rage in Asia at the moment—clamshells are so 2002), 32MB of RAM, a built-in digital camera, and an SDIO expansion card slot. [Thanks, Michael]
Read MoreWatch out Walt, there's a new gadget reviewer on the block. Verbose Coma spotted the hotel heiress outside a restaurant in SoHo tapping away on her Sidekick (she had the new unreleased one of course) and according to the post, when asked about her diamond encrusted plaything, said that she loves it and has no love for anything else since in her expert opinion, "the Sidekick is way better than the Blackberry". Paris, honey. We have to ask: have you seen the new Treo?
Read MorePhoneNetworks.de got their hands on T-Mobile's new SDA (Smart Digital Assistant) smartphone which runs on Microsoft's Windows Mobile for Smartphone operating system (they have it wedged inbetween a Nokia 8290 and a Nokia 9210 Communicator in the pic above). While not quite as dimunitive as the C500, the SDA is still pretty small for a smartphone and the specs aren't half bad (a 65K color LCD screen, Bluetooth, VGA camera, and miniSD slot), so we're stoked on the possiblity of T-Mobile bringing it to America after its release in Europe. Click to see some more shots.
Read MorePretty much as expected, Toshiba's new flagship e830 Pocket PC came out today. Just not in the US, fueling earlier fears that Toshiba might be abandoning the American market and focusing just on Europe and Japan (they could just be delaying the e830's release here, but it doesn't look like it). Even if you can't buy it here you're probably dying to know the specs, right? No? Well, we're gonna hit you with 'em anyway: 4-inch VGA quality LCD touchscreen, 128MB of RAM, 64MB of Flash ROM, both CF and SD expansion card slots, a 520MHz processor, WiFi, Bluetooth, and built-in Voice over IP software. More or less right on the money, except for the not-being-available-domestically part.
Read MoreNikkei BP took their sweet time getting us this news, but it seems NEC's 900iG, the dual W-CDMA/GSM/GPRS phone that's the latest in DoCoMo's FOMA range, has gained government approval. It'll also be sold through Wind Telecom in Italy, in line with previous rumours we'd heard. The real news, though, is that it's apparently also been approved by the FCC, so we presume that it's headed Stateside sometime soon. Also approved in Japan (no news from the FCC so far) are two dual-mode phones from Sharp, the 902SH and 802SH, about which we're shorter on details at the moment, though the article does reveal that all three models have Bluetooth.
Read MoreAt first the idea of empowering those in need with a cellphone sounds a little like a "let them eat cake" mantra, but a Bangladeshi bank Grameen has started giving cellphones to the local needy to enable them to start a roving cellphone service actually does makes sense since they can start a business and (the thought is) hopefully give up all that begging. And it seems to be working too, there are already 75,000 women known as "Phone Ladies" using Grameen cellphones to offer service to a country with a very low ratio of phone lines to people. These could even turn out to be the new city center phone booths in more places than Bangladesh, given that those dinosaurs seem to be heading straight for the landfill just about everywhere.
Read MoreSpeaking of cameraphones, you'll still probably get blurry pics with the VGA quality camera in LG's new L1400 cameraphone, but at least you'll have a decently nice 65,000 color, 128x160 LCD main display to look at them on. Plus it's down to just thirty bucks from Cingular with a two year contract and comes with AIM pre-installed. [Via MobileTracker]
Read MoreWe'd heard it'd be November 1st, but HTC, the Taiwanese manufacturer that is actually making the Treo 650, has reportedly started shipping them to palmOne and that the smartphone is all set to go on sale sometime next month. We don't ask the gadget gods for much these days (they really have showered us with a mighty bounty lately), but please let this one be true.
Read MoreThese action photos of the long vaporous Neonode N1 are starting to make us think that it might actually have been released this time (as opposed to all the other times when Neonode put this thing up for pre-sale only to cancel it months later). This would have been a great smartphone if it had come out in 2002 like it was supposed to now—now we're not quite so excited. Click to see a few more shots. [Thanks, Wille]
Read MoreIf you're worried about there not being quite enough emotional intimacy to your text messages you just might want to make an actual phone call or something for a change, but Siemens is rolling out a special new version of their CX70 cellphone called the CX70 EMOTY that's designed for helping you get all Dashboard Confessional-style over MMS (like a multimedia version of SMS). The EMOTY come with a keypad that lets you pick from ten different "emotional categories" and built-in stroke, press, and shake sensors that try and properly capture your mood and then express it in a variety of different animated 3D characters. Probably not going to come out here in the States, maybe they think us Americans aren't ready to get in touch with our emotions (and yes, that's stuffed animal holding the phone—you got a problem with that?). [Via PhoneScoop]
Read MoreNokia's head of UK communications gets candid with All About Symbian about the design of their new 9300 Communicator and why they decided to leave the WiFi and camera out of the smartphone. He says it mainly has to do with feedback they'd gotten from users of their earlier, larger 9500 Communicator who were mainly businesspeople for whom having a built-in camera can be liability and saw WiFi mainly as a big battery drainer (uh, you could just switch it off...oh, nevermind). Even without the camera or WiFi we're still digging that big QWERTY keyboard and large LCD screen. Like we said before, this one won't be out here until sometime early next year.
Read MoreOrginally planned for mid-2004, it appears that the Nokia Kaleidoscope I may finally be shipping soon. We're not sure what's the hold up, but to jog your memory this thing is a basically a portable digital photo display that uses MMC cards to store images and IR to beam them to and from a cameraphone. One caveat: despite the name, it actually doesn't do anything special to your photos. [Via GeekZone]
Read MoreBasically reinventing the same bad idea that a company called Iceberg Systems had last year, a trio of university students in Singapore figured out another a way to disable the cameras in cameraphones using Bluetooth. Sounds peachy, until you realize that special disabling software has to be installed on the phones (plus it only works on a couple of Nokia phones). Since it's hard to imagine the average person knowingly buying a phone with a feature that someone else could disable at will, pretty much the only scenario we could see this being used would be a company that was worried about security risks make sure that this software was loaded onto every cameraphones issued to their employees. Still won't do anything to disable visitors' cameraphones, and besides, if you're that worried about corporate espionage you might as well just opt for cameraless cellphones (palmOne already offers a corporate version of the Treo 600 that comes without the built-in camera). [Via PicturePhoning]
Read MoreSpecs just leaked out for another the Sanyo MM-7400, another new cameraphone from Sprint that'll be able to record video clips. The camera is only VGA quality, but it does come with "full GPS support", though what that is isn't exactly clear (we wouldn't toss out that Garmin just yet). Should be out soon, possibly even later this month.
Read MoreWe're almost starting to feel a little bad for Sierra Wireless. Despite having an oh-so-fashionable fold-out QWERTY keyboard, their new Voq Professional Phone which runs on Microsoft's Smartphone operating system hasn't gotten much love from hardly anybody apart from a few hardcore enthusiasts who've been able to look past the phone's ugly duckling exterior (we certainly weren't able to, shallow bastards that we are). To make matters worse we've heard rumors that coming out with a smartphone in the first place got Sierra Wireless into hot water with palmOne, since they're the company that made the radios for the Treo 600 (supposedly palmOne didn't appreciate the competition), and then they couldn't find a single US carrier willing to offer the phone to its customers, something which is generally the kiss of death for any handset. Anyway, yesterday the Voq finally went on sale in North America via a few places who are selling it ready for "activation on the AT&T Wireless network", though at least one is offering it unlocked you can use it with any GSM carrier.
Read MoreWe already knew that T-Mobile was going to be introducing their new SDA Smartphone in Europe next month, but what we hadn't known at the time was that they're also looking into bringing it to the US, too. The decision "has not yet been finalized", but we certainly wouldn't complain if they brought the SDA, which has a 65K color LCD screen, built-in Bluetooth, a VGA quality digital camera, and a miniSD card slot, to these shores. Especially not if they kept the price close to the 99 euros they're charging for it across the pond. [Via MSMobiles]
Read MoreNokia busts out three new phones today and we're not even sure where to start. According to the press release, the designs for the 7280, 7270, and 7260 were inspired by the 1920s, which apparently to designers in Finland means lacquer finishes and chrome lines everywhere. Here goes: The 7280 ditches the keypad altogether and goes for a pen-shaped design and some weird new NaviSpinner controller that you're supposed to use to navigate the user interface (so how do you dial?). The 7280 also has a built-in digital camera (VGA quality only), Bluetooth, and a 208x104 pixel LCD screen. A version with EDGE should be out here in the States later this year. Read - Nokia 7280 We're not exactly sure who this one is going to appeal to (supposedly this one is for the ladies), but the 7270 is one of Nokia's steadily number of flip-phones, and sports a stainless steel cover, a built-in FM tuner, a VGA quality digital camera, a 128x160 pixel main display, a smaller external display. Same deal with this one, an EDGE version should be out here later this year. Read - Nokia 7270 Last but not least, their new 7260. We already had an inkling about the 7260 a few weeks back, and while we weren't exactly blown away at the time, at least this thing makes sense in the context of the rest of the series. Yep, it looks a lot like the 7610, but they bump the resolution of the camera down to VGA (from one megapixel), substitute the Series 40 OS for for Series 60, and add in an FM tuner. Like the others, has EDGE, and should come in both black and white versions. Read - Nokia 7260 P.S. - Is it just us, or are all these last two phones a little lacking in the Bluetooth department?
Read MoreWe're not entirely sure how legit it is, but it was discovered over at Smartphone Thoughts that one online retailer, Celluloco, appears to be vending the MPx220 already (unlocked, naturally). Their site looks somewhat credible, but they claim the list price for the phone is $1,499.99 US and they're giving us a deep discount by selling it for $1,398.88. Thanks. We were still pretty sketched, so we gave 'em a ring; the person we talked to confirmed that yes, they did have the MPx220 in stock, yes, it was ready to ship, and that they were headquartered in and ship from Miami. We're not sure which gadget-laden barge they had to knock over in the Gulf of Mexico to get these (if they do have them), but you'll have to make up your own mind on this one—if you drop 13 Bens and it never comes, don't say we didn't warn you.
Read MoreWe keep getting sent links to this pic of what is supposedly the "Treo 800" or "Treo 800g". It's reportedly another member of palmOne's smartphone family that runs on Palm OS 5.5.1 and has built-in GPS, a large 320x480 pixel LCD screen, and Bluetooth and WiFi modules (but no keyboard). We're almost 100% certain it's fake (unless someone out there can prove otherwise), so y'all can stop sending it in as a tip.
Read MoreOk, so not only is Research In Motion's new 7100t BlackBerry (aka the "Charm") official, but besides the predictive keyboard we've gone on and on about before, we also now know that it's going to be available from T-Mobile, cost $199.99 with service plan, have quad-band GSM/GPRS so you can use it overseas, built-in Bluetooth, a large 260x240 color LCD screen, 32MB of memory, and weigh 4.23 ounces. We're still not completely sold on the concept behind the keyboard (basically, they've they ditched the QWERTY keyboard and replaced it with a narrower one that puts two letters on each key and uses predictive text to guess which letter you mean); we have a feeling it's gonna be one of those love it or hate it kind of things.
Read MoreNokia announced the 9300 today, and as we suspected it looks nothing like that "mock-up" we couldn't resist posting earlier. What it does look like is a smaller, thinner 9500. In fact it basically is exactly like 9500 minus the camera and the Wi-Fi. The 9300 is packed with a massive 80 Megs of memory and an addition 128 MB MMC card. It has Bluetooth and IR, plus the pop port thingy. There's a 128 x 128 screen with series 40 on the outside, and a 640 x 200 65k color screen running series 80 (version 2, like on the 9500) inside. The phone part is 900 / 1800 / 1900 GSM with GPRS, EDGE, and HSCSD for data. Update: Nokia will grace North America with an 850 / 1800/ 1900 "B" version in the same time frame as the Euro model, which is - wait for it - early next year. Why must phone companies torture us like this?
Read MoreMike Chambers posted a How-To of the steps necessary to connect to the internet from OS X via the Motorola v600, ATT Wireless and Bluetooth. This is a non-trivial set of procedures but Mike breaks it down step-by-step. I performed the same task for a Windows XP laptop to a SonyEricsson T610 using T-Mobile and Bluetooth but I wasn't brave enough to sort out how I got it all working! Thanks Mike!
Read MoreWe're not sure how much this is going to change things we mentioned earlier today, but now that some corroborating photos have surfaced on an unnamed website, now we're admittedly getting a little (only a little, okay?) anxious about the supposedly imminent release of the RIM Blackberry 7100t. Apparently (as pictured) T-Mobile appears to be a carrier, and we also understand it may have Bluetooth 1.1.
Read MoreUh, we're finding this more than a little hard to believe, but someone claiming to have gotten a sneak peek at T-Mobile PowerPoint presentation says that Research In Motion's new BlackBerry 7100t, aka the "Charm", is going to be announced tomorrow (it seems a little early, but that's not to say we don't think it's coming out soon). The 7100t/Charm/whatever they end up calling it is RIM's attempt at a slimmer, more cellphone-like BlackBerry communicator. The catch? They ditch the QWERTY keyboard and replace it with a narrow one that puts two letters on each key and uses predictive text to guess which one you mean (we've posted some hands-on reports about the new keyboard here and here). [Thanks, Wayne]
Read MoreWe initially liked the AIM client on our new iPAQ h6315 Pocket PC Phone from T-Mobile, but one thing we're not sure of (and want your help confirming) is if T-Mobile charges users a per instant message fee, just like with regular text messaging, while chatting. Why would we think this? Well, if you turn off the phone functions (GPRS/GSM) and try to use AIM via WiFi it simply won't work. It seems to us like it uses GPRS and SMS to manage the messages, which is good because it's "always on" but could be bad if it charges per SMS. So far we've checked our account to test and it appears that using AIM does count against text messaging. If this is actually the case (still waiting to see an actual bill) and using AIM does count against text messaging, that's kinda shady. For now we're using Agile Messenger until we figure this one out.
Read MoreThere have been rumors before that they were working on something along these lines, but there's word that Dell is definitely working on a smartphone or wireless handheld of some kind that'll compete with the Treo 600 and sport a small QWERTY keyboard. Even better: it'll also come in both CDMA and GSM versions. Could they be feeling the heat from HP's h6315 Pocket PC Phone? Or could this be something more along the lines of a BlackBerry, just using Good's email technology rather than RIM's?
Read MoreMaybe they realized it wouldn't be such a Treo killer if the new Treo 650 killed it first, but it looks like BenQ might be rushing their new P50 Pocket PC Phone out the door this month. This is the one that looks an awful lot like it was "inspired" by palmOne's smartphone (plus it's almost exactly the same size), and comes with a mini QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth, WiFi, 1.3 megapixel digital camera (with flash), and a large LCD screen. Anyway, the reports don't mention the P50 by name, only that BenQ will introduce a Pocket PC Phone that fits the description of the P50 later this month in Taiwan.
Read MoreWe have some potentially bad news regarding WiFi on the upcoming Treo Ace /650. It's no secret that palmOne's SD WiFi card works only with their T3 and Zire 72 handhelds, but despite some earlier indications to the contrary, it doesn't look like the card'll also work with the new Treo 650 which is due out later this year. At least not unless palmOne writes some Treo-specific drivers for it, since according to an anonymous tipster who tested palmOne's SD WiFi card with a Treo 650 he got his hands on, the card definitely does not work. We remain hopeful that once the 650 is out this problem will get solved (we're dying to find phone that's comparable to HP's h6315 Pocket PC Phone that we can use to make VoIP calls). The frustrating thing is that given palmOne's incredibly freaking annoying reluctance to release any drivers for SD WiFi cards in the first place we definitely don't expect that they'll go out of their way to offend the wireless carriers and come out with an SD WiFi card driver for the Treo 650. But we'll see.
Read MoreWe only first learned of its existence less than a week ago (and we still have zero idea about whether or not it'll ever make an appearance on these shores), but T-Mobile Germany is all set to carry the Qtek 8020, a brand new smartphone running on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. They're rebranding it as the "SDA", and from what we can tell it'll have a 65K color LCD screen, built-in Bluetooth, a VGA quality digital camera, a miniSD card slot, and retail for under 99 euros with service plan. [Via MSMobiles]
Read MoreOh, and here are some snaps of the SPH-V5400, that new Samsung cellphone with the built-in 1.5GB hard drive. Check out the 128x128 OLED screen on the outside and the 320x240 pixel LCD on the inside. [Thanks, LucaLuca]
Read MoreWe knew it had to happen sooner or later, but Samsung has snagged the honor of being first out of the gate with a cellphone with a built-in hard drive. The drive on the SPH-V5400 isn't huge—just 1.5GB—and the phone itself is pricey—it'll cost $800 when it goes on sale in South Korea later this month—but this is definitely the turning point. Now if they could just pop a 4GB mini-drive into the Treo 650 we'd be all set...
Read MoreWe're not even going to front that there has been any official confirmation of this—especially since palmOne won't even officially admit that this thing even exists—but we're hearing that the Treo 650 is supposed to come out on November 1st. Not sure which carriers will have it initially, but last year Sprint got a several week headstart with the Treo 600 and we would't be at all shocked if they got the Treo 650 a little bit earlier than everyone else this time around, too.
Read MoreThere are going to be a lot of people happy to hear this news: it looks Cingular is almost definitely going to carry one of the few gadgets that can set our jaded hearts all aflutter, Motorola's new ultrathin RAZR V3 cellphone. A reader wrote in the comments to an earlier post that he'd spoken to both Cingular customer service and people at Motorola who all told him that the phone should be out by late September or early October, with a price of around $350 without a contract and $249 with one, but that price could change (it seems a little low, if anything). And MobileTracker reports that Cingular retail sales reps are being offered a V3 as an incentive for meeting certain sales goals. UPDATE: You might want to stop posting in the comments asking where you can get the RAZR V3 for $40. It's a scam, and the only thing you're going to get out of posting your email address here is lots and lots and lots of spam.
Read MoreCould it be just T-minus 14 days until T-Mobile drops the Sidekick II on the non-Paris Hiltons of the world? We're still waiting to get an official confirmation from T-Mobile about an exact release date for the new Sidekick II, but when you register on www.getyoursidekick.com to get a heads-up about when it'll be on sale you do get a confirmation notice that reads, "we will send you an e-mail in a couple of weeks when the T-Mobile Sidekick II is available for purchase online." We're gonna cut 'em some slack and assume they just mean it's coming in a few weeks, not exactly 14 days from now, but the natives are definitely getting restless. [Thanks, Zeb]
Read MoreWhile it's definitely not the first penguin-based cellphone out there, it's nice to see Samsung finally getting some of their previously mulled-about Linux phones to market (though it'd be nicer if it was our market). The SCH-i519 is physically the same hardware as the SPH-i700, the only real difference being the Embedded Linux OS—we're hoping since it's not running Windows we'll get a few bucks off. It comes hooked up with a browser, email, MP3 player, MS Office compatibility (including Outlook syncing), Chinese handwriting recognition, a Chinese-English dictionary, MSN and ICQ IM. What, ICQ and no AIM? What is this, 1995?
Read MoreIt's probably best known as Orange's SPV C500, but HTC has licensed their diminutive little smartphone, which runs on Microsoft's Windows Mobile software, to yet another company. You may already know it as the i-Mate Smartphone 3, the Qtek 8010, and the Dopod 565, but the FCC just approved it as the Audiovox SMT5600, now with tri-band GSM and support for the 850MHz spectrum. (You give this thing one more name and it'll have more pseudonyms than Ol' Dirty Bastard.) Now that they've got the Audiovox moniker slapped on there is this a sign of an imminent US release? We're re-greasing our wallets in bitter anticipation.
Read MoreIt'll eventually be sold under a variety of different and confusing names, but for right now HTC's new budget Pocket PC Phone is codenamed "Magician", and it's supposedly going to be plenty small and plenty inexpensive (at least for a Pocket PC Phone). It's also going to be a quad-band GSM phone (which means it'll be compatible with carriers here in the States) and apparently it will have an SDIO expansion card slot for adding WiFi, a 2.9-inch LCD screen, built-in VGA quality digital camera, Bluetooth, and a removable battery. The major downside is that there's no mini QWERTY keyboard or even a proper numeric keypad.
Read MoreNot sure how I'll be able to resist taking Sprint up on their amazing offer to give me $75 in service credit if I "recycle" my soon-to-be obsolete Treo 600, but hopefully somehow I'll find a way.
Read MoreWe're kind of torn here. On the one hand we have a shiny metal phone-plate with an LCD and built-in DSL filter; you program it to control incoming and outgoing calls based on call distance and schedules. On the other hand, it's not like you couldn't just walk your laptop and DSL modem to any other phone, or grab a cellphone to make that call; that is to say, for the LineLok to be effective, you'd need to outfit every jack you've got. And at $50 a pop, we have a slight feeling no parent would spend a few hundred bones just to keep their kids off the phone at night when for free they could more easily simply take the phones or laptop away. [Thanks, Mike]
Read MoreOne funny thing about Microsoft's new MSN Music store: supposedly you can't play music purchased from it on a Portable Media Center, Pocket PC, or a Smartphone, even though all of these come pre-installed with portable versions of Windows Media Player. You'd especially think Microsoft would have been on point with this one given that recent deal Apple cut to start putting iTunes on Motorola's cellphones. Anyone tried this out yet?
Read MoreJust when you were getting over that raging case of astigmatism, NEC drops an outrageously dense 235ppi (pixels per inch) cellphone display that uses a type of lens separation to create 3D images without the special glasses. Right, so that means you won't have to stare at anaglyphs in order to read your SMS messages in heart-pounding 3D! Of course, we're taking it all with a grain of salt, but even if it does work as advertised aren't exactly a whole host of applications that a 3D cellphone display would be all that useful for. [Via MGN]
Read MoreOk, is this the Axim X50? We've been burned by fake pics once already, but no sooner do we put up a post about how it's supposedly coming out later this month when another possible image of Dell's new Pocket PC turns up on a Polish PDA website. There have been tons of competing specs going around for this one, but we do know that the Axim X50 will be out later this month and that there will definitely be three versions of it, including a high-end model with a VGA resolution LCD screen and built-in WiFi and Bluetooth.
Read MoreAfter all the crazy rumors that surfaced this past weekend we're going to extra super careful about making clear that this is completely unconfirmed, but one of the commenters responding to our post about Dell's Axim X50 Pocket PC scoring FCC approval says that he spoke with Dell Customer Service and they told him that it'd for sure be out later this month. (Pictured at right, the only confirmed photograph of the Axim X50, just from the back with the battery removed).
Read MoreNot sure whether or not they noticed that all of us obsessive freaks were obsessing over something this minute, but T-Mobile has removed that pic on their homepage of Catherine Zeta-Jones holding the new Motorola A630 which they still haven't officially announced that they're carrying. [Thanks, Pedro]
Read MorePreviously only available to their corporate customers, Verizon has finally started selling their first worldphone, the Samsung SCH-A790 (which works on Verizon's CDMA network here in the States while able to roam on GSM networks abroad) to regular consumers. One caveat: reportedly the battery life isn't that great.
Read MoreSome scammer tried to list a "Brand New Never Opened" Treo 650 for auction on eBay using those same leaked photos everyone had posted up last week. His fatal flaw? Listing the Treo as compatible with every US carrier under the sun, including Alltel, AT&T Wireless, Bell Mobility, Cingular, Fido, Nextel, Rogers AT&T, Sprint PCS, T-Mobile, Telus, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon, something which is pretty much impossible given that most of those carriers use different standards. Didn't take long before the auction was pulled because of an "error in the listing", but talk about sleazy. [Thanks, Jim]
Read MoreIt's hard to tell exactly whether they're talking about that 9300 Communicator we mentioned the other day, but a report from research firm A.G. Edwards hints that Nokia is planning a handheld of some kind designed specifically to compete with the Treo 600 (and by extension, the Treo 650). Wouldn't surprise us in the least (if anything it seems long overdue), but the most immediate result of the report was a slide of nearly 10% in palmOne's share price.
Read MoreWe vaguely recall them claiming last year that they were going to sell "millions" of these, but despite all the sidetalkin' and the widespread harshing on their mellow by gamers and gadget freaks alike, somehow Nokia has managed to sell (or at least ship) their millionth N-Gage this week. The figure counts both the original N-Gage and the revised N-Gage QD, but we still have yet to meet anyone who bought one with their own money.
Read MoreYou've gotta be pretty freaking bored to bother putting the energy into pulling off a hoax about a PDA, but just like those "leaked" iMac G5 pics that turned up last week, the guy behind that "Tungsten T5" that surfaced the other day has admitted that the whole thing was just a bunch of fakery on his part. Don't people have jobs or anything? [Via atmaspheric endeavors] UPDATE: If you're looking for news about the Tungsten T5 we've got the scoop on palmOne's announcement here.
Read MoreWe have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that a wireless carrier is all set to start offering Motorola's MPx220 Smartphone next month. The bad news (unless you happen to be Brazilian) is that it's a carrier in Brazil and there's still no clear sign of when the MPx220 will be available here (though obviously it can't be too far away now).
Read MoreThat pic we posted yesterday may or may not be fake (the general consesus seems to be that there is some fakery involved), but we do know that Dell's Axim X50 Pocket PC itself is for real whether it looks like that or not, since it just received approval from the FCC (yes, the government has to approve all wireless devices before they can be sold here). At least one version of the X50 will have both Bluetooth and WiFi, while the other will have just Bluetooth. And while no pics of the front of X50 could be gleaned from the FCC filing (something or other about confidentiality), there is this one pic of the back of thing. Yeah, we know it's not much. ga
Read MoreThe picture above is of all the hardware it took to run Google (Lego bricks and all) back in 1999. Kinda freaks us out, though we're not really sure why. [Via Waxy.org]
Read MoreWell, it's official: As expected, Netflix and TiVo are teaming up on a video-on-demand service, with Netflix handling all the gory details of arranging licensing deals with the movie studios and TiVo focusing on all the technological stuff of actually delivering online movie downloads. They wouldn't discuss a date about when they might introduce the service, what it might be called (TiVoFlix? NetVo? NetfliVo?), or any other specifics, but TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay says that the two companies are absolutely, definitely not merging.
Read MoreWe've seen the future that we want for TV. We've been playing lately with TVTonic, which is an on-demand IP television service that comes as a plug-in for Media Center PCs and that pulls content off of the Net and stores it on whatever spare space you have on your hard drive. It's free, but for right now it's better in concept than in practice and the content is limited to an ever refreshing assortment of Associated Press news clips, movie trailers, ancient cartoons, as well as an almost completely random selection of music videos (it's totally hit or miss, occasionally it'll surprise us with a New Order clip, but we're wondering if we're the only ones who can appreciate that Laibach video we caught this morning). What would make perfect sense is a service where you pay five bucks a month and get a customizable feed of music videos you'd actually want to watch. Not that any of the networks would even bother playing ball with them, but we could also easily be coaxed to pony up $15 or even $20 a month for HBO-On-Demand or Comedy-Central-On-Demand. We're not holding our breath for that or anything, but in Britain a lucky few are enjoying a service called HomeChoice that is sort of like this, and offers 80 channels of on-demand programming and pay movies.
Read MoreAmaze your friends as CD-quality music comes out of your little plastic computer speakers! Then, pay us – monthly - even if you don't listen to anything, and even if you would rather listen to it on your portable music player. That's basically what Virgin Music is proposing with its new virgindigital.com Digital Music Club. Charging subscribers $7.99 a month, the exclusive club will "allow" you to listen to as much music as you can on your computer. As of now, you can't download tracks to a portable device – that will cost more at some point in the future. While they do offer $.99 per song purchases, the folks at Virgin are banking on the idea that digital music subscriptions are the stuff of trained consumers from the future. "Two or three years out, subscriptions will overtake à la carte because it is a much more interesting proposition," said Zack Zalon, President of Virgin Digital. Because, you know, it's just, um, more interesting to pay them every 30 days.
Read MoreNormally we studiously avoid getting too wrapped in the business side of all this stuff—we're all about the gadgets, man—but we couldn't help noting the news that earlier this month TiVo broke on through to the other side and passed the two million subscriber mark. Definitely took them a lot longer than anyone (including us) thought it would take to reach this point. The big question is whether two million is enough to call off the TiVo Death Watch.
Read MoreDanny Elfman might get on their ass about this (and he is definitely one guy you don't want to get on the bad side of), but a company called Ongo Bongo is offering a service where you can get a free iPod mini if you pre-pay for a year of their Netflix-style music service (which costs $22 a month, or $264 a year) which lets you "rent" unlimited numbers of CDs (i.e. up to four discs at a time). The initial catalog only contains about 20,000 songs (which means probably around 2,000 CDs or so, which is way smaller than even my dad's CD collection), but they claim it'll get up to 100,000 tracks soon. The only thing is, are CD rentals even legal here in the US? They've been a big thing over in Japan for years, anybody know if Ongo Bongo is in for a world of legal pain? (It'd probably be a good thing to figure out before you plunk down $264 for your "free" iPod mini, too.)
Read MoreThe haters, er, analysts said that it couldn't be done, that Netflix and TiVo's plan to offer video-on-demand over the Internet was doomed from the start because Netflix didn't have the online distribution rights to any of the movies they'd want to offer, but Netflix has gotten a small foot in the door and obtained Warner Bros.'s permission to use some of their content in an initial test of the service.
Read MoreXM Radio, after scrapping their XM PC Receiver because of piracy concerns, is launching their an online service next month. They're gonna charge $7.99 a month for unlimited listening (we assume one PC at a time), but if you already subscribe to XM they'll give you a discounted rate of $3.99 per. Buying a Dell computer next month will get you a free trial subscription to XM Radio Online. Getting satellite radio over the Internet does sorta eliminate one of its main appeals (that, um, you get it by satellite), but we definitely dig the whole commercial-free radio thing.
Read MoreThat dream team alliance between Netflix and TiVo? Might not happen after all, at least not how everyone expects. According to Hank Greenberg over at CBS MarketWatch the big problem is that Netflix doesn't have the web distribution rights to most of its catalog of films that it rents out and the probably won't be getting those rights anytime soon (at least not without paying handsomely for them) because they've already been sold to companies like Starz which are working on online movie download services of their own. The big question for TiVo has to be, what does Netflix bring to the table then, besides a good brand name? [Via Slashdot]
Read MoreThey didn't make this announcement with quite as much fanfare as when they cut their price per download at their online music store to just 49 cents, but RealNetworks is ending that half-price "Freedom of Choice" promotion they've been running for the past three weeks (the move was part of their ongoing battle with Apple to try open up the iPod to music downloads sold by other online stores). They were losing money with each purchase, but they must have made it all up in volume since apparently they manage to sell over 3 million songs during that time.
Read MoreLast September, Disney quietly launched MovieBeam, its datacasting (digital broadcasts transmitted from local TV station towers over the broadcast TV spectrum) service to compete with digital cable in three cities. The device itself comes bundled with 100 movies on its hard drive and "downloads" additional films from datacast streams, but Disney has decided to postpone rolling out the service to three additional cities due to "partnership negotiations", which analyst Gerry Kaufhold predicts might likely be with DirecTV for content retrieval; now that would be an interesting coup on cable. [Via lost remote]
Read MoreHugeness. They've been making noise about doing video-on-demand before, but TiVo actually took everybody's advice and is teaming up with Netflix to introduce a new service where if you subscribe to both TiVo and Netflix you'll be able to get your DVDs delivered to you directly over the Internet rather than having to wait for the discs to arrive through the mail (you will have to wait a few hours for the movie to download to your TiVo's hard drive). The deal hasn't been totally finalized yet (it's still awaiting approval of TiVo's board of directors), but we're still sorta dealing with all the weirdness of the two companies actually listening to what people were telling them and teaming up—we never thought it'd actually happen. [Via BoingBoing]
Read MoreFresh from their spat with RealNetworks, Apple has now taken to sparring with Microsoft over MSN Music, Redmond's new competitor to the iTunes Music Store. The best part is how Apple VP of applications Eddie Cue says that the biggest problem with the MSN Music store may be that "its downloaded songs can not play on the iPod." Totally fair criticism, except that the reason MSN Music downloads won't play on the iPod is because Apple has so far resisted Microsoft's entreaties to work together on compatibility. This is going to get ugly.
Read MoreBy now you might have heard about Scott MacLean and all the potential fun he could be having with the XM Radio legal department and the RIAA. See he wrote a little program called TimeTrax that took XM Radio broadcasts and dumped them directly onto his hard drive, neatly cut up into nicely tagged MP3's. Then, figuring that lots of people would love such a useful program, he started selling it. Silly Scotty. Guess he didn't realize that the RIAA frowns on anything that can "permit listeners to transform a broadcast into a music library." Guess they're not such big fans of the record button then. Or the fact that by extension TV lets viewers transform a broadcast into a video library.
Read MoreWe'd thought Casio's Pocket PC division was a goner for sure, but they've bounced back with a brand new model called the DT-10 M50S. The casing might be a little clunky, but the specs on this thing are spot-on: Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, a 3.7-inch VGA resolution LCD screen, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth, a 416MHz processor, 64MB of flash ROM, and both SD and CompactFlash expansion card slots. The big question: will they bother returning to the US market, or will they follow the lead of Toshiba and Sony and just give up on us for good? [Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreWe're just about 100% certain that palmOne is going to bounce out their new Tungsten T5 handheld on Monday, and while we haven't been able to get any solid info on the specs (or a convincing pic), from talking to our sources we're hearing that while it will definitely have 256MB of memory, it will NOT have built-in WiFi (though it will have Bluetooth). Sorta hope it's not true, but it's not looking good. UPDATE: Ok, the T5 might come out on Tuesday, but it's one or the other.
Read MoreIs next week the week for the Tungsten T5? The Reg says that palmOne is definitely going to cut prices on a bunch of their handhelds next month and that they could drop their new flagship Tungsten T5 on us as early as this coming Monday. No confirmation on specs, or even a reliable photo of what it's supposed to look like (just tons of fakes like the one at right), but supposedly (and we'll place a big emphasis on the supposedly) the T5 is going to have a 520MHz processor, a large 320 x 480 pixel LCD screen, Bluetooth, and possibly as much as 256MB of memory.
Read MoreWe're introducing a new weekly feature called Entelligence, where every Thursday Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research is going to drop a little something in the way of gadget-related research data on us. This week's factoid: Why Tablet PCs haven't been selling as well as expected. While Tablet PCs have intrigued the marketplace, there's been a lot of speculation why they haven't sold better commercially. Conventional wisdom would state that price is the leading issue but as usual, conventional wisdom is wrong. A recent Jupiter Research survey shows only 32 percent of online consumers planning to purchase a laptop are not willing to pay anything for Tablet PC functionality, indicating price is not the greatest adoption hurdle. The same study shows that 61 percent of online consumers interested in using Tablet PCs prize traditional notebook functionality in a Tablet PC. It's not that the tablet concept doesn't resonate with consumers, or the higher price. It's about devices that don't live up to consumer expectations in many cases and an under-educated consumer marketplace. The question posed: "What features would you be interested in using on a Tablet PC (i.e. a notebook computer that allows you to write on the screen as an alternative to using a keyboard and/or mouse? (Select all that apply.)" Source: Jupiter Research/Ipsos-Insight Entertainment Technologies Survey (7/04), n = 1,307 (online consumers interested in using Tablet PCs, US only). ©2004 JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corporation. Michael Gartenberg is vice president and research director for the Personal Technology & Access and Custom Research groups at Jupiter Research in New York. Contact him at mgartenberg@jupitermedia.com. His weblog and RSS feed are at http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg.
Read MoreWe know one thing for certain: that palmOne's new Tungsten T5 PDA does exist. Other than that, we don't know much else. So much conflicting info has poured out by now, including yet another probably fake pic from what is purportedly a leaked PowerPoint presentation (yeah, it looks totally dubious), that at this point we're not entirely sure what it's going to look like or what it's specs are supposed to be, or even when it's going to be announced (though October 1st looks promising). We'll keep digging. You know we can't help it.
Read MoreInternal documents digging at the FCC has uncovered that Dell requested confidentiality for their new Axim X50 Pocket PC product photos and manual until November 8, a pretty good indication that they won't introduce this until sometime after then. The confidentiality was originally to be lifted 6 weeks earlier, on September 24. The X50 Pocket PC (possible picture at right) whets our geek appetite with its VGA resolution LCD screen, built-in Bluetooth and WiFi, and support for both Compact Flash and SD digital memory, and better yet, Duncan at FirstLoox also discovered that the X50 also has a X50v model (does that mean "X50 Voice", a Dell Smartphone perhaps? Nah, probably not.) and will support Bluetooth version 1.2. At least it looks like Dell will have this available in time for the Christmas shopping season.
Read MoreThis may be the exception that proves the rule, but Sony shows that the PDA isn't quite dead yet (at least not in Japan) with their latest, the multimedia PEG-VZ90. The biggest news is that it's the first Palm with an OLED screen, but besides that it also plays back MPEG-4 video and both ATRAC3 and MP3 audio (hallelujah!), includes 802.11b wireless, and has a CF card slot that will take both communications and memory cards, plus the usual MemoryStick slot. The multimedia angle is further emphasized by losing the keyboard (and camera) of the PEG-UX50 in favour of a slide-out console of multimedia controls, and it looks like the preferred use for this one will be to slam in a CF card or Microdrive loaded with video, though you need to encode with the proprietary software (sound familiar?). Also, the pricing point is an awkward (OK, wallet-destroying) ¥95,000 ($870 US), which puts it way above the hard-disk video players coming onto the market.
Read MoreOn the off chance you've been waiting patiently for its release, it looks like Toshiba is getting close to dropping its new e830 Pocket PC on us. It was only last April that they were denying its very existence, now at least one online retailer confirms that they'll have the e830, which is supposed to be a new and improved version of Toshiba's flagship e805 Pocket PC (the one with the 4-inch VGA quality screen, and both Bluetooth and WiFi), on sale this coming Wednesday.
Read MoreRemember that slightly dubious-looking rendering of Dell's new Axim X50 Pocket PC that turned up a couple of weeks ago (actually, there was a second one circulating too, but that one was quickly dismissed as a fake)? Well, making us just a bit more confident that that was for real, another, somewhat more convincing photo of what is supposed to be the Axim X50 has surfaced that looks pretty much like the rendering. Now if only someone could confirm the release date: we've heard both late September and mid-October. [Via Pocket PC Thoughts]
Read MoreLike the rest of these things it ends up falling somewhere between a PC and an overgrown PDA, Pepper Computer has been showing off their new Pepper Pad 2. Basically it's a Linux-based tablet PC with an 8.4-inch touchscreen, a 624MHz processor, 20GB hard drive, 256MB of RAM, built-in 802.11g WiFi, Bluetooth, an SD memory card slot, and something else you won't see every day: a QWERTY keyboard that's been split down the middle, with one half on one side of the screen and one half on the other side. The big idea is that people'll use them around the house to access their digital photo and music and video collections, or do email or IM or whatever, something which seems pure fantasy unless this thing is inexpensive enough for the average person to seriously consider buying it as a second computer (since no one is gonna buy a Pepper Pad 2 to do their taxes or for their kid to write term papers on). But do we sorta want one? Of course. Are you familiar with our line of work?
Read MoreFollowing up on yesterday's rant about Griffin's iBeam... If you want to teach Griffin a lesson, roll your own.
Read MoreNo, we're not just posting this pic of Ora Ito's new One Line clamped desk lamp because they put a PowerBook (thought it didn't hurt). We actually sorta want one.
Read MoreThere's a rare Apple-1 up on eBay with all the trimmings. As the auction says, it's the "Holy Grail of Collectable Computers." You know you want to bid...
Read MoreSo what's the first thing you do with that iMac g5? Take it apart, void the warranty, and post a bunch of photos. Truly a man after our own hearts.
Read MoreWe thought the NaviStar CXT was bad enough, but it's downright plain compared to the extreme modding done by the Japanese to their trucks. Transformers gone wild? [Via Autoblog]
Read MoreWe don't have much dirt on this one (except that maybe it runs on the same Series 90 software as their never-released 7700 multimedia phone), but could this be Nokia's response to the Sidekick II?
Read MoreDamn it, even those annoying markety Flash sites are better in Japan. Vodafone's Design File site showcases some of the future phones and more that are all coming from VodaFone Japan—and not coming out here.
Read MoreWatch out Oakley, there are some folks out there spending a lot of time and cash on electrical tape to trump your sissy-ass MP3 sunglasses.
Read MoreOk, people are now officially taking this "how to get a free iPod" thing a little too far.
Read MoreApparently the South Korean subway advertising system runs off of a 20GB hard disk. Add your own caption for extra fun!
Read MoreIn America, this is how we now prevent speeding. or Guess he must've pissed off Bush. [Thanks, Zuerst] P.S. - Add your own caption for bonus fun!
Read MoreYeah, we're jealous that Sean Bonner got to play with Sony Ericsson's new P910 smartphone, though we're still not quite sold on that keyboard yet
Read MoreThere's definitely something very weird going on in Finland that we're not aware of.
Read MoreYeah, that probably just about sums it all up, doesn't it? [Thanks, Antrix]
Read MoreOk, not technically gadgets, but how often do you see someone auctioning off 20 prosthetic human eyes on eBay? [Via BoingBoing]
Read MoreCNet has a few pics of the new iMac G5 in the wild—or at least in the Apple store in San Francisco.
Read MoreIt seriously shouldn't take them that long if they know what's good for them, but Microsoft says that by 2007 new Portable Media Centers will have at least 125GB of storage (you think?), and be able to both record and download high-definition video, and possibly even have built-in wireless capability. Three years is a long time, we expect nothing less than a 200GB portable video player with an OLED screen and built-in 802.11g by the end of next year. Progress, people, progress!
Read MoreOver on CNN, columnist Chris Morris and a handful of prominent developers ponder the future of the videogame industry. And they're not talking next year's next-gen consoles (i.e. Xbox 2, PS3, etc.), no, they've set their sights on the year 2025. So what will gaming be like in 21 years? Of course, no one really knows the answer to that, but the group offers up some thoughtful speculations. The most obvious of the bunch, is that gaming machines will not be just gaming machines. That is, in the future, it's more than likely that one device can potentially handle all of our multimedia desires. Check out the article to see what else they dreamed up...
Read MoreFake computer-windows are the ubiquitous dated sci-fi gimmick that movies like Total Recall have forever banished to the schlocky prop room. Though maybe your own DIY version could work for a kitsch-themed party — or maybe not. But we're going to ignore the suggestions of the creator of The Virtual Windows project who asks "Where do you want to live today?" because we think that if you're gonna make fake window scenes, then by nature, they should be as fake as possible, since there's no way anyone will ever mistake the scene for the real outdoors. We're thinking along the lines of a Mad Max apocalyptic desert scape, or a creepy Willy Wonka-type playland. The crafty inventor uses 8 15-inch LCD panels connected to nVidia Quadro PCI video cards and an application that cycles the scene every 15 minutes. Nice, but we're thinking we'll just slap a window-frame around our $50 TV and call it a day. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreThis week's How-To Tuesday is a two parter; this week we show how to convert that old digital camera you're got in your closet to one that takes a picture automatically every second until the memory card is full, which will we use in next week's How-To, where we'll put that camera on a kite. There are many other applications once you hack a digital camera to take a shot a second, and we'll also go over those in future How-Tos, for example: mounting to a car, bicycle, city bus, house pet, cubicle, and other fun things.
Read MoreAs one of our readers has predicted: after the Dellphone came the Lego phone. We are assuming that you can't transform it on a mobile phone but think of the possibilities—what would you build on top of it with extra Lego pieces? [Via BoingBoing]
Read MoreLooking to carry a 25lb watermelon on your Segway handlebars? Of course you are, which is why this eBay auction is for you. Bidding starts at $3.00: This is a homemade hook made of aluminum that goes over the end of the handle which replaces the screw that is in the end of the Handle. Just go shopping and hang a bag on the hook. I've had a 25lb watermelon on my hook with no problems! [Via SegwayChat]
Read MoreJeez, it's people like this that ruin it for the rest of us, you know? Glendale, California resident Ara Gabrielyan was charged Tuesday with stalking and threatening to kill his former girlfriend and himself over the course of six months. Apparently he purchased a Nextel phone with a motion detector that turns the device on when moved, and planted it in her car. Whenever she drove anywhere, it activated and transmitted GPS coordinates, which Gabrielyan used to monitor her location. We're not sure how he got six months of battery life out of the thing, but that's pretty jacked up any way you figure it, even despite all the cheap, readily available commercial services that are popping up and doing this nowadays. [via BoingBoing]
Read MoreWe guess Tyra and the catty minds behind America's Next Top Model agree with Paris over the joys of the Sidekick, since the newbie model flock got a new Sidekick from T-Mobile to kick around on last night's episode. We're not sure how all 14 (well, by the end of last night's show, 12), are gonna share the thing, though they'll probably be too busy purging their lunches and posing with only body glitter and a snake to take time to properly test it out.
Read MoreApparently, it's illegal to use video cameras to record movies in movie theaters. We had no idea, and watching movies recorded on screens featuring the back of some dude's head is such a great viewing experience! The fun must all end now, though, as a bill passed by the House on Tuesday has made the Seinfeldian act illegal. While that's no surprise, the bill contains some hidden little goodies that are more worrisome. For instance, the bill offers copyright protections for video playback technologies that helps parents prevent their children from seeing scenes depicting sex, violence or foul language. We can't wait to see a Tarantino flick with that technology turned on. It would last - what - ten minutes? "No, really, Billy. The movie is about hamburgers and dancing and a glowing briefcase. It's a short film."
Read MoreNo, not that football remote. We mean the other kind of football remote. American football remote. Sure, we've all seen this before in telephone form, but now novelty and co-branding have brought us to a new, hitherto before unheardof and yet unprecedented level of cultural magnitude (and dare we say, superiority?): meet ABC Monday Night Football's football-shaped TV remote. It's $20 bucks, and we're more than a little ashamed to say it does actually look kind of fun to play with. We're really hoping they built it well you you can totally spike it if and when necessary. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreIt may not be the best pick up line, but being crowned the master ninja (as in the winner of the Ninja Gaiden: Master Ninja Tournament) has got to be good for something, right? Well, maybe not. Still, mad props goes out to Yasunori for besting the four other competitors atop a narrow catwalk, while pulsating lights flashed around him and a mass of onlookers gawked from below. Yes, they really were just playing a videogame... Oh, and by the way, how did they end up getting Yoko Ono to present the award?!
Read MoreLast Friday it was the false Maria from Metropolis, this week Josie Fraser treats us to a bumper double movie gadget treat featuring everyone's favorite sci-fi noir, Blade Runner. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is easily the best science fiction film ever made, and the only film based on Philip K. Dicks writing that is actually any good. It's coincidentally the film I've seen more often than any other movie, since I spent a disproportional and unhealthy amount of my adolescence in love with Roy Batty. We're going to take a look at two gadgets this week, first off is the Voight-Kampff Machine. Combined with a series of questions about wasps, evil children and your mum, this tests whether you are human or actually a replicant - an android slave built to do the rubbish jobs. The test measures the subject's empathic response to the aforementioned questions, looking for 'flattening of affect'. A fundamental and pretty obvious flaw of the machine is that it works on the principal that human beings necessarily possess some level of empathy for others. In the book (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, in case there is a single person reading this who doesn't know that) the machine is made up of a unit operated by the person asking the questions, a light beam which measures pupil dilation and a cheek patch which measures your blushes. In the film it's just the eye beam. The Esper Machine isn't in the book at all, but is one of the most aspirational movie gadgets ever. Deckard, whose job it is to hunt down the escaped replicants, uses the compact, voice-controlled computer to analyse a crime scene by using a photograph. The Esper turns a photograph into a three dimensional capture of an event - enabling you to zoom into a high resolution picture, and navigate it - Deckard uses it to look round a door to see one of the replicants. And people are impressed with 3-megapixel cameraphones?
Read MoreThe last we checked Optimus Prime had some Dinobots and they totally took him down but didn't finish him off like Megatron told them too. Since then we haven't kept up with the Transformer universe, but luckily someone has put together a 68 page history. Jeez, there really is more than than meets the eye.
Read MoreNah, it's not going to talk to you in that perfectly calm voice or beat you in chess (or try to kill you, either for that matter), but somebody is auctioning off the Cinerama 160 degree Fairchild-Curtis lens that served as both HAL 9000's eye in 2001: A Space Odyssey and the camera lens from which they filmed everything from the artificially intelligent computer's point of view. Even comes with no fewer than four letters of authenticity, a bunch of movie memorabilia, and a video about how Stanley Kubrick created and used HAL 9000 in the film. Bidding starts at $150,000, but is there really any way to put a price on what we all know would be the ultimate case mod? [Via Slashdot]
Read MoreWe guess filmmakers aren't above rummaging through text messages to find inspiration, since Deep Love, Japan's first major cellphone novel turned into a big screen flick, and now China's own cellphone novel, Outside the Fortress Beseiged is getting the box office treatment. Well, not by Hollywood and it won't be showing in theaters, but a Taiwanese company Bestis Technologies bought the rights and will create 30 to 40 clips that will be viewed on cellphones and across the internet. And if text novels like these really can make money as cellular or big screen flicks then it really is just a matter of time before those LA film moguls will start poking their fingers in the mix.
Read MoreBandai has announced the launch of the official website for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The game is based on the Stand Alone Complex television series and follows Major Kusanagi and Bateau as they attempt to take down a terrorist organization dealing in arms trade. But as they progress through their mission they began to uncover a conspiracy that involves ghost hacking and human modification. Predictable, but fans can still breathe a sigh of relief since you'll actually be playing outside of the Fuchikoma tank this time (see Ghost in the Shell for PSone). Check out the website for exclusive info, screens, clips, and more.
Read MoreThe winning toy from the women's team on "The Apprentice" is now available for pre-order from Toys R Us. Named Morph Machines, the RC controlled car should hit shelves in early 2005 and cost $30, which is $30 more than we presume anyone will every pay for one of these things. The other toy from the losing team hasn't found a manufacturer yet, but we understand a tyke-size version of Donald's hair piece will be available this spring from Gap Kids. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreLast week it was the head clamp from A Clockwork Orange, for this week's Movie Gadget Friday Josie Fraser reaches back to the silent era with the False Maria from Fritz Lang's Metropolis: German director Fritz Lang and writer Thea von Harbou collaborated to produce the silent classic Metropolis (1927), which remains a benchmark movie in science fiction and has influenced generations of film makers. Metropolis depicts a dark and urban future (it's set in 2027) where the idle rich frolic in a city of delights maintained by slave labour. The plot centres on a prototype robot created by the unfortunately named C.A. Rotwang, mad scientist and loser in love, who designs a mechanical replica of ex-girlfriend Hel. Somewhere during production, Rotwang loses his right hand and has to have a mechanical replacement. If that isn't the biggest euphemism in film history, ever, I'd like to know your alternatives. At first it seems as in Rotwang has successfully solved his interpersonal problems with technology, and he names his creation Maschine Mann. It's a Functional rather than glamorous name, but at least the guy is honest enough not to panic about his sexual identity when he's planning on having an intimate relationship with some wires and tin plate.
Read MoreWe're definitely not above the occasional Godfather reference. And we were really into that crazy Japanese boyfriend arm pillow. So obviously this thing was the next logical step. And dear god, did it make our day. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreWhile rumors once swirled that the Rock was set to star in Universal's DOOM adaptation, that myth was dispelled some time ago. Now it seems that Karl Urban—we'll explain who is in a moment—has accepted the role. If you're a fan of the LOTR movies, you might recognize him as Eomer, the spirited prince of Rohan, but more recently he's popped up in the Bourne Supremacy and, dare we mention, The Chronicles of Riddick. Instead of playing a nameless space marine, Urban will star as John Grimm, the leader of a special ops team, and at some point, will "cross paths with the organization responsible for his parents' deaths." Oh boy, let's just hope Mr. Urban has made a positive career choice...
Read MoreFor this week's Movie Gadget Friday Josie Fraser takes a look at a multipurpose gadget from everybody's favorite ultraviolence movie, A Clockwork Orange: Like last week's director Brian De Palma , Stanley Kubrick is a creative talent who doesn't shy away from making bizarre castings, like getting the almost 30 year old Malcolm McDowell to play the role of Burgess's 15 year old reprobate Alex de Large. OK - so the movie would have had zero chance of ever being bankrolled or released with a 15-year-old protagonist getting up to Alex's nasty deeds (kind of the point of the book...). It does seem a bit weird though that Alex, rapist, killer and fully-grown man, still wants to live with his mum and dad. Also, at fifteen, McDowell's head may have been a bit smaller resulting in less damage during the shooting of the head clamp scene - he was temporarily blinded after scratching a cornea during the filming. The moral being that this is a gadget for qualified medical professionals only, unless you have good insurance. Eventually caught for one of his crimes — the murder of Catlady, a middle aged woman who lives with multiple cats and phallic sculptures, but isn't called Phalliclady for some reason — Alex is offered his liberty in exchange for undergoing the experimental Ludovico Technique. This consists of wearing the spectacular head dress and attending the carnival of unmitigated pain: the head clamp allows endless agony-enhancing chemicals to be pumped directly into your brain while you're simultaneously force fed images of extreme grimness of all kinds, shapes and sizes. The treatment is a huge success and afterwards Alex is unable to consider anything involving violence or badly synthesised classical music without vomiting and pain. Little Known Fact: along with the boot licking scene, the Ludovico Technique scenes are the most popular Movieoke request at Aversion Therapist get-togethers. Click here for last week's Movie Gadget Friday: The Pong console from Brian de Palma's The Fury
Read MoreThis is the stuff we like to hear, but the time frame is just painful: DirecTV plans to have a full complement of HDTV programming by 2007 via four new satellites announced today. The Spaceway 1 (pictured right) and Spaceway 2 will launch next year adding 500 local HDTV channels available for summertime 2005, followed by the DIRECTV 10 and DIRECTV 11, which will launch in 2007 and provide an additional 1,000 local HD channels and 150 national channels. We're guessing DirecTV has privileged the first 500 local HDTV channels to those stations first able to sort out how to make their anchor people not look like haggard old mummies in front of the unforgiving eye of the HDTV camera.
Read MoreSpeaking of TiVo and their future plans, we might be all jazzed up by the prospect of their teaming up with Netflix to deliver movies on demand over the Internet, but they're up to something else that we're farily certain you all won't dig quite so much. Along with ReplayTV they're planning to kowtow to the movie studios and television networks and start placing some restrictions on what you can do with programming and pay-per-view movies that have been recorded to your TiVo or ReplayTV digital video recorder. And not just the expected stuff like restrictions on copying, they're also going to be regulating how many times you can watch pay-per-view movies, and doing stuff like automatically deleting films after seven days whether you've had a chance to watch them or not. We're not even gonna get into the whole thing about how we're tired of TiVo constantly caving in to the entertainment industry rather than focusing on making their customers (the people who are paying them) happy, but even outgoing MPAA prez Jack Valenti cops to using his TiVo to record pay-per-view movies to watch later on. [Via TechDirt]
Read MoreThere's a new short film called Textual @traction about a man who finds a lost cellphone and ends up exchanging text messages with a "mystery stranger". Not really a majorly innovative plot device in its own right these days, but the filmmakers do employ one clever new use for text messaging: they never show actually show the text messages on screen, instead you register right before showtime and all the messages are timed to be sent to your cellphone at the exact same time as they're received by characters in the film. Might be one of the few times you won't be asked to switch off your phone before a movie these days. [Via Textually.org]
Read MoreThe dearth of Star Trek products has been one of the most confusing pop culture events of the last few years. For decades, fans could be assured that they would have their pick of Star Trek games, comics, toys, you name it. But then came the bad television shows (yes, it's debatable). Throw in a couple of mediocre movies, and we've had ourselves an old-fashioned backlash. But that's about to change. Star Trek will be making a comeback. Rejoice! The word on Spong, is that the license is about to get injected with an MMG (massively multiplayer game). That's right, now you can put those Klingon language skills to work. Yes, now you can test whether or not you truly have what it takes to give the ship more power with the captain breathing down your neck. Look for the title in 2007. Yes, 2007.
Read MoreWe're thinking that proudly wearing this hardware pin outside of the Ars Electronia festival would be like sporting the accessories' equivalent of the pocket protector, but 1,000 festival goers received these as part of the Trace Encounters social networking project. The stickpins use IrDA limited range infrared data transmitters to remember the other pins it encounters, and when the wearer walks by a certain area, a network downloads the contact information onto a plasma display panel. The resulting visual display looks like a bunch of lines connecting your dot to everyone you hung out with that day. It's like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, with you in place of Kevin Bacon. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreRumor has it the Rock's got something cooking with the upcoming movie adaptation of DOOM. But for whatever reason the 'Scorpion King' hasn't landed the starring role. Nope, when talking about the movie, Rock said, "The great twist is I'm not the hero of the movie. I'm being chased and then there's an even better twist where I'm, er, not a good guy..." So that's pretty much the entire 'Rundown'. (Please excuse the tired Rock-movie reference)
Read MoreAwhile back we did a how-to on making your iPod a Universal Remote control for all your remotes. Well, Ben Spink, author of CrushFTP, took it to the next level. Ben's hack uses an IR controller (the same we used) to control a TiVo over the web while viewing through a QuickTime streaming server, somehow all with his CrushFTP app. Nicely done Ben, we tip our hats to you.
Read MoreIt's time once again for Movie Gadget Friday. Last week Josie Fraser took a look at the Metaflesh Game Pod from eXistenZ, this week's look at a gadget featured in a movie is especially for all our nostalgic Lo-Fi readers: You don't really need to know anything about Brian de Palma's The Fury apart from the fact that while it's not a great film, John Cassavetes's head does explode. De Palma had a lot of money thrown at him after the success of Carrie and decided to stick with the psychokinetic kiddie theme, although Amy Irving was a mature looking 23 year old at the time of filming. Her character, Gillian Bellaver, upsets the other women at her school (also pretending to be girls) with her spooky powers. While her mother swans off to France, Gillian moves into the Paragon Institute—a suburban version of the Xavier Institute for the gifted. Instead of CEREBRO, wood panelling, and labyrinthine secret passages, the Paragon Institute has a patio area for outdoor breakfasting and extreme rouching in the bedrooms. There's no walking through doors, changing into puddles or being such a bad kisser you actually kill people here - the students are only slightly gifted, and that gift uniformly consists of guessing the pattern on the card your friend is looking at. It may have been more aptly named the Antimacassar Institute. Gillian is nervous at first - there's only chess, backgammon or being a bit psychic for entertainment. Then she spots the Institute's custom made Pong console. Later that night she and one of the other inmates have the most fun two women in their early twenties could have together in 1978. Definitely qualifies for Ms Krotoski's list of respectful unisex games although maybe not so good on the depth of story line and character categories.
Read MoreTV Tokyo recently announced that the cult-favorite, Viewtiful Joe, will be getting the animated treatment in Japan. The Capcom produced series has plans for a 52 episode run and will premiere just before the release of Viewtiful Joe 2 this October. No word yet on a foreign (outside Japan) release, but we're sure the Cartoon Network will pick it up in about ten years or so.
Read MoreWith a 1GB model due sometime soon, the Xonix MP3 watch should rock wrists around the world. Not only can you groove to your tunes, you can also record voice memos. Already now available in 64MB, 128MB, and 256MB models, you can record up to 18 hours of voice memos. Once the 1GB model is out, you could probably record an entire novel. Go ahead, we dare you. The rechargeable battery takes about 2 hour for a full 5 hours of playing time. It uses USB and even has five equalizer modes. With all these features, we can only hope that the thing tells time. Pricing isn't available yet, but the manufacturer is currently taking retail and "premium" orders. Premium sounds...expensive. We're still unconvinced that a headphone wire coming from your wrist is the best idea in the world, but we remain curious.
Read MoreOkay, okay, so pendant MP3 players are officially getting popular. You're still not going to see us wearing one (that doesn't mean it won't be under our jacket, or something). Korean manufacturer Nextway has introduced their D-Cube 800B MP3 player, which, while being the most inaccurately named device we've seen in a long time, is merely 1.8 x 1.8 x 0.65-inches and has an FM tuner, FM recorder, a rather astounding 17 hour battery life. Unfortunately, they don't say how much storage the 800B has, which is usually a sign that it's so miniscule it's downright shameful. Ah well, good thing you have a choice of 29,832,342 other digital audio players. [Via I4U]
Read MoreNot quite the Bluetooth helmet that Motorola and MOMODESIGN came out with a few weeks ago, but a grad student at Brunel University in the UK designed a new motorcycle with built-in GPS and a small wearable display so that riders can see their speed without having to take their eyes off the road. [Via Near Near Future]
Read MoreFor some reason Bluetooth seems more like a Bad Badtz Maru thing, but Sanrio just made geeky teenage girls everywhere really happy and came out with a Bluetooth handsfree cellphone kit. Better still, it even comes in this very fancy gift box. [Via Blueserker]
Read MoreWe can just see the poolside Jenna Jameson ad for the iRiver's new MP3 waterproof accessory, though we're thinking she'll probably just stick to promoting iRiver's personal video player (unless maybe she's got a band brewing to add to the list of her weird crossover success—or getting paid a lot extra). But cashing in on what they imagine must be a huge market for extreme water sports tech gear, iRiver decided to team up with H20 Audio to launch the H20 Audio SV i700, a waterproof housing which works only with their iRiver iFP-700 Flash MP3 player and keeps it safe from water danger.
Read MoreProbably because it's sorta ridiculous to have a wireless Bluetooth headset that has less talk time than the cellphone it's paired with (you'd be surprised how often this is the case), Nokia has been testing a fuel cell-powered version of their HS-3W Bluetooth headset that can get about ten hours of chat time on single methanol cartridge, which should be long enough to outlast all but the hardiest of cellphone batteries.
Read MoreOk, we promise not to steadily morph into Enpetgadget, but if people are gonna buy their pets digital cameras and cellphones, it seems almost perfectly reasonable to buy them an electronic dog tag in comparison. You're screwed if the battery runs out, but besides storing the usual stuff like your dog's name and license number and your contact info, the Dog-e-Tag can also display other useful tidbits about your pet, like that they don't eat dry dog food or that they really prefer not to be disturbed while they're marking their territory. [Via TRFJ]
Read MoreIt was nice of Apple to up the battery life on the new iPod to 12 hours from the sorta dismal 8 hours of juice the earlier ones got, but if you're not quite ready to drop $300 or $400 to upgrade, NewerTech has a new replacement battery for first and second generation iPods that adds an extra 70% of battery capacity. The iPod originally came with a 1230mAh rated battery, while this Ultra High Capacity version tops out at almost double that, 2100mAh. Easily worth the $40 if it's really that good. [Via PowerPage]
Read MoreThis sounds like something we would do given our obsession with nearly useless hacks. Over on SPOTStop someone took the guts out of an Abacus SPOT Watch and put them in a Fossil Square SPOT Watch. The SPOT surgeon liked the outside of one, but the watch faces on the other (SPOT watch faces are specific to the model). We're hoping he doesn't stop there and transplants some better ads for MSN Direct.
Read MoreLast week we revved up our watches and showed you the BMW MP3 watch, this week we bring you the PIMP watch from Japan. As usual, you need to head off to Japan for the the truly unique in wearable technology, and the PIMP watch is a blinky metal combination of utility and oddness.
Read MoreItalian racing sports-equipment designer MOMO has teamed up with Motorola (shall we call them MOMOMot?) to produce an aftermarket version of their MOMO Fighter helmet with a Mot HS810 Bluetooth headset. We really hope someone creates a mod to add Bluetooth to Harley's HA90, but until then you'll just have to settle for phone calls with 5 hour talktime. The headset is also detachable, so when you take off your helmet you can carry on your conversation and hold it to your ear like a true badass-not at all like one of those weekend warriors or anything, no, never-while you're gassing up on the 101.
Read MoreSuunto announced a new version of its Microsoft-powered SPOT watch, slimmer and more outdoorsy than the current n3. Which is a good thing because the main gripes about the n3 was its size and styling. Well, that and those really crummy ads from MSN Direct. P.S. We showed you how to solar charge a Suunto n3, and it will definitely work with the new n3i as well. [Via SpotStop]
Read MoreThey called us mad, yes mad, when we put search engine results on a belt buckle—but we knew we were onto a new trend in pervasive (and perverse) technology with this. The ActiveBelt is a belt-type wearable tactile device for directional navigation. In other words, it'll vibrate in the direction you need to go. And get your mind out of the gutter.
Read MoreWe'll admit it, we've been known to sport the odd piece of technology-meets-clothing occasionally, but we're having a hard time getting excited as we should be about the Solar Powered Jacket from SCOTTeVEST. The solar panels on the back can charge a small battery contained inside the jacket, but you have to stand in direct sunlight for about 2 to 3 hours sun (which would be kinda hot with a jacket on, eh?). From there you can plug in and juice up any USB powered devices like Pocket PCs, iPods, Spot Watches, etc... P.S. - Awhile back we showed you how to build your own USB solar charger, maybe we'll do a wearble version of the How-To and see if we can keep it below the $534.98 (pre-sale price) of the SCOTTeVEST. [Thanks, Barclay]
Read MoreAlong with those three new phones, yesterday Nokia also rolled out a new type of Bluetooth headset that displays the picture of who is calling you on a 128 x 128-pixel, 4,096-color display. You can also use the joystick on the headset to navigate your call list to make calls without touching your phone, perhaps finally giving us a reason to use the currently empty photo caller ID function on our phones. No word on pricing yet, but this should be available by the end of 2004
Read MoreLast week on "Watch this Wednesday" we showed you the FitSense fitness watch. This week Engadget reader Juan sent us some pictures of his new BMW MP3 watch, a watch that plays music and more that's brought to you by the folks who unleashed the 7 Series on the world (oops, we promised we'd never speak of that, sorry).
Read MoreWhen we had a look at the new Rave-MP players that were announced, we were admittedly slightly less than impressed. The price point wasn't right for their releases, and we were doubtful with the direction they were taking. Doesn't look like PCWorld was too impressed with the AMP128 either, according to their review, citing it as a bit cheapy, but adequate for doing the job (so why did they give it 4½ stars?). Not exactly a—ahem—rave review, but maybe their next offerings will be better.
Read MoreYeah so we know we mentioned this little beauty quite a while ago, but now the first reviews of Aliph's Jawbone cellphone headset are starting to turn up (this thing'll be bestowed upon the rest of us on Wednesday). The Jawbone was designed by Yves Behar, which we didn't know before, and pretty much as we did know before, uses bone conduction and sound processing to reduce background noise, an attribute which has caught DARPA's attention. $150 will get you one of your very own.
Read MoreThis little camera doesn't have an LCD screen or a flash, and the pictures aren't that great compared to full featured digital cameras., but that's not the point of this camera. The Philips Wearable Digital Camera is all about having a tiny instant-on digital camera that's always with you and is always ready for some quick shots. We spent some time with it, and here's our review:
Read MoreIn case you were wondering (or thinking of outfitting your own private security forces with these), those helmet-mounted cams that the fuzz were wearing during this week's Republican National Convention were being hooked up to Xybernaut's Mobile Assistant V wearable computer with wireless cards in them.
Read MoreLast week on "Watch this Wednesday" we showed you the Garmin ForeRunner 201 GPS watch for running, and if you've seen our how-to you know by now how it could also be used to make GPS maps of where you've been runing. Keeping with the fitness theme, this week we bring you the FitSense fitness watch. What it is: The watch, along with heart rate monitor and foot pad sensor tracks speed, distance, and heart rate simultaneously with over 98% accuracy. Why we like it: While we have a GPS watch for running, it doesn't do heart rate or work on a treadmill indoors, and the FitSense does both. Where to get it and how much: You can get the set up we have here (Watch, Foot pad and heart rate monitor) for $174. Check out their site for other packages.
Read MoreIGN has posted the final installment of their interview with the developers of Jade Empire, one of the most anticipated titles of 2005. The interview touches on the combat system, implementation of the Dragonfly mini-game, and the quality assurance process (where games are really made). For those of you unfamiliar with the title, Jade Empire promises to offer martial arts fighting like no other game out there. Being a fan of Soul Calibur, I can tell you I haven't been this excited about a fighting game since, well, Soul Calibur 2. Read the interview and browse the clips and you'll see what the fuss is about.
Read MoreMajesco has revealed that its quirky platformer will no longer be an Xbox exclusive title. Psychonauts is now coming to the PlayStation 2 as well. The game has generated a lot of hype so far, with Tim Schafer (Full Throttle, Monkey Island, & Jedi Knight) commanding the reins, and this latest announcement adds even more fuel to the fire. Psychonauts is a surreal action-adventure that promises to blend challenging puzzles with psychic powers and a compelling storyline. Look for it to hit the PS2 next Spring.
Read MoreA group called Team Xodus have released a new Xbox modchip that is not only solder-free (so you don't have to heat up metal and burn your nubbins to install the thing) but already comes with an operating system on the chip, meaning that wily h@x0rs will be able to run Linux and a bevy of other unholy applications on their Xbox once this thing is installed. What's more, the OS has been time-tested and is already at version 2.0, including webserver software and SMB support. Since it comes with the OS onboard users simply need to install the thing and go crazy – no more LAN file transfer nightmares and late-night Frankenstein scenes of doom.
Read MoreRecently, Windows Gaming boss Dean Lester revealed that, "Xbox 2 peripherals will all work on PC". This means you'll be able to use the Xbox 2 controller with your PC (most likely via USB), and is the latest bit of evidence of Microsoft's effort to draw the Xbox and PC closer together. We've already known about the XNA program that will simplify cross-platform development and also enable Xbox Live on PC (with the next version of Windows, codenamed "Longhorn"). This form of standardization will likely draw a large following and could mean big things for the growing online component of console gaming. Exciting news indeed, we'll keep you updated as more details emerge.
Read MoreIn the latest speculation regarding Xbox 2 backwards compatibility, Apple Insider is reporting that delays of Virtual PC 7 are due to the fact that the project has been given "exclusively to the Xbox team." Why? In order to ensure Xbox backwards-compatibility on the Xbox 2, that's why. You see, Xbox 2 is slated to run on the PowerPC 970 chip, and current Xbox 2 developer kits are PowerMac G5s. While these rumors haven't been confirmed by Microsoft (like they'd do that), we can't think of any good reason that the Xbox team would be working on Virtual PC graphic emulation other than to guarantee Xbox backwards compatibility for the Xbox 2.
Read MoreLooking for a new desktop wallpaper? Check out these two shots of the upcoming blood-orgy, Halo 2. The second one is sitting on my screen right now. I keep moving my mouse around, wishing beyond reason that the game will magically start up. Sad, huh? These shots confirm what we all knew. The sequel to Xbox's flagship title will look incredible.
Read MoreSammy Studios announced that its upcoming genre-bender, Iron Phoenix, will take advantage of the latest Xbox Live features. Specifically, the game will make use of the new clan feature, allowing small groups of gamers to form a recognizable team that can be used in competitive tourney play. Since communication is the most important function of a team, there will be a number options open to clan members, including video messaging (creepy) for those with web cams. All of these features combine to make clan tags, try-outs, interviews, tournaments, and whatever fun you can dream up a cinch. Of course, Iron Phoenix will likely have a lot to offer for the casual gamer too.
Read MoreCall it deja vu, or call it the Team Ninja curse, but Tecmo is announcing yet another delay for the long awaited, online 3D fighter Dead or Alive Ultimate. The Japanese version has now been pushed back to October 28, and while there has been no official word regarding the US release, a number of retailers are showing October 19. This latest Team Ninja saga, is starting to look a lot like the Ninja Gaiden one a year ago. However, when Gaiden finally dropped their were no other competitors in sight, but if Tecmo doesn't play their cards right, Ultimate is running the risk of getting drowned in the Halo 2 tsunami. At any rate, this means MK Deception takes the advantage, debuting alone, as the first online 3D fighter.
Read MoreMicrosoft has announced the latest Xbox Live competition, and believe it or not, no skills are necessary. In fact, you won't ever push a single button. Come October 22, twenty names will be randomly selected from the Xbox Live subscriber base and offered a three day, all expenses paid trip to Bungie's Seattle studios. We liken the contest to Willy Wonka's golden ticket, as rumor has it, Bungie's got their own stash of Oompa Loompas tucked away in the abysses of their office. Oh, and along the way, the lucky winners will be treated to a hefty dose of Halo 2's multiplayer. But with over 1 million Live subscribers, it's best not to get your hopes too high. Then again...
Read MoreComputer & Videogames makes us feel closer to our most-anticipated game, Halo 2. The online mag has been dissecting the title for the last couple of days. Today, they take a look at weapons. A deep look at weapons. And the conclusion is that it looks like there will be something for everybody. The sniper's tool of choice is most intriguing to a lot of us, though. The Beam Rifle, armed with infinite ammo, allows you to take out the enemy from the other side of the level. Beams of energy will criss cross the sky as lurkers around the globe try to take out the other guy — way before he sees the whites of his eyes.
Read MoreRocky is the best fighter who never lived. The prize son of Philly will be finding a new home on Xbox this Fall, with Rocky Legends. The title will let you fill the shoes of the best fighters we all know and love from the film series. The previous game in the Rocky series wasn't half bad, and offered up an action fighter that was comparable to the original films. The game, just like the movies, wasn't big on realism, just blood and glory. Hopefully, the sequel will preserve that mantra. From the looks of th screenshots and video clip, it looks like we can, thankfully, expect more of the same. Who needs reality? We put up with that every day.
Read MoreThe Inquirer is inquiring whether the Xbox2 chip has jumped off the white paper and onto the fab. Word on the street is that the chip is ready for assembly in whichever box Microsoft ends up liking. It looks like the chip will be used by both Microsoft and Nintendo, though how the hell that happened, only a slew of international lawyers knows. Take it with a grain of salt, but it would make sense that the thing is at least close to being done, considering they want to have it in our grubby hands by the end of next year.
Read MoreBurnout 3 is EA's first half-assed forray into the world of Microsoft's Xbox Live!. Many a news story has been written about the MS/EA battle over online community sharing. For those in the dark, EA refused to be a part of MS's proprietary community/billing system. They won that argument and are now trying to have their cake and eat it too, with one foot in their own lobby and the other on MS's backbone. Well, EA has some of that cake on its face today, as Burnout 3 is getting hammered to the point of bringing down online play. According to Spong, the growing pains of the EA/Live! union have left players offline. There's not much hope that the game publisher will backtrack and do the right thing, but you can be sure that they now know the power of Live!
Read MoreLittle known startup, Transitive Corp., claims that its QuickTransit software has the capability to effectively emulate, rather, incorporate "hardware virtualization" to transplant any software onto any system, eliminating the need to create ports. As an example (and possible pitch), the company suggested that QuickTransit would allow Microsoft to feature backwards compatibility on the Xbox 2. However, to date, Microsoft has not issued an official response—but you guys are listening, right? The software does appear legit; see screenshot (Linux version of Quake III running on Apple PowerBook). But for the time being, Transitive is seeking out the server/mainframe markets, with plans to focus on desktops PCs and other consumer electronics in the future.
Read MoreIf you haven't already, do yourself a favor and check out the lowdown on Halo 2's beta test over at IGN. Then again, it's sort of like tying a stick to your dog's collar and then dangling a bone from the end of it—not that we've ever tried that... Seriously though, reading the article is just going to make November 9 seem that much further away. Believe that.
Read MoreWe're not sure if these are legit or not, but an anonymous tipster who claimed to be a part of a focus group for the upcoming Xbox 2 sent us some questionable screengrabs of two of the "logos and console designs being considered for the next generation Xbox system" (that quote according to the focus group material we saw). We'd send 'em back to the drawing board if it we were in that focus group, but supposedly they've got more cooking—it'd be pretty foolish if they didn't—so we'll see.
Read MoreNot many of us could wait for Halo to get to the PC before buying it. To those of you who managed to linger, you can now download the latest patch. Version 1.05 has been released by Microsoft. No, the small 5MB file doesn't include any Halo 2 easter eggs. All it does is fix a crash bug, as well as a security hole. It is Microsoft, after all. Also included are Windows XP SP2 fixes,which could make some 256 MB cards not work correctly with the game. Go and kill aliens well, friends.
Read MoreSources within the UK retail sector have announced that sales for the Xbox tripled in the week following Microsoft's price cut (down to 99£, which is roughly $177USD as of today). It's expected that sales will continue to soar with strong Xbox releases coming this fall/winter (Halo 2, anyone?). No word yet on how the PlayStation 2 has faired since its price drop which came shortly after Microsoft's.
Read MoreWe're not entirely sure what the advantage to having a Bluetooth wireless Xbox controller is over having any other wireless Xbox controller (okay, so maybe it's the Bluetooth Xbox adapter) but hey, if you want to throw down a Benjamin for the XB-Comm Bluetooth controller and headset, that's your prerogative. But admit it, it is a little misleading that the headset has the Bluetooth logo on it when you have to wire it to the controller. [Via Blueserker]
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