pop up
Latest
Warner pops extras into digital edition of Nancy Drew: Drew's Clues
One of the criticisms leveled at digital distribution over old fashioned discs is a lack of extras, but Warner Bros. has something for that with its latest release, Nancy Drew: Drew's Clues. Available digitally (VOD, Amazon Unbox, iTunes, Xbox Marketplace) from the same day as the DVD release, viewers can either get the regular movie, or the Drew's Clues edition with "Movies that Pop" pop ups for trivia facts, quizzes and behind the scenes info. This is aimed primarily at the teen-girl sleepover crowd, and while the regular flick is out in HD on all services, Drew's Clues is SD only, plus, to watch it both ways, you would have to rent (and pay for) both versions separately. Key advance that increases the appeal of downloads, or one more reason to take the remote when you leave your tween home alone, we can't decide. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family][Via Variety]
Sharp's 52-inch POP-UP TV: kiss your wife goodbye
We've already been up close and personal with Sharp's 52-inch LCD TV prototype. You know the one: 29-mm (1.14-inch) thin with a 100,000:1 contrast and the ability to reproduce 150% of the NTSC color gamut. Right, well, Sharp has slipped the pup into an automatic "POP-UP" rig which gives rise to the 25-kg set and the engorged dream of a giant flat panel integrated into your bed's footboard. Action video after the break.
"Destination Q" no longer a destination
Well, that was quick. Motorola's Destination Q, a "pop-up" store devoted to the Q on Chicago's Magnificent Mile, has slipped the surly bonds of this mortal plane, moving on to the great EV-DO network in the sky. Moto's calling Destination Q's run "successful," though we don't know exactly what parameters define success here -- yes, they managed to increase the Q's visibility to inescapable proportions in and around downtown Chicago, but as we found out in our visit, the store paled in comparison to Nokia's permanent location down the street. So what's next for Motorola's retail presence? They're not telling us much, but they say they're "actively evaluating and developing" the pop-up concept further; personally, we're hoping a Destination MAXX might lie in Chicago's future.[Thanks, zedwards]
BuddyPop makes Address Book useful
Continuing on my quest for apps that make me go "that should've been in OS X," I found BuddyPop at the ever-useful Hawk Wings. BuddyPop makes Address Book a bit more accessable and useful by offering a searchable pop-up window for your contacts. A user-definable keyboard shortcut calls the highly-configurable pop-up window, and various pieces of contact info are linked to actual applications. Clicking on a phone number can call the contact using Vonage or Skype, while clicking an email address opens a message addressed to the contact. This is the kind of super-handy stuff that really should have been built into operating systems years ago, in my humble opinion. BuddyPop costs 10 € (10 euros) which the Unit Converter widget tells me is just under $12 (USD).Like Tim Gaden over at Hawk Wings, however, Quicksilver does all this stuff for me already, and much more. But for a lot of people who simply need quick access to contacts and not all the (sometimes confusing) extras of Quicksilver, I'm sure BuddyPop is a great, functional solution.
