Be sure to "middle click" on the post links to open them in a new tab. Kids get your mom or dad to approve all the news feeds, some may be PG-13 or higher.
In not-too-surprising, yet good-to-know-for-sure news, it seems that Samsung is indeed working on a netbook designed around Chrome OS. Now, what exactly that comprises I can’t tell you — my guess is they’re really just getting a cheap netbook ready to go with whatever Google announces when Chrome OS hits prime time. Or maybe they’ll use one of those neat (useless) transparent ones?
The specs are nothing crazy: 3G, 2GB of RAM to start, 64GB or more of SSD storage, probably a 10.1″ screen, and a nice long battery life. The chipset and processor weren’t disclosed, but the source is suggesting a 1.5GHz Snapdragon. I wonder about that — I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some curveballs in there. Dual Snapdragons, for instance, or a dedicated GPU like the iPad. It’s actually very similar to this speculative post here, except without a price, which makes it much easier to swallow.
Guess we’ll find out… not soon. It’s not clear when they’ll be making the real announcement, and at any rate we’ll probably hear from Google first.
It’s not clear what level of approval this leaked video has from Microsoft, but my guess would be that there is plenty of testing like this going to to determine the feasibility of FPS games on Natal.
If anything, it looks more awkward than playing with dual analog sticks, but given the right game design, it could work well. Something where precise movement is less important than intuitive interaction (the Penumbra series comes to mind) might just make this fly.
Sony hasn’t given up on Home, its virtual world filled with avatars and overall weirdness. It just launched Sodium One, which is the latest Home world you and your avatar can spend the day in. There’s a game to go along with it, one that looks an awful lot like Wipeout, which isn’t bad at all.
The actual game, Salt Shooter, does have a ludicrous premise, but it’s hardly the only one with that affliction: “This entertainment event, set in a future of advanced technology where man and machine meet on a vast salt plain to turn deadly battle into extreme sport [lol wut?], resides only in the ever-growing world of PlayStation Home.”
Like I said, ludicrous. My guess is that once you play it you won’t pay any attention to the story.
Sony’s giving away 1,500 vouchers for full Salt Shooter unlocks, so best to login as soon as possible for your chance to win.
GM has a lot riding on the Chevy Volt. It’s not the vehicle that will save the company from failure, (the Chevy Cruze will do that) but it’s huge PR halo car. It will be the car that draws everyone’s attention back to the auto maker and having the car work with a flashy iPhone and Blackberry app should help with that.
Not much is known about the apps right now. In fact, the image above was flashed on the screen during the Volt’s presentation at the L.A. Auto Show. It’s probably a good guess that the meter is referring to the Volt’s batter life and the button might even be able to start up the gasoline engine remotely to charge the battery. But of course apps like these can do so much more.
Mercedes-Benz recently announced its iPhone and Blackberry app that can unlock doors, call for roadside assistance, and even locate the vehicle. No doubt the Volt’s app will be similar, but hopefully doesn’t cost $280 like the MB option.
Don’t expect anything too crazy though. It’s not like GM has the know-how to install a system like the one in James Bond’s BMW 750i.
Big props goes out to Joe W. for almost correctly guessing the total storage capacity of the CrunchGear staff. His guess of 38.5TB nets him a brand new HP MediaSmart EX495 server. Congrats. Click through to see the total capacity broken down by writer.
In no particular order,
>Devin: 4.2
Doug: 3
Dave: 8.4
Matt: 8
Nicholas: 5
John: 2
Greg: 8
For a grand total of 38.6TB, which isn’t that much actually. It will probably be double next year at this time
I believe that headline contains what’s known as a gaggle of acronyms. TMOS (time-multiplexed optical shutter) is a new display technology that claims brighter, thinner, longer-lasting, higher-resolution displays. Hey! I hear you giggling out there. “Yeah, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” Okay, so extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I’d say their pitch is somewhere short of extraordinary, but if there’s anything to the technology, it really may just be all that they say. The company and technology have been around for a while, but they’re actually approaching the market at this point and you might want to know something about it before you start seeing the name pop up all over.
The idea is that by taking out as many layers of the display as possible, you reduce light interference (increasing brightness), power draw (better battery life) and component number (allowing for more pixels per square unit). But what to strip out? Uni-Pixel, the people behind TMOS note that instead of having three dots per pixel (red, green, blue in varying intensity), you could just have one, but with the dot changing color so rapidly that your eye only perceives the aggregate color. I’m not going to get all neuroscience on you here, but allow me to just say that there are biological reasons both for and against this technology, which I’m sure Uni-Pixel is aware of.
Micro-mirrors would direct light from side-mounted LEDs, which sounds clumsy to me, but they say it’ll result in refresh rates far above current displays’. They would also be simpler to manufacture, more durable, and more flexible. Anyhow, the engineering challenges are serious, but they say they should be able to put one in a product in 2010. Guess we’ll just have to wait!
Toshiba has been announcing fuel cells for home use for ages now, but it seems the announcement [press release in English] they made today is really serious. The company has unveiled the Dynario today, a mini fuel cell that can charge mobile devices on the go. Japanese mobile gadget geeks can already order the fuel cell on Toshiba Japan’s online store (where it’s available exclusively).
Buyers get a methanol fuel cell that’s fairly large (size: 150×21x74.5mm), heavy (280g without fuel) and holds 14ml of fuel. Cartridges, which have to be bought separately, cost $32 for a set of five and hold 50ml each. The reaction between the methanol and ambient oxgyen triggers a chemical reaction, which then results in the production of electricity.
Shipping will start on October 29. The new technology comes at a high price though: Be ready to spend $320 for the fuel cell. Toshiba hasn’t said yet whether it will ever be sold outside Japan, but my guess is the company will see how sales go in Japan first.
ViewSonic dove headfirst into the ultraportable notebook game yesterday, with the announcement of the “ViewBook” line of 12-, 13-, and 14-inch low voltage machines.
The 13.3-inch ViewBook 130 (pictured above) looks to compete directly with Acer’s 3810-model Timeline offerings, while the 12-inch ViewBook 120 (video below) bears a striking physical resemblance to the Lenovo S12 series.
The ViewBook line was announced in Taiwan but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we would eventually see these machines in the U.S., since ViewSonic products are already represented reasonably well here.
The ViewBook 130 will be available in three different configurations ranging from $24,900 to $31,900 New Taiwan dollars, which is roughly $767 to $983 U.S. dollars. That’s not to say that we’d see those actual prices stateside — I’d guess they’d be lower than that in order to stay competitive, perhaps between $650 and $900 or so.
Specs for the ViewBook 130 line include:
Intel ULV743 CPU at 1.3GHz, SU4100 at 1.3GHz, or SU7300 at 1.3GHz
13.3-inch screen with 1366×768 resolution
2GB of RAM
320GB hard drive
HDMI/VGA output
Windows 7 Home Premium
Six-cell battery good for up to 8 hours
The ViewBook 120:
Intel SU2300 CPU at 1.3GHz
2GB of RAM
250GB hard drive
VGA out, three USB ports
Windows 7 Home Premium
Six-cell battery good for up to 8 hours
Pricing for the ViewBook 120 is pegged at around $22,000 New Taiwan Dollars, which is about $678 here. Again, though, that’s not to say that it’d be priced at $678 through U.S. retailers.
Not much info on the 14-inch ViewBook 140, although my guess is that it’s likely similar to the ViewBook 130 from a features standpoint.
Sony isn’t typically known for aggressive pricing, but the company will apparently be rolling out a value-priced line of 32- and 40-inch LCD TVs early next year.
“The B series, including 32- and 40-inch models, will be priced lower than its current S series entry-level models in order to help the vendor regain its position in the global LCD TV market, the sources noted, adding that the price of a 32-inch B series Sony LCD TV is estimated at about NT$15,000 (US$462.96) or even lower.”
That “or even lower” part is important to note. I’d venture a guess that U.S. pricing would start at far lower than $462.96 seeing as though, for instance, Best Buy currently sells a 32-inch Sony LCD TV for $500 while off-brands of 32-inch LCD TVs are hovering around $350 or less. I’d think that $400 would be more realistic, assuming that Sony’s serious about competing in the lower end.
Of course, that number could fall even lower by early next year depending upon demand and panel prices. Whatever the case, it looks like Sony needs to move some TVs as the company “has trimmed its 2009 LCD TV shipment goal three times so far,” according to DigiTimes.
Australia’s crazy anti-violent video game restrictions strike again! Valve submitted Left 4 Dead 2 (aren’t we boycotting that game?) to whatever board is in charge of rating video games down there, and the board replied with this: yeah, this game is too violent for anyone under the age of 18.
Of course, since Valve is, you know, interested in making money, it really can’t have a game out there that’s only playable by the over-18 crowd. To that effect Valve has re-submitted the game with some tweaks here and there in an effort to get passed the censor.
But there’s more! It seems that Valve anticipated this scenario, and has developed a special, Australia-only version of the game. You have to imagine that this version is way toned down, and may not be an accurate representation of the “real” game. So if Valve can’t get the censor to approve the slightly tweaked version of the game, then it’ll activate Plan B: selling the Australian version.
My guess is that, should the Australian version end up being released, then you’ll see plenty of Australians buy that version (in order to support Valve), but then download the cracked American version. That’s probably what I would do, to be honest.
Texting while driving seems to be the hotbed issue of today’s world. Even though texting is only one of a multitude of distractive factors in the car, 18 states will have legislation by January 2010 banning text messaging in vehicles. But for those parents who don’t think the law is enough to keep their kids from texting, help has arrived! TXTBlocker is a piece of software installed onto a mobile device that prevents the phone from calling out, texting, or e-mailing while you are driving. Emergency calls are still allowed, but your phone pretty much becomes a useless brick whenever you move faster than 5 MPH. On the FAQ section of the TXTBlocker website, they explain how the software knows you’re driving with the following: “TXTBlocker™ uses a variety of proprietary technologies to monitor the mobile phone’s location, acceleration, and velocity. Our guess is GPS. It also offers the feature to check where the device is located, simply by logging onto their website. Creepy.
The list of compatible phones is pretty limited. Support is primarily for the BlackBerry series, with Android and iPhone capabilities coming later. But if you bought your teenage driver a brand new smartphone, you probably can afford to shell out the $24.99 setup fee + $9.99 a month.
P.S. Be forewarned, if you go to the TXTBlocker website, it plays a audio file of a mother explaining exactly how totally awesome this service is. On every page. You also can’t turn it off.
How quickly are Mac users adopting Snow Leopard? It's hard to tell, but everyone's got a guess. In general, Mac users are much faster to upgrade than their...
If you’re one of the people who have been holding out on buying Fallout 3 and its various expansion packs, take note: the game of the year edition of the Bethesda RPG will be available on October 16. Well, that’s the European date, but I can’t see the North American date being too different.
What do you get with the £49.99 (that translates to $72, but my guess is that it’ll be $59 here) game of the year edition? How about, the complete game, and all of the expansion packs! That’s not a bad deal at all, and it makes me feel like a fool for not being able to wait a year then buy the game with everything on the disc.
You what it would go great with? A shiny, new PS3 Slim.
And here’s some advice, PS3 owners: don’t buy the expansion packs when they’re released at the end of the month. Just wait for the game of the year edition, then you’ve got it all in one shot. Considering it’s the game of the year edition, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bethesda threw in some sort of GOTY-only in-game item.
My guess is that most, if not all, of you have played the original Sonic the Hedgehog at some point in your life. But while many of you have played the game, how many of you can actually say you designed a level? You know where I’m going with this: PlaySega.com has released a fully working level editor, letting you try your hand at creating a level or two.
This is all fine and dandy, but there’s a catch: you need to be a premium member of PlaySega.com in order to get the level editor. Granted, such a membership is only $5.95 per month, but I’ll understand if we’ve cultivated a readership that allergic to paying for software, music, or movies.
The Web site is also giving away this Sega Saturn-style controller with the purchase of a $15, three-month subscription:
PlaySega.com? It’s a Web site set up by Sega where you can play its old games. I probably should have mentioned that in the beginning.
This is just a guess, but with a lot of the world easing out of its summertime state of mind and everybody who is sidetracked playing "The Beatles: RockBand,"...
The giant Gundam statue that has been protecting Tokyo for a couple of months is gone, but now you have the chance to bring back memories in the form of a smaller version you can put in your living room. The original 1/1 statue stood 20m tall, while the replica [JP] is 1/60th of that size (30cm) and weighs 4kg.
The little statue is being offered in Japan only and is exclusively sold through Yahoo Japan, the country’s biggest website. Shipping starts in spring next year, but pre-orders can be placed between today and December 31st. But for $900 (plus shipping), my guess is only hardcore fans will buy the so-called RX-78-2 Gundam Ver.G30th.
Contact Rinkya if you are one of those people but live outside Japan. They even wrote a dedicated blog post about the replica.
Did Apple swerve us, or are we just a bunch of nincompoops? (I vote for the latter.) So, so many people were expecting to see The Beatles finally show up on iTunes, if not the event itself, yesterday. Nearly 24 hours later, you’re still unable to buy “Help!” from Steve Jobs’ little store. Huge deal, or should we all just move on with our lives? And is the band making a mistake in ignoring the largest music store on Planet Earth?
You all know my opinion when it comes to The Beatles and the iTunes Store: it doesn’t matter to me (and I’d imagine to many of you, too) because I could very easily rip Revolver (or download it from What.cd) and put it on my device of choice. That’s what I said in our live podcast yesterday, that the move to the iTunes Store would be done merely to get a mention on NBC Nightly News at 6:30pm. “In other, non-healthcare news, The Beatles are now available on iTunes. Ask your children and grand-children what that means. We’ll be back, after these messages.”
So, personally, The Beatles not being on iTunes doesn’t affect me in the least. Again, I’m not anti-Beatles, it’s just that I’ve known how to rip a CD for at least 10 years now. (And look, if you’re considering buying The Beatles off iTunes, then you’re obviously not too concerned with sound quality, as you listen on your iPhone in the subway or at the gym. So what if the CDs were terribly processed, you’ll be listening on a cheap portable device on cheap headphones. Real audiophiles would have ponied up for the vinyl ages ago.)
What I would be concerned about, though, is: Is the band making a mistake? The Beatles probably are never going to be hotter than they are this week (save some sort of tragedy), what with the release of The Beatles: Rock Band and that super awesome re-mastered collection. Why not score the hat trick, and put your albums up for sale on iTunes to go along with those other two major releases? My guess is that the band didn’t want to cannibalize sales of the physical album by finally going digital. How horribly short sighted.
Picture this: some 15-year-old kid plays The Beatles: Rock Band with his friend. Do you think this kid has $180 (or $260 at retail) to spend on that re-mastered collection? Nope, but I bet he received an iTunes gift card or two for his birthday.
Oh joy, another vague advertising campaign for Dell’s Adamo line is underway. This time, it’s the Adamo XPS. There’s just a single specification, too: it’s less than 10 millimeters thick.
That’s about 0.39 inches. Impressive, yes, although the first Adamo was also pretty thin and it ended up weighing four pounds — about a pound and a half more than it should have. Now we wait for round after round of black and white video ads and teaser websites with mysterious models before we finally get down to the actual pricing and availability.
My guess is that it’ll be out just in time for the holidays and contain one of those newfangled Intel CULV processors that all of Dell’s competitors already have on the market. If Dell really wanted to rock the boat, it’d serve up some NVIDIA Ion or Android or Snapdragon goodness. Hell, maybe it’s a tablet. That might work, though Dell’s XPS line is generally reserved for high(er) performance machines.
Looks like the latest PS3 firmware update has borked a bunch of controllers, possibly only knock-off ones. What’s funny about this situation is that Apple does stuff like this all the time. In fact, it specifically upgrades its systems in order to lock out other hardware and software. People seem okay with that (at least, they continue to buy Apple stuff), but I get the feeling if this turns out to be Sony shenanigans, heads will roll.
Whether either practice is really justifiable, or beneficial to consumers, is a serious question, and one that I am not paid enough to answer. So I’ll leave it to the fanboys.
I guess if I had to put my two cents in, I’d say it’s a little deliberate and a little accidental. My guess would be that they were upgrading the controller code for their own (probably evil) purposes, and although they knew what they were doing would probably break some third-party controllers that weren’t up to spec, that wasn’t seen as a good reason to stop. After all, the worst thing that can happen is people have to go buy more actual Sony-branded hardware. They won’t like Sony for it, but Sony doesn’t need to be liked.
OK, now this whole USBgadgetthing is really getting silly. They’re now producing Japanese bamboo fans that double as USB memory sticks. And this time, “they” aren’t even offered by CrunchGear favorite Thanko, but exclusively and for a non-Japanese audience (if I understood correctly) by Geek Stuff 4 U.
The fan is hand-made, which should be the major reason it goes for $294.25 plus shipping. It stores 16GB, but my guess is they won’t even sell one.
Take a guess what’s in that shipping box from HP. A few notebooks? Maybe a large, multifunction printer. Or it could be a production quality CRT monitor. All those are possible because, well, the box is huge and it’s on a shipping pallet, but they are also all wrong. This is crazy.
That huge box contains an eff’n power cable, which gives Greenpeace more shit to throw at the company. After all, Greenpeace already cleverly calls HP, Hazardous Products because of the companies use of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics. But this probably doesn’t help its image either.
We all hope that eventually AT&T will get things together and out a tethering plan for the iPhone. But most of us are also nervous what AT&T is going to charge. We’ve heard everything from $40 to $60, but now one site is stating that AT&T told them directly all the details. We’re doubtful but wouldn’t be surprise if the cost ends up being close to what this site is stating.
Only AT&T (and Verizon) would charge $55 extra to allow your computer access to the so-called unlimited data already included in your monthly plan. That cost wouldn’t surprise us. But why we’re still skeptical AT&T told Appmodo directly all the secret plans outside of an embargo sealed with blood. Eventually someone will simply guess the tethering plan’s cost and become the Internet’s AT&T oracle. Our guess? $40.
Looks like Rockstar just hit “send” in their e-mail client, because guess what just arrived in our inbox? That’s right: the first screen shots of Max Payne 3, which was first announced a few weeks ago. The new issue of Game Informer has a whole article on the game, filled with facts and information. We have no such luxury.
But, seeing as though this is the Internet, I’m sure the magazine will be scanned soon enough. We’ll point you in the right direction when that happens. Or, I guess, you could actually buy the magazine. Your call.
Anyhow, here are the screens.
Remember: the game is being developed by Rockstar Vancouver, the same guys who made Bully.
My first reaction: looks like Rockstar has been playing Uncharted, lol!
Coming this Fall from Microsoft is a wireless mic that’s compatible with Lips, Guitar Hero Metallica, Rock Band 2, Disney Sing it: HSM 3, and the upcoming Lips: Number One Hits and The Beatles: Rock Band. My guess is the mic will launch just before or at the same time as The Beatles: RB, but what do I know? Look for the wireless mic to retail for $50.
You might want to know that iRiver is making Bluetooth headsets now. Granted, the don’t look anything special; does any headset? Also, the first model, the A100, is currently only set for release in China.
There’s very little to address here. It supports Bluetooth 2.0, which means that most any phone purchased in the last five years should work with it just fine. Yes, including that fancy, new iPhone 3G S.
What I will address, briefly, is: why isn’t iRiver more popular in the U.S.? (I can’t speak to what happens, say, in Russia or the UK.) Look at the LPlayer. Looks pretty slick to me; it plays MP3s. What more do you want in a player? My guess is that, somehow, we’ve gotten used to the idea that iPod/iPhone = MP3 Player, and anything else is pure garbage. It’s unfortunate, I think. There’s plenty of cool stuff out there that doesn’t have an Apple logo on it.
Texting while driving seems to be the hotbed issue of today’s world. Even though texting is only one of a multitude of distractive factors in the car, 
OK, now this whole 
