The Demo Site

If I move to Tokyo, I’m definitely getting one of these little sets, even though I doubt I’ll be having guests and I’ll probably eat every day at ramen stands. Moving on from my sad fantasy, the Offi Paket is a nicely-designed little modular system that folds and unfolds to accommodate up to four people at a little dining table, yet takes up no more space than… a little dining table. The chairs (stools with duck-butts, really) fold up and go right under there. Tiny genius!

Unfortunately, they know it’s awesome, so they’re charging $500 for the table and $250 per pair of chairs. I think I’ll wait for the Ikea knockoff.

[via Gizmag]

This thing looks great! Solar-powered lamps are often pretty corny-looking, and the ones for outdoors are all so plasticky. The Sun Jar is basically just a couple low-power LEDs in a jar, attached to a solar charger, but it looks great. I always wanted to capture the sun in a jar. Have a couple of these around for emergencies or just for mood lighting.

At £20 or ~$33, they fall under the “pricey but not outrageous objet” category. I’d buy one if I didn’t have to pay for international shipping, but you Brits out there should definitely pick one up. Lots more info here, and you can order one too.

[via The Daily What]

Don’t look now, I think the Apple platform might be approaching a half dozen games! Now in addition to Myst and World of Warcraft, Mac users can also play the not-really-acclaimed shooter Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena. I frankly have no idea why anyone is porting this game. I mean, it’s not especially good, or original. Maybe Vin Diesel is a Mac user?

All teasing aside, the release will include a graphical update, an additional 6 multiplayer modes, and will have the same voice acting and very dark environment of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions. No word on pricing or release date, of course, but as with all games I’m sure it’ll be “really soon now.”

But seriously, why this title? Why not one of the Splinter Cell games or something?

[via MacNN]

Yep. That 100 percent crop shows a dead pixel close to center on the Olympus E-P1.

While this is more a sociological issue than a technological one, it’s still interesting. Pilot programs in Ethiopia with the OLPC XO laptop have hit a major roadblock: teachers resent the device and consider it a toy. The reasons for this are complicated, but in essence it’s the nature of the educational system there. Imagine a school here in the US where the kids are learning design, coding, and a bunch of other interesting stuff but fare poorly on the SATs. It’s a lot like that, except more so; the Ethiopian schools are very much about memorization and basic scholastic functions, while the OLPC is all about exploration and individual learning.

It’s not like the whole project has been scrapped, far from it, it just exposes the trouble of introducing something as radical as the XO laptop into a school system that isn’t prepared to handle it. Until the teachers consider exploratory learning as legitimate and are equipped to take advantage of the device, the project is doomed to failure. It’s the classic horse/water problem. So the new strategy simply has to include those considerations and work harder on the top-down learning model they have there — something proposed a long time ago but not really implemented. Here’s a talk discussing this and other things in more detail.

I wonder what the risk is of someone considering the XO-2 a toy. They’d probably be hard-pressed to categorize at all.

[via Reddit, photo credit: CNET, it's in Nigeria]

If you’re looking for a new WinMo smartphone, the Omnia 2 should definitely be on your list. I still think the cube thing is weird-looking, but apparently the phone works quite well and has a nice, polished touch interface.

It’d be superfluous to list all the details they go over, but let’s just say that GSM Arena’s “first look” is more thorough than most reviews.

Here it is, action sport stars, some real POV footage taken with the VholdR ContourHD instead of the garbage office tour I took earlier in the week. Turn down the volume on your speakers! I’ve included the video that’s currently live on VholdR’s site and YouTube for the full HD video.

• Equipment: My feet and a Carver skateboard.
• Terrain: East side of Manhattan

If you've seen or played with the original VholdR then you've basically touched the ContourHD. The shell appears to be the same except for a few tweaks under the hood, like the new wide-angle lens, support for microSDHC (up to 16GB) and HD (720p) video recording capability.

Overall, the video quality is pretty good. I mounted the camera to the nose of my board using the adhesive pad that came in the packaging and to my astonishment it worked just fine. I was worried that it might fall off during my road test, but it's stuck on there like a champ. Audio quality is par for the course. It doesn't really pick up a lot of ambient noises, which is good, but if you're trying to pick up audio from a buddy or something it might not register as well. Check around the 3:10 minute mark because the traffic should be a lot louder than it is in the video. Devin thinks there’s a lot of skew, but I’m pretty sure it’s because the cam is mounted to the bottom of a wobbly skateboard. Other videos taken with the ContourHD can be seen here.

Controls are simple, again. Press the on/off switch until the device beeps and the lights flicker on. Lens orientation can be adjusted based on how you mount the ContourHD by simply turning the lens dial. When you're ready to record just slide the switch and an audible beep will sound off and lights will go red. And away you go!

VholdR promises eight hours of HD footage off the rechargeable battery, but for me to record eight hours of HD footage on a skateboard in NYC would take a long time. I'll get back to you on that.

The ContourHD retails for $300, but it can be had for $280 with a $50 gift card from Amazon right now. It looks like they only have 3 of these left at $280, so you might want to act quick.

The only thing better than hoarding everything digitally is doing it on the cheap. In that spirit, Amazon has a 750GB Western Digital Caviar hard drive for $58.58 with free shipping. That oughta take a weekend to fill up.

The drive’s got a 7200 RPM spindle speed, SATA interface, and a lowly 16MB of cache. But don’t let that stop you. Hoard! Hoard like you’ve never hoarded before!

Update: it’s over!

Western Digital Caviar Green 750 GB [Amazon via Fatwallet]

Sorry, AT&T, but you can’t hide tethering from the very folks who taught you, long ago, what it meant to truly tether. First, download this carrier update and then type this into Terminal.

defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE

Finally, start up iTunes and option-click the Restore button and select the ipcc file in the disk image. Once the update is complete you’ll see Internet Tethering under your network settings. Easy peasy.

from MacMegaSite

If you find yourself using a powerful flashlight on a regular basis, the above-pictured “Light for Life” lasts for 90 minutes on a single charge and recharges in an astonishing 90 seconds.

At $170, you’re not going to buy it and keep it in your kitchen’s junk drawer but you’ll never have to buy flashlight batteries ever again, as it can be recharged 50,000 times before needing to be replaced.

Light is provided by three big LEDs that put out up to 270 lumens. The quick-charging technology is apparently an “ultracapacitor energy storage system from Ivus Energy Innovations,” according to CNET.

Light for Life Flashlight UC3.400 [5.11 Tactical via CNET]

Disclaimer: This player is refurbished and it’s a Magnavox. However, it still plays Blu-ray discs and can be had for slightly less than a 100 bones.

Sears is selling the Magnavox RNB500MG9 Blu-ray player for only $99.99, which makes it the least expensive Blu-ray we have ever seen. It isn’t the latest or greatest, but it could be a good Father’s Day gift.  After All, ol’ Pop probably doesn’t care about the BD Live goodies or anything else that comes with Blu-ray’s Profile 2.0 spec. He’s just going to watch John Wayne movies anyway.

Sears via CNET

What happens when the iPhone iPod stopwatch runs out of digits? This guy started his stopwatch 416 days ago and has let it run ever since (never turning off his phone or losing power once for over a year? Good lord). Predictably, the seconds turned into minutes, which turned into hours, which turned into 9999 hours at which point the digits seem to have nowhere to go — and then 59 minutes after that, he shot this video. What will happen?!

Well, watch the video and find out, you silly goose!

Oh man, who remembers playing Mad Dog McCree? T’was a Duck Hunt-style shooter except instead of animated ducks, the game featured live-action mediocre actors. I had it on 3DO — 3DO!

Well Mad Dog McCree is back and available on the Wii for twenty bucks. And lest you worry that the game’s been redone and gussied up for a present-day audience, it has NOT. The Wii version is simply all three Mad Dog McCree games bundled onto one disc as the Mad Dog McCree Gunslinger Pack and made to work with the Wii remote.

Will I buy it? Will you? Like Natalie Imbruglia, I’m torn.

Mad Dog McCree Gunslinger Pack [Majesco Entertainment via Kotaku]

After 10 days of waiting for my Verizon FiOS install, I finally have Internet and cable in my new apartment. Goodbye, Time Warner. You put up a good fight by offering free Showtime for a year and knocking a few bucks off the bill, but I don’t care about CallerID on my TV or NY1. RAWR, Verizon FiOS, RAWR. It’s certainly not as fast at Nicholas’s OOLU, but it’s good enough for me.

Not surprisingly, Yahtzee was not amused by almost anything at E3. I can understand that; there were a lot of promises made which have yet to be followed through on (probably some never will) and a lot of rehashing of old stuff that was never particularly original to begin with. It was a fun show and I look forward to a lot of the games we saw demoed, but I have to share his perspective on a lot of this stuff, although I may just give Final Fantasy XIV a try.

Hello there, seemingly useful wireless keyboard and mouse combo. The Cideko Air Keyboard features a full QWERTY keypad, plus it functions as a mouse in mid-air! Just move it to and fro and watch your on-screen cursor move along with it.

The top side of the device holds the left and right mouse buttons and there’s a row of media-friendly buttons above all the keys. According to Cideko’s website:

“Air Keyboard is a wireless keyboard, integrated mouse and remote all in the same device, just move the Cideko Air Keyboard about in the air to control the cursor.”

Looks like it might make a nice HTPC keyboard. Unfortunately there’s no word on pricing or availability as the keyboard was just recently shown off at Computex in Taiwan. It might not even make it to the US, so let’s not get our hopes up too high just yet.

Cideko Website [via BBG/AVING]

It’s not here. We’re not big enough to get one in the first wave of releases and we clearly haven’t “gone native” with the PR persons involved. We’ll have a thorough and intelligent review up after the weekend. Until then, enjoy the above video of Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton.

For a great examination of this situation by a site that we should all respect and read, pop over to iLounge.

The big day has finally come. You rushed to download iPhone OS 3.0, sat on the edge of your seat as your handset did its thing, and then.. nothing. No glorious homescreen, no new search pane. Just an iTunes Logo and a dock connector, staring right back at you. You look over at your monitor, and sure enough - iTunes is spitting out error messages.

Read the rest of this post >>

I just had to share this interesting exchange I had with Comcast’s Live Chat service. I highly recommend it for those of you with simple issues like billing or connection trouble, by the way. It’s a bit weird at first because the chatters are obviously pasting in bits of script, so there’s the occasional non-sequitur (above), but sometimes you can get results fast. I opened my chat up at about 11:15 and now, at noon my time, the Comcast guy has come and gone and internet is back up. That’s good, because I can’t spend another week blogging from coffee shops — that much caffeine makes me paranoid.

Hey there, amigo. Have you logged onto Xbox Live today? Don’t! Well, not unless you’re looking forward to dealing with a few post-maintenance glitches.

What type of glitches, you ask? SaysMicrosoft:

Users may experience difficulties when attempting to use Marketplace and/or making purchases. We are aware of the problem and working to resolve the technical issues. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience.

People have reported issues when trying to redeem their pre-order download codes for Ghostbusters. Entire games, like that Sega Vintage Collection, are completely missing. It’s chaos!

There’s really nothing you can do to fix thing, just sit tight till Microsoft—is it still funny to write "M$" when talking about the company?—works the kinks out.

Side note: I just bought Operation Anchorage because it was one sale (560 Microsoft Points, versus the usual 800). There’s a good chance I’ll play it for, oh, 13 minutes, then never play it again.

Releasing odors in movie theaters to enhance the viewing experience is an idea that’s been around for decades now. Now NTT Communications, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan's telecommunications behemoth NTT, takes the idea to another level: The company today announced the development of a “fragrance communication” system that makes it possible to send smells over the web.

NTT Communications is currently recruiting monitors for their so-called i-Aroma service, which will go through a test run from mid-July to the end of August. i-Aroma is based on a USB device (15cm tall) that contains six base oils, which are mixed and vaporized depending on the online commands the diffuser receives. As a result, a number of different fragrances will waft from the machine.

A total of 360 lucky participants will be able to try out two different “fragrance communication” services for free. The first service [JP], jointly developed with a professional astrologist, makes the i-Aroma device emit odors that match the dominant planets at a given time of the day. The second service [JP] makes sure you smell fragrances (designed by an “aroma therapist”) matching your lifestyle, which means you get different nasal stimuli in the morning and during the evening, for example. NTT Communications even set up closed social networks tailor-made for their i-Aroma users.

NTT as a whole isn’t joking around as far as the development of aroma-emitting devices is concerned. NTT Docomo is rumored to soon release cell phones equipped with fragrance cartridges that are able of releasing odors. Last year, NTT Communications successfully launched a fragrance-emitting digital signage system for stores. And there is even more stuff based on the concept of “fragrance communication”.

Mainly targeting single women in their 30s, the company currently tries to find ways to commercialize i-Aroma, too. At this point, only users living in Japan and owning Windows XP or Vista PCs can sign up for the trials.

Now, the smart thing to do when faced with the prospect of a long aeroplane flight is to load up on Benadryl (or Ambien, if you have money and a cooperative doctor) right before boarding. That way you sleep for the duration of the flight—no having to worry about crying babies for you! But, for the sake of this here post, let’s say you want to, or have to, stay awake for a certain amount of time. You know who’s got your back in this instance? Panasonic, of all people, what with its "iPod merge" in-flight thingamabob.

Keep in mind this isn’t for the average United Airlines flight. No, it’s for Boeing Business Jets—rich people, in other words. See, all they (read: their assistants) will have to do is plug in the Company iPod and then the whole cabin can enjoy the latest funny Will Ferrel movie while knocking back a few brews. Hey, you’ve earned it!

Planes should be outfitted with iPod merge by September of this year.

And while it’s great that companies like Panasonic are working toward making long flights more bearable—can you even imagine being on an old Spanish galleon, going from Sevilla to, I don’t know, Cartagena! That must have taken forever, lol!—I think I speak for most of you when I say, Hey, how about a little more legroom in coach? Is that so hard?

via Giz

John Biggs ran his Father’s Day gift guide yesterday, but each one of his items cost well over a hundred dollars. I don’t have that kind of cash and to be honest, my Dad wouldn’t use any of those gadgets anyway. So here’s a Father’s Day gift guide for the working dad with items everyone can afford. Let’s get to it.

The Swiss+Tech Utili-Key is one of the most handy tools ever made. It’s a popular multitool with the CrunchGear staff and is cheap at $11. It has everything on it: a knife, screwdrivers, bottle opener. Best of all it snaps right onto a keyring and blends in with other keys. Just don’t forget to take it off when going through security. Devin cried a little when TSA confiscated his.

Tool bags are the new tool boxes. They weigh less and can take more abuse. If your pop is a handyman, look for an open mouth bag. This way he can access tools quickly when fixing a leaky facet or installing a new door knob. This Ryobi Tool Bag from Home Depot is a great deal at $20.

Every home needs a Maglite. If not for when the power goes out, to knock-out intruders. Get him one of the new LED models. They cost a bit more, but are brighter and the batteries last a lot longer. Get Dad this 3 D-Cell model at Walmart for $33.88.

You could always take Dad to a baseball game. Don’t worry about getting tickets right behind home plate. Sit with the real fans in the cheap seats. It doesn’t really matter if the tickets are to a Major League ballpark. Sometimes the minors are more fun anyway. Tickets start around $10 at many parks including the new Yankee Stadium via StubHub.com.

Chances are that you Dad doesn’t care about satellite radio, MPwhatnot, or HD Radio. If he’s anything like my dad, he just wants to listen to 760 AM WJR while riding his lawn mower. Get him this little Sony radio. It’s only $35, it tunes digitally, and works great. I got my Dad one a few years back and he loves it.

Dads love knifes. At least they should. You could go with a single blade model that sports a belt/pocket clip or a multitool like a Leatherman or Gerber. The beauty here is that even places like Walmart and Target sell these so you shouldn’t have any problem finding one in your budget.

This is what my father-in-law is getting from me and I’ll bet anything he’ll like it better than what his daughters/wife are buying him. You can’t go wrong with beer.

Fellow citizens! Please be advised that BARNES & NOBLE has a Blu-ray and DVD sale that might interest you. It follows: if you buy TWO Blu-ray discs or TWO DVDs, you will receive a THIRD ONE for free. This sale covers every single title you can find in the brick-and-mortar store, which works out to some 35,000 online.

Pictured here is Revolutionary Road, a fine film that makes you want to hurry up, get married, and be miserable for the rest of your life. I can’t wait!

That is all.

Here it is, folks. At long last, version 3.0 of the iPhone OS has launched here in the US, bringing with it just about every feature the phone should have had from the start - and a whole lot more.

If you hadn’t already coaxed an iPhone developer into letting you piggyback on their account or (gasp!) actually shelled out for a developers membership, the past 3 months have probably been pretty grueling. You read the blogs, and kept up on every new feature to be uncovered. Maybe you even made a list of all the things you wanted to check out first. No? Well, here you go.

Read the rest of this post >>

If you have a swimming pool then you, my friend, need this little waterproof floating wireless speaker that looks like the thing that pops up out of the muck in the trash compactor in Star Wars. This one doesn’t have a cool robotic eye, though, just “Rich sounding bass. Crisp treble. And no wires.”

While I can almost guarantee that, being a wireless speaker, it does NOT have rich sounding bass, it would be a nice technological accoutrement to have bobbing around in the water during your next swanky pool party.

Your guests will look on in amazement as the same stale Clear Channel-sponsored Top 40 rotation that’s been playing for what seems like eternity seeps out of the speaker, each song sounding exactly like the one before it — a group of guys yelling “Ayyy!” during the chorus of every song and Lady Gaga’s Pokerface playing every hour, on the hour.

But I digress. The “poolPOD Wireless Floating Waterproof Speaker” is on sale at Newegg for $65. It comes with a 900MHz base station, audio cable, and AC adapter.

CABLES UNLIMITED SPK-POOL 900Mhz Wireless Floating Waterproof Speaker [Newegg]

The iPod Comet orbits the Earth in a bi-annual rotation, bringing new devices and attendant accessories into our view every Spring and Fall. The constellation is followed by a set of third-party developers and manufacturers who bolster the cloud as it swings into view and then disappear as the excitement wears off, relegating the devices to CostCos and Sam’s Clubs until the next rotation. But this season the orbit brought an anomaly: the Palm Pre, a device that is ostensibly compatible with the cloud, namely iTunes, but is definitely not of Apple’s world.

The Pre, as you’ll remember, masquerades as an iTunes-compatible device, a feature that Apple promises will soon be remedied through software updates. To this Palm replied:

"Palm's media sync works with the current version of iTunes," Palm spokesperson Lynn Fox told me. "If Apple chooses to disable media sync in a future version of iTunes, it will be a direct blow to their users who will be deprived of a seamless synchronization experience. However, people will have options. They can stay with the iTunes version that works to sync their music on their Pre, they can transfer the music via USB, and there are other third-party applications we could consider."

So they’re hedging their bets. Like Musavi, Palm is looking for youth support to change to an unpopular regime but if the 50,000 people who bought Pres don’t care - which they won’t - they always can build a syncing app. No big deal.

But it is a big deal. As Devin pointed out, Apple hates freedom and Apple fans support that idea of a closed system with abandon, even if it goes against many of their principles. But why? Because Apple owns its own market and when folks try to horn in, be they Psystar or Palm, they realize how precarious their position is. They diluted their brand once, during the PowerPC days, and the resulting mess nearly destroyed the company. Apple, in short, has done what every CE manufacturer has tried to do for the past two decades but, contrary to their competitors efforts, they have succeeded. They created client lock-in, a sort of smothering bear-hug that convinces customers that they aren’t being slowly choked to death.

We’re big Mactards here at CG and TC. Why? Because, in lieu of hiring an IT support team we just buy Macs. That’s partly due to hardware quality - I rarely have to repair my Mac and they hold their resale value - and partly due to Apple’s marketing. Now that they’ve grabbed us they can push all sorts of garbage down our throats (iPod Shuffle, anyone) and we’ll eat it up, taking the good with the bad. And that kind of brand loyalty costs money and effort and Apple isn’t about to let the Palm Pre ride on its good will and install base.

Third parties can pay to join in the Apple party but they can’t crash it. This we’ve discovered over and over again. Apple acts like a media company more than a hardware company. They have gathered a following and now sell access to that following by allowing manufacturers to create devices to their exacting specifications. Woe betide thee if you try to hack the system. Like a media company, Apple has great lawyers.

Sanyo seems to now entirely focus on projectors targeted at professional customers and businesses. After announcing a $6,000 Wi-fi enabled projector last month, the company today said in Japan [JP] it’s about to roll out two additional models with some great specs.

The first new Sanyo projector, the PDG-DET100JL (pictured above) features SXGA+ (1,400 x 1,050) resolution and produces 7,500 lumens brightness, which is the highest in this class. The contrast ratio of 7,500:1 isn’t too shabby either.

It’s also equipped with a DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) mode for more detailed images, making it especially useful for medical institutions. See the diagram above for an example of a DICOM image.

The WTC500L (see above) produces “just” 5,000 lumens brightness and features Wide XGA resolution “only” (1,280×800 resolution). It’s equipped with not one but two lamps between which the user can switch through the push of a button.

The PDG-DET100JL goes on sale in Japan on August 21 (price: $20,000), while the WTC500L will cost $11,000 when it hits stores over here on July 1. Americans are able to try the devices out starting today, provided they can make it to the InfoComm in Orlando, Florida.

I know, I know. We're not a movie blog, but many of you have shown interest in Shane Acker's little project, 9. And it's a slow news day.

The movie is still months away, out on 9/9/09, but a new microsite has emerged and I thought I'd pass it along. I personally don't delve into such things because I hate spoilers (there could be, I don't know), but it's the "Scientist's Lab" and you can poke around to gather info about the movie. Enjoy!

9 Experiment

Oh, and here’s the official poster.

InfoComm is this week and all the AV geeks are burning their pasty skin down in beautiful Orlando, Florida. Today, Casio announced the latest Super Slim projector with a native resolution of 1280×800 (WXVGA).

Under the hood, you'll find DLP taking care of business, brightness of 2500 ANSI lumen, an 1800:1 contrast ratio and a wide-angle 2x power zoom lens. Minimum distance is 2.75-feet and the max distance is 30-feet for a 100-inch screen. For the home entertainment buffs, the latest Super Slim has an HDMI input.

Priced at $999, the XJ-S43W is not only priced just right, but it weighs in at 4lbs and is 1.69 inches thick (1.26 inches at its thinnest).

Casio

In what may be one of the most heart-breaking Sims-related experiments in a long time, Robin Burkinshaw created two Sims, Kev and his daughter Alice. They live in a house that looks like a park and live on free meals from work and school. They sleep on park benches. Alice is kind-hearted and a little dopey and her father is essentially insane - he has a horrible temper doesn’t react in normal ways (he called another Sim a son of a llama and then tried to kiss him to make up). He also hates kids.

As her father dislikes children, he hates sleeping next to her. In the morning, he's always the first to wake, and he immediately throws a tantrum and wakes up Alice to tell her to leave the room. Alice understandably responds that they're not in a room, and she doesn't have anywhere to go. Then they argue, and Kev seems to blame Alice for every possible thing.

Not sad enough? Try this:

All adults in The Sims 3 have a lifetime wish. An ultimate goal that they want to achieve before the end of their life. Usually this is to reach the top of a particular career path, or become the best at a particular set of skills. When you create an adult Sim, you're given a selection of lifetime wishes to choose from, which change depending on that Sim's personality traits.

When I made Kev, choosing a lifetime wish was a little difficult. I knew that he was never going to be successful in a career, which meant that almost all of the options the game offered me weren't going to be possible. The only lifetime wish available to him that I thought he could aspire towards while still remaining homeless was to become a 'heartbreaker'. He wants to be the boyfriend of 10 different sims.

So while Alice is asleep on a bench somewhere, I send Kev to the park to try to find him some romance. However, due to either his inappropriate or insane trait, he turns up without his clothes.

The entire thread is ostensibly real. Robin tried to recreate the situation of a homeless family and simply watched the game progress. The daughter grows into a teenager, the family fights, and they try endlessly to get ahead. The later events seem a little too well-coreographed to be real, but even if there’s a bit of nudging it’s a fascinating exercise.

Eagle-eyed citizens have spotted a new revision of the Xbox 360, one with 512MB of built-in storage. Pictures of the 360, a Japanese Arcade model, were posted to the Xbox Hacker forums.

The new NAND, a Samsung 4Gbit doohickey, replaces the old 2Gbit one.

The new one has some 496MB of user-accessible space, while the old one had some 214MB.

When we will see this new 360 revision over here? Absolutely no idea. Keep in mind that it’s still the Jasper motherboard that we’re talking about here, should you have red ring of death on the brain.

via Xbox-Scene

A $10 At Bat app for the iPhone will stream “out-of-market” games to the iPhone and the iPod Touch. The first game will be the Cubs-White Sox at 2:20pm today and then the Tigers-Cardinals game at 8:15pm. You can also listen to the game and watch live illustrations but if you live in New York, for example, you won’t be able to watch Yankees or Mets games.

This requires the new 3.0 firmware, which is launching today, and it should work over 3G although Wi-Fi is preferred. They described this app at the WWDC keynote during a video run-through of future exciting apps. Needless to say the crowd of uncoordinated Mac nerds did not go wild.

Incidentally, I don’t follow baseball at all so please excuse any mistakes including the image above via the Albion Historical Society.

Ah, the standard 10-inch netbook. It’s everywhere. With restrictions imposed by Intel and Microsoft on just how powerful these little machines can get, manufacturers have to focus more on aestethics, good keyboards, and battery life to differentiate themselves inside the overly crowded arena that is the 10-inch netbook market.

Toshiba has apparently managed to put out quite a netbook in the NB205 at $399. Recently reviewed by Laptop, Toshiba’s late entry into the US netbook market means that the company’s been able to monitor the shortcomings inherent in competing netbooks in order to address them with its own.

According to Laptop:

“[The] NB205 has everything we'd recommend in a netbook: an attractive chassis, comfortable keyboard and touchpad, and more than eight hours of battery life for an affordable price. While Samsung's N110 and ASUS' Eee PC 1000HE continue to be good choices, Toshiba's $399 mini NB205 provides an all-around solid package, and longer endurance than the competition.”

Laptop was able to run its continous web surfing test on the NB205 for over eight and a half hours using the standard six-cell battery — that’s compared to an average of just over four hours from most other similarly-equipped netbooks. Add to that a nice island keyboard and a large, very-usable trackpad, along with a weight of just 2.8 pounds, and Toshiba’s NB205 appears to be a winner. Now if only the screen had a higher resolution…

Per our previous coverage, the Toshiba NB205 should be available sometime at the end of the month.

Toshiba mini NB205 [Laptop]

Drink-dispensing golf clubs aren’t new, per se, but this one just hit SkyMall’s new arrivals section so here it is for those of you who haven’t seen it before and are looking for a good way to sneak some booze onto your local golf course.

At $50, it won’t take too long to pay for itself given the prices for beverages purchased from mobile refreshment carts. Plus, those carts don’t often carry the hard stuff, just beer. This hollowed out fake golf club holds up to 48 ounces of hot or cold liquid and is wide enough at the base to drop in some ice cubes.

A simple pump of the lever and it’ll shoot your consumable of choice into that, um, plastic cup you always carry with you for some reason.

Golf Bag Drink Dispenser [SkyMall]

Yippee! Syabas's newest Popcorn Hour was announced this morning, the Popcorn C-200. Building on the success of the Popcorn Hour A-110, the C-200 now supports Blu-ray playback, gigabit Ethernet and a more powerful and faster Sigma chip (SMP8643).

You also get a wireless RF RC and AVCHD support. Yes, that's an LCD you see on the box and an empty drive for who knows what. The overall size of the C-200 is slightly bigger and beefier than the A-110, too. Look for the C-200 to start shipping next month for $300.

Popcorn C-200

FREMONT, Calif., June 17, 2009 - Syabas, a leading provider of over-the-top settop software and hardware and makers of the award winning Popcorn Hour A-110, today announced the Popcorn C-200, a next-generation Internet settop box that streams digital content from the Internet or its internal hard drive to your television set and home stereo.¹ Unlike competing Internet settop boxes that support a limited number of Internet audio and video file types, the C-200 supports more than 30, including MPEG 1, 2, 4, AVI, H.264, Xvid, MKV, Windows Media and others.

"In today's tough economic times, there are people facing the decision to either cancel their cable subscription or their Internet connection to make ends meet," said Syabas COO, Alex Limberis. "With a C-200, people can experience the best of both worlds, as a lot of compelling content is freely available on the Internet. Today, consumers want to watch programs when they want them, not when a network or cable company tells them it's okay."

Like its predecessor, the Popcorn Hour A-110, the C-200 streams news and entertainment content from a number video partner sites such as YouTube, Vuze, Revision 3, CNET TV, Veoh, Blip.tv, NBC, CBS, CNN and BBC and Internet radio sites, such as Radio box and Live365 Radio. Additionally, the C-200 can stream still image content from Flickr, Pikeo and Picasa.

Additional new features of the C-200 include:

* A redesigned external shell, which helps the unit better integrate into existing entertainment component stacks
* Wireless RF remote control
* An LCD display for quickly searching, streaming and/or downloading content, which is useful when listening to music without having the TV on
* A gigabit Ethernet connection for lightning-fast file transfers
* A front-loading drive bay that can be used to install a hard drive for storing and playing back downloaded content
* The ability to add a Blu-ray drive with full support for Blu-ray navigation and Blu-ray Live
* AVCHD format and navigation for displaying home video content from AVC format HD cameras

The C-200 includes component and HDMI out for high definition playback on today's HDTVs. And for audio purists, the device features an optical line out, for playing back content that's been encoded in Dolby Digital or DTS. The box also plays Wave, AAC and MP3 audio files, among others.

"Unlike competing new media streamers that have been around for less than a year and can require someone to hack a product's operating system to get them to work, Syabas has been happily shipping media streaming products to satisfied customers around the world for several years," said Alex Limberis, chief operating officer of Syabas."
Availability

The Popcorn C-200 is expected to be available in July for $299 from www.popcornhour.com. The package includes the C-200, an HDMI cable, RF remote control, quick start guide and installation software. Complete product specifications can be found at: www.popcornhour.com .

The Space Shuttle Endeavour was suppose to deliver the final piece of Japan’s Kibo laboratory today. She was suppose to take seven astronauts into space, including four that had never made the trip before. But that was before a hydrogen leak was found, which delayed the launch.

Now the launch has been postponed until July 11, 2009. This is actually the second time the launch was delayed. The shuttle was suppose to blast off on June 13 but it was delayed for the same leak. Lets hope NASA gets it right this time around.

We already covered the sushi and pancake making robots showcased at a machinery and technology in Tokyo last week. But there were more robots poised to make our future lives better, namely a kebab robot, a drink-serving robot (my favorite) and a tissue distribution robot that makes sure you can wipe your mouth after eating and drinking.

Robot 1: Sushi robot

We covered the sushi robot last week already. But the video is much better, as you can see how smooth the robot moves and how easy it is for it to even grasp objects like strawberries.

Robot 2: Pancake robot

This robot (also covered earlier) has 15 joints to make sure you get tasty Japanese pancakes in time. In the video, you can see the robot communicating with customers (the thing actually speaks).

Robot 3: Kebab robot

The Chibisuke Jr. is by no means as spectacular as the robots mentioned above, but it has one thing going for it: Whereas skilled human workers are only able to make around 100 kebabs per hour, it produces 240 units. Made by a Japanese company called Kojimajiken [JP], the robot costs $6,500.

Robot 4: Drink-serving robot

In case you don’t like robots preparing your food for you, you might want to try and get served a few drinks by Table Robot. The robot is made by Kyoto-based Laskmi-Do [JP] whose representative says his two-wheeled robot outperforms four-wheeled vehicles as far as mobility is concerned.

A future version is supposed to boast a speech recognition function so you might never have to get up to get a beer from the fridge again.

Robot 5: Tissue distribution robot

A company called Inter Robot [JP] has developed a cute robot that distributes tissues, is always friendly and never gets tired of his work. The robot speaks (in very polite language), stands 1.2m tall and weighs 80kg. Buyers can customize the voice of the robot and its “facial” expressions.

Garmin announced a new wrist wearable GPS today, which I think looks remarkably like military tech seeping into the civilian sector. Considering that GPS technology itself was originally military, this doesn’t come as a great shock. And while there have been other wrist wearable GPS options available, the Foretrex line seems to be hitting that sweet spot of functionality and features. Garmin has brought some wrist based units to market before, but they have been aimed more at the jogging crowd and less at the high adventure types.

Currently, there are only two units in the Foretrex line, the 401 and 301. Both units are WAAS (used to improve the accuracy of the GPS system) enabled, and highly sensitive, intended to lock on and stay locked on in order to track your path as you move on your hike or trek or off road adventure. Both models are expected to be released in the 3rd quarter 2009, with the 301 retailing for $199, and the 401 for $249. For the price difference, I’d definitely recommend the 401, the compass and barometer could save your life. Here’s the press release with all the info:

OLATHE, Kan./June 16, 2009/Business Wire - Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), the global leader in satellite navigation, today announced the Foretrex 401 and Foretrex 301 GPS navigators, integrating a high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver and USB interface into a lightweight, waterproof device for light hikers, skiers, campers and military personnel to wear comfortably on their wrists.

“Whether you’re on a leisurely hike or in the toughest conditions imaginable, you need navigation that’s simple to use and easy to access,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “Our new Foretrex models help you keep your hands free and your focus on the path ahead, all while ensuring you make it to your destination as easily as possible.”

Rugged and waterproof, Garmin’s new Foretrex 301 and 401 models boast a high-sensitivity GPS receiver with HotFixTM that quickly acquires and maintains satellite reception – even in heavy tree cover or deep canyons – and accurately monitors and stores your routes, tracks and waypoints. When the day’s activities are done, just turn on the TracBack® feature, and Foretrex will retrace your path right back to where you started. With Foretrex, you can always find your way back to any important place, like your campsite or vehicle, using the breadcrumb trail, data fields and compass screen on the easy-to-read LCD display. The new Foretrex models feature dual-position readout so that you can view your current location in multiple formats, including latitude/longitude and an alternate position format of your choice, simplifying navigation for professional, military, search-and-rescue and recreational uses. Foretrex 301 and 401 also incorporate a trip computer, sunrise/sunset and hunting and fishing information and can connect to your PC or Mac via USB connection.

Adding even more features to the mix, Foretrex 401 has an electronic compass and a barometric altimeter. Foretrex 401 allows you to wirelessly share routes, tracks and waypoints between certain Foretrex, Oregon and Colorado devices, and it is also compatible with Garmin heart-rate monitors and cadence sensors.
Weighing about 3 ounces and powered by 2 AAA batteries, Foretrex won’t weigh you down while enduring a day’s adventures with up to 18 hours of battery life in the 301 and up to 17 hours in the 401. And you can chronicle your activities by storing up to 500 waypoints, 20 routes or a tracklog of up to 10,000 points and 10 saved tracks.

Foretrex 401 and Foretrex 301 are the latest breakthroughs from Garmin, which has spent 20 years using technology and innovation to enhance users’ lives, making Garmin a household name in the automotive, aviation, marine, wireless, outdoor and fitness industries. For more about features, pricing and availability, as well as information about Garmin’s other products and services, go to www.garmin.com, www.garmin.blogs.com and http://twitter.com/jakesjournal.

Captain America returns!
Flint, MI will hopefully soon get its own biogas facility
Remote-controlled flying cockroach is fun for some, nightmare for others
Retractable mouse pads aren't selling well
The "New Ice Suit" keeps sweating men cool in the summer heat

There’s an interesting poll going on over at 9to5mac right now. “Should Apple let 3rd party devices like the Palm Pre sync with your music collection via iTunes?” A good question, but, I think, a misleading one. Should Apple let? If we rephrase the question in a more positive way, we get “Should Apple actively block other hardware from syncing with iTunes?” As of this writing, 67% of the respondents have said yes, Apple should do just that.

Does anyone else find this shocking? In a world where every company is criticized for not having their software or hardware open enough, Apple gets a pass. In fact, Apple gets permission to regress — from the very people who stand to benefit from the opposite.

What harm is done in not deliberately locking out other hardware makers? Apple has a desirable product in OS X, and clearly iTunes is an important piece in the game, whatever game that is. They hope to expand their market share, but they refuse to take the steps that make it palatable for the non-converted. For some reason nobody seems to be bothered by the idea of an Apple blacklist, but for every other hardware and software maker it’d be a shitstorm. What if Canon decided that its cameras shouldn’t work with Samsung SD cards because they have a partnership with SanDisk? There’d be blood on the streets! Yet Apple could, and apparently is urged to, prevent others from playing nice, for no other reason than some belief that everything related to Apple should be under Apple’s jurisdiction.

Why not openness? Why not “bring ‘em on?” There’s a tiny risk of cannibalization of sales, but I think that would be more than counteracted by both an increase in Apple converts (who would later switch to iPhone) and in mindshare of the people who care about openness. Of course, this is a long rant to draw out from a simple internet poll, but sometimes one data point is extremely revealing, as I feel this one is. The willingness of the Apple crowd (and I’m typing this on a Mac so don’t start a flame war, kids) to knife themselves in the back is astounding. Apple’s products may be the future, but that’s only if the fanboys let the future get here in the first place.

I thought we already knew this, since it was included in all those other details that were confirmed shortly after, but everybody else seems surprised so we should probably at least act like we didn’t know (we’re very polite here at CG). Yes, the ZuneHD does officially use Nvidia’s Tegra chipset — its hardware decoder and low power draw made it a natural choice.

I still would have liked to see a slightly bigger screen, the better to show off that beautiful UI, but I guess you can’t have everyzing.

I actually didn’t know I would be on the screen the whole time. But thanks to Randall for the opportunity!