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posted by on Jul 3
Filed under: Cellphones
If you were concerned that you didn’t look crazy enough screaming into your phone at business associates, family members, and the guy who does your landscaping, Google has added a feature to Maps for RIM devices that should confirm that yes: you’re a total maniac. Available right now for a handful of BlackBerry phones (8110, 8120, US version of the 8130) you can grab Google Maps with voice search, which enables you to find what you’re looking for by pressing the left-side button and speaking the name of a business (or location, we assume). Sure it sounds convenient, but think twice before searching for hookers or cocaine out loud — stock brokers, you have been warned.
[Via Gear Diary]
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posted by on Jul 3
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Hope you’re not too sleepy, you hacker you, ’cause we’ve got a juicy one coming your way. No sooner did we find that the Netflix Player would be streaming content from other players in the industry later this year than Roku opens up the source code vault. You heard right — the GPL code has now been posted for the world to see, meaning that there’s just one link standing between you and umpteen delicious tarballs. Mmm, tarballs.
[Via Hack-A-Day]
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posted by on Jul 3
Filed under: Laptops
 If you’re the type to watch the late stock tickers, you might have noticed that NVIDIA’s stock just took a pretty big hit, down 24 percent to $13.56 — that’s because the company just informed investors that “significant quantities” of previous-generation graphics chips have been failing at “higher than normal rates,” and that it’s lowering its Q2 estimates due to pricing pressure. NVIDIA will be taking a $150M to $250M charge against earnings next quarter to cover the cost of repairing and replacing the affected chips, but didn’t specifically announce what products were defective, just that they include GPUs and “media and communications processors.” Laptop makers have apparently already been given an updated GPU driver which kicks in fans sooner to reduce “thermal stress” on the GPU, and NVIDIA says it’s talking to its suppliers about being reimbursed for the faulty parts. That’s great and all, but we’d really rather know which chips specifically are failing — if you’re serious about playing in the big leagues, you better come clean, guys.
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Roku’s Netflix Player got off to a hot start after launching just over a month ago, and apparently its creator has big plans for the plainly designed $99 box. According to a recent report over on Forbes, Tim Twerdahl, Roku’s vice president of consumer products, has affirmed that a routine software update would be hitting later this year to enable content to be fetched and streamed from other “big name” providers. Regrettably, the conversation ended there, so there’s absolutely no telling which “providers” he’s referring to. Still, we’re certainly intrigued by the idea of this thing becoming more versatile in the coming months, but wouldn’t the name have to be tweaked at the very least?
[Via Silicon Alley Insider]
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
It’s been a good long while since we’ve heard anything about South Korea’s planned “ubiquitous city,” Songdo, but it looks like the mammoth effort is finally beginning to take shape, as evidenced by the BBC’s recent trip to the $200 billion development. According to the BBC, the city is now scheduled for completion in 2015, as opposed to 2014, but the first few developments will apparently be open for business as soon as 2009. Somewhat disconcertingly for South Korea, however, is the complete lack of any blue chip companies that have signed up for a piece of the action as of yet, despite the promised incentives that come from the city being located in the Incheon Free Enterprise Zone (IFEZ). The folks behind the development seem confident that companies will eventually come flocking to the city though, with its central location between China and Japan, and its blanket of technology, including WiFi and RFID, promising to work in its favor. Read
posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Here’s one of those inventions that just makes sense. The Hidden Tap by Jelmer Moorman uses a sensor to follow your hands and dispense water. As you move your hands from left to right under the faucet, water goes from hot to cold just like like a regular tap. We have no word on availability, but Hidden Tap is part of the Kunst Zonder Kapsones venture company started by Fernando H. Arias, so we have a feeling that given enough interest, this thing will be showing up in high-end contractors’ bags of tricks at some point. Hit the read link to see the thing in action.
[Thanks, Fernando]
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
While a spinning LED globe or an LED-adorned Roomba is all well and good for a few kicks, if you really want to turn your living room into a light show you may want to consider something like Brilldea’s LED Painter system, which can apparently be put to use in a whole host of different applications, including the LED windows pictured above. At the heart of the system is a 16 channel RGB LED controller, which lets you connect up to 48 independent LEDs, and gives you the ability to daisy chain multiple boards together if you really want to blow things out. As you can see in the video after the break, the effects possible are fairly impressive, even if they’re a bit lacking in the subtlety department.
[Via MAKE:Blog] Continue reading LED Painter lights up your walls with excess
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
 We’ve seen alarm clocks institute some fairly unorthodox methods of waking users up, but this is exceptionally high on the list of “oh, no they didn’ts.” Alice Wang’s Tyrant, which we can only assume is a concept, actually dials a random number in one’s mobile contact list for every three minutes that the sleeper doesn’t address the obnoxiously loud ringing. In other words, unless you pick yourself up out of bed within ten minutes of the alarm going off, you’ll have three angry friends wondering why they’re getting phone calls from you everyday at O-five-hundred hours. Brilliant. Pure, sadistic, barbarous brilliance.
[Via Coolest-Gadgets]
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
While Bug Labs may have brought modular gadget kits to the forefront, you won’t find us kvetching about yet another formidable opponent. Machine Collective has just launched a website to showcase its modular prototyping platform, which essentially consists of a number of interchangeable I/O modules “designed to work with development platforms such as Arduino and Wiring.” Needless to say, the possibilities for DIYers and electrical engineers are pretty much endless here, though you’ll have to “wait a few weeks” before excitedly beaming in your order and credit card information.
[Via MAKE]
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Portable Audio
So we’ve basically seen the wired version of this in Belkin’s RockStar, but at least that made a modicum of sense. This, however, does not. Thanko’s i2! Streams works as such: you plug one of the wireless transmitters in between your DAP / PMP and headphones, and up to five of your pals simply hold onto a receiver unit with earbuds of their own. As you can guess, those five pals now have your music piped to them through the air. The only problem? Why hold on to one of these things when you could pick up a chintzy DAP of your own down the street for a couple yuan / yen / whatever? Thanko’s wonders never cease…
[Via CrunchGear]
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
 NVIDIA execs have been talking smack about general-purpose CPUs for a while now, and it looks like Intel’s ready to do some talking of its own — speaking to CustomPC, Intel SVP Pat Gelsinger said that general-purpose GPU computing intiatives like NVIDIA’s CUDA would be nothing more than “interesting footnotes in the history of computing annals.” According to Gelsinger, the lack of a viable new programming model has held back similarly different architectures like the PS3’s Cell because “years later the application programmers have barely been able to comprehend how to write applications for it.” That’s certainly an interesting point, but we’d say Gelsinger’s not really taking stock of the big picture here — fully utilizing the power of the GPU is the whole point of CUDA, after all, and OS developers like Apple are pushing OpenCL as a way to make GPU acceleration easier to for developers to access. Still, Intel has already said that discrete graphics are on their way out as hybrid tech like Larrabee enters the scene, and Gelsinger basically repeated the party line, saying that and “evolutionary compatible computing model” will be the “right answer long term.” Those are some fightin’ words — it’s going to be interesting to see how these competing chip strategies play out as other entrants like AMD’s Fusion slowly make the scene as well.
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
It may not create drinking water from anything like Dean Kamen’s wonder machine, but this new so-called Klimatic Base 1 AirWater Machine does its share of inventive (but not entirely unique) water purifying nonetheless, with it promising to pull drinkable water out of the air. That’s done, as you might have guessed, with the aid of an apparently standard dehumidifier, which gets paired with several filters and a UV light chamber that the company says will eliminate any bacterial content that might be in the water. You’ll apparently even be able to get both hot and cold water from the dispenser. There’s no word on price or availability just yet, unfortunately, and we wouldn’t recommend trying to rig up your own with a Brita filter and the dehumidifier in your basement in the meantime either.
[Via Tech Digest]
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Displays
 The term “widescreen” is one of the most notoriously confusing monikers (this side of Full HD) used to describe a display’s specifications. Widescreen generally translates to a 16:10 aspect ratio when discussing computer LCDs (monitors or laptop displays) or 16:9 if your talking about the living room TV. Of course, it can also refer to the 2.35:1 ratio often used for films or something entirely different if you’re Apple touting the wonders of your new widescreen iPhone. Fortunately, we’re trending towards at least some convergence around the 16:9 aspect. DisplaySearch predicts that by 2010, 16:9 panels will make up 90% of new laptop displays and 67% of new monitors. Acer has been at the forefront of this transition with products like its Gemstone Blue laptops and the Acer P224W monitor pictured above. The move is being driven by panel manufacturers’ desire to maximize production efficiency — something they should have realized before the glass sizes diverged in the first place. Regardless, the end result should be more pennies saved by you, Joe Consumer, and that’s a good thing.
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posted by on Jul 2
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
It looks like the potential lovefest that might have been the Blockbuster and Circuit City mashup has drifted away as quickly as it appeared. “Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial due diligence process, we have determined that it is not in the best interest of Blockbuster’s shareholders to proceed with an acquisition of Circuit City,” said Jim Keyes, head-pimp at B-Buster. We can’t be sure what the result was with Circuit City shareholders or employees, but we’re willing to bet it didn’t look anything like that Best Buy rap video. One more time, after the break.
Continue reading Blockbuster calls the Circuit City merger off, asks for class ring back
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posted by on Jul 1
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Attention all trinket lovers, your next must-buy piece of garbage has just arrived. For years, mom ‘n pop stores (not to mention Cracker Barrel Country Stores) have raked in serious profits selling wooden animals with round knobs for feet, but now those manual farm-derived masseurs are likely out of a job. The USB Animal Massager ups the ante in a serious way by getting powered by USB, meaning that you won’t even have to lift a finger as you watch that dog, panda or pig go to town on your toes or aching back. $10 spells relief (and embarrassment, but whatever).
[Thanks, Fanny]
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posted by on Jul 1
Filed under: Laptops
Just days after going on sale in Europe for €399, the Wind-esque Akoya mini laptop has been acquired and unboxed for all to see. As it stands, we’re still not certain if this thing will ever head to US soil, but judging by the remarkable similarities to a few other low-cost lappies, we reckon we’ll survive if it decides to stay put. Head on to the read link for a look at the shots.
[Via SlashGear]
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posted by on Jul 1
Filed under: Portable Audio
Roberts may get ridiculed for its design cues, but one thing’s for sure: it sticks to its guns. The latest patently ugly (but sort of cute) DAB radio to emerge from its lair is the solarDAB, which predictably gets energized by the sun. The unit packs a top-mounted solar panel along with a “level indicator on the display screen that shows the strength of the solar level being absorbed.” Once the rechargeable batteries are fully juiced, said radio will blast out tunes for a whopping 27 hours. You should be able to secure one in a variety of colors here soon for
posted by on Jul 1
Filed under: GPS
FineDigital was showing off one iteration of a speech-recognizing GPS unit only last month, but it looks like it’s already turned out a more refined version, complete with a spiffy new name. Now dubbed the FineDrive Bio, this one packs the usual 7-inch touchscreen, along with DMB mobile TV support, dual SD card slots for some added storage, and FineDigital’s FineSR speech-recognition technology, which will supposedly recognize up to 450,000 words. Look for this one to hit Korea on July 7th in both 2GB and 4GB versions for 499,000 won and 549,000 won, respectively (or about $475 and $520).
[Via Tech Digest] Read
posted by on Jul 1
 AP - Germany’s annual Bayreuth opera festival is going digital, streaming video and audio of its opening performance of “Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg” live via the Internet. The catch is the price
posted by on Jul 1
Filed under: Cellphones
 After you delay a not-exactly-groundbreaking product like the iPAQ 900 for the umpteenth time, there should really be no surprise to find a lukewarm reaction when it actually ships. Nevertheless, loyalists out there that refuse to give up on HP’s Windows Mobile 6.1-powered Business Communicator will likely love the lengthy hands-on demonstration at GottaBeMobile. There’s nothing there that’ll floor you or anything, but if you really needed to see someone handle this thing for 14 minutes before making your purchasing decision, head on past the break and mash that sideways triangle.
[Thanks, Rob]
Continue reading HP’s iPAQ 900 Business Communicator gets handled on video
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