Forget your crappy 5-megapixel cameraphone, Sony Ericsson has made official its 8-megger. Completely unnecessarily, we might add. No-one prints photos from a cameraphone, so why do you need 8-megapixels? Expect all the companies to do it before Christmas though. It’s like a nuclear arms race - you never use it, but need to have it because everyone else has.
Toshiba’s
Quad Core HD processor upscales movies in real time, giving you near Hi-Def results without slowing down the laptop’s other workings. Great. But useful? If you’re doing something else while playing video, the film will be running in a small box, meaning you won’t notice any change in quality. And if you’re doing something else, surely you’re not paying enough attention to notice near-HD quality. Still, saves us shelling out on Blu-Rays we suppose.
Signs of the credit crunch: Sky HD is getting cheaper. And the Xbox 360 may be too. In hard times, we’d pawn off our families before our Sky HD and Xbox. We love them.
Is Sony prepping Wii-style motion sensitive controls for the PS3? That’s the rumour anyway. And it is where Nintendo squarely kicks Sony in the balls, as anyone who’s tried the motion-sensitive controls on GTA IV will attest. They’re useless.
Nokia’s two new bidnith phones have quite a cool feature - they have two home screens each, one for business and one for pleasure. So you can get rid of work when you like, and concentrate on the important things. Like drinking. And computer games. And drinking while playing computer games.
And in what is quite possibly the greatest thing ever LEGO has made a Death Star. It’s awesome.
For more news, check out the T3 podcast. It’s free every Friday, and you can subscribe through iTunes.
Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets
Ariel Waldman contributes Movie Gadget Friday, where she highlights the lovable and lame gadgets from the world of cinema.
Last month on Movie Gadget Friday we reviewed the rough and rugged modified gadgets of the post-apocalyptic era in The Road Warrior. Shifting from stick shifts to spaceships, this week examines the pre-apocalyptic adventure of a team of astronauts tasked with re-igniting the sun by delivering a massive payload in Sunshine. Based in 2057, this near-futuristic film has heavy influence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact. With relatively unexplained artificial gravity, inner-spaceship scooters and gold leaf heat-deflecting spacesuits, many of the gadgets and technology are taken for granted in this 2007 release.
3D Projection Cube
Structured as a small room on board Icarus II, the 3D projection deck serves as a way to boost astronauts’ spirits and calculate routes. Translucent walls with embedded light-emitting cells make up the entire cube of a room, allowing for an interactive 3-dimensional experience without the need for external projectors. It’s unseen yet as to if this experience requires the use of optical tracking cameras for a gestural user interface. Specific cells have the ability to toggle on or off depending on the specific need of the projection. While this gadget realistically blows away any CAVE we’ve seen (guesstimating these visuals to be upwards of 100 million pixels), the tactile-keyboard-loving-geek in us is still unrealistically holding out for a touchable hologram to toy with. More after the break.
Continue reading Movie Gadget Friday: Sunshine
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Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets
Ariel Waldman contributes Movie Gadget Friday, where she highlights the lovable and lame gadgets from the world of cinema.
Last month on Movie Gadget Friday we reviewed the rough and rugged modified gadgets of the post-apocalyptic era in The Road Warrior. Shifting from stick shifts to spaceships, this week examines the pre-apocalyptic adventure of a team of astronauts tasked with re-igniting the sun by delivering a massive payload in Sunshine. Based in 2057, this near-futuristic film has heavy influence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact. With relatively unexplained artificial gravity, inner-spaceship scooters and gold leaf heat-deflecting spacesuits, many of the gadgets and technology are taken for granted in this 2007 release.
3D Projection Cube
Structured as a small room on board Icarus II, the 3D projection deck serves as a way to boost astronauts’ spirits and calculate routes. Translucent walls with embedded light-emitting cells make up the entire cube of a room, allowing for an interactive 3-dimensional experience without the need for external projectors. It’s unseen yet as to if this experience requires the use of optical tracking cameras for a gestural user interface. Specific cells have the ability to toggle on or off depending on the specific need of the projection. While this gadget realistically blows away any CAVE we’ve seen (guesstimating these visuals to be upwards of 100 million pixels), the tactile-keyboard-loving-geek in us is still unrealistically holding out for a touchable hologram to toy with. More after the break.
Continue reading Movie Gadget Friday: Sunshine
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Filed under: Desktops
Apple hasn’t sued Psystar yet, so it’s no surprise the company is pushing the envelope as far as it can — it’s just introduced two rackmount servers that come with OS X Server pre-installed. The OpenServ 1100 and 2400 are both configurable with 2.5 GHz Xeon processors and up to 16GB of RAM, with the 1U 1100 sporting four drive bays and the 2U 2400 rocking six. Just like Psystar’s other products, you’re on your own (or at the mercy of Psystar) for service and support, since Apple won’t help you — and considering Psystar kept sending us support tickets for that DHCP issue but never actually called us to resolve it, that might make enterprise customers a bit wary. On the other hand, with prices starting at $1599, we’re certain some desparate render shop will take the plunge.
[Via Information Week]
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Sorting out the various Microsoft / Alcatel-Lucent patent infringement cases isn’t exactly fun or easy, but here’s another Post-It for that chart we know you’re keeping at home: US District Judge Marilyn Huff has just upheld an earlier $368M damages ruling against Microsoft, and calculated that MS owes A-L a total of $512M for infringing those video-encoding patents that are obviously still so relevant to the proceedings in these cases. That’s not the same as that earlier ruling that A-L hadn’t infringed an MS patent, mind you — and Redmond says it’s going to appeal this decision as well, so this giant mess isn’t going anywhere soon. Hey, guys? We’re betting that working out a cross-licensing agreement would be way cheaper than all these legal fees you’re racking up, you know? Just a thought. Okay, keep fighting. We totally care.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Sorting out the various Microsoft / Alcatel-Lucent patent infringement cases isn’t exactly fun or easy, but here’s another Post-It for that chart we know you’re keeping at home: US District Judge Marilyn Huff has just upheld an earlier $368M damages ruling against Microsoft, and calculated that MS owes A-L a total of $512M for infringing those video-encoding patents that are obviously still so relevant to the proceedings in these cases. That’s not the same as that earlier ruling that A-L hadn’t infringed an MS patent, mind you — and Redmond says it’s going to appeal this decision as well, so this giant mess isn’t going anywhere soon. Hey, guys? We’re betting that working out a cross-licensing agreement would be way cheaper than all these legal fees you’re racking up, you know? Just a thought. Okay, keep fighting. We totally care.
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Filed under: Cellphones
Just when you think you’ve given your dog everything it could ever want (gold plated water dish, rhinestone collar, a copy of Tegan and Sara’s “The Con” on vinyl) the Japanese go and one up you. A Tokyo-based content provider named Dwango announced today that it would start selling specialized ringtones which can be heard only by dogs. The service, called Inu ni shika kikoenai chakushinon (ringtones only dogs can hear) will make free downloads available to current DoCoMo i-mode subscribers. No word on whether the company will provide Bluetooth headsets and holsters suited to our canine friends, but we understand plans are in the works for a line of bacon-themed wallpapers. [Warning: read link is a PDF, and it's in Japanese]
[Via CrunchGear]
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Filed under: Cellphones
digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/Nokia_cries_over_leaks’;Now here’s something you don’t see every day: a manufacturer openly complaining about its own product leaks on their corporate blog. Charlie from Nokia would “like to ask folks to do less peddling in [their] trade secrets,” and lays out the myriad ways in which products get leaked (partners, employees, etc.), the supposed negative impact it has on Nokia’s bottom line (lost money, angry customers, whatever), and how they feel about it (really upset). It’s an interesting and sensitive topic because while companies hate having their products leaked, leaked products are our clearly part of our stock and trade here at Engadget.
Nokia kind of sums up their stance with this bit: “There are a lot of folks behind a product and leaks really screw up all the efforts.” So yeah, we totally get that no one wants to have their inside info shared with the outside world — we’re a company too, and don’t feel any differently. But it’s up to each organization to insulate knowledge of its workings and products to prevent these kinds of leaks. It’s not necessarily easy, but think there are few leaks that aren’t preventable — it’s really a matter of companies taking their information security into their own hands. But just so Nokia (and everyone else) hears the other side of the story:
Not only do leaks drum up buzz and help customers make advance purchasing decisions (like whether to buy now or hold out for something coming down the pipe they’d prefer), it allows other companies to keep a closer eye on their competition. This means the marketplace is likelier to produce a product that’s cheaper and/or better, if not also launched sooner. While that really sucks for the company whose products were leaked, it’s ultimately really good for the consumer — and that’s who we represent. (Oh, and claiming leaks result in “a bunch of writers with no story” is actually kind of insulting to tech journos’ collective intelligence.)
What we find really strange, though, is the attitude product people have about leaks totally “screwing up their efforts,” which completely forsakes the early feedback they COULD be getting from their best and most engaged customers. This is precisely why some product “leaks” are actually plants to solicit unfiltered public feedback. (Yes, that really happens, although not very often.) That feedback can be positively unequaled in outing whether a product is on the right track, and we’ve been around long enough to know that if a product in its early stages isn’t headed in the right direction, there’s little chance it will be by the time it’s released. Just remember that when you blame product leaks for ruining the launch of your next crappy device, okay?
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Filed under: Cellphones
Now here’s something you don’t see every day: a manufacturer openly complaining about its own product leaks on their corporate blog. Charlie from Nokia would “like to ask folks to do less peddling in [their] trade secrets,” and lays out the myriad ways in which products get leaked (partners, employees, etc.), the supposed negative impact it has on Nokia’s bottom line (lost money, angry customers, whatever), and how they feel about it (really upset). It’s an interesting and sensitive topic because while companies hate having their products leaked, leaked products are our clearly part of our stock and trade here at Engadget.
Nokia kind of sums up their stance with this bit: “There are a lot of folks behind a product and leaks really screw up all the efforts.” So yeah, we totally get that no one wants to have their inside info shared with the outside world — we’re a company too, and don’t feel any differently. But it’s up to each organization to insulate knowledge of its workings and products to prevent these kinds of leaks. It’s not necessarily easy, but think there are few leaks that aren’t preventable — it’s really a matter of companies taking their information security into their own hands. But just so Nokia (and everyone else) hears the other side of the story:
Not only do leaks drum up buzz and help customers make advance purchasing decisions (like whether to buy now or hold out for something coming down the pipe they’d prefer), it allows other companies to keep a closer eye on their competition. This means the marketplace is likelier to produce a product that’s cheaper and/or better, if not also launched sooner. While that really sucks for the company whose products were leaked, it’s ultimately really good for the consumer — and that’s who we represent. (Oh, and claiming leaks result in “a bunch of writers with no story” is actually kind of insulting to tech journos’ collective intelligence.)
What we find really strange, though, is the attitude product people have about leaks totally “screwing up their efforts,” which completely forsakes the early feedback they COULD be getting from their best and most engaged customers. This is precisely why some product “leaks” are actually plants to solicit unfiltered public feedback. (Yes, that really happens, although not very often.) That feedback can be positively unequaled in outing whether a product is on the right track, and we’ve been around long enough to know that if a product in its early stages isn’t headed in the right direction, there’s little chance it will be by the time it’s released. Just remember that when you blame product leaks for ruining the launch of your next crappy device, okay?
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Remember how cool ant farms were as a kid? The only problem once you got your kit home was getting the actual ants, which typically took about a month via mail order. On top of that if your ant farm was ever knocked over your pet ants would get out into your room, which typically lead to a choking…
