April 15, 2007

Hot Leopard Shots: Peep Em Now Before they Cease and Desist to Exist

Posted by Seamus Byrne at 2:47 PM on April 15, 2007

finder.jpgThe fanboys are sad that OS X Leopard is going to be late, so in the meantime, here are some fresh screenshots to keep em held over. There, there, it'll be ok.

These are shots from the latest build seeded to developers, 9A410. Charming name aside, this evolution of the beta unifies the UI elements, ditching the now aging brushed aluminum window borders, along with the interesting Finder sidebar icons. Check em out.

BTW, these won't be around very long, so look at em, love em, and kiss em goodbye.

UPDATE: I also like Leander's take on the low probability of these being real, and the logic behind that reasoning.

Mac OS X Theme Change in Leopard Seed 9a410 [Thanks Macrumors and Crunch]

New Mac vs. PC Ads Show Vista as Lardass

Posted by Seamus Byrne at 2:06 PM on April 15, 2007

The latest Mac ad throws fire on the flames of the War on Craplets.

A message to those PR people, engineers, product managers, VPs and CEOs at Dell, HP, Sony, Lenovo, and our other favorite PC makers: Don't let the people in charge of putting these demos on your machines ruin your computers. Please, fight back, for our sake, and for the sake of your reputations.

Mac vs PC [Apple via Hickey@Crunchgear]

First Next Gen Blu-Ray Player Tested: HDGuru On the Samsung BD-P1200

Posted by Seamus Byrne at 1:04 PM on April 15, 2007

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Gary Merson is the first to check out the Samsung BD-P1200, the first of the second generation Blu-ray players.

It looks to be a great unit. The 1200 improves upon the BD-P1000 by adding a few cool tricks, but more importantly improves upon the last generation's eternal load times by starting in 30 seconds. And video performance was described by the veteran video journo as "flawless" in HD, and the best around in upconverting SD. It's also cheaper at an MSRP of $799.

Some of the more notable updates are after the jump.

Read More »

eXasis Transparent Car: Clearly Awesome

Posted by Seamus Byrne at 12:20 PM on April 15, 2007

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Rinspeed's eXasis looks cool enough for us to forgive their horrid use of capitalization. The car is constructed from aluminum and plastic, and most of the control panel is touch sensitive. As I understand it, the use of clear, conductive Baytron allows the elimination of most simple wiring.

But is there a practical application? You tell me. How many times have we all wondered whether that was a person-or just a scarecrow-that we just ran over?

Product Page [via thecoolhunter]

SnoDeck: Skateboard Tank

Posted by Seamus Byrne at 11:43 AM on April 15, 2007

The SnoDeck is the creation of Systems Design Engineering students at University of Waterloo. Driven by a few electric drill motors and sporting a 2-meter turning radius, we're impressed by its ability to not only tread through snow, but to do so while hauling around an emaciated emo kid.

Winter, you spite me with being over.

SnoDeck - Motorized Snow Skateboard [MAKE]

Blow Monkey

Posted by Seamus Byrne at 11:17 AM on April 15, 2007

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Heh. Blow Monkey.

It's $9 and for drying nails...thank God.

Product Page [via uberreview]

The Vista that Could Have Been: Alternative OS Concept Designs Rock

Posted by Seamus Byrne at 10:55 AM on April 15, 2007

vista6.jpg

Check out these Vista concept shots. Just look at the packaging pictured above. Would you ever see that lining the shelves at Best Buy? No. And that's what makes seeing this stuff so enjoyable.

Sure, the folder concept is completely space inefficient. And what we can only assume is a pure diamond block case would probably be expensive even for mass production. But my guess is that most consumers would be more likely to impulse buy an OS if it looked like something out of an 80s future movie.

Hit the jump for more concept shots...this time of the OS in action. Let's just say that Aero is looking pretty snazzy right about now. Though, there is one shot in there that screams iPod Nano commercial. Did Apple rip off Longhorn?? Fanboy fight!

Read More »

Sharp's Korean Super Dictionary Doubles as PMP

Posted by Seamus Byrne at 9:55 AM on April 15, 2007

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Sharp's new RD-CX300 may actually be a pocket dictionary worth buying. While Webster has dominated the market for years, filling our heads with useless, 5+ syllable words, Sharp has finally found the dictionary's long latent potential: a video player.

This "multimedia super dictionary" stores 20GB of useless words, MP3s, MPEG4s and WMVs. Plus, it packs full QWERTY, an SD slot and voice recording. The 4.3" TFT 260K-color display is just enough power to support the black and white nature of print, especially if you are using the built-in ebook functionality.

Our photo is of a predecessor that should be similar to the new $500, 1.2" thick model when it's released this month in Korea. A tiny picture on Sharp's site shows the RD-CX300 could come in red. Oooohhh.

Product Page [via gizmowatch]