Friday, June 29, 2007

The iPhone That Wasn’t: A Look Back

11:51PM Seamus Byrne | Today is launch day and soon the iPhone will emerge, filling those who acquire it with joy and haunting the dreams of the less fortunate. Join us in a journey through time and space as we return to the days before the JesusPhone. This round-up of iPhone hopefuls is a great glimpse into how cellphone design has evolved over time, with a few laughable examples of offshoots Darwin never intended. galleryPost('iphoneyroundup', 8, 'iPhone Concept Round-Up'); More »

New Movie Cowboy HDD Player Ropes FTP, HDMI, a Herd of Video Formats

11:22PM Seamus Byrne | This is Digital Cowboy’s latest hard drive video and music player, their new 1080p-enabled Movie Cowboy DC-MC35UL3, which will be available first in Japan in July. In addition to Full HD support, this Apple TV on steroids adds FTP to the Samba and NFS networking protocols, as well as HDMI, S/PDIF digital audio and supports more video format than ever. On the back you will find two USB 2.0 host ports, one USB client port, Ethernet, component, Y/C and composite outputs. The built-in Sigma EM8621L chip can playback AVI, ASF, DivX, WMV, TS, MPG, MPEG, M2P, ISO, IFO, VOB video formast, as well as MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, AAC and M4A audio files. Not bad at all for a $200 piece of shiny black plastic, specially compared to the DVICO HD series. Digital Cowboy [Impress PC Watch] More »

Embotec Creates Counterfeit Money Detector and Mouse Combo, Puzzles World

11:03PM Seamus Byrne | In the world of the incongruous pairing, Embotec’s mouse ‘n’ counterfeit money detector is up there with the best of them. And it doesn’t just work on KFC vouchers, you know… Aimed at gas stations, convenience stores and the like, the EM-D275 will be available in Korea from next month onwards. And if this gadget was a celebrity, I reckon it would be Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones. Money detector mouse ‘EM-D275′ identifying counterfeit bills [Aving USA] More »

3G iPhone Monday UK Announcement is Bollocks

10:16PM Seamus Byrne | Someone thinks Apple has suicidal tendencies and is going to announce a 3G iPhone on Monday for the UK market. We are not buying it for many reasons. First, a move like that will kill their own US launch, alienating their customers. But there are many other factors on top of that. The reporter is describing the most convoluted deal ever, with Vodafone and T-Mobile as carriers and Carphone Warehouse selling it. Why would two carriers share the Jesus Phone, let alone adding a third party? More »

Transparent LCD Screen from Active Inc will Transform Shop Windows

10:12PM Seamus Byrne | Behold what could be the future for display screens in your local shopping emporia: a see-through composite LCD display. Developed by Active Inc, a Tokyo-based company that makes optical components. How does the technology work? Well, not a lot is known at the moment, but Active Inc’s R&D department has been seeing how liquid crystal optical film works as a substitute for traditional LCD backlights. Its stain-glass effect is rather impressive, but I can’t see this technology being used for TVs – but that’s because I hide things behind my telly that I don’t want anyone to clap their eyes on. By the way, is that Paris Hilton watching the sun set on her media career in the pic? Active Inc develops See-through LCD screen [New Launches] More »

Dento-Munch is the Future of Dental Research

9:46PM Seamus Byrne | This is Dento-Munch, a robot developed by scientists to help with research into dental products. Kazem Alemzadeh of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory is one of the engineers behind the team, at Britain’s Bristol University, and he reckons that Dento-Munch could cut down the time needed to trial new products, as machines up until now have been poor imitators of humans. Dento-Munch’s upper and lower “jaws” consist of two platforms. The lower one is capable of moving six degrees of freedom (unlike the current lab simulators, which are only capable of 2 degrees) and can move and rotate up and down, forwards and backwards, and left and right – just like its human counterpart. More »

IonFlow 50 Air Purifier Keeps Your Environment Pollen- and Pollution-Free

8:48PM Seamus Byrne | The IonFlow 50 is an air purifier that doesn’t look or sound like an air purifier. Designed by Michael Malmborg for LightAir, the IonStyle is ozone- and filter-free and works completely silently. Tests in Sweden proved that the IonFlow 50 eliminated 99.94 per cent of all harmful pollutants – dust, smoke, pollen, bacteria and viruses all get the boot in rooms as large as 540 sq ft. The floor version is $395, while the ceiling version will set you back $280. More »

Newton Users, the Wait is Over for You Too

7:17PM Seamus Byrne | We published our 20 exclusive iPhone wallpapers collection yesterday, but this one just beats them all for pure comedy effect. Reader Taz Goldstein, one of the first Newton adopters back in 1993, has sent this great background for all other Newton users who have been waiting for an Apple-designed replacement since forever. The question: is iPhone really a Newton replacement? While Taz is getting an iPhone, for some Newton diehards the Apple JesusPhone won’t be a replacement. Some will say that even if it has color and has a great design, it just doesn’t have the many things that made the Newton an amazing product. It lacks the concept of “data soup” and it doesn’t have a public SDK, so no third-parties can extend it. Thanks to this, the lively Newton community has developed hacks that have pushed it into the Internet era (no Flash-video support yet, though), showing that the grandaddy of PDAs still can beat them all. However, the fact is that the iPhone, while simpler than Newton, it’s an extremely powerful device. Much more than the Newton ever was. Its software is more accessible to normal users than the Newton’s; it runs an extremely fast operating system and, most importantly, it has a phone and built-in Wi-Fi, which is reason enough to make it a better communicator than the Newton. A product for the masses, rather than a niche wonder. And looking at the waiting lines and the media frenzy, I’m going to get my hazy crystal ball out and say that there’s another thing in which the iPhone is better than the Newton: this one won’t flop. More »

Toshiba and Microsoft Remind Us What HD DVD Can Do (and What Blu-Ray Can’t)

3:14PM Seamus Byrne | Dismissing that whole Blockbuster Blu-ray decision as nothing more than a PR victory, and in no way an exclusive deal by the video-rental company, execs from Toshiba and Microsoft came to NYC to show off the latest in HD DVD amenities. The latest firmware, the one that finally allows for Web-enabled network capabilities, is here, and to mark the occasion, Toshiba has officially lowered the prices of two of its players: the HD-A2 with 1080i output will drop to $299, and the HD-A20 with 1080p output will be $399. (There had previously been an instant rebate keeping the prices low.) Kevin Collins of Microsoft is the chief evangelist of HD DVD, and he talks about three things that, in combination, he says, make HD DVD better than Blu-ray. • Internet connection for online updates, and now, finally, Web-enabled content • Dual decoding for real picture-in-picture playback • “Persistent storage” memory on the deck for customization and downloading The sad thing for you is that Collins demonstrated these traits using the HD DVD of 300, coming out in July. However, I wasn’t allowed to take photos of that, because Warner would be angry, but just take my word for it, it looked very cool. In one scene, when the Spartans are pushing the Persians off the cliff, you can pull up a green-screen “behind the scenes” version and compare it in realtime. The bronze helmets look plastic; the boiling sea below is nothing but green cushions! Collins says that the Warner Blu-ray version of 300 would have the behind-the-scenes footage, but no physical way to watch both the scene and the footage simultaneously. The disc will also have a Risk-style XML game that lets you lead soldiers against enemy armies. It looked pretty involved, so it might actually be entertaining. To demo Web content, Collins pulled up the anime flick Freedom, from Bandai. He pulled down French subtitles where none existed before. He downloaded trailers (compressed for the Web.) Check out the gallery for all that, plus some translucent PIP effects—hell, just because that movie just looks so amazingly good. galleryPost('FreedomHDDVD', 4, 'Freedom HD DVD'); The third HD DVD title Collins showed off was Blood Diamond. In the menu, you could pull up pages, via the Web, discussing various parts of Africa and providing up-to-date information on diamond-trafficking, civil wars and other issues that the movie touches on. Toshiba’s Jody Sally said the company had set September 4 as the day it will ship firmware allowing for 24P compatibility; that is, playback of movies at 24-frames-per-second where available, and pending 24P compatibility in your TV. Speaking of TVs, Toshiba had its latest Regza LCD models on hand, most originally introduced at CES. There were two never before seen 52 inchers (from $3,500 to $4,000 depending on feature set) and a 57 incher (price not yet determined, shipping next month). The company was proud to announce that it is now Number 3 in market share in the 32-inch to 42-inch LCD category. You are forgiven if you didn’t know there was such a category, but nevertheless, it marks a 90% sales spike for Toshiba, and its execs are beaming. More »