Tuesday, October 23, 2007
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Sony Selling Sin with Memory Sticks
11:54PM Mark Wilson | In the days when portable flash memory is becoming quickly commoditised, companies like Sony are obviously trying new tricks to differentiate their product. Because now Sony will begin shipping a poker game along with their Memory Stick Micro and MicroVault Midi USB keys in marked packs. The game, Midnight Hold’Em POKER, can be played on your Sony Ericsson phone—it’s normally a downloadable title—but the deal will only be offered for a limited time starting this month. After that, you’ll just have to wait for the third parties to respond to Sony’s bundle with (hopefully) increasingly lewd content that will sour the face of the otherwise Puritan technology industry. [sony via I4U] More »
Design
Warping Wallpaper, Grandma’s House Got Trippy
11:15PM Mark Wilson | Warping wallpaper may be the brainchild of German surrealist artist Tom Hanke, but it’s a real product nonetheless. Coming in any pattern you wish, the warping wallpaper creates the illusion of bending and bulging to accommodate doors, windows and pictures. The catch? This wallpaper isn’t based upon space age technology, but simple science. Your walls are first covered in a grid. A computer (along with the artist) determine exactly how much influence your objects have on the grid. Then, this grid distortion is applied to the wallpaper pattern of your choice, which will be scanned into digital form and surrealised to your heart’s content before it’s printed and glued onto you walls. There is no word on pricing on the site since every job is unique, but they will give quotes to interested parties. And even if the service seems pricey, just consider the savings in LSD alone. [product via neatorama] More »
Gadgets
Parrot DF7700 MMS Digital Photo Frame Shows Pics from Mobiles
11:13PM Charlie White | Here’s one more way to send photos to a digital photo frame: The Parrot DF7700 thinks it’s a mobile phone—it even has its own phone number—and you can send it pics in an MMS message from any other mobile. Its 7-inch frame (a similar 7″ Bluetooth-friendly frame is pictured here) is big enough to show you just how bad that camera is in your phone, and that’s not even saying anything about the situations that might be depicted in such photos sent from afar. Like other Parrot frames, in addition to letting you input photos in the conventional method via memory card, this one is chameleon-like, shipping with a leather frame but letting you swap that out for any of its other optional finishes. Pricing wasn’t announced, but the DF770 will be available in the U.S. by the end of this year. [Yahoo] More »
Entertainment
Hitachi Will Bring Ultra Thin TVs to the US
11:06PM Wilson Rothman | Often we see extra-cool TVs roll out in Japan that we assume will never come to the US. Hitachi made us happy today by following up its Japan Wooo Ultra Thin launch with announcement of US availability, sans the “Wooo” branding. A 768-line 32″ and 1080p 37″ and 42″ models all measuring 1.5″ thick will be shipping in the US next year, the little one appearing in the spring, while the other two will hit stores in the second quarter. Hitachi won’t talk specs or US pricing, though they say it’s a luxury, early-adopter product, so think expensive. There are some sexy features that we didn’t get to in our Japan coverage: • Hitachi used automotive technology to build the radiant beveled edge with a translucent back-coating of metallic paint. In Japan the metallic paint may be red, blue, white or other colors; in the US, it will be silver. • Ventilation engineering came from Hitachi’s mainframe division: the system is called “airflow analytic design” and it helps the TV achieve ultra-quiet no-fan cooling. • The bulb in the Ultra Thin series is an external electric fluorescent light (EEFL) which is apparently more efficient than CCFL and can provide a better colour range than white LEDs. More »
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US Dealzmodo
11:04PM Mark Wilson | iTunes now has “The Complete Led Zeppelin” available for preorder on iTunes for $US99. That’s a 165-song collection plus their album “Mothership” for a Benjamin. The whole Led Zeppelin library hits iTunes Nov 13th. More »
Entertainment
TiVo Upgrades Its Series 3 and TiVo HD
10:30PM Addy Dugdale | We wrote about this last week, but today it’s official. From today, TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD customers will be able to enjoy a whole bunch of new services: Multi Room Viewing, which allows you to transfer programming between TiVo DVRs; eSATA, which gives you up to 600 hours’ external storage space with compatible external drives; TiVoToGo, allowing you to transfer programs from a TiVo box to your computer; and progressive downloads, which allows you to watch TiVoCast content while it is still downloading. Full press release is below. More »
Gadgets
Sharp Announces Micro LCD…Thanks?
10:24PM Mark Wilson | Hitachi may have the thinnest production LCD but it’s a lard butt compared to Sharp’s 2.2-inch mobile LCD that’s a mere .68mm thick. For an LCD the stats aren’t even horrible. You get a 2000:1 contrast ratio, 8ms response time and 176-degree viewing angle in this 240×320 display. Intended for use in one-seg terrestrial broadcast, we’re just a bit confused. Why even challenge OLED in the mobile market? (Other than price, maybe?) OLED has lightning response times (reports of < 0.01ms), viewing angles with nearly no colour fallout and contrast ratios as high as the eye can see (Sony's new 11-incher claims 1000000:1). I mean, LCD, it's not that we don't appreciate the gesture. And if Sharp could make a .68mm-thin 60" TV, we'd be all over you. But...uhh...we sorta already agreed to go to the prom with OLED...and his dad's renting a limo and everything. [avwatch] More »
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Samsung’s Unleashes World’s Densest Flash Memory
10:15PM Haroon Malik | Samsung has just rolled out a 30nm 64Gb NAND flash memory chip, which happens to be the world’s densest. By packing together the maximum of 16 of the multi level cells, a memory card containing 128GB of storage space can conceivably be created. More »
Entertainment
Western Digital Confirms 500GB My DVR Expander Drive Works With TiVo
10:13PM Wilson Rothman | Today Western Digital confirmed that its My DVR drive, which had previously been marketed for Scientific Atlanta boxes, was “verified compatible” with TiVo HD and TiVo Series3 DVRs. It’s already for sale at Best Buy, and can now be found at TiVo.com/store, too. A 500GB My DVR Expander drive lists for $US200. And according to reports, TiVo’s eSATA port is ready for Western Digital’s drive. (Press release after jump.) More »
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