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The BBC pitted the wits of a black cab driver against the latest GPS technology in an effort to find out whether man or gadget rules the mean streets of rush-hour London. And, in a result that will not surprise TomTom-challenged Londoners one bit, although the TomTom GO 720 won the first round, Andy the cabbie completely p0wned the Sat-Nav. More info below.
According to Wired's sources, while all developers will get the iPhone SDK in February, some "big ones" may already have it in their hands now, readying applications to "whet developers' appetites" (as if they needed any whetting) and tell Gizmodo to TFSU. [Wired]
This one is going out for all the lonely people this Christmas time. Using a styrofoam head and a few other ingredients, such as a webcam, microphone, speakers, LCD screen and LED lights, you can make this rather scary-looking android to keep you company at home, scaring off all your lady-friends in the process. All this for an outlay of just $35, eh? [Instructables]
What do you do if you've got the resources of a university nanotechnology group and time on your hands in the run-up to Christmas? Build the world's tiniest Advent Calendar, of course.
The 8.4 x 12.4-micron calendar was carved into a layer of acrylic on a gallium-arsenide wafer after normal clean-room business was done for the day. "We just wanted to have a nice picture of Christmas on our home page," claims the team. More info after the jump.
Au, the people who brought us the rather sexy Infobar 2 has brought out a high-res widescreen phone in Japan that it claims has a 2000:1 contrast ratio. Manufactured by Sharp, the hot-pink number has a 2.8-inch Acquos screen, 240 x 400 resolution and this rather crazy 2000:1 contrast claim.
Toshiba has upgraded its 17-inch Qosmio G40 laptop and its smaller brother, the 15-inch F40. The two laptops, the G40/97E and the smaller F40/88EBL now sport HD DVD-RW drives as opposed to HD DVD-R, and will be released in Japan on December 21.
While the G40 has a 400GB hard drive and Core 2 Duo T7500 (2.2 GHz) CPU, the F40 has 200GB and a Core 2 Duo T7250 (2 GHz) CPU. The G40 also has a Maxx-Audio four-speaker system from Harmon-Kardon and an integrated subwoofer. Price is approximately $4,122 for the G40 and $3,091 for the F40. [Impress]
Part Foundry is currently working on a dongle that will bring the long-desired GPS feature to the iPhone. Branded as locoGPS, the device promises true GPS backed by open source software, but if the teaser video is any indication, it may not be the GPS experience you're expecting.
The photo you see above is only a concept design. In its current stage of development, the locoGPS is a rough piece of hardware that uses a slightly confusing toggle process to get GPS working on any Jailbroken iPhone (they are also in the testing phases for an iPod touch solution).
The big news today is that the eagerly anticipated Dash Express is available for pre-order for $US599 with three months of free two-way GPRS information and traffic service. After that, the service will cost $10 to $13 monthly on top of that. Pricey to be sure, but the newly unveiled features solidify the Dash's reputation as a turn-by-turn GPS navigator unlike anything seen before:
Some of you may have already seen this new trailer for The Dark Knight (Batman Begins II) in theatres this weekend, but it's just hit the web. Here it is for your "behind closed doors" enjoyment. There's a ton of new footage of the BatChopper (which is looking even better on film than what we've seen before). Also, what's with that location of the Batmobile? Is that the new Batcave?
The Remote Play functionality on the PS3/PSP is great, but Sony intends to extensively develop the feature set for broader external connectivity. Sony's CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, appeared in Tokyo and detailed how Sony intends to push the ever-booming success of the PS3. It is Sony's vision that the PS3 will eventually be able to link up to mobile phones, streaming all kind of media goodness on the go. As you can imagine, the very prospect has our PSP phone speculation senses running into overdrive.
Posted by Anna King at 11:04 AM on December 17, 2007
Sony Design Studio has re-intepreted Sony's original 1962 "micro TV," the world's smallest and lightest portable set at the time, for the 21st century. The concept reflects a product landscape that addresses the need for greater emotional and sense satisfaction, rather than pure practicality and efficiency:
Sets projecting images that reach you like the song of a little bird by your pillow. They are a form of "senseware"; small, round, and soft reinterpretations of products that feel nice and have character.The micro TV set fits in the palm of your hand, dons a fabric-covered casing and features all standard capabilities. [Sony Design Studio via Yanko]
We tuned in for Woz's grand Segway polo match today. Aside from the simultaneously eerie and warm feeling we got from Steve Wozniak's shirt bearing a striking resemblance to our old high school's band booster wear, we weren't able enjoy much of the very short broadcast of the match. In fact, we have no idea who won, cried, made out with Kathy Griffen or anything.
Though, we're sure Woz won. I mean, the guy is Woz, after all. Here's a clip we did manage to catch in which Woz pitches you Segway polo with enough fervor to light your heart on fire...he offers to train you and everything.
Canalys has produced a report showing the iPhone has grown massively in North America. The study looked specifically at smartphone market share statistics in Q3, and the iPhone, in a surprisingly short time span, has managed to grab second position. A 27% market share is nothing to scoff at; what Apple has done in a few months, others have failed to do in years. Smartphones running Symbian, Linux and Palm OS all fall behind Apple's iPhone. This is ever more stunning because the iPhone is only available via one carrier, in contrast, the other platforms can be procured from various cellular networks. This dramatically increases their market penetration. From the perspective of a business model, these figures are simply astronomical. Who's running scared? Apparently, Symbian is:
Posted by Anna King at 9:05 AM on December 17, 2007
Imperial Stormtroopers Arrest Santa, Emperor to Take Over Xmas
Photographs never lie.
ZCam 3D Camera Is Like Wii Without Wiimote and Minority Report Without Gloves
New Wii challenger?
Sony to Sell 11 Million PS3s By Fiscal Year End
Sony's PR machinations at its best.
Santa Gadget Is One Hawt Girl and December 'Mac Chick of the Month' Announced
Because Christmas is all about the gift of giving.
Google Puts Wikipedia in its Sights, to Launch Knol Open Encyclopedia
Step 1014 in Google's plans to take over the internets.
The gadget: The PHOSPHOR brand E-Ink Watch. It's the world's first dual analogue and digital watch with its digital display background appearing in E-Ink. It's like a Kindle that only tells time.
The Price: $US250
The X835 digital camera from BenQ has an 8MP sensor, packs in a 3x optical zoom and can handle sensitivities of up to ISO 2000 during still image capture. The ISO sensitivity during video capture is set at a maximum of 6400. The addition of such functionality comes at a price; the noise in the captured images will probably be enough to cause an avalanche in the Alps from an 800 kilometre distance.
According to the IT staff at Morrisville State College, Microsoft's Xbox 360 console—without the use of a Wi-Fi adapter—seems to be interfering with 2.4GHz signals like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on campus. Aside from loads of anecdotal evidence of computers not connecting to the school's wireless LAN network and Bluetooth headsets needing to physically touch phones to pair, the started analysing the 2.4GHz spectrum and made an interesting finding. When studying the signal in problem areas, they noticed a peculiar, strong signal that jumped all over the 2.4GHz band...that their diagnostic software labelled as "unknown emitter."
Now this is a sad story...if it's true. According to this alleged school report, one student received a detention for using Firefox—as opposed to IE or Safari, we assume. And while there could be plenty of explanations for why the school would want to control student browsers, we loved the teacher's write-up of the event:
OK, hear us out. We know this video is a few days old, but we just spotted it, and we think it is remarkably well done. The video shows a potential Super Mario Galaxy for the DS, and although we are inclined to believe it's a fake, Camp Gizmodo is a little divided. Check the video out and then jump to see what we made of it. The debate raged on behind the scenes, here's what the weekend team made of it:
SANTA'S FACTORY, North Pole (Agencies) - An Imperial Stormtrooper commando broke into Santa's Factory in the North Pole yesterday evening, killing an undetermined number of elves, arresting its owner and confiscating his sled. Joe Kwazansky, local spokesman for the Evil Galactic Empire in Los Angeles, appeared in a press conference this morning confirming the rumours of an Imperial takeover of Christmas' celebrations. "The Emperor wants to assure His subjects that Xmas will continue as planned. The pug-nosed fatso, however, will pay for his crimes," Mr. Kwazansky said amidst the palpable shock in the press corps.
The folks at Unwired View have received a leaked shot of a new Sony Ericsson clamshell phone, which totes the Z660i moniker. Besides 3G connectivity, 2MP camera and a thickness of 14mm, not an awful lot is known about the metal clad cellphone. In fact, we cannot be certain the phone even exists.
A couple of weeks back, our Dear Leader Blam sent round an email asking the team what we wanted for Christmas. So I thought. And I thought. And all I could come up with was this:
• A new sofa cover • A cute, copper-coloured snakeskin clutch—that's a handbag, not something found on a car—by Luella • A pile of new books (or just an Amazon gift certificate, actually) • Some fabulously sexy piece of art to hang on the wall
Prince Charles will appear as an "hologram" at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. The system uses a video projector, a screen and a transparent foil to give the illusion that the royal is there, on stage. Apparently, he wants to avoid wasting the resources of flying 7,000 miles with his staff. And of course, previous criticism by the press:
Charles was heavily criticised in January when he and the Duchess of Cornwall flew to Philadelphia with 12 staff to pick up an award from Mr Gore honouring him as an environmentalist. That trip created 20 tons of carbon dioxide.
