Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Phones
Pink BlackBerry Pearl Aimed at Consumer Market as RIM Feels iPhone Heat
11:18PM Gizmodo US Edition | RIM’s response to the market-share-gulping iPhone is to try to appeal to the female consumer by splashing pink paint all over the BlackBerry Pearl. Sigh. Why do some manufacturers insist on churning out pink versions of their products for women? Research says women are not particularly into it—unless, of course, she is a crack-addled nutcase who has yet to leave her tweenage Barbie phase behind. [Reuters] More »
Random Stuff
Hamburg Science Centre and Aquarium Makes Us Go Ooooooooo
11:12PM Jesus Diaz | The Office for Metropolitan Architecture has designed this stunning 247,569-square-foot Science Centre for the Hamburg Hafencity, which is part of the Hamburg harbour, one of the largest ports in the world. The stunning ring design is composed of 10 modular blocks, and it will include a science theatre, aquarium, theatre, offices, laboratories and retail area. It may be their painterly nature, but the rest of the rendering makes it look quite surreal, in a Matrix-meets-Tetris kind of way. More »
Computers
A MacBook Air Parody that Goes One Better than Wafer-Thin
10:52PM Addy Dugdale | Gadget Lab’s Rob Beschizza has made himself a little piss-take of the MacBook Air. Curved corners—that’s an Ives-esque attention to detail you’ve got there—and a killer punchline. This one goes out to all the secret Luddites who read the Giz. [YouTube via Wired] More »
Cameras
Everio GZ-HD6 is First Consumer HDD Camera to Output 1080p Using Chip Tricks, Says JVC
10:32PM Gizmodo US Edition | JVC has fired out a bunch of new HDD-recording camcorders recently, but the Everio GZ-HD6 offers something special: it outputs video at a cracking 1080/60p pace. A smaller successor to last year’s HD7, the HD6 has the same 3-CCD full HD sensor system, this time married to a 10x optical zoom lens. With a bigger 120GB hard drive, the new Everio can store about 10 hours of max-resolution video, as well as shooting to SDHC cards. And there is something even more magical about the HD6: its conversion engine. More »
Entertainment
HD DVD Also Falling in Europe
10:20PM Jesus Diaz | After outselling HD DVD 10 to 1, one of the UK’s major retailers has decided to go all Blu-ray and eliminate the sadly ill-fated format from their stores this March. With HD DVD’s lousy sales and Blu-ray numbers increasing about 40% every month, Woolworths say it’s over. According to them: “Sales figures clearly show that the market is moving towards one format of high definition DVD. The main reason is the success of Sony’s PlayStation 3.” [Retail Bulletin via The Inquirer] More »
Cameras
Canon HV30 Camcorder Gets Reviewed by CamcorderInfo
9:31PM Gizmodo US Edition | CamcorderInfo has got its hands on the HV30 camcorder, Canon’s updated version of last year’s prizewinning HV20 and written an in-depth review. The upside: the HV30 is a great camcorder that builds on the previous generation. The downside: its list of upgrades is small, and it keeps some quirky features. Updated. More »
Phones
Hitachi W61H Mobile Phone Packs E-Ink Display on its Bum
9:26PM Haroon Malik | Hitachi has just debuted its W61H mobile phone, which packs a 2.7-Inch E-Ink display on its reverse side. The display, which has been dubbed the Silhouette Screen, will be able to show off one of 95 pre-set graphics, but beyond the aesthetics the E-Ink offering has, it seems to have little other utility. (No caller data, time, date or SMS information can be viewed.) Jump for another shot. More »
Phones
HTC Loses Title as #1 Non-Touchscreen Windows Mobile Smartphone Maker, Now #3
9:00PM Jason Chen | DigiTimes, which cites internal Microsoft data, claims that HTC has declined from the previous #1 Windows Mobile non-touchscreen smartphone maker spot with over 50% of the market (from July ‘06 to June ‘07) to just under 30% of the market. Stepping up to take over HTC’s spot are Motorola and Samsung, whose respective Q and BlackJack models are apparently more popular than previously thought. The same report says that HTC is still #1 in terms of the smartphones with touchscreens, with about a 50% share. Honestly, the touchscreen models are where HTC’s focusing most of their efforts anyway, so this isn’t that huge of a deal. [Digitimes] More »
Computers
Sony Vaio Type T Gets Refreshed CPU and Casing
8:55PM Haroon Malik | The fantastic Vaio Type T may have lost its thin crown to another laptop, but Sony has rejigged its slimline notebook, giving it a faster CPU, an ultra-low-voltage Core 2 Duo U7600 running at 1.2GHz and a fancy-pants artsy finish. No word on pricing or availability yet. [Akihabara News] More »
Robots
4:45PM Nick Broughall | Here at Giz, we pretty much depend on the fact that robots will one day rise up against us and squash us like an irritating insect. Hell, all those Science Fiction movies and novels can’t be wrong.
But until that day comes, we have to put up with creepy looking robots that give us artificial smiles and do inane things like give us directions, dance or solve a Rubik’s Cube in 35 seconds.
The RuBot 2 from inventor Pete Redmond is designed with the specific task of solving a Rubik’s Cube. It uses two hi-res cameras to scan all six sides of a cube, then uses some artificial intelligence software to work out how to solve the puzzle. Then, its pneumatic arms flick the cube from side to side, making rapid-fire adjustments to the cube until the problem is solved.
The whole process takes 35 seconds, which is well off the human record of 9.55 seconds. To us, it doesn’t look like this robot will be taking part in the demise of humankind, when people have its number so convincingly. Keep practising RuBot 2…
[Tech.co.uk]
More »
Robot World Domination Delayed – Robots Too Busy With Rubik’s Cube
4:45PM Nick Broughall | Here at Giz, we pretty much depend on the fact that robots will one day rise up against us and squash us like an irritating insect. Hell, all those Science Fiction movies and novels can’t be wrong.
But until that day comes, we have to put up with creepy looking robots that give us artificial smiles and do inane things like give us directions, dance or solve a Rubik’s Cube in 35 seconds.
The RuBot 2 from inventor Pete Redmond is designed with the specific task of solving a Rubik’s Cube. It uses two hi-res cameras to scan all six sides of a cube, then uses some artificial intelligence software to work out how to solve the puzzle. Then, its pneumatic arms flick the cube from side to side, making rapid-fire adjustments to the cube until the problem is solved.
The whole process takes 35 seconds, which is well off the human record of 9.55 seconds. To us, it doesn’t look like this robot will be taking part in the demise of humankind, when people have its number so convincingly. Keep practising RuBot 2…
[Tech.co.uk]
More » 
