Over at PhoneArena they’ve got a bunch of pics that show the upcoming new Motorola RAZR phone, the VE20. Through the blur you can see the phone is mirrored, features the classic laser-cut keypad and has a touch-sensitive pad on the outer shell like the V9m. The phone has a 2-megapixel cam, a QVGA main display which is “very crisp” and will apparently be the first phone to allow you listen to as well as watch NFL broadcasts through the NFL Mobile Live application. It’s due to be a Sprint exclusive, out August 17th. [PhoneArena]
The recent waterfall installations in New York will seem just like so much plain old falling water, once you’ve seen this video of a computer-controlled waterfall “printing out” amazing patterns and pictures. It’s in Canal City Hakata, which is a shopping and entertainment complex in Fukuoka, Japan, and seems to work using similar principles to an inkjet printer. Basically a computer is controlling hundreds of nozzles to precisely deliver water drops so that they fall forming a pattern… and that’s anything from words to pictures. My faves are the eye-dazzling geometric patterns—they suffer less from the distortion caused by free-falling. Mesmerising stuff. [Hacknmod]
A fire broke out in Apple’s Cupertino headquarters last night, starting on the roof of a two-story building, and severely damaging it. Initial reports suggest that the three-alarm fire at Valley Green 6 started at or near an air conditioning unit, and was phoned in by workers on site. About 66 firefighters were on scene ultimately—they put the fire out in approximately half an hour. Currently there’s no details about what Apple uses the particular building for, so the repercussions are unclear. But luckily it looks like no one was hurt. CBS5.com has some video of the aftermath. [CBS]
Just on Monday we were talking about ATI’s monster new 4870 X2 graphics, perhaps the most powerful around, and already Asetek have come up with a liquid cooling system for it. The LCLC is designed to either let you run the card nearly silent (the heat exchanger fan on the cooler runs at just 30 dB(A), which is pretty quiet) or overclock the ATI board for even more extreme performance. Either way, it’s capable of lowering the GPU temp by 28 degrees, and takes up only two more slots. Price and release date not available, but read on for the press release.
Many laptop users prefer mice instead of trackpads. The promise of the laptop is untethered portability, and in that spirit Logitech has a new wireless mouse that helps keep your busy hands free, attaching to a dock mounted on your laptop when not in use so you can more easily take it from place to place. The mouse comes with a small dongle for your USB port, that means you don’t have to wrap twelve inches of plastic around your wrist. Even if this doesn’t solve all your problems it will solve the lack of pockets you must have. [Logitech]
This was unexpected. Today Telstra, through its BigPond Music service, announced that it will be selling DRM-free MP3 tracks from all four major labels, plus a heap of independents. Previously, they only sold WMA tracks that “Played 4 Sure” – or in other words, didn’t play at all.
The move to DRM-free MP3 means that you can listen to these tracks on pretty much any device, including your iPod. To the best of my knowledge, it also makes BigPond the second service in the world (behind Amazon in the US) to sell DRM-free music from all four majors.
The tracks are encoded at either 256Kbps or 320Kbps, which is as good as it gets for MP3 files from an online store.
This is a fantastic move from Telstra – DRM is one of the biggest drawbacks of buying music online. Considering that MP3 tracks are still only $1.69 in the MP3 format, the question has to be asked – why would you use iTunes (unless buying iTunes Plus tracks) when you can get a DRM-free version for the same price from BigPond?
There was a game that used various tiles laid down in a certain order to control battling robots. It was a board game and it was a lot of fun. The idea was to make a path that would let your robot run a program, and that’s the (very) basic idea behind littleBits: snap-together micro-circuit boards that allow you to use Lego-like pieces to make larger structures that can do a lot more than their individual pieces. In theory the potential is as limited as the pieces people can put together and the software it can run. We see this as more of a prototyping toy than a professional modelling tool, but either way it seems very, very fun. [Ayahbdeir via Engadget]
This past weekend, a NASA-sanctioned 400-mile (643km) “personal air vehicle” race was held in Santa Rosa, CA, to see who had created the quietest, most fuel-efficient plane that’s still reasonably fast. Those involved hope pushing these ideas forward will make personal airplanes cost effective someday. These PAVs run as quiet as a pickup truck while averaging a fuel efficiency of 25 to 30 miles per gallon (10-13 km per litre). Four planes showed up for the challenge and US$100,000 in prize money was awarded, though the most intriguing craft of them all, a modded DA-20 that runs partially on biodiesel, was unable to compete because of a faulty sensor. In the end, the big winner was the Pipistrel Virus, a two-seater with tech-happy features such as three GPS modules, terrain visualization screen and a rocket-propelled parachute that deploys in the event of a mid-air collision. Here’s a look at all four contenders:
Phones with built-in fingerprint scanners for locking down your data have been around for years, and normally we wouldn’t care about a China-only handset from Lenovo, but it’s not every day you see a phone that packs call recording capabilities out of the box. There are apps for recording for Symbian and Win-Mo phones, and it’s something we’ve been wanting for the iPhone, even though numerous state and federal laws probably stand in the way. Guys, come on, we’d only use it for recording phone interviews for our notes. Trust us.
Chrysler is poised to be the first car manufacturer to offer built-in Internet access in its vehicles. The service, called Uconnect Web, uses existing wireless data network for Internet access it then shares with devices in the car via Wi-Fi, essentially turning your car into one big hot spot. The core device, which costs US$499 to install, can take advantage of WiMAX or EV-DO networks where available through a service called Autonet. The service will sell for US$29 a month. We like the idea for some things, like getting traffic and weather updates on the fly, but is the world ready for motorists that are even more distracted while driving? [Twice via CG]
