Sunday, September 28, 2008
Games
Nikkei: New Nintendo DS With Camera and Music Playback Coming This Year
3:00PM Matt Buchanan | Japan’s Nikkei newspaper—their Wall Street Journal, so by no means a shady source—is reporting that Nintendo will launch a new version of the DS later this year with a built-in camera and music playback, as well as more powerful wireless. The camera will be used for new types of games—who knows what Nintendo would cook up with that, though I’m sure it would involve taking pictures of yourself. More »
Software
Apple to Make iTunes 8 and iPod Completely Accessible to the Blind
11:00AM Gizmodo US Edition | Apple has committed to work with the state of Massachusetts to use its VoiceOver technology from Mac OS X to make its iTunes and iPod ecosystem fully usable for the blind. Before the agreement, Apple had already been making strides: VoiceOver and Braille support for OS X and closed captioning for iPod and Apple TV have already been implemented to a degree. But Apple’s taking it even further. More »
Gadgets
Rumour: Apple TV Changes Afoot
9:30AM Matt Buchanan | A reseller says that they received an email from Apple telling them to remove and destroy all Apple TV displays and literature by Sept. 30 at 5PM. While it could simply be because the licensing for shows and movies used in the ads and displays is running out, the supposed letter from Apple mentions a webcast “kick off” on the same day. More »
Games
Experience the New Xbox, Uh, Experience
9:00AM Matt Buchanan | Microsoft has launched a site all about the New Xbox Experience which gives you a feel for what it’ll be like in motion by simulating the new dashboard. It also has some videos of new features in addition to the avatar creation one we already saw, like Parties, deeper social networking and more community content. I’m pretty excited about it. Too bad the site doesn’t mention a date, though Major Nelson swears it won’t be right after that massive outage on Monday. [New Xbox Experience via Kotaku] More »
Phones
Everyone Will Be a Walking Nuclear Weapon Detector
8:00AM Matt Buchanan | Researchers at Purdue University are developing new tech that will turn every mobile phone into a roaming nuclear weapon sniffer and are lobbying Congress to legally require mobile phone users and carriers to participate. The Distributed Nuclear Detection by Ubiquitous Mobile Phone project would be kind of like the massive mobile phone dragnet in The Dark Knight, but it would look for terrorists sneaking dirty bombs and nuclear weapons instead of the Joker. More »
Robots
NES Controller Socket Lets You Control Your Mods with Nostalgia
7:30AM Gizmodo US Edition | Parallax has just released their NES controller socket to the delights of modders everywhere. Instead of forcing them to chop up an old NES to get the 7-pin socket, Parallax has made it available for only $US2 on their site. The NES controller would be great for all kinds of little projects, from robots to old-school gaming devices, and we’re really looking forward to seeing what inventive modders can do with the humble and much-loved controller. [MAKE] More »
Networks
AT&T to Dump Dish Network, Start Selling DirecTV
7:10AM Matt Buchanan | After punting their agreement with Dish Network to sell satellite as part of a triple play package, AT&T has decided to settle down with DirecTV. They’ll keep hawking Dish through Jan. 31, after which they’ll offer DirecTV anywhere they can’t give you U-Verse as a TV option. Multichannel notes that this leaves second-place Dish without a major reseller partner, so not great news for them. [Multichannel] More »
Phones
Mobile Phone Subscriptions to Reach 4 Billion by Year’s End
6:45AM Gizmodo US Edition | The UN’s International Telecommunications Union announced Friday that mobile phone subscriptions will reach 4 billion by the end of 2008, far more than half of the estimated 6.7 billion total world population. Of course, there are some, like John Mayer, who throw off that number by having more than one mobile phone (damn you, Mayer!) but it’s still a huge milestone. The bump from last year’s total of 3.3 billion is primarily due to emerging countries like China, India, and Russia, as well as lower prices and lots of healthy competition between carriers. [BreitBart via Drudge] More »
Entertainment
Are You a PC?
6:00AM Matt Buchanan | Windows finally has a slogan you’ll remember—not a bad one, either—so it was only a matter of time before it was transformed into the next internet meme. Take When Obama Wins, blend with Redmond’s latest branding, shake, and you’ve got And I’m a PC. You can pound the refresh key to see the genius (or not) of the hundreds of subversive sloganeers before you, or add your own. So far, it’s mostly a mix of McCain jabs, Windows smears, and Mac & Linux cheerleading, but still fairly entertaining. What kind of PC are you? [And I'm a PC via Ad Freak via The Presurfer]
Gadgets
