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Hitachi showed off a cool-looking camcorder concept at CEATEC this week, which adds a Wi-Fi module for streaming video from its hard drive or what's being shot live over WLAN to your TV. For recorded video it uses DLNA, which means it will work with any number of DLNA-compatible HDTVs or a PS3.
A bank robber got away with a bag full of mucho money from an armoured truck after successfully pulling out a perfect escape plan, straight out the final scene of the Thomas Crown Affair. The criminal--who was wearing a yellow vest, safety goggles, a respirator mask and a blue shirt--used Craigslist to hire a dozen of decoys to confuse the police and the public around the scene. Mike, one of the hired decoys, gave the full details:
As tiny 1.8" hard drives continue to get larger in capacity and smaller in size, this design concept for hanging one from the back of your laptop display seems like the way to go--it's using a 2.5" drive, but a 1.8" would really be better. I've got a 3G card that hangs like this already, but piggybacking an external drive would be far more useful--especially when you have to pick up and go in a hurry. [Yanko Design via BBG]
It's tough to imagine the eureka moment when an engineer, equating the Microsoft Surface with a fat person with a penchant for curly fries dipped in ranch, decided to place the Surface on the Wii Balance Board. But the result, coupled with a custom-coded Surface app, creates a tilt screen of epic proportions. Pushing on one edge of the Surface works just like rotating an iPhone. And we can't wait to see the technology manifest to an insane 4-player co-op game of Monkey Ball. [Stimulant via ubergizmo]
Pandora, the muscled-up Nintendo DS frankenmonster with Linux OS, will be finally available for the holidays shopping season. With only 3,000 units planned, the $US350 game console has no commercial games and is aimed at the homebrew market. Obviously, it's not going to be a hit but its final feature list looks impressive nonetheless.
America will soon join Europe, Japan and some other lucky folks and have access to the elite Club Nintendo...club. Sure, it's a Nintendo marketing ploy to get users to register products and fill out surveys, but Club Nintendo is also the only outlet to buy the most sacred, extra limited edition Nintendo gear. We'll keep our ear to the ground and let you know when registration begins, but until then, check out this awesome SNES Virtual Console controller that was offered earlier this year by Club Nintendo Japan. Pretty great, right? [Kotaku and image]
Nintendo has confirmed the existence of their rumoured pedometer with the release of a Wii Fit meets Brain Training meets Nike+ game. Your Life Rhythm, as it is called, uses the little pod to record your physical performance, and it looks a bit weird to me.
The National Music Publishers Board didn't get their request to the Copyright Royalty Board for a larger cut of digital music sales, putting a definitive end to a miniature media crisis over the "possible" shutdown of iTunes. Apple threw a minor shit-fit over the prospective hike last year, insinuating that they might not be able to continue business if they were "no longer able to do so profitably" (what business sense!), after which the British press decided that music was going to go away forever, or something. In any case, iTunes' profitability was never really at stake, Apple wasn't actually planning to shut down the largest music retailer in the US, and the press needs to calm down. [BBC]
Our hands-on with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic 'Tube' was pretty conclusive: the 5800 is a solid, capable but somewhat underwhelming music phone. For a first attempt at a full touch interface, though, the adapted S60 operating system is actually pretty good. Slashphone has unearthed a mountain of demo footage displaying the different functions of the OS, so you can make your own judgment, but as with our hands-on video, you'll just have to try to ignore the damning, repeatedly unregistered touches that keep happening whenever the screen isn't pre-rendered.
I guess the complicated combination of accelerometers and proximity sensors isn't trivial technology, but this one really should have been done by now: automatic zoom based on camera movement. In a new patent application, Sony Ericsson has detailed technology that judges your intention to zoom by measuring the camera's distance from your body, zooming in as it moves further away. The patent is just for cameraphones at the moment, but there's no reason that it couldn't (or shouldn't) crop up in the next generation of point and shoots as well. [UnwiredView via Engadget]
In the latest addition to the stream of leaked BlackBerry Storm videos little is left to mystery. We've seen much of the interface and we know most of the specs, but this commercial demonstrates just about every major feature of the phone in rapid succession. Confirming what we already know, the Storm looks like it'll match its major competitors feature for feature.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 4:30 PM on October 3, 2008
So why is it that the stereotype for gamers is a lonely nerd? Apparently over a third of Australian gamers are members of the fairer sex, at least according to a study by Roy Morgan commissioned by Microsoft.
Unfortunately, the study didn't go into detail on where the best games to meet women were, but it did say that 44 percent of respondents were aged between 14 and 24. It also said that the majority of these female gamers play less than once a month, so don't expect to form an ongoing, meaningful relationship too easily.
The other important thing to note is that the average income for women gamers is $76,300. Which means, should you be lucky enough to find and woo one of these wonderful creatures, you'll be set for life.
Looks like its Update Day at Apple--the company just released Apple TV 2.2, which users can access through the "update software" menu option in Settings. The software revamp now includes support for features introduced in iTunes 8.0, including video playlists, Genius playlists and HDTV show purchasing, and plugs a couple of security holes as well. How's it playing, kids? Any problems? [Macrumors]
Are you an ultra-rich tech enthusiast with a hankering to own a piece of aero-automobile history? Moller International is now offering its M200X, the first flying car of its kind, up for sale on that veritable auction house of luxury, eBay. The M200X is a 2-passenger Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicle that has completed over 200 manned and unmanned flight demonstrations since 1989. Currently, bids are up to $US18,888... but the reserve hasn't been met yet so you still have a chance to swoop in and snatch it up. [eBay via gizmag]
AMD has confirmed rumours that it is working on DirectX 11, announcing at CEATEC that it plans to release its first DirectX 11-compatible GPUs in 2009. The company also predicted an increase in general purpose computing on GPUs (GPGPU) and a transition to a 40nm fabricating standard, which ought to give graphics chip performance rates a considerable boost. In layman terms: Things are about to get a lot bigger and a lot prettier. [Xbit Labs via Tweaktown]
Posted by Nick Broughall at 3:00 PM on October 3, 2008
JBL make some pretty awesome speakers. I was lucky enough to have a pair of their high-end speakers in my testing studio (or my loungeroom, as it were) back when I was editor of Australian T3 - giving up those speakers was one of the hardest decisions to make when I decided to come over to Giz...
Anyway, my point is that JBL speakers are pretty awesome, at least in my experience. And their new LS series of speakers look like they're bringing the typical JBL audio quality to a pricepoint that's (almost) attainable for the masses. Of course, not everyone wants a high-end surround sound setup in their loungeroom, but those people tend not to read Gizmodo and we don't really care about them too much.
There's a full rundown of pricing in the press release below, plus a bonus pic.
As we move towards battery and hydrogen cell breakthroughs that could wean us off our addiction to oil, here's at least one engine design from yesteryear that ought to be examined a bit more. The free-piston engine, first invented in 1920, are cheap to build and roughly twice as efficient as current gas engines.
Remote controls might not be the sexiest of gadgets to overhaul, but Panasonic's done a pretty neat job with this recent revamp. The company demoed a touch-sensitive remote at CEATEC, which features a touchpad on each end of the device and a crowd of buttons in the middle. Instead of using a touchscreen like many of its high-end ilk, the EZ Touch Remote superimposes an image of a traditional remote control on the television screen.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 1:30 PM on October 3, 2008
For Gran Turismo V Prologue, the guys from Citroën and Polyphonic Digital (creators of the GT series) got together to create a concept car, the GTbyCITROËN, which was powered by fuel cells that would appear in the game. Then they went and took that concept and made a working prototype which they've just shown off at the Paris Motor show.
Apparently, the car's performance in real life is exactly the same as in the game. Except for the whole playing a game versus driving a car thing, that is.
There's no word on whether or not Citroën are planning on releasing the GTbyCITROËN to the general public, but I guess if enough GT players ask for it, then there may be a pretty good chance. Maybe...
In case you haven't opened up your iTunes in the last few hours, Apple's released v.8.0.1 to fix several 8.0.0 issues with HDTV episodes, the Genius auto-playlist feature and software update checks. For instance, iTunes will no longer accidentally overwrite HD versions of your TV episodes with their standard definition copies. Performance and stability have also supposedly been improved. Check it out and tell us what you think. [Apple Insider]
What with the financial crisis and recent nuclear (dis)agreements and the possibility of having an insane (but like-able! Teehee!) person becoming the country's VP, we could be headed for a The Road by Cormac McCarthy-esque situation in the near future. And when that day comes, I'll be the person on the block with a DIY Geiger counter. Hack-n-Mod has compiled a list of the three best Geiger counter tutorials on the net. Use this one to learn everything about schematics, PCB and shielding; this one for a nifty USB interface, and--if you're feeling particularly technical--this one for a much more detailed build. Remember: in the apocalyptic future, friends don't let friends eat friends without testing them for radiation first. [Hack-n-Mod]
Posted by Nick Broughall at 12:00 PM on October 3, 2008
Remember the other day when Samsung told us they were launching the country's first LED TV? Yeah, turns out that's not entirely true. Both Samsung and Sony had released earlier models, although they were both prohibitively expensive.
So, Samsung this morning sent out this little clarification of their claim:
The claim "the first LED television available on the Australian market" refers to Samsung launching the first mass market LED television widely available in major retail channels at a price under $9,999. A Samsung and a competitor 70" LED television was previously available but in extremely limited distribution at a retail price of around $70,000; fewer than five units were sold across both companies*.Samsung apologises for any confusion.
But regardless of who came first, I'm still hanging out to test the Series 9 panels... I thoroughly enjoyed the Series 6 and from what I can tell, the Series 9 will blow those sets out of the water.
Rather than making an iPhone app, Flickr has tweaked its mobile site to better fit the iPhone screen's dimensions--and to a pretty solid effect. All activities and controls you need to use are readily available, photos are automatically scaled to fit the screen and you can load pages without needing to refresh Safari. Since Adobe Flash-support is still a ways off, there's really no way to view slideshows or videos. Still, Flickr's got two thumbs up from here as one of the most useful non-apps you'll see.
Today in a glass-walled room in New York's Time Square, Netflix gathered six of the world's brightest talents in the field of sitting on arse and watching movies. The goal was to break the current Guinness continuous-movie-watching world record of 120 hours 23 minutes. They can eat, drink and stretch as long as they don't take their eyes off the screen, and there's a 10-min potty break between features, but other than that, it's about staying alert. Make no mistake. In spite of their matching Netflix bowling jackets, this ain't no relay race. These people out to crush each other—CRUSH!—by staring at a large plasma screen the longest. Here's how it looks on Day One:
Posted by Nick Broughall at 10:30 AM on October 3, 2008
We've had some pretty encouraging ideas on how to put the world's toughest phone through its paces - the washing machine test looks like it's definitely on the cards - but we want more. Seamus and I are planning a big day of wanton destruction, and the more ideas you can come up with, the better.
Tell us what you think in comments, and stay tuned for some mobile destruction here on Giz!
I've always wished I could work out at a Chuck E Cheese's, but there has never been an exercise machine that combined the drudgery of sit-ups with the fun of arcade basketball. Until now! Guitar solo wahh whahh neeeyaa! The Ab Solo is a crazy contraption that has you do sit-ups and play basketball at the same time. Don't believe me? Hit the jump for a video of it in action, complete with that guitar solo I just tried to type out.
Sony brought out a new Reader tonight in NYC that adds a six-inch touch screen to the E-ink reader, as well as slimming down the case and adding a built-in frontlight. With the touchscreen readers can enter text with a stylus on a full-screen QWERTY for searching, adding notes and annotations to book marks, or just flipping the page with a stylus or finger swipe. It'll hit at the end of October for around $US400. Hit the jump for more impressions.
Today Nintendo unveiled their follow-up to the crazy-successful DS Lite, the DSi. Its form factor is much unchanged, but the new version has a larger screen, SD card slot, 3MP camera and access to an upcoming downloads store.