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.
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]
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.
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]
