While we liked the shiny unibody MacBooks, their new miniDisplay Port requires the use of a dual link DVI adaptor to drive the 30″ CinemaDisplay. Not only is the adaptor $US100; it’s a custom cord that can’t exactly be spotted between the batteries and singing cards at the drug store. Now Apple has informed preorderers to expect their shipments no sooner than December 23rd—which just goes to show that in a fight between Steve Jobs and Santa Claus, Steve Jobs would win…or something like that. [9to5mac]
Apart from remodelling their home, astronauts on board the International Space Station are installing a new piece of equipment that may save their lives one day. Or embarrass them. It can go either way: Containing 32 sensors in a device the size of a shoebox, the ENose–or electronic nose–will be able to detect even the most subtle inorganic and organic smells. Like Carl Walz, ISS astronaut and Director for NASA’s Advanced Capabilities puts it, “having experienced an air-quality event during my Expedition 4 mission on the space station, I wish I had the information that this ENose will provide future crews.” Yes Carl. Air-quality events are bad.
I know, it’s just salt in the wound for those of you with G1s in the audience. But for all you procrastinators out there, today is your day. The G1, with its solitary mini USB port, hasn’t been the most headphone-friendly device. Now it’s prepackaged with a 3.5mm headphone adaptor and everything is rainbows and sunshine. [TmoNews via CrunchGear]
We’ll have a lot more than the 1983 Apple Phone prototype at the upcoming Gizmodo Gallery. Perhaps you were interested in getting a good look at the famous Red One camera? That’s good, because we sorta know a guy.
It was nearly six months ago when Samsung laid out their plan to manufacture an affordable, super-fast 256GB SSD by the end of the year. It sounded a little bit optimistic at the time, but as of today, they’re here. Sort of. Samsung says that manufacturing has begun, but still hasn’t let loose on the most important nugget: price. They have, however, elaborated a little bit on their claims of “disruptive” performance: the news SSDs will offer speed “analogous to having a 15,000rpm drive, without all of its size, noise, power and heating drawbacks.” They also claim to have decreased the read/write speed gap to about 10% and dropped power consumption to a slight 1.1w. This all sounds great, it’s cost that’ll win the SSD war. [Akihabara]
Those new games that came with the 3.1 firmware are swell and all, but they’re not deciding features. Well, a strapping, brusque, heavily armed young man has brought to our attention that the Checkers app contains a dummy ‘Touch’ option, leaving us a mysterious clue — to something. That something, while it could be new, touchy Zunes from the future, is more likely one of these less-exciting things: either a bizarre example of the lazy porting of a mobile game or evidence that the planned integration of Zune software into Windows Mobile will extend beyond the music interface.
It’s the worst thing about phone cameras (except for the image noise, poor low-light performance, desaturated colours and incessant motion blur): the picture delay. Scalado says they’ve managed to eliminate it by constantly recording and displaying actual JPG images of the frame in real time. In other words, when you take a picture, rather than calling the camera to snap a completely new hi-res image, the Scalado Camera Engine simply saves what you can already see. Popular sensor makers Aptina, OmniVision Samsung and MtekVision are already licensing with the tech, so your camera phone experience might become slightly more bearable before too long. [Slashphone]
Neuros, who built their reputation with weird, chunky (but wonderful) modular MP3 players, has long since moved exclusively to the home entertainment field. Their latest attempt at eroding the Apple TV’s market share is the Link, a set-top streaming box that will pull video from a wide range of online TV sources — Hulu, NBC, ABC, etc. — as well as stream local audio and video content from any USB hard drive. As is always the case with Neuros set-tops, the Link’s software is open source and ready for modification. This time, mercifully, that might not be the box’s biggest draw.
The James Bond series has always had gushing reviews of their gadgety goodness, even before Jesus’ take on Quantum of Solace. This January 1966 article, “James Bond’s Weird World of Inventions” look backs to the time when Sean Connery was filling 007′s shoes. Remember the Disco Volante, the110-foot hydrofoil floating fortress? How about the Bell jet-pack Bond uses in the opening scenes of Thunderball?
You know what sucks? The line at sports venues when you’re waiting for disgruntled employees behind a bar to pour out overpriced Bud Lights for thirty or so already drunken meatheads in front of you. While there’s not much you can do to make the meatheads disappear, the Scotsman Trufill Beverage Dispenser can at least get rid of most of the line (and some of the angry pourers) by raining out a whopping 10 pints of beer in just 10 seconds.
