Heck, for that amount of money, you could’ve put solar panels all over that brand new house too – instead of buying two minuscule panels on a watch. Positioned at the bottom and top of the watch face, the panels soak up the rays and power the watch, which is supposedly based on designs from the 19th century scientist Léon Foucault. [Hodinkee via BornRich]

Among Amazon’s requirements is that publishers enter into a three-year deal so that no other distribution method (read: Apple) will be able to get lower pricing. This is the same thing Apple is requiring publishers do as well, so if both camps play hardball, publishers need to price books exactly the same with the exact same deals on both platforms. Publishers, since the ebook industry is so new, don’t want the three year contracts since they feel it hampers any manoeuvrability they need as the industry matures.

As background information, here’s how Apple screwed Amazon over during the iPad announcement, Amazon’s subsequent (pretty much immediate) phone calls to publishers, and Apple’s further hatred in the MP3 pricing.

The bottom line is, Amazon is threatening two major publishers (not sure who exactly), but if they’re pulling out the nuclear option, it means they are desperate, and really, really serious about this price war. [NYTimes]

Lamps
I’ll admit that this carbon fibre ribbon of light looks almost pretty, but is there really a need for lamps made of the material? [Contemporist via cribcandy]

Joysticks
Look, if I’m buying a joystick made of carbon fibre, I at least expect it to be light as a ballerina and not weigh a whole two kilos. Weight aside, the carbon fibre and fibreglass device does work on “every major platform”. That’s gotta count for something. [Shoryuken via CarbonFiberGear]

Dog Food Bowls
What happens when a bike maker can’t get any carbon fibre frames made? She makes $US65 carbon fibre Splash-N-Go dog bowl.

I only wish that was a bad joke.[Wired]

Toilets
Do you ever just stand back, admire your toilet and think that it’s such a great thing that it’s slick, shiny and weighs 18kg less than the average white beast? Yeah? Well, I’ve got a $US1000 dollar toilet deal for you then. [Carbon Fiber Gear]

Guitars
Alright, maybe there’s a good excuse to make a guitar out of carbon fibre. You get the sound of a big acoustic in the small, light package of a $US1600 carbon fibre beauty. Seems like this was a case of a solution for a problem that hadn’t even been truly discovered. [Blackbird Guitar]

iPod Cases
It looks half way decent, is made of carbon fibre, aluminium and stainless steel screws, and doesn’t protect your gadget’s screen at all. At least it’s shiny and only $US50, right? [UberGizmo]

Chopsticks
Do you really put chopsticks through so much abuse that they’d need to be made out of carbon fibre? OK, maybe you do. But that still can’t explain the need to spend $US150 on pair of carbon fibre chopsticks with a corresponding chopstick rest. Just buy a bundle of cheap ones and don’t worry about misplacing or losing one. [Carbon fibre Gear via Description Page]

Mouse Pads
What’s spending $US80 on a mouse pad when it’s a “real Carbon Fibre mousepad finished in a semi-stiff resin?” Supposedly it’s worth it:

Going from the typical foam mousepad to our carbon fibre mousepad is like taking your high performance sports car from a muddy field to a high-speed highway surface. The motion is smooth and effortless, allowing high speed response and precision control of the cursor.

As much as I love speed, I think my cursor is precise enough as is. [Carbon fibre Gear]

Bestseller
John Grisham, one of the few celebrity authors that exists in our age of word-mouthing readers, is a certified ebook sceptic. Last year, he worried that if e-books got too popular, “you’re going to wipe out tons of bookstores and publishers and we’re going to buy it all online”. But as of yesterday, according to an announcement from his publisher, Random House, all 23 of his books can be purchased in a digital format at Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble.com and Amazon.com, with editions specifically tailored for the iPad all but confirmed. Consider the “my Mum” demographic on lock for ereaders in coming months. [CrunchGear]

Distracted
In an an unsurprising new study from Nielsen, an increasing amount of people are surfing the web while watching TV. Is this because we’re growing more addicted to the internet with each hit of Twitter? Or because season 6 of LOST is less engaging than the ones that came before it? Or because our civilization is becoming so advanced, our brains so large, that we can do all these things at once without breaking a sweat? Whatever the case may be, Nielsen reported that nearly 15 per cent of Superbowl watchers were on the internet at the same time (half of which were tweeting about Megan Fox in a bathtub), and 13 per cent of Oscar viewers were doing the same (was Megan Fox even at the Oscars?) And those percentages aren’t going anywhere but up, I’d imagine, with the internet wrapping its tentacles around our lives more tightly every day. Just be forewarned, if David Simon catches you on Facebook while you’re watching Treme, he’s going to beat your arse.

[Fast Company]

The Googlenet
Everyone likes to joke about Google taking over the internet, but… well… Hmm, let’s start from the beginning. Arbor Networks, one of those companies that measures things, recently took a look at Google’s traffic. It’s massive. Arbor claims that if Google were an ISP, it’d be the third biggest in the world. Now that doesn’t make a ton of sense, because Google traffic and ISP traffic involves a lot of different stuff, but whatever. More interestingly, Arbor made this chart of Google’s traffic as a percentage of the entire internet’s. Right now, it’s at just under 6 per cent, which might not seem like a lot, until you remember that this is the WHOLE F-ING INTERNET we’re talking about, and then it’s pretty staggering. What’s more is that that number is growing fast. By my back of the napkin calculations, if they keep growing at this rate, they actually will take over the internet, 100 per cent of it, by 2048. By 2068, Google will control 150 per cent of the internet’s traffic. Yeah, they’re that good. But in all seriousness, take this data how you will. If you’re a Google fan, the gigantic cup is already 6 per cent full. And if you’re a hater, well, there’s still 94 per cent of the big cup for you to enjoy. [Wired]

Hot Shit
According to NVIDIA, some GeForce owners reported “fan speed issues” after installing their last set of 196.75 drivers. Read: some GeForce owners reported that their shit got melted after installing the last set of 196.75 drivers. Today, NVIDIA posted new 197.13 drivers, which reportedly have solved all those little problems. That’s all! [NVIDIA]

ISPs and FCC, Sitting In a Tree
Yesterday, FCC announced it’s National Broadband Plan. It’s ambitious – hoping to put 100Mbps internet in 100 million homes – as we knew it would be. It’s also going to piss off ISPs, as we knew it would. Of course, the bigwigs were quick to respond, and of course, they say a whole lot of nothing. Here’s a sampling.

Time Warner CEO, Glenn Britt:

We share the FCC’s goal of universal broadband deployment and adoption and we look forward to participating in a robust dialogue around all aspects of the plan.

Verizon Exec VP, Tom Tauke:

Verizon strongly supports the emphasis in the National Broadband Plan on the deployment of broadband facilities and adoption by all Americans.

Comcast CEO, Brian Roberts:

We commend the FCC for the immense effort involved in researching and writing the National Broadband Plan.

Of course it wouldn’t look good for them to have their daggers out just yet, but you can be sure they will be out eventually. [Engadget]

Tablet Talk
The tablet is as seductive to companies as it is to consumers, and the latest one to fall under the spell is Samsung. The director of their Australian IT division confirmed that they will be releasing a “PC grade” tablet in the second quarter of the year to compete with the iPad, which the Samsunger criticised for its wimpy processing power and connectivity. What Samsung apparently doesn’t realise is that it’s not brute force that attracts us to the tablet, it’s the sensuality. The touch. The curves. The look, inside and out. It’s the same type of attraction that draws us to Prince. I fear that Samsung has more of a David Lee Roth slate in mind. [SlashGear]

Rocket Power
You don’t even have to watch this video of a helicopter with rocket-powered blades to know it’s a bad idea. Just open it in another tab, listen to the terrible whine of its jet-tipped rotors, and be glad you’re not in its immediate vicinity. [PopSci]

Fish Power
Here’s a video of a little fuel-cell powered fish. It left us with a lot of questions. The first of which was “is this cool?” Rosa thought it was “neat”, but she “didn’t get excited by it”. David thought it was “kinda neat”. Wilson said it was “crazy”. Jesus said it “leaves him cold”. Jason summed the dilemma up: “I can’t tell if that fish is cool or not.” On the one hand, it’s quite lifelike and fuel cells are cool. On the other, the fuel cell version wasn’t even used for this video demo. The verdict is still out. Another question: is a human narrating this video, or a text to speech robot?

The Nostromo was designed by Jean-François Ruchonnet for Casteban, and he’s introduced a new gear-shaft transmission and a form based on Ripley’s original ride.

The entire case is black PVD coated titanium, and its innards glow wildly in the dark without looking green during the day. It’s also got a power reserve indicator (50 hours), three engraved rotary drums, and looks as cool as any watch I’ve seen in a long time. Only hiccup: it costs about $US141,000. So I guess I’ll start saving… now. [aBlogtoWatch via Engadget]

Cloud access requires another Pogoplug to be local acting as an intermediary between remote drives and the console. The latest update also adds offsite backup functionality to remote pogos. [pogoplug]

Pogoplug™ Launches Console Media Streaming and Offsite Backup
San Francisco, Calif. – March 16th, 2010 – Pogoplug, the multimedia sharing device that allows users to access their media anywhere on the web, today adds two new features to the award-winning device. Starting today, Pogoplug users can stream content to Xbox 360 and PS3 game consoles. The enhanced Active Copy feature now automatically copies files to a Pogoplug in another location.

With game console support, Pogoplug owners can now easily access, share, and stream their media directly to their Xbox 360 or PS3 from any local or remotely located Pogoplug. Gamers can watch home movies from their Pogoplug connected external hard drive on their Xbox 360 or PS3, share slideshows or listen to their entire music library without ever putting down their game controller. The Xbox 360 or PS3 automatically sees the drives connected to the Pogoplug and the contents of other shared Pogoplugs.

“By adding media streaming capabilities to the Xbox 360 and PS3 through your Pogoplug, we are making it easier than ever to access your media on your television,” said Daniel Putterman, Cloud Engines CEO. “The new version of Active Copy is revolutionary. Now anyone can easily keep a safe copy of their files in another location.”

Active Copy enables users to backup folders on their computer to a Pogoplug connected drive. Whenever new files are added, or changes are made to an existing file within the Active Copy enabled folder, these files are automatically copied to a chosen destination folder. Now users can also use Active Copy to automatically backup key files from one Pogoplug to another off-site Pogoplug, for additional safety and redundancy.

Both features came from user requests and both update to all Pogoplugs worldwide via an automatic firmware upgrade today. For support or other questions, please visit the support page at www.Pogoplug.com/support and the community website, www.pogoplugged.com.

We got our review unit in just yesterday, and I’ll be testing it this week, but Spring Design’s new pre-order page is just now going live. When I talked to Eric Kmiec, VP of sales and marketing, he mentioned that a 3G version might be released around mid-year. The hardware is not the issue; the trouble is that, since this would effectively be an Android tablet with full web access, it’s going to require more than a Kindle-type 3G plan. So carrier negotiations and internal debates about how to charge customers ensue. (Hint: It might actually require a data plan.)

But even as we wait for that inevitable better (and costlier) version, this Alex here has some interesting pedigree. Spring Design is the baby sister of HTC. As HTC is intimate with both Google and the Android OS, this has some positive implications, but it also means the Alex has a lot to live up to – it’s not just some ebook reader.

Since it’s got no 3G – strictly Wi-Fi only – Google doesn’t bless it with the official Android app package, but it’s running Android 1.5 Cupcake. I hear tell it can run any .apk file, so I will be dropping some Android Packages on this baby in the days to come.

Both the Nook and the Alex claim Android roots, but Alex already lets the user in on more of the Android goodness than the Nook. It’s also got a much bigger LCD than the Nook, and at first touch, has generally quicker response too. We’ll see how the whole drama plays out soon enough. In the meantime, there should be a new pre-order page going live at Spring’s website, if you suddenly find yourself with an extra $US400 you categorically refuse to put towards an iPad. [Spring Design]

The Windows Phone 7 Seven
How good is Windows Phone 7 Series? So good that the people who developed it are leaving… to develop for it. Apparently we aren’t the only ones excited about the app scene for WP7. MobileCrunch heard from a tipster that seven Windows Phone 7 team members are leaving to make it on their own, including, reportedly, project manager Mel Sampat, who wrote in an email that he was leaving to build a company that would help “big brands port their iPhone investments over to WM7″. [MobileCrunch]

This weekend, we saw just how personal the Apple-Google conflict really is. A blog post from Tim Bray, co-founder of XML and new Google hire, makes it clear that he knows what team he’s joining – and what team he’s fighting against. In a post on his blog entitled “Now A No-Evil Zone”, the last item in a list of reasons he’s excited about working on Android is:

I’ll enjoy competing with Apple.

He goes on to explain at length how he “hates” Apple’s closed ecosystem, how he think it’s wrong, and how he’s excited to get the chance to prove that it’s wrong. Congrats on the gig, Tim. From the sound of things, you’ll fit right in. [Ongoing by Tim Bray]

Any Clip
Any Clip, a recently launched website, helps you “search any movie moment ever”. How, you ask, can it do that? With a database of scripts and a daunting system of tags. You can search by just about anything – actors, quotes, objects, movies – to locate that scene that’s just on the tip of your tongue. As I sat there, staring at those search boxes and all that data behind them, the best I could come up with was, “I hate snakes.” It knew it was Indy, but that’s not too impressive. I guess the true test has to wait for when something actually is on the tip of my tongue. [AnyClip]

He’s a Genius, After All
Last week we saw a lot of analyst’s making a lot of claims about how the iPad was selling. But they’re analysts and we don’t trust them any farther than we can throw them. Our friend the Boy Genius, however, seems to have something a little more substantive. One of his Apple connects said that the 150,000 iPads pre-ordered figure was “extremely accurate”, and also said that Apple Stores were logging around 700 reservations on average, in addition to those pre-orders. With just over 200 Apple Stores in the country, that works out to about 300,000 iPads accounted for so far. The numbers are still fuzzy, of course, but still… that’salottaiPads. [Boy Genius Reports]