SlashGear

Happy Thanksgiving from SlashGear!

Chris Davies — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:03:18 +0000

Thursday November 26th is Thanksgiving in the US, and the SlashGear team will be taking a break to spend our time talking turkey rather than gadgets with our friends and family.

Regular service will resume on Friday November 27th, and we’d like to wish a very happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers. Until then, if you’re short of boardgames to play or need some distraction from over-eating, check out our recent reviews and editorials.

Well, okay, just one geeky gadget today… it’s the NuWave oven, and it’ll apparently cook a turkey in record time, even from frozen. SlashGear takes no responsibility for any salmonella outbreaks – have a great Thanksgiving!

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Nokia N900 in-store sales delayed in UK

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:09:01 +0000

Looks like Nokia was a victim of its own success. Not only has the N900 taken far longer to reach the market than initially expected, strong pre-order sales have meant the company has been forced to push back its in-store release of the Maemo 5 smartphone until December 4th. The Finnish company told NokNok that demand has basically outstripped supply.

Delivery of the much-anticipated smartphone begins today, and will apparently be fulfilled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Anybody who didn’t plan ahead – or who quite sensibly wanted to wait until they could play with an N900 in-store – will have to wait almost a week and a half before they can do so. The Nokia N900 will be priced at £499 including VAT in the UK.

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Citizen Gadgetry

Michael Gartenberg — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:01:40 +0000

I love watching excellence in motion. Watching Fred Astaire dance, reading a poem by Robert Frost, watching Michael Jordan play ball, Tiger Woods play golf or opening new products that have the ability to bring a smile to my face. They all share one thing, these folks make it look so easy. The result of hard work and tireless practice is that the performance appears almost effortless. Of course, that’s never the case.

I’m constantly amazed at the number and the degree of badly designed products out there that come to market. I’m talking bad stuff. I mean stuff that had to go from concept, to design, to prototype and eventually make it to the retail channel. Stuff so bad that it’s impossible to imagine that anyone in their right mind signed off on the process and the steps along the way. The stuff that makes you scream…”what were they thinking?” You don’t need to be a genius to know that some of this stuff just won’t work. It isn’t rocket science, it’s just focusing on the basics and this is why much of the criticism is warranted.

If it takes three days to configure a music phone to get music on it, or if your media player deletes all the content on your hard drive, you don’t need to be an engineer to critique the process that allowed that product to come to market. I understand hitting the mark of super excellence is hard, but it is possible and reasonable to get the basics right. Maybe if more vendors just spent time on the basics, they would do better overall and perhaps other players would shine less by comparison. I’m also tired of mediocre stuff that gets the table stakes stuff wrong that comes from vendors that, in theory, should know better.

There is, however, another side of this discussion and over the last few weeks I’ve had a recurring set of conversations of users critiquing product designs and the suggestion that the user should become the product designer. Think of it as “citizen gadgetry” Sorry, I just don’t agree with the concept of end users as designer. It’s simply not as easy as it appears (as we’ve seen with the difficulty of getting devices like the CrunchPad to market). There’s a complex iteration between features, form and cost that is more than just trivial.

It’s easy to create niche products that are only designed for a few users. You all know my longstanding view that there’s a market for about 50,000 of anything (except perhaps MIDs). Designing something for the mass market of fifty million or more though requires lots of work. It also requires talent, training, thorough understanding of the market and retail channels and more talent. Perhaps not necessarily Jonathon Ive level talent in every case, but real talent nevertheless. As a user and a pretty technical one at that, I can appreciate good design and I can tell you what works and what doesn’t work and why. The idea, however, that people can go from user to creator in one small leap is an entirely different story. The notion that the majority of people in our society enjoy the creative talents of others and don’t create their own work is so prevalent we have a word for it. We call these people consumers and the gadget industry is more formally known as consumer electronics. The democratization of gadgets might sound like a good idea but I highly doubt we’ll see it happen any time soon or any great gadgets that do eventually come from these sources.

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Lenovo IdeaPad U150 ultraportable arrives in US

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:46:43 +0000

The Lenovo IdeaPad U150 CULV ultraportable last spotted strutting its patterned stuff in Japan last month has finally made it to the US, with pricing kicking off at $649. The U150 packs a choice of 1.3GHz Pentium dual-core or Core 2 Duo processors, together with 3GB or 4GB of RAM, 250GB or 320GB of storage and an 11.6-inch 1,366 x 768 LED-backlit display.

You also get WiFi b/g as standard (WiFi b/g/n is on the higher-spec Core 2 Duo machine, at $749), Bluetooth 2.1+EDR together with gigabit ethernet. OS is Windows 7 Home Premium and the standard battery is a 6-cell pack which Lenovo reckon is good for up to 7hrs runtime. Ports include two USB 2.0, one USB/eSATA combo, both VGA and HDMI, and a 4-in-1 memory card reader.

The whole thing measures in at 11.4 x 7.5 x 0.5-1.35 inches and tips the scales at just 3.31lbs. It’s available to order now, but if you go via the Dealzon link below you can save a little more and bring the entry price down to around $550.

[via Dealzon]

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BlackBerry Pearl 9100 (aka Striker) appears on eBay?

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:29:22 +0000

When we pondered out loud last Friday on when we might see the leaked BlackBerry Pearl 9100 (aka Striker) arrive on shelves, little did we know it would be quite so soon. Of course, this isn’t an official release from RIM, and stocks are severely limited: someone has supposedly gotten hold of an unlocked, unused Pearl 9100 and has put it up on eBay. What’s strange is that the seller doesn’t appear to have any photos of the handset itself.

Instead they’re using shots from other sites which have had access to prototype 9100 handsets, which amounts to asking $3,000 (Buy It Now) for a smartphone sight-unseen. Still, it’s enough promise to push bidding up to $710 at time of writing, with just under seven hours left to run.

We’ll save our money and wait for the official release, we reckon. So far specifications for the device are unknown, though it does obviously have the SureType keyboard and an optical trackpad rather than a trackball.

[via Wayne Schulz]

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K.R.T. X9 joins list of multitouch tablets we can’t buy

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:18:27 +0000

Somebody needs to rent a boat, sail to China and pick up a hold-full of unknown touchscreen tablets; it’s getting more than a little frustrating seeing what’s on offer over there, and having so little choice in the US and Europe. Latest to tickle our collective fancy is the K.R.T. X9 from Shenzhen K.R.T. Technology, a 10-inch multitouch slate running Windows 7 on an Intel Atom N270 processor. The X9 packs WCDMA, TD-SCDMA and CDMA2000 3G, pretty much covering all the bases, together with WiFi a/b/g.

Two batteries are up for grabs, one with 2,800mAh and the other with 3,500mAh, for up to 4hrs runtime. The rest of the specs are pretty much standard netbook news, with 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard-drive, three USB 2.0 ports and a VGA port. It’ll apparently go on sale in China for around 4,000 yuan ($586), and while it may be a little bulky at 226.3 x 166.9 x 24.7 mm and 2kg, we reckon there’d be quite a few people willing to join us down at the docks when that goodie-boat unloads.

[via Cloned in China]

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HTC HD2 to get capacitive stylus and extended battery

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:11:12 +0000

HTC’s range of accessories for the HD2 pales against the array of options from which you can outfit your iPhone 3GS, but the company do have at least a few interesting things in the works. We’ve already heard about the HD2 car-kit, which automatically kicks the Windows Phone into a finger-friendly navigation mode, but now they’ve apparently confirmed a special stylus for use with the capacitive touchscreen is coming, together with an extended battery.

The stylus isn’t expected to drop until early in 2010, and details – including images – are currently unavailable. It’s possible that the technology used tallies in with HTC’s recent stylus patent, which used a magnetically-equipped tip that could be registered by a capacitive touchscreen display. Alternatively it might be a simple sponge-tip affair, similar to what’s supplied with the Dell Mini 3i in China.

As for the extended battery, it too isn’t expected until early in the new year, and nor is its specific capacity known. However it’s believed to come with a replacement back panel – we’re expecting it to protrude out from the back of the HD2 – with an integrated kick-stand that works in both portrait and landscape orientation. Retailer Clove has the stylus up for preorder, priced at £15 ($25) and the battery at £45 ($75), both excluding VAT.

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HTC HD2 arrives on T-Mobile UK from free

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:00:50 +0000

T-Mobile UK are the latest carrier to offer the HTC HD2, with the Snapdragon-based Windows Phone priced from free with a £35 ($58) per month, two-year agreement. It makes T-Mobile the third carrier to offer the device in the UK, following launches by Vodafone and O2. As usual, buyers get a 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen with multitouch support, a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, and Windows Mobile 6.5.

There’s also been talk recently of an impending update to Windows Mobile 7 once Microsoft officially release the new OS later in 2010. That would certainly add some value to the HD2 today, but HTC have not confirmed anything as yet. Still, you’re getting a decent smartphone for your money even without OS future-proofing; check out our review of the HTC HD2 for our full opinion.

HTC HD2 hands-on demo:

[via Twitter]

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ColorWare offer custom iMac and Magic Mouse paintjobs

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:51:12 +0000

If your Core i7 iMac isn’t unique enough – and if you have one that powers on and has an intact screen, then from the sound of things it’s already pretty rare – then you could always turn to ColorWare for help. The customization company have announced that they’re happily take your Apple all-in-one (or indeed your Magic Mouse) and brighten up its aluminum body with a new paint finish.

The Magic Mouse costs $100 with a choice of different top and bottom colors, or alternatively just $30 if you send your own mouse in. As for the iMac, that’s a bigger beastie and requires a whole lot more paint, so ColorWare are asking a $700 premium over and above Apple’s pricing if you buy the whole thing through them, or alternatively $500 if you ship in your existing iMac and simply have them recolor it.

[via Gizmodo]

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Opto-electronic contact lenses promise wireless displays

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:42:15 +0000

The opportunity to jab yourself in the eye with a tiny computer display is one step closer, thanks to the ongoing work with opto-electronic contact lenses taking place at the University of Washington in Seattle. The lab there has been showing off the latest prototype, the handiwork of Dr. Babak Parviz: a semi-transparent array – including an LED – embedded into a contact lens that receives 330 microwatts of power wirelessly from a nearby RF transmitter. Parviz has been using the prototypes to display biosensor feedback about the wearer’s vital signs, but they’ll eventually serve as a heads-up display for displaying other data.

The wireless power is picked up by a loop antenna built into the lens, and future iterations of the hardware are expected to integrate the transmitter into a cellphone. There’ll also be far many more LEDs involved, so that the resolution is high enough to be useful.

“Conventional contact lenses are polymers formed in specific shapes to correct faulty vision. To turn such a lens into a functional system, we integrate control circuits, communication circuits, and miniature antennas into the lens using custom-built optoelectronic components. Those components will eventually include hundreds of LEDs, which will form images in front of the eye, such as words, charts, and photographs. Much of the hardware is semitransparent so that wearers can navigate their surroundings without crashing into them or becoming disoriented” Dr Parviz, University of Washington in Seattle

Future plans see the opto-electronic lenses being used for more than just displaying data; they’ll also be able to monitor the eye’s surface chemistry, which would allow wearable computers to keep track on blood sugar levels in diabetics and other information. Parviz’s eventual goal is the contact lens becoming a platform “like the iPhone is today”, with developers creating custom apps. However it seems that’s a reasonably long way off into the distance.

[via Slashdot]

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King Jim Pomera DM20 is bizarre folding digital note-taker

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:27:38 +0000

King Jim’s single-purpose Pomera “digital memo” DM10 electronic notebook may have been bizarre enough to warrant some gentle ribbing last year, but sales in Japan must’ve been good enough for the company to green-light a successor. The Pomera DM20 keeps the same clamshell keyboard design and monochrome display, together with the singularity of purpose that baffled us last time around: all it’s meant to be used for is recording text notes.

Video demo after the cut

There’s no wireless connectivity, though you can tether it to your cellphone; however there are no wirelessly-enabled apps – browser, email, IM, etc – even if you do so. Instead you get a simple word processor app (more like Notepad or TextEdit, really) and both 89MB of internal storage and a microSDHC card slot. The latter will take up to 16GB cards, which is room for a whole lot of plain text.

The display is a 5-inch 640 x 480 monochrome LCD panel and the whole thing measures 145 x 100 x 33 mm with the keyboard folded away. It’ll arrive in Japan come December 11th, priced at the equivalent of around $380; we’d say nobody would want one, but obviously we have no idea what Japanese consumers are actually looking for.

[via CrunchGear]

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Camangi WebStation seemingly imminent; new Android app market launched

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:11:48 +0000

Blimey, could Camangi actually be serious about selling their WebStation Android tablet? We’ve scoffed a little at the hitherto-unknown company’s intentions of having the 7-inch WiFi tablet on the market by December 2009, but a new site and a freshly launched Camangi Market (for apps friendly to the slate’s hardware and screen resolution) seem to suggest that the joke’s on us. For once, we’re happy to be in the wrong as if the pricing is right, the WebStation could prove highly appealing.

Technical specs have also been finalized. The WebStation is based on a 624MHz Marvell PXA303 CPU with 128MB of RAM and 256MB of flash NAND storage. There’s also WiFi b/g, GPS, and support for a 3G USB modem via the regular USB 2.0 port; other ports include a mini-B USB connector, 3.5mm headphones jack and a microSD card slot (with an 8GB card in the box). It has a 7-inch 16m color LCD resistive touchscreen running at 800 x 480, and a 4,000mAh battery good for up to 4 days standby (with GPS and WiFi shut off) or 4-5hrs active use.

OS is Android 1.5 with the usual apps, which means the WebStation works happily as an email terminal, web browser and mediaplayer. Camangi also supply a stand for propping it up on a desk or end-table. The whole thing measures 4.72 x 7.87 x 0.57 inches and weighs 13.75oz, and while it’ll only be available in white at first, the company plan black and pink models soon after. The dual cameras originally vaunted seem conspicuous by their absence, however.

All of this sounds great, but it hinges on pricing. If Camangi can bring the WebStation in at under $300 then they’ll have a real winner on their hands; under $500 and the whole thing will be a lot tougher to sell.

[via BestTabletReview]

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Pixel Qi developing sub-10W $100 HDTV

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:41:10 +0000

Pixel Qi have announced that not only are they beginning mass production of their innovative display technology this coming December, but that they’ve a new product category in their sights. The company has apparently begun to design a new HDTV with power consumption so low that it can be run from a solar panel, hand-crank or simply a small rechargeable battery. Pixel Qi’s target price for the ultra-frugal set is just $100.

The audience for such an HDTV would be the many millions of households which don’t have access to stable electrical power. Current high-definition televisions generally require high wattages – certainly in excess of 100W – whereas the Pixel Qi set will be sub-10W.

No launch date for the HDTV project has been given, nor indication of what sort of panel size eventual owners can expect. Pixel Qi’s screen technology works like epaper in bright, direct sunlight, proving three times as readable as a regular LCD panel, but still supports color and video.

[via Blogeee]

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The New York Times offers discount on Samsung Go to Times Reader 2.0 subscribers

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:52:05 +0000

Print publications are having a hard time getting people to subscribe and pay to read their news. Even long time established publications like the New York Times are finding it harder and harder to woo subscribers and are seeing their profits drop significantly. In an effort to save money, some print publications have gone entirely online and others are beefing up their online offerings. The New York Times is offering a deal for users to subscribe to its digital version.

The digital version is called Times Reader 2.0 and runs on notebooks and netbook computers. The app puts the times on the computer in a format that looks like the printed paper. A subscription to the service for a year is not cheap though at $179.40.

The NYT is offering those who sign up for the service at that price a $100 discount on a Samsung Go netbook at J&R. The catch is that the netbook is still expensive after the $100 discount at $279.99. You can find similar netbooks for less than that amount already and get your news for free online. The Go has a 10.1-inch screen, 1GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, and an Intel Atom N270 CPU.

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TomTom announces XXL World Traveler Edition GPS device

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:35:57 +0000

TomTom is one of the biggest names in GPS and navigation devices for cars and other uses. The company offers a myriad of GPS solutions with different features and screen sizes to meet different needs and budgets. TomTom has announced a new special edition of the XXL 540S that we first saw back in September called the World Traveler Edition.

The XXL 540S World Traveler Edition has full maps of the US, Canada, and Europe installed and ready to use. The device has a large 5-inch wide aspect ratio touchscreen and many other features. Those features include Map Share, Help Me menu, the Fold and Go EasyPort mount, TomTom Home, 4G of storage, lane guidance, and a database packed with 7 million points of interest.

The device also uses TomTom IQ routes to route you on the most efficient routes based on historical speed measurements for the time of day and road segment you are on. The World Traveler Edition will be available in the US and Canada in early December for $349.

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OCZ and Symwave team for high performance USB 3.0 storage product

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:24:42 +0000

One of the new technologies that I am most looking forward to is USB 3.0. I have an external hard drive that I back my computer up to and it takes forever over a USB 2.0 connection. With USB 3.0, the deed can be completed much faster. OCZ and Symwave have announced that they have teamed up to create a new USB 3.0 external storage solution.

The two firms are mum on the details at this point other than to tease us saying that the storage solution will be the smallest, highest performance, and lowest power USB 3.0 external storage solution around. With the myriad of SSDs that OCZ offers its easy enough to guess that we are looking at a SSD inside a USB 3.0 chassis.

The pair will unveil the storage solution at CES 2010 in January. I would be interested to see OCZ cram that huge 1TB SSD it unveiled recently into a USB 3.0 external storage solution.

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Best Buy to offer HP G60-507DX laptop for $197 Friday

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:16:41 +0000

If you are the type that jumps out of bed before the sun is up the Friday after Thanksgiving to go shopping, you might want to make one of your first stops Best Buy. Best Buy has lots of deals Friday, but one of the best in the store is going to be on the HP G60-507DX laptop.

Best Buy will be offering the machine for $197; it typically sells for about $500. Best Buy says that each store will have only five of the notebooks on hand at this price and each shopper will only be allowed to buy one.

The machine has an Intel Celeron 900 processor at 800 MHz, Windows 7 Home Premium, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB HDD. The screen is 15.6-inches and the machine uses Intel GMA4500M graphics. This is your basic entry-level notebook at a price better than many netbooks. Good luck getting in the store early enough to snag one of the notebooks at the bargain price.

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Inbrics Android MID promised for US launch

Chris Davies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:12:57 +0000

Android-based MIDs aren’t particularly rare – the allure of a free OS has already tempted many a manufacturer – but it’s unusual to find one actually destined to the US. Inbrics’ Android MID is one such rarity; the company have announced that not only will they be bringing the ARM Cortex A8 based touchscreen slider to CES in January, they’ll also be releasing it in the US in 2010.

Video demo after the cut

The device in the video below looks like a render rather than a functional prototype, but according to Inbrics the final product will have a full QWERTY keyboard, AMOLED touchscreen display and WiFi connectivity. There’s also GPS and a digital compass, together with DMB digital TV; no sign of integrated 3G, however, but Inbrics are talking about offering the MID via US carriers so we’re guessing it’s planned for the final product.

Pricing and specific availability are still unknown, but if Inbrics really want to convert people to the idea of carrying a companion device like this it’ll need to come in at a reasonably affordable price-point. A carrier subsidy would help that, obviously, but then you need to persuade people to take out another data agreement.

[via jkkmobile]

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