If you’re having a problem emailing me your photos, please post them somewhere – Photobucket, your own site, etc. – and email a link to john at crunchgear dot com or AIM me the link at johnbiggsny if you’re still having trouble. Thanks, guys.
Eurogamer TV had an opportunity to talk with Microsoft Europe boss Chris Lewis at the Leipzig Game Conference last week, and apparently, Lewis had some great news to tell all of our moms. After the disaster that was the 360 launch (I found myself at 3 different Target stores before 9 AM), this year’s holidays seem to be under control. When asked if Microsoft would be ready for this year’s onslaught, Lewis replied:
I’m very confident that we have the production capacity to suit our ambitions. And there will be no stock shortages anywhere in the region over this Christmas period, I can assure you of that.
So make sure that your mom reads this article, and diggs it, and saves it to Del.icio.us — and you might as well print it out for her, too.
‘No 360 shortages this Xmas’ – Lewis [gamesindustry.biz via Kotaku]
BenQ DC C740 [LetsGoDigital]
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been excited about playing Madden 2007 (and all the other sports games) on the Wii since I first saw the controller. So, when I saw this video on YouTube, I kinda came close to wetting myself (alright that’s not funny, I have an incontinence problem. Yes I’m on medication. Just drop it OK?). I’ve heard a lot of rumblings about what gameplay would actually be like with the Wii games, and I wasn’t sure if we would actually be throwing a ball or tackling a player via the Wiimote. Turns out, we will.
I think the best feature shown off in this video is the Tutorial, where you actually perform the movement and the game tells you if you did it right or not. I really hope this is standard for most of the Wii game.
A New Wii Video: Walkthrough of Madden Wii [I4U News via Joystiq]
Just when you thought that iPod accessories couldn’t get any more ridiculous, furniture-maker Adonis announces a line of iRocker chairs. These “interactive sound chairs” carry an onboard iPod dock, along with speakers sets that vary depending on which chair you buy.
The iRocker chairs range from $99-$600, depending on what suits your price range. The higher-end models come with a set of five Alltek Vision speakers (that’s sort of an oxymoron) with a remote control, so you can rock out and relax (that too) without having to move. And the lower-end models come with a standard pair of speakers.
Either way, both chairs include an auxiliary input in case you don’t own an iPod (there are people who don’t own iPods?!), but you will have to keep an eye on the device’s battery. The chairs also come in a wide range of colors ranging from micro fiber, neutral black, bone and saddle colors for the faux-leather models. So, if enjoy sitting and iPod, the iRocker might be for you.
With what might be the worst product name ever, Commodore will demonstrate tomorrow at IFA its new personal media player the Gravel In Pocket. Despite its unfortunate naming, this PMP seems to be a relatively valid device. It will sport a 2.8-inch screen, 1GB or 2GB of storage and WiFi. The GIP is capable of playing DivX, Xvid, WMV, MP3 and WAV files. It also features an SD slot. It will be available in November, but not word yet on pricing.
Get those entries in, kids. We’ll hold the floodgates open until 6pm PST.
Toshiba’s 16GB drives. Another is to mold yours in the shape of a syringe. Yeah, I think we all know which one we’d want.
The syringe drive is USB 2.0 compliant and has up to 1GB of space, plus it makes airport security really happy.
Product Site [Wideshine via i4u]
I spoke with Tako Steinz of Stillpoint Media who just launched Gadgets.OriginalSignal, a beta aggregator for gadget websites. Right now it trolls fifteen major sites – including Crunchgear – and reports when new items appear every time you visit the page. Think of it as a NASA “big-board” style system that isn’t NetVibes.
Tako and his 5-person team wanted a very basic interface and are planning a number of interesting “signals” down the line including politics and news. They launched the main site a few days ago and are now adding “signals” to it as we speak. They’ll then capture the click data to create a central dashboard showing the most popular stories of the day. It’s very basic right now but it’s still in beta and it seems like a good enough idea to warrant a second look.
 can enjoy this. That $249 list price is a small price to pay for quality time building fun robots with your kids.</p>
<p><a href=)
Both models of HTC’s smartphone—the HTC TyTN or the re-badged XDA Trion—are available for purchase now on Dynamism’s website. Both are available for $899, which means it’s no throwaway phone. The XDA Trion has a QWERTZ keyboard, common in Europe, where the HTC TyTN has a QWERTY keyboard, which is more suited for the States.
To refresh, the phones are Quad-Band GSM, have 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, a MicroSD slot, Bluetooth, GPRS, HSDPA, EDGE, 802.11b/g, a 2 megapixel camera, a VGA camera for video calling, and 5 hours of talk time. You should be able to use the imported phone on both Cingular and T-Mobile, thanks to GSM compatibility.
Product Page [Dynamism]
All 436 pages of Sprint’s user manual for the Treo 700wx is online, leaked for your consumption. Seriously, 436 pages? Isn’t that a little complicated for the average user?
Well, you Treo fans know what you’re getting into. And if you want to pore over the notes and see what Sprint’s got in store for you in September, be our guest.
Treo Manual (PDF) [Mobility Today]
Palm Treo 700wx user manual appears [Mobility Today]
Ok. It’s Crunch time. We’re closing our contest at 12 noon, PST and we’ve got one entry so far. If I were in this contest, I’d definitely like those odds – that means one person, as of right now, will get both a Moto Q and a Kodak v603… unless I start seeing some entries! Read on for full rules.
It looks like 8GB SD cards will be hitting the market soon. Pretec claims it has developed the first of these cards. The card supports SD 2.0 and is not backward compatible. Users can currently order one card for sampling purposes. The company has also created a 16GB flash drive which is claims is the biggest of its kind, but that is clearly false since drives exist well beyond 16GB. At any rate, Pretec says the drives will be ready for mass production early next year.
I’m sure this thing is going to be expensive. A better alternative might be to stick with a smaller card and simply use a portable hard drive based photo viewer. That way you can get about 80GB and about the same price.
Pretec Introduces 8GB SDHC Card [Geekzone via Engadget]
 to demonstrate 4G’s speeds and ability to hand off calls between cells. Thankfully the data speeds they got were much faster than the land speeds. The 4G got up to 1Gbps, which is 50 times faster than WiMAX’s current specifications in 802.16e. </p>
<p>On a somewhat related note, Sprint Nextel contracted Samsung to deploy its nationwide WiMAX over the next few years, meaning we’re going to be getting WiMAX before 4G here in the States.</p>
<p><a href=)
Hardware Zone has a a nice video of the ZEN Vision W up on YouTube in which they proclaim it to be the best video display they have seen. No real new info here, but it’s definitely the best look at this new DAP yet to emerge. I wonder if this is going to be the big player this holiday season.
Wide is Good [Hardware Zone]
When I’m walking down the Magnificant Mile, and I’m looking for a good way to blow some time (which seems to be more and more often), I usually stop in at the Nokia flagship store and see what kind of new way-too-expensive-for-me phones they have to play with. There’s usually just about 30 of the underwhelming 8801, and a couple of the 7370 and 7380 for the ladies.
Recently though, they started showing the N80 Smartphone. The little bit that I’ve played with it was enough to convince me that it can already compete with all of the other smartphones out there. But it looks like the Nokia folks have decided to upgrade it to a 2.1-inch screen, 352×416-pixel resolution screen, GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz network running phone to utilize Wi-Fi, with support for third-party VoIP applications, Amazon shopper, Yahoo Go!, Mobipocket eBook reader and plenty more internet-ready goodies.
The new version should be available in September.
Nokia N80 Internet Edition arrives with Wi-Fi and Skype support[Infosyncworld via Gizmodo]
