The Big Apple is catching on to the increasingly high demand for more parking and is solving the problem in Chinatown with robots. Automotion Parking Systems will be opening the first automatic, robotic parking garage in NYC next month. The garage will have only one attendant available to take cash payments and to explain the system to new users. Costing about $400 a month or $25 per day, a driver will be able to pull his car up to the platform, get out, and let the garage do the rest of the work. Retrieving the vehicle is automatic as well and is supposed to be completely damage proof.
Consumers got a bad taste of automatic parking when a similar garage in Hoboken, NJ dropped two cars from four stories or higher. The garage also had multiple malfunctions and kept cars trapped inside for extended periods of time. Hopefully all that will change with NYC’s version. Automotion says that its service will be competitive, safe, and easy to use. We’d really hate to have the official CrunchGear company car (John’s lime green VW bug with puke stains on the seats) damaged by the robots we treasure in our hearts.
JuiceCaster and MyWaves. Mobio Networks now joins that group with its GetMobio product.
GetMobio is a free service you can download to your cell phone that loads you up with 50 dynamic applications and widgets that work together and are based on mash-ups of Web services. And as new applications become available, they’re delivered automatically to your handset.
The services are divided into 10 collections depending on what you’d like to do—everything from getting a dinner reservation and movie tickets to finding alternative flights for your next trip. One of the best parts is, it does this stuff with little to no text entry. (You can hit the jump below to see the full list of collections and what types of services they connect you to.)
It’s understandable that someone would want to skin their smartphone with an iPhone skin while they wait for the real thing to drop. A number of iPhone themes have appeared and a few of them actually look decent. But a Motorola RAZR? I guess nothing says “iPhone” more than a cheap, crappy phone that every person in the country has. Completely useless? Totally.
Sandio, a 3D input technology company, has begun shipping its 3D Game O’ mouse. The mouse boasts unique 6DOF 3D input technology that makes it versatile for 3D applications.
The laser mouse features resolutions up to 2000 dpi and it sounds a voice as the dpi changes. The key to this device though is its independent 3D 6DOF command generation.
The 3D 6DOF technology allows users extra 3D controls right on the mouse. So for instance, in Google Earth, one could manipulate the camera. In a first-person shooter, however, the pad could be used for movement controls like forward, backward, sideways, jump, crouch, pitch, yaw and roll, all without using a keyboard.
Having played Quake competitively for many years, I could get behind an idea like this easier than some fancy new controller. I knew a few players who had movements like jump and walk bound to their mice. It’d be efficient to have a pad specifically for movement.
With the Super Bowl coming up, a lot of you are probably running out to Best Buy
to pick up an HDTV for the game (which you’ll promptly return on Monday). Too bad you’re not going to be able to get your paws on this beast from Sony in time, as this 70-inch LCD TV doesn’t hit stores until later next month. For $33,000, you’ll be getting the Sony Bravia XBR 70-inch LCD flat panel equipped with a resolution of 1920×1080 and a 178-degree viewing angle for side viewing.
In other words, your HD content is going to look absolutely mind-blowing. If you’re looking to upgrade to a bigger flat panel TV and you’re loaded, holding out for this one will be worth the wait. Otherwise, just go to the game. It will be cheaper.
PC World, a British computer superstore, has stopped ordering floppies and will stop selling them when their on-hand supplies run out. While this is not news to us super nerds, it’s important to note that we once were able to drag files over back and forth between computers on little disks of spinning plastic that could hold 1.44 megabytes of data.
Let’s all bow our heads for a moment of silence for a once mighty storage medium.
If you’ve yet to participate in the You’re My Fave! contest, you have about two more hours to enter yourself into the running before the contest ends at 12 noon EST.
To participate, all you have to do is head over to Technorati, log in or create an account (make a fake one for all we care), favorite us and take a screenshot. Send the screenshot to contest at crunchgear dotter com with the subject line “YOU’RE MY FAVE” and enter to win a drawing for a Samsung T629 from T-Mobile.
Everybody thank Samsung and T-Mo for hooking us up with the device to giveaway to you.
Canon just announced the HV20, a 1080i HD camera with building in hard drive. The camera uses Canon’s 1920 x 1080 CMOS and can take 24p cinema style video along with 3.1-megapixel stills.
It includes a hot shoe for external light sources and microphones. 10x zoom and mini HDMI — wow! — round out the package. Strangely enough there is no mention of hard drive size but it does have a miniSD slot. By the name, we can expect it to have something around 20GB, but I just sent the folks an email to confirm. Sorry. This is MiniDV. Not sure why I thought it was HDD.
Available in April, the HV20 for about $1099, this thing is a worthy adversary to Sony and JVCs HD lines, especially considering the price.
Zink is using a new kind of printing technology utilizing crystalized-ink embedded in paper. The result is a heat-activated printing solution that will create quick, great looking photos. Zink’s first product is a small pocket printer that is about the size of a deck of cards and is priced to sell for less than $100.
The printer will easily connect to a mobile phone or a computer to print out fun little prints that you and your friends can throw up on the fridge. Little details are available on a release date, but this could really bring Polaroid (Zink’s parent company) back into the limelight.
Perhaps physically getting out of your bed to find your alarm clock just isn’t your thing. That’s ok. If you’re more of a thinker, then there’s still a unique, annoying alarm clock for you. This puzzle alarm clock has three puzzle-pieces on top that pop out when the alarm goes off.
To shut off the alarm, you’ll need to use that noggin of yours to solve the puzzle. It’s sort of a blend between waking up and playing that crappy old game Perfection. If you want one, be prepared to lay down $60 and your puzzle-solving skills.
Hello. My name Viktor. I help post CrunchGear, yes?
My homeland Russia have extremely nice phones. Best provider SkyLink has made deal with Almaz Holding to design amazing phone. The two take a Ubiquam U300 handset (it feature CDMA and EV-DO, no torture) and ahh, how you say, add silver drawing of a mustang using 7.2g of silver. Then they add 29 0.01 carat gems and you done.
Only one exist and not for sale! It will be shown at expos around beautiful Russia, so please, do not get hope up like old USSR.
Sometimes you gotta face the music, Billy boy. You know damn well you copied a lot of features from OS X when designing Vista and now CNN is calling you out. Watch this video to see Gates get called out on his own game and go “no no no” as a rebuttal.
But according to Gates, Vista has revolutionary features like support for tablet PCs and parental controls.
Parental controls? Wow! I totally have to run out and buy Vista now if not for the parental controls, then perhaps for the networking utilities. You got called out Gates. Man up and deal with it.
Vince wrote this morning that Apple had released an onslaught of colored 2G iPod Shuffles. Well we’ve got a bit more information for you.
In addition to having a bunch of high-res pics of the new orange Shuffle, Apple Insider is reporting that the new Shuffle Colors include a pair of updated earbuds. They are the same buds that have been included with other iPod models for some time.
There are no other changes to the Shuffle and it retains its $79 price point.
natively handle an Xbox 360 controller it makes a bit more sense to have a Media Center that’s capable of handling graphics-intensive games. And that’s where the $4,595 OMS-GX300 Media Center from Okoro Media Systems comes in.
I was flipping through the Feb. issue of Wired earlier and I came across the Glassic Soho trailer. Now it’s no secret that I’m from the South. That said, I’ve set foot in my fair share of trailers—hell I know more than a few people who live in them. But this model, created by architect and furniture designer Christopher Deam and manufactured by Breckenridge, is something different.
Sure it’s still a trailer, but it’s designed with aesthetics and efficiency in mind. It comes in three models: one bedroom with kitchen, studio and two bedroom with no kitchen. Priced at about $59,000 for a fully furnished unit, this could become affordable, yet still pleasing, housing for people who aren’t rolling in dough.
In all likelihood, when you first came across Clocky, it was still just a project from the mind of MIT student Guari Nanda. Now Clocky has grown into a full-fledged product and I totally want one!
It works just like a normal alarm clock except that if you hit that snooze button, Clocky is going to roll away from you so that you’re forced to wake up and find it.
You can snag one now for a inexpensive $50 and according to Clocky’s site, more flavors and designs are on the way.
JuiceCaster and 
PC World, a British computer superstore, has stopped ordering floppies and will stop selling them when their on-hand supplies run out. While this is not news to us super nerds, it’s important to note that we once were able to drag files over back and forth between computers on little disks of spinning plastic that could hold 1.44 megabytes of data.
If you’ve yet to participate in the You’re My Fave! contest, you have about two more hours to enter yourself into the running before the contest ends at 12 noon EST. 
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natively handle an Xbox 360 controller it makes a bit more sense to have a Media Center that’s capable of handling graphics-intensive games. And that’s where the $4,595 OMS-GX300 Media Center from Okoro Media Systems comes in.
In all likelihood, when you first came across Clocky, it was still just a project from the mind of MIT student Guari Nanda. Now Clocky has grown into a full-fledged product and I totally want one! 
