If you’re constantly glancing at your G1 to check if T-Mobile has graced your handset with the oh-so-slow-to-roll-out RC29 update (”By November 11th”? Pah!), you might be glad to find out that there’s now a way to expedite the process. A user over at xda-devhas worked it all out.
All you need is a computer, internet connection, a way to transfer the firmware to your Micro SD card and half a brain.
Just one more little last-minute costume idea. Happy Halloween, Crunchers!
Update: ah, here’s that source I was looking for.
If you really like explaining things to strangers, you’ll love having one of these. Because every passer-by will stop, think, and then ask the obvious question. And you’ll have to talk about where you got it and how much it cost and why hasn’t Apple done this yet, blah blah blah. If you’re prepared for that, this looks pretty hot. They’ll take the brand new aluminum MacBooks (not MBPs yet, I think) and turn them into the kind of tablet you wish was already on offer.
It’ll cost you $1300 for the privilege, though — and that’s not including the laptop you have to buy. I guess that’s the price you have to pay to be the coolest kid on the block. That is, until the real multi-touch sub-$1000 Mac tablet hits the market. So basically forever.
[via the Register]
Have I mentioned lately how much I love Blackberries? Well, I do.
The Pearl series will never have a place in my pocket, but 70 percent of the population in the US who own a mobile phone carry a clamshell. To bridge the gap between the consumer sector and business sector, RIM introduced the Pearl and Curve models. The Pearl Flip 8220 is the device RIM hopes will saturate the market even further.
This won’t be a traditional review in the sense that I asked a current Pearl owner whether or not he would switch and what he thought about the Flip version.
Breken, a friend with a Pearl, pointed out what he did and didn’t like about it compared to his Pearl 8120. Read More
Got a few thou lying around? Have an enormous rec room you feel like running rails through? Why, then, this ride-on, hand-cranked kid’s train and tracks should suit your fancy just fine. The tracks run in a 30-foot circle (not sure if you can customize them) and the cars can hold up to 100 lbs. Personally, I’d rather get my kids a sweet Power Wheels ATV for like a twentieth of the price.
[via OhGizmo!]
Quick Version: The Samsung Rant is an excellent phone for text messaging addicts who want to be able to do a bit of light web browsing over a high speed data network but don’t want all the feature overload of a full-fledged smartphone. And at $49.99 with a two-year contract, it’s priced to move.
Click through for the full review.
From all of us to all of you, have a happy and scary Halloween. If you have a minute, tweet “trick or tweet” to Greg. He loves it!
This is completely beyond my abilities as a whatever, but perhaps you’re handy with The DIY? It’s a step-by-step on how to create a USB-based remote control receiver. Or, in English: you plug this doodad into your PC and then you’re able to use a remote control (“channel changer” or “clicker”) to control your media player.
The methodology can be applied to Windows, Mac and Linux-based systems.
The best part is that the whole setup costs $12 to create. Even I have $12!
via Make Blog
Yes, I know you have one. It’s okay, I have one too. Difference is, I don’t write sissy poetry in it and do weak sketches of girls I’ll never talk to — like you do. Anyway, I’ve always been deathly afraid that, considering how ubiquitous the little notebooks are, if two or more are in one place it’d be extremely easy to accidentally switch them. And you can imagine how embarrassing that could be. For you, not me; mine’s filled with manly stuff like drawings of knights fighting ninjas. So to avoid confusion, why not personalize yours on the outside?
This guy had the great idea to permanently impress a monogram on his moleskine, and I think it really is as easy as cutting out a shape in some plywood and pressing it and the notebook together under some weight for half an hour. I think you need a pretty precise saw (read: laser) to make something pretty (as a gift for instance), but a bandsaw should be sufficient to make your initials in block letters.
[via MAKE]
Sprint is diligently patting itself on the back today, having forever changed the way we think about canceling cellphone contracts. Starting on November 2, for every month you stay faithful to your Sprint contract after the sixth month, the company knocks $10 off the early termination fee. The fee, which is $200 at the outset, is allowed to drop to as low as $50.
This new policy does not apply to contract entered into before November 2. If you’re already a Sprint customer, you can renew your contract after that date and then you’d qualify for the deal.
Now, what phone in Sprintland would be compelling enough for you to switch over there, I have no idea.
Another day, another diamond-studded cellphone to smash. This time, it comes to us by way of Japan, land of Japanese people. (I got nothing, obviously.)
The phone, available on wireless carrier Softbank (they carry the iPhone 3G), is officially the Softbank 823SH Tiffany.
It costs ¥12.98 million, or around $131,097.
Only 10 such phones will be produced initially.
Can anyone answer this question: what is the point of such a phone?
Nothing like living out your dream of owning a Porsche 911 Turbo than sitting on your couch and playing Xbox. Fantec knows this; Peter knows this; the American people know this.
With that in mind, feast your eyes on the Porsche 911 Turbo S racing wheel for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. This little bugger costs a minimum of $250. I say “minimum” because Fantec produced three versions of the wheel, each more fancy than the last. The fanciest version, the Clubsport Edition, costs $400.
The wheel, which is totally wireless for the Xbox 360 (but requires a dongle for PS3/PC wirelessness, is that even a word?), has three force feedback motors, used to trick you in thinking you’re driving a real car.
The package even comes with two gear sticks—shift, baby, shift!
I don’t know, I thought racing wheels for consoles went out of style a few years ago. Color me surprised by this one, especially for that amount of money.
It’s been a long time coming and while the rest of the world has had the Bold for months, those of us crackberry heads will finally get it on the 4th of November. We were lucky enough to snag one early and I’m giddy like a 4-year-old with a mountain of tooth-decaying candy on my bed. It’s fast, powerful and oh-so-sexy. I present to you, dear reader, the BlackBerry Bold for AT&T. Read More
The Golden Joystick awards were handed out earlier today. (Golden Joystick is a British-based video game award show that, I think, has a little more credibility than Spike Video Game Award, primarily because it’s been around for 26 years.)
Anyway, you can watch the entire broadcast online here.
In the interest of preventing OMG SPOILERS, you’ll have to click through to see the list of winners.
It’s fair to say that many folks are cautiously optimistic regarding the prospects of Windows 7. One reason why, I believe, is its improved ability to run on netbooks. (Vista is sorta unruly on netbooks, as you might imagine.) Laptop mag did the heavy lifting and installed the Windows 7 beta (which is easy to find on the usual BitTorrent sites, by the way) on the Asus Eee PC 1000H.
Surprise, surprise: Windows 7 works quite well on the little guy.
With only a 1.6GHz Atom processor and 1GB of RAM, the Eee PC 1000H was able to boot into Windows in just under one minute—58 seconds, to be exact.
All-around performance seems to be good, too: only about half of the netbook’s RAM was eaten by the operating system. Running fancy applications like Skype and GIMP—calling GIMP fancy must be some sort of sin—also worked well. They even managed to play 720p video with only a few bumps and bruises.
Not too bad, then. And just think: we’re still at least one year away from Windows 7’s release, which is plenty of time to optimize the operating system’s code.
Microsoft, we’re secretly rooting for you. Don’t screw it up. Again.
SteveJabs writes:
I don’t know if I am writing this because I completely and utterly agree with CrunchGear or because I saw my Apple story slipping to the bottom of the feed below What.Cd invites, but this ought to start another fun flame war.
Face it folks, Blu-Ray is headed to the pooper can. But don’t get me wrong, I love Blu-Ray. My copy of 2001 on my 1080p 56″ Samsung “son of Jesus” TV looks fantastic. I buy nearly every new movie on the B-Ray and between my roommates and I, I think we have replaced a good chunk of our DVD collection.
What is killing Blu-Ray for most people though? Well the answer to that is simple. It’s too f*cking expensive. $300 for a player, $35 for a movie and a lack of selection is cutting off the option for it to take off and blow up. In the current financial crisis that we are suffering in this country no one is going to be dropping that kind of money anytime soon. Gas is $2.65 a gallon because no one is driving. And eBay is falling off the face of the earth because no one has money and is willing to throw it nilly-willy to the wind on a format that honestly doesn’t penetrate that deep (or for other items either).
Remember the Mega Man Blaster that great dad made for his son’s Halloween costume. Yeah, the entire costume is done now and up on Instructables with DIY instructions. The jump suit and helmet doesn’t look that hard to build, but the Mega Blaster isn’t something you can put together last minute – say, today. Still, it’s never to early too start planning for next years gala.
As a dilettante musician I enjoy the concept – if not the process – of recording my reedy, whiny voice to digital files. Until recently, that process was fraught with trouble and high quality recording equipment was difficult to obtain and expensive. Now anyone with a six-string and a dream can record fairly acceptable audio with something like the Belkin GoStudio.
Circuit City latest financial struggles come in the form of a letter sent from the NYSE. Because CC stock averaged a $1 or less closing price over the 30 days, the fund is falling short of the exchange’s requirement. The company has 10 days to specify how the company is going to remedy the situation and maintain an average trading price of $1 or higher within six months. The fund will receive a “.BC” indicator to notify others of the situation in the meantime. As of writing, the company carries a $0.27 stock price and a bleak future.
Sigh… Above, please reference what girls between the ages of 10 and 30 think is cool. Also, as it happens, the same reason MTV will be blocked from every TV in the Aamoth household if I ever have a daughter.
Transcription to follow for those of you who can’t access YouTube at work…
