So this is how the other half lives, huh? It must be nice to have a house full of $1200 remotes customized with user profiles and home automation controls. Yes, this remote costs $1200 and that doesn’t include installation and yes, you need it to be installed professionally. This isn’t a Harmony remote that can be set up in 10 minutes. But once it’s installed, holy cow, it’s effen amazing. I would call it the perfect remote, but I had two demo units die on me.

Features:

• Haptic feedback touchscreen
• IR, RF, and Wi-Fi controls
• Windows Media Center compatible
• Rechargeable battery
• MSRP of $1,199.99

Pros:

• Amazing build quality
• No limits on customization
• Touchscreen is perfect in size and function

Cons:

• It’s $1,200
• Most people cannot program it
• I had two units stop working on me

Review:

The first thing you’ll notice about the MX-5000 is the build quality. It feels like a million bucks. The buttons are smooth and hard with just the right amount of pressure needed to press them down. The screen is bright, sharp and very high-res. Even the charger screams high-end. It’s easily the best-feeling remote I have ever used.

But then I tried to set it up. The company offered to pre-program the remote before they sent it to me, but that insulted my inner nerd. I thought, “How hard could it be?” Well, after watching four online instructional videos from URC and spending about eight hours, I finally got the remote to communicate with my devices. But after that first, huge learning curve, I feel like I can do almost everything with the remote. I’m sure there are some super-macros that I don’t know about, but I managed to program the remote to control three AV systems (one via RF). I feel like all the CrunchGear writers could program the remote, along with a few of my nerdy friends. However, there is no way that the average Best Buy shopper could. Maybe the average MicroCenter customer.

The issue is that the setup program isn’t meant for the general public or the DIY crowd. It involves using IF THEN statements for macros and manually adding devices’ RF profiles. However, this type of programming allows installers complete control over how the remote controls each system. Anything is possible and installers are not tied down to a wizard.

Everything is customizable. You use pre-programmed themes or make your own in Photoshop. It’s totally up to the installer to create a pleasant user experience. I’m personally happy with how my UI turned out.

I found that backgrounds for the BlackBerry Storm are the perfect resolution, and this one looks great with the brushed look of the remote. My setup allows me to control three different AV systems in my house – not that I really need that ability. I added a dedicated TiVo button to one of the default layouts and it works great.

The remote also features a Wi-Fi chipset, which enables simple RSS feeds like sports scores, news, and weather to be displayed on the remote. And it can easily control a Windows Media Center PC. The info screens are nifty, but almost a novelty. However, the Windows Media Center control is the coolest function of the remote.

All you need to do is tell the remote the Windows Media Center computer’s IP address in the PC programming software and it works. The remote’s touchscreen displays common functions and the navigational pad controls the on-screen GUI. It works flawlessly and is the easiest way to control Windows Media Center with a remote that I have ever used.

But not everyone has the ability to hook up a Media Center PC to their TV. The remote can still access a PC’s music library and provide two-way communication. This means that as long as the PC is hooked up to an audio receiver, the remote can control and play back music and even display album art.

I would love to slap a large, “highly-recommended” sticker on the remote but I can’t because of the issues I had with the first two demo units. The first one just stopped working about two weeks after I got it and the other one stopped waking up when I picked up the remote. After disabling the motion sensor in the second demo unit, it worked fine for a while but eventually it started to freeze daily, which was resolved only by pulling the battery. But most of the review samples we get are first-run units so bugs can be expected. The third remote seems to be fine.

The only real downside to the remote besides the price is that most people will probably need a pro to install it. If URC can come up with a complete, but also easy to use wizard, there is a market for such a remote – even at the high price. It’s the complete package: candy bar form factor, totally customizable, Wi-Fi- and RF-enabled, and it feels amazing. There is a huge difference in quality and ability between this remote and the $400 Harmony 900, but unless you have cash to burn or a complicated A/V setup, there really isn’t any reason to spend the extra cash. Unless you want the best remote on the planet, that is.

Product Page

Here it comes: Best Buy ran a national Black Friday ad inviting the world to celebrate Thanksgiving and Eid Al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice. Fair enough, right? Happy Eid! Well, take a gander at the ad up there and brace yourself.

Look closely. You’ll probably miss the good will and wishes, they’re so innocuous.

So you’d think that a national retailer would be praised for trying to reach out to its Muslim visitors and you’d also think that since Black Friday comes around Thanksgiving, an ostensibly “conservative” holiday,” they’d be excused for not putting baby Jesus in the carriage Toad drives in Mario Kart Wii on the first page of its Black Friday ad.

Nope.

The s-storm brewing at Best Buy is going to overtake the news cycle in a few days. Here’s an example of the rhetoric:

Among my major purchases from BB over the years were a plasma big screen, a fridge and a laptop. No more. In 2006 you discontinued the use of ‘ Merry Christmas’ in your “holiday” messages.

Yet one of your ad inserts wishes your customers a happy “Eid Al Aldha” ( a Muslim goat throat slitting festivity) . Clearly the liberal/ PC culture in your corporate offices is biased against Christians and traditional American values. So, in 2009 I discontinue Best Buy. Good riddance.

Hello A m a z o n

- A proud patriotic Christian American.

While I’d be happier if they celebrated a real holiday like Festivus, can’t we give Best Buy a break? This is literally the first time I’ve ever seen any major retailer celebrate Eid, it’s a nice holiday for millions of Americans, and it’s nice for BB to note that yes, it is coming up soon. And let me assure you that next week’s flyer will probably include dancing angels, Moses riding a jet-ski, and What Would Jesus Buy HDTV buying tips.

Thoughts?

Thieves in Willebroek, Antwerp cut a hole in the roof of an electronics warehouse and stole 3,000 to 4,000 iPhones, one of the greatest heists of its kind in history. The phones were headed to Belgian Mobistar and are estimated to be worth $3 million.

The news article noted that the thieves made a hole directly over the iPhones which suggests they knew exactly where the phones were being kept.

The phones can be feasibly tracked and can only be activated through jailbreaking, which could put a damper on their online sales. Also, this comment was funny:

Haha, geen medelijden mee. Mobistar is zelf een dief als het op abonementen aankomt.

Which roughly translates to “Don’t pity them. Mobistar is the thief when it comes to subscriptions.”

via Fortune

It’s a fairly basic watch, there’s no chronograph functionality (obviously) but it does display the time and date. Sure it’s not quite as bling as a Tokyoflash watch, but this one you might actually be able to read. Retail price starts at $200.

In lieu of an actually interesting collection of words and punctuation marks, I present this debate that has nothing to do with us: the weather in China. It seems that they’ve figured out how to control the weather over there using super-duper technology called cloud seeding. You may have heard of it. The problem is that officials there are blaming scientists for causing a major snowstorm; more snow is expected in the coming days. Basically, it’s snowing too much, too early, and the powers that be aren’t happy.

Like I said, I sincerely doubt the good people of Columbus, Ohio care about the weather in China, but it helps introduce a topic that I can run with for a minute: should man control the weather? I’ve come up with two points of view based on zero research to help get the conversation started.

Yes we should! We’re mankind, the top of the food chain and arbiters of all that happens on the planet. If we can move earth, drain lakes, divert rivers, drop nuclear bombs (throwing untold garbage into the atmosphere), then why shouldn’t we be allowed to control when it rains? I can see it being genuinely helpful, too, bringing rain to an area that’s going through a drought. You know what I mean. It wouldn’t merely be controlling the weather for the sake of it.

No we shouldn’t! If man were meant to fly he’d have wings, and if man were meant to control the weather he’d have the equivalent of wings for the purposes of this sentence. Who’s to say what would happen if we mess up while seeding the clouds? Or, to get theological, what right do we have to dictate the weather patterns He has chosen for us?

Posted on instrutables.com by mrfixits just in time for the Halloween season, this non-powered radio unit will react to all sorts of stimuli. Sound waves, lasers, radio pulses, even lightning storms! And for output, you get all sorts of spooky sound effects that I’m sure you can find a use for. It plugs straight into your computer’s audio jack, letting you record and manipulate whatever crazy sounds this thing generates. Make one if you’ve got the time and electronics know-how. If it doesn’t end up working, you’ll have a really nifty steampunk paperweight.

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 has finally been announced. Details have been leaking in about the “Onyx” for months and most of the seem to be true in hindsight. The BlackBerry Bold 9000 successor rocks a Tour-like keyboard but ditches the trackball in favor of a little trackpad like in the Curve 8520. The camera has been upped to 3.2MP and the screen is now a 480 x 320 display. Just like the Storm 2, the 9700 runs BlackBerry OS 5.0 and all the goodies are included like threaded messaging, updated BB Messenger, and BlackBerry Maps.

Best of all RIM is launching the phone to nearly every GSM carrier in North America and Europe in November although International carrier-specific pricing is hard to come by right now. That will probably change in a day or two though.

AT&T has announced that it will sell the phone for $199 after a $100 mail-in rebate, and T-Mobile is expected to follow suit although it’s press release doesn’t mention a price. What it does mention however is that the phone will be able to make unlimited calls off of WiFi for $10 per month, which is something AT&T is slowly accepting too although it seems that AT&T’s flavor will lack that ability.

CrunchGear: Tell me about yourself.

Johan: I started out studying industrial design at Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden, but later found out I wanted deeper understanding of engineering and construction for designing, so I enrolled at Malmo University, where I pursued a modern engineering degree that blended product design with traditional mechanical engineering. My greatest design schooling came from my first job at Curve ID, an industrial design consultancy in NYC that has collaborated with international clients and brands such as Nike, Colgate, Altec Lansing, and Kenneth Cole, where I learned many of the basic design skills. I have also worked as a designed in France and in Sweden before moving across the water to Copenhagen, Denmark.
As a product designer at GN Mobile, I work on investigating and developing future design concepts for Jabra Bluetooth headsets.


I posit that Bluetooth headsets are the most boring technology on Earth. Convince me otherwise.
We believe otherwise — and the Jabra STONE is evidence of how design is reinvigorating the Bluetooth headset category.

The product category is still in sort of its cradle, but as the mobile phone continues to play a larger role in the way we consume music and media, we can expect great enhancements in features and styles. With the right design, headsets can live up to their potential as a practical wireless solution that increases the ability to multi-task.

The engineering that goes into each headset is also rather complex – for the Jabra STONE, in particular, we were faced with fitting square components inside the headset without sacrificing the design. There’s a lot of technology – some of the smallest components in the market — packed into a device that’s so small and lightweight. This includes a touch volume panel that saves space inside the headset without jeopardizing the design and a chipset with built-in flash to save space inside the headset.

Where was the Stone designed? Does it have European genetics?

The Jabra STONE was designed in Copenhagen by the Jabra design team. It certainly bears a Scandinavian modern design heritage, though is also ergonomic in design. While many concepts that would evolve the Bluetooth category were presented in the planning stages, we ultimately selected an iconic shape with a sweeping design and minimalistic style. There is no wasted or extraneous material — every detail, part, and feature on the headset is necessary. The microphone boom arm in particular was a major focus for us on this headset, and the new, intelligent, proprietary Jabra-engineered technology within the headset allowed us to remove the boom arm from the face entirely without compromising audio quality. This was a major accomplishment from a design perspective – it’s a completely new, discreet look.

What is the lab like where you work? How much science goes into the design? How much art?

For the Jabra STONE, art and style were the starting point, whereas ‘science’ followed the shape. We believe style has to be the driver of headset design, now that many headset features are becoming standard, such as the dual-mic. The biggest challenge when style dictates the overall shape is finding a location for all the necessary technology that’s expected with a high end headset. It’s like trying to fit a square peg, or battery in this case, into a round hole. Once you understand the basic building blocks of headsets though, you can really create something different, and let design change a rectangular box into something really quite elegant.

What were the major difficulties in building this headset?

It was certainly one of the most difficult projects in terms of the engineering. The sweeping, rounded shape doesn’t lend itself to large, square batteries, so it was a process to find the right balance of talk time and the design of the headset itself. Another challenge was balancing the three key factors that drive the design: first, the sweeping shape in itself, which needs to be smooth; second, the STONE charger, which has to integrate perfectly with the headset to create a smooth shape; and last, the overall design needs to fit the gamut of ear sizes. All three have to be in perfect balance for the shape to work. Of course with the innovative headset shape alone, there were an array of mechanical engineering and production challenges with the materials used to achieve a twisting, sweeping, elegant design.

Why a stone? Where did you get the idea?

The Jabra STONE concept was developed based on feedback from our consumer research and our design heritage, with previous models like the JX10 and JX20. The idea behind the stone shape was to create something very natural, yet tactile and palm-sized. The stone-shaped portable charger was initially brainstormed as a simple carrying case solution for the headset, without a battery in it, but we’ve added an element of functionality to it. The smooth, round case complements the sweeping shape and rounded edges of the headset and unifies a number of shapes and lines into one simple elegant stone.

What’s next in industrial design? Have we hit a wall in terms of miniaturization?

We continue to push the boundaries of Bluetooth headsets with innovative design — and as with the Jabra STONE, we’ve creatively placed the battery and components in strategic places in relation to the ear. As the technical components become smaller and smaller over time, headsets will continue to evolve in both in terms of wearing-style and size. As the demand for Bluetooth devices increases – whether it be for hands-free driving solutions, increased productivity at work, etc. – we’re actually seeing our partners and manufacturers dedicate more energies to the miniaturization of importance, because we all recognize how important design is in terms of adoption.

The Storm 2 is sort-of on VerizonWireless.com right now in fact. The phone doesn’t have a product page yet, but someone found the phone’s 3D demo page. So have it. Click over to VZW.com and give the phone a spin. You really don’t need to see a product page anyway, it’s not like you plan on buying the second incarnation of the worst phone ever made when the totally sick Motorola Droid will be available around the same time. At least I hope not.

[Verizon via BGR]