Here are some interesting stories from yesterday:

“A Parallel Image”: a novel way of transmitting a video signal
Review: Gunnar ‘MLG Legend’ Glasses
Review: The GBoard keyboard for GMail
D’Egg: Egg-shaped speakers for $3,580
Hello Kitty Music Player Premium

It’s ridiculously inefficient in one way, yet almost as elegant as possible in another. And as you can imagine, it’s not very high resolution. 2500=50 x 50, so it’s got about the same amount of pixels as an area the size of a quarter on whatever screen you’re reading this on. Not something I’d want to read blogs with, but it does transmit that projector image pretty well.

[via Hack a Day]

Right now it’s not a perfect build; we should expect that at this point, given that Chrome isn’t supposed to be out for a year. Not everything works, and what does work isn’t as fast as Google and its users want. You can take a look for yourself in this video demo of Chrome OS running as the primary OS on a laptop. I get it, it looks promising. But do we really need to put this thing through its paces a year before it’s supposed to be out? I say let the Google folks work on their project and get back to us. They don’t need people looking over their proverbial shoulder every step of the way.

Remember CableCARDs? You probably don’t because most of us have never seen one. They were supposed to be a way to inject the magic of premium cable into OEM devices like PCs and DVRs. Instead they were hard to acquire, hard to use, and generally a bad idea. I would estimate that CableCARDs single-handedly led to current slow demise of TiVo.

The FCC agrees and is calling them a total failure. Here’s what they said in a recent report:

“The Commission’s CableCARD rules have resulted in limited success in developing a retail market for navigation devices. Certification for plug-and-play devices is costly and complex.”

So that said, where do we go from here? Tru2way. The new system will offload “navigation” (basically channel changing) to the device in question and only dedicate the cable signal acquisition to the card itself. What really needs to happen? Smartcard integration with Cable boxes, the same kind you see in satellite systems and Euro cable systems. This lets you take you card, put it into a box, and watch TV.

The problem is this: the cable companies like a nice monopoly. They don’t want their content reaching the Internet (*ahem*). Their short-sighted antics hurt innovation. There’s no way around it.

It then exploded, filling the room with smoke and firing the battery onto the floor. No one was hurt, luckily, but the vibe was totally harshed.

Once again, I say: this is not the behavior of a well device. Sure, it’s only happening to one phone in a million, but when was the last time you heard about any other phone bursting into flames?

Did you know you can recharge your mobile devices without an actual power outlet? It’s true! You can use solar power, magic, or little alternators like this YoGen charger.

It’s a simple device that comes with mini-USB and iPod tips — other tips are available, too. There’s a little pull out ripcord that you yank back and forth which, in turn, generates a trickle of electricity for whatever’s plugged into the other end.

The product packaging promises a “rate of charge similar to standard chargers.” I can’t really verify that but I can tell you that after about three minutes of tugging, my T-Mobile G1 phone went from 29% battery to 30% battery – so plan accordingly. You’re not going to replenish half your battery in a timely manner. We’re talking emergency minutes here.

And though the review unit sent to me came with an iPod tip along with the mini-USB tip, I got the following message when I took my iPhone for a whirl with the YoGen:

Fun. Owning an iPhone is like living with your parents after you’ve turned 18. You come home late and/or drunk, they yell at you, you counter with “I’m an adult now!,” to which they reply, “As long as you live in our house and eat our food you play by our rules.”

You like free food, the house is spotless, and you have no money for rent anywhere else, so you shut up. Similarly, you want the cool iPhone, and you quickly find out that you can’t plug anything into it that isn’t a white cable. Tough but fair (and admittedly overly simplistic).

Whatever the case, I’m guessing/hoping this issue will be worked out by the time the production-quality units ship on December 9th. YoGen’s store page lists iPods and iPhones as compatible, but if you’re thinking of buying one for your iPhone you may want to wait and see what other owners have to say once the units start shipping. As for mini-USB devices (like the other phone I tested) there shouldn’t be too many issues (if any).

The $40 YoGen Charger is available for pre-order in clear or black colors and with Apple + mini-USB connectors or LG + Nokia + Sony Ericsson + micro-USB connectors.

Order YoGen [YogenStore.com]

Features

• Oleophobic coating resists smudging and fingerprints
• Enhances contrast for sharper images
• i-AMP technology lenses designed to reduce eye strain
• MSRP of $99.00

Pros

• Reduced eye strain and fatigue
• Lightweight, durable and sturdy design
• Stylish aviator lens and clean chrome frame

Cons

• Glasses sit high on the face

Review

A few months ago I started having vision problems. My eyes would get tired, my long distance vision would get blurry for what I thought was no apparent reason, and whenever these symptoms occurred I would have short but very painful headaches. At first I thought that my vision was just starting to deteriorate and that all I needed was to finally get some prescription glasses. It seemed odd though, that my problems would come and go, rather than being constant. Then I came across an ad on a gaming website for these special glasses which were constructed for those with problems like mine. Turns out staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day and then going home and playing video games for another few is really bad for your eyes. Who would have thought?

I reached out to Gunnar, the maker of these glasses and they sent me their special MLG edition eye-ware since I am a self-professed gamer. This pair, other than its appearance, is no different from Gunnar’s other line of products. The chrome frame, light amber lens, and aviator style give them a pretty sleek look. The glasses are also very light which makes wearing them comfortable. They have the Major League Gaming logo right by the lens, as they are a preferred partner of the competitive gaming league. These glasses do however seem to sit higher up on the face than normal (sun)glasses. This is slightly annoying as I think they look a bit awkward because of this, but who knows, maybe I just have a oddly shaped face. This minor problem notwithstanding, after about a week of wearing these, my problems went away. No more headaches, and no more blurry vision. I was hooked.

These glasses are great for those who stare at a computer screen for hours a day, but even better for those who game heavily. Through independent research, it was found that many gamers go up to three entire minutes without blinking, and the blink rate of an individual can go down to nearly twenty percent of normal blinking whilst playing video games. Try going three minutes right now without blinking, and then do that consistently for hours on end, daily. It’s obviously not something you want to have happen as it compromises eye integrity.

I was worried about wearing these with my headset as I didn’t want the headset to push the frames into the side of my head, which would obviously cause at the very least, slight pain. However, the slim chrome frames are perfect for those like me who game with a headset. My Astro A40’s fit perfectly over my Gunnars with no discomfort whatsoever.

The proprietary technology used in these glasses works by bending light from screens before it hits your eyes, letting your eye muscles relax: thus reducing strain. Given the amber lens tinting, colors are distorted to a small degree. You won’t see true colors, but this is because the Gunnars screen out the harmful portions of the light spectrum (Gunnar VP of Marketing Mark McNabb told me that they have clear lenses as well for those who do graphic design). There is also what i like to call a “magnifying effect” when wearing these glasses. I play my video games on a 22″ 1080p LCD tv, and when playing, the screen seemed a few inches larger. Again, this is due to the filtering properties of the glasses. To be honest, given the screens that I stare at all day, this is a welcome side effect. The images you look at are also much sharper than without them. This, other than not having blurry vision and headaches is their biggest attribute. Playing Assassin’s Creed 2 while wearing these glasses was quite a treat.

As with all glasses, smudging and fingerprints are always bothersome. The oleophobic coating on the lenses help to mitigate these nuisances. I’d say that within a week of intensive wear, I only have to wipe off the lenses about 2-3 times.

The durability of these glasses is what surprised me the most. When I’m not wearing the Gunnars, they are usually perched upon my hat. More than once they have dropped the six feet from my hat to the ground and have withstood the barrage. I did a drop test here at the TechCrunch Headquarters from above my head onto the ground, adding another two feet, and they once again withstood the fall. The glasses come with a padded plastic case in order to ensure that they do not get dirty or broken when not being worn.

These glasses are designed for those with 20/20 or corrective vision (including those with contacts). However, if you do not have perfect vision, Gunnars can be made to work for you. Simply talk to your optometrist and have your Gunnars specified to your vision specifications.

Many pro gamers use these glasses and swear by them. I wore them, and while they won’t make me go pro by simply wearing them, they sure did make the experience more enjoyable. The glasses cost $99 and given the improvements they’ve made for me, I would recommend giving them a try.

Product Page: Gunnar Optiks MLG Legend Glasses

Poor North Korea (politics aside, of course). It finds itself in the “group of death” in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, alongside Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, and Portugal. With all due respect to the team, there’s no way it’s going to get past the likes of Luís Fabiano and Kaká, Didier Drogba and Yaya Touré, and Cristiano Ronaldo and, well… let’s just count Cristiano twice. Twitter agrees: “Groups of death aren’t always deadly groups. But North Korea are completely dead already. #worldcupdraw.” Yes, this will be the first FIFA World Cup of the Twitter era. Brace yourselves.

I watched the draw live while simultaneously monitoring Twitter. You’re right: I have nothing better to do with my time. Here’s a few choice tweets:

• By the way, England, Algeria, Slovenia and USA is its own group of death. A death of exciting football!

• France, of course, gets punished for the handball vs Ireland by being placed in the South Africa group. #worldcupdraw

• Los españoles creen que Chile es una selección fácil… pobresitos. (The Spanish think that Chile is an easy team… poor things.)

• HEXA CAMPEÃO EM 2010: BRASIL ! (Six-time champions in 2010: Brazil!)

• Mesmo! Brasil ou Portugal? Digamos que com tantos brasileiros a jogar na selecção portuguesa vai ser um jogo Brasil vs Brasil B (I agree! Brazil or Portugal? They say that so many Brazilians play for the Portuguese team that it’ll be a game of Brazil vs Brazil B.) (Note: I legit lol’d at that one.)

• Team USA drew those Limey bastards from England In the FIFA World cup draw today!

• Fuck yeah America! We gonna kick us some Algeria and Slovenia ass! Soccer! USA! USA! USA! USA!

Yes, the “USA! USA!” chant is somehow just as obnoxious on Twitter as it is in the stands of an actual match.

I fully expect Twitter to shine during the tournament.

Marca

Kensington’s $15 “Video Chat Light for Netbooks” can provide some much-needed illumination to your video chats. It’s powered by a single USB Port and features a flexible gooseneck that’s sturdy yet pliable.

There are eight LED lights inside the lamp and you can set the level at OFF, ON/4 (half the LEDs illuminated), and ON/8 (all LEDs illuminated).

The light output isn’t terribly bright but it casts a nice glow nonetheless. You won’t use this thing for making professional-looking feature films but it’s great to use at night or in a poorly-lit room. It can also pull double duty as a keyboard light.

Here’s a before-and-after taken during the day with all the lights off – there’s a window that gets partial sunlight over my left shoulder, for your reference.

JK, all the way. That’s the Enzyte Guy. He smiles a lot.

Here are the actual photos. The first is with no light, followed by ON/4, then ON/8.

No light.

Half light (ON/4).

Full light (ON/8).

So there you have it. Available now for $15 from Kensington.

Happening right now (well, when this first appears on the front page) is the draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It’s a big deal, and will lead to endless debate on call-in radio shows all over the world: what’s the real group of death? Does [our country] have a chance? Can anyone beat Brazil or Spain? And so on. But the World Cup is pretty useless without, you know, the ball. So, presenting the adidas Jabulani, the ball that will be used during the tournament. There’s a lot going on in that ball, believe me.

I spoke to a few people at adidas earlier this week, and they gave me a bit of a rundown on the technology of the ball, technology that should ensure that the Jabulani is the most accurate ball ever used.

But first, the name: Jabulani? As you know, the World Cup will be held in South Africa, and Jabulani is a Zulu (one of the 11 official languages there) word meaning “to celebrate.” Makes sense: the World Cup is right up there with the Olympics in terms of world coming together-ness. (I’d argue that the World Cup is far more important to the average guy than the Olympics. Really, how many people pay close attention to all the obscure sports at an Olympics? Whereas the World Cup commands the everyman’s undivided attention.)

Moving on, why should you, the CrunchGear readers, care about a ball? I don’t know, because it’s pretty damn advanced? I mean, it’s only been in development from the day after the 2006 World Cup ended!

Adidas has managed to increase the ball’s striking surface by as much as 70 percent by reducing the number of 3D panels from 14 (from the 2006 World Cup) to eight. Less panels reduces the number of seams on the ball, and, coupled with another adidas-developed technology called Grip’n'Groove, should also increase the power behind the ball.

More power = more goals. That’s what we want to see.

Grip’n'Groove also gives the ball a slight “dimpled” surface, called Aero Grooves, which should help improve the ball’s accuracy.

You can almost picutre Spain’s Xavi picking his corner during a free-kick, then flighting the ball over the hapless wall.

I asked adidas how they go about developing these balls, and it turns out that there’s a lot of player input. Chelsea and Czech Republic goalkeeper Peter Cech, Chelsea and Germany’s Michael Ballack, Chelsea and England’s Frank Lampard, and Real Madrid and Brazil’s Kaká all gave adidas their opinions on the ball as it was being developed. Adidas also worked with AC Milan, Bayern Munich, the Orlando Pirates (man, who ever thought you’d see AC Milan and the Orlando Pirates in the same sentence?), and Ajax Cape Town for further input.

In other words, it’s not just adidas’ engineers sitting in front of a computer screen all day developing the ball.

Needless to say, adidas put a lot of work into this ball to make sure that it’s the best one ever seen. (Incidentally, the Jabulani doesn’t share too much in common with the ball used at last year’s European Championships, the Europass.) Here’s hoping Team USA can lift the trophy. Failing that, I’ll settle for a Spain victory.

Japan’s robot otaku can soon lay their hands on yet another of those electro-mechanical marvels, but this time the robot isn’t cute. No, this new model, made by Tokyo-based robot venture Poseidon, is supposed to be mean for a change. And its name (Mad Hurricane) is pretty bad ass, too.

Mad Hurricane can perform a number of motions: walk in four directions, swirl to the right or left, stand up by himself when he’s on his back or face and, most importantly, kick and punch in six variations. Powered by a battery, the robot stands 40cm tall and weighs 2.4kg. It’s made of aluminum,  has six built-in gyro sensors and a total of 20 joints.

You can control the robot with a remote control and program it to have him perform “personalized” attack patterns, too.

Poseidon says they’ll start manufacturing Mad Hurricane once they get 10 pre-orders. Production will stop after having released 30 units, with each one costing $900.

This video shows Mad Hurricane in action:

Anyway, yadda yadda. Comment below. BANG. EZ FREAKING GRILL!

When Star Trek cologne was unveiled to the world in late July, the odds were officially stacked against females. How in the world would they be able to resist any man wearing Star Trek cologne? It can’t be done. Well, that playing field has been absolutely leveled with the recent introduction of Star Trek perfume.

Maybe not absolutely leveled since the launch of the perfume was accompanied by a new cologne scent as well but, still, there’s definitely going to be something “long” and “prosperous” happening any time an able-bodied male catches a whiff of this perfume.

The two newly available scents are, according to ThinkGeek:

Tiberius Cologne – Sweet citron zest, black pepper, and cedar create refreshingly clear top notes layered over warm vanilla, white musk, and sandalwood base notes.

Pon Farr Perfume – Light, clean top notes of citrus, blackcurrant, lotus blossom, and water lily, with base notes from sandalwood, peach, and mulberry.

They’re $30 each, available at ThinkGeek.

Review:

Keyboards and mice are horribly inefficient means for interacting with computers. They each suck in their own way, but they’re even worse together. I cringe every time I see someone type in a username and password: type username using the keyboard, use the mouse to click into password field, type in password using the keyboard, and then use the mouse to click the “Submit” button. It seems that people don’t know how the TAB and RETURN keys work.

All that moving back and forth between input devices is slow, and error prone. Using a single input device is much, much more efficient (just watch an expert do anything in Vim or emacs sometime!). Did you know that many of the Google services we’ve all come to know and love have keyboard shortcuts to make using only a keyboard more practical? There are keyboard shortcuts for Google Mail and Google Reader, but I suspect that the “average user” is going to have a hard time remembering these. Enter the GBoard, the keyboard for GMail.

Let me say this again: this is a keypad with buttons to do things that you can do using your normal keyboard. Take a look again at the GMail keyboard shortcuts, and then look at the photo above. Here’s the result of pressing each of the GBoard keys in a plain text editor:

/ u gs
r a f c
s e # !
k p x
j n gi

Not shown above are the results for pressing Escape or Open/Close, which correspond to the actual Escape key, and the return key.

There’s no ability to tweak the arrangement of the keys on the GBoard. If you don’t like the placement of the Compose button, you’re out of luck. You’ll need to move your hand over to your mouse and then move the mouse pointer over to the “Compose” link. Or, you know, you could just press the “C” key on your keyboard.

You still need to move your hand from your normal keyboard over to the GBoard, so the time savings of using keyboard shortcuts is partially nullified. I suppose if you want to learn to use keyboard shortcuts, but just can’t get them to stick in your noggin, the GBoard could be a helpful stepping stone. Or you could just print out the list of keyboard shortcuts and tape them to your monitor.

Product Page: GBoard.com

Michael Lowdermilk sent this in to our tips e-mail address with the line, “I wanted to get your feedback on this new product I’ve been working on. It’s a custom wall outlet with built in USB charge ports.”

My feedback is as follows: move forward with this. It is a good idea. I will probably eventually buy one.

The “TruePower UCS Power Outlet With Built in USB Ports” is available for pre-order at FastMac.com and is expected to ship early next year. Apparently it’s “currently waiting on final UL Approval,” which is a good thing for safety’s sake.

TruePower UCS Power Outlet With Built in USB Ports [FastMac.com]

The TripleFi 10 set features just the earphones while the 10vi set adds a microphone for use with your cell phone. Billed as “The Choice of 75% of the World’s Top Touring Musicians,” the earphones sport 26db noise isolation and a “Triple Armature Speaker.”

The deal is good today only.

Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 Earphones [Amazon.com]

Here’s the right thing for all audio freaks out there who happen to be ready to shell out a lot of cash for a very unique product: Japan-based tech company BifrösTec (what a name) is selling egg-shaped speakers [JP] that are priced at $3,580 for a pair. The so-called D’Egg TGA-2R1 is sized at 140×140×235mm and weighs 2.6kg (including the stand that’s included in the price).

The 30W speakers feature 70Hz〜20kHz frequency response, 4Ω impedance and 80 dB/W/M sensitivity. BifrösTec says the price can be justified through the unique design of the speakers, the superior sound quality and the expensive material they’re made of (Kagami crystal glass).

The D’Egg TGA-2R1 went on sale in Japan today, but you can also go for the TGA-1W1 (pictured above) that’s the same as the crystal model function-wise (but made of ordinary plastic).

Another alternative is the TGA-1B1 in black. Both plastic models cost $1,200 per pair. Ask Geek Stuff 4 U or the Japan Trend Shop if they can ship a pair outside Japan in case you’re interested in one of the speakers.