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Thanko strikes again: Catgirl Earphones

Serkan Toto — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:00:59 +0000

Tokyo-based crap gadget specialist Thanko is usually known for selling USB stuff nobody needs. Their newest hit product doesn’t feature a USB port, but the target group for their Catgirl Earphones [JP] should be quite small, too. Marketed as a gadget for the Cosplay crowd, the earphones are supposed to turn your girlfriend into a cute catgirl.

The Catgirl Earphones are available in black or the inevitable pink (price: $20). If you live outside Japan and are really interested in getting the device, wait for Thanko to list it in their international online store.

Darth Vader clock: Know when it’s time to wake up alone

John Biggs — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:30:34 +0000

It’s only $32.99, it includes an auxiliary jack for your iPod, MP3, or CD player, and runs off wall power o one 9-volt battery. Sadly it’s only available for pre-order right now, but heck, you’re not doing anything until August anyway. Just order it and wait.

via BBG, who writes the funniest thing I’ve seen all day

YOU IS WINNAR! The Pleo finds a home

John Biggs — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:12:48 +0000

Wow. You guys wanted a Pleo. When we offered you one a few days ago I didn’t realize 707 people would comment wildly in hopes of winning a little green dinosaur. Well, there is a winner and he is…

Long time commenter Tom Woolf. Thanks for reading, Tom, and enjoy your sassy little robot.

Flash comes to Android

John Biggs — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:54:24 +0000

Adobe and HTC are bringing Flash to Android on its new Hero smartphone. The implementation will support video and audio codecs familiar to users of Flash on the desktop.

The HTC Hero delivers powerful, compatible video playback performance using Flash technology, and interactive content enabled by ActionScript® 2.0. Users can enjoy and navigate through Web videos using intuitive video controls. With progressive streaming of large MP3 audio files from a Web server and the local file storage, the HTC Hero provides a seamless audio experience. Support for Sorenson and On2 VP6 codecs enables higher quality video and playback of existing Web content. A demo of the user experience enabled by the Flash Platform on the HTC Hero and the Android operating system can be viewed at www.adobe.com/go/htchero.

Not official word on availability right now but it should arrive with the new Hero handset this summer and in the US later this year on, it is assumed, T-Mobile’s version of the Hero device. There is no information on whether this implementation will be available on other handsets – the G1, for example – at this time.

Adobe and HTC Bring Flash Platform to Android
New HTC Hero Delivers More Complete Web Browsing Experience with Adobe Flash Technology
SAN JOSE, Calif. and LONDON — June 24, 2009 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and HTC, a global designer of mobile phones, today announced that the new HTC Hero is the first Android phone to ship with support for Adobe® Flash® Platform technology. The new phone delivers a more complete Web browsing experience and provides access to a broad variety of Flash technology based content available on the Web today.
“As the first Android device with Flash, the new HTC Hero represents a key milestone for Android and the Flash Platform. With close to 80 percent of all videos online delivered with Adobe Flash technology, consumers want to access rich Web content on-the-go.” said David Wadhwani, vice president and general manager, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “The collaboration with HTC offers people a more complete Flash based Web browsing experience today and presents an important step towards full Web browsing with Flash Player 10 on mobile phones in the future.”
The new HTC Hero is a key element of the HTC experience and a new generation of HTC mobile phones and devices. Users can browse and discover a broad set of Web content and applications not supported by mobile phones in the past. People can also view YouTube videos using Flash technology, and enable full screen viewing mode by simply double tapping the screen.
“Adobe Flash is an important core technology for people interacting and experiencing the Web, it is only natural to be offering it on the new HTC Hero first,” said John Wang, chief marketing officer, HTC Corporation. “We look forward to continuing our close collaboration with Adobe and to bringing Flash Player 10 support to our phones in the future.”
The HTC Hero delivers powerful, compatible video playback performance using Flash technology, and interactive content enabled by ActionScript® 2.0. Users can enjoy and navigate through Web videos using intuitive video controls. With progressive streaming of large MP3 audio files from a Web server and the local file storage, the HTC Hero provides a seamless audio experience. Support for Sorenson and On2 VP6 codecs enables higher quality video and playback of existing Web content. A demo of the user experience enabled by the Flash Platform on the HTC Hero and the Android operating system can be viewed at www.adobe.com/go/htchero.
HTC Participates in Open Screen Project
HTC also announced its participation in the Open Screen Project, a broad industry effort to deliver a consistent runtime across screens and to provide access to all Flash technology based Web content in the future. As a contributor to the initiative, HTC is collaborating with Adobe and more than 25 other industry leaders to bring Flash Player 10 and full Web browsing to the next generation of Android based smartphones and other mobile computing platforms and devices. For more details on the Open Screen Project, visit www.openscreenproject.org.
About Adobe Flash Platform
The Adobe Flash Platform is a complete system of integrated tools, frameworks, clients and servers for the development of Web applications, content and video that runs consistently across operating systems and devices. Adobe Flash Player content reaches over 98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops, and Adobe Flash technology is the No.1 platform for video on the Web. In addition, the mobile runtime has shipped and delivered Flash technology based content on close to 40 percent of all new mobile phones and devices in 2008. For more information about the Adobe Flash Platform visit www.adobe.com/flashplatform. For details on the goals set for the Adobe Flash Platform as part of the Open Screen Project, visit www.openscreenproject.org
About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.
About HTC
HTC Corporation (HTC) is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry and continues to pioneer industry-leading mobile experiences through design, usability and innovation that is sparked by how the mobile phone can improve how people live and communicate. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.

Video Review: Bleep Labs Thingamagoop

John Biggs — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:00:52 +0000

What do you get when a Kaossilator and a Chumby mate? How about the Thingamagoop from Bleep Labs? This little bugger has an LED, a photo-resistor, and some knobs and it makes a lot of noise. What kind of noise? Noise-rock noise, which could put a damper on my plans to add this to the woodwind section in the orchestra playing my new opus, the iPhone Sonata in D Minor.
The website has a collection of sample sounds to show you what this thing is capable of which, it turns out, is a series of piercing squawks.
But look at the cute little guy. He’s so fun looking! He’s got a little 1/4″ inch jack for audio output and I’m sure you could bitfreak him a little to mess up your guitar music or something, so why not give him a chance? You can even customize yours.
He costs $120 and is available now.

Amazon Kindle DX: 9.7-inch screen and $489

Matt Burns — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:48:20 +0000

Amazon’s third incarnation of the Kindle is here, folks. All 9.7-inches of it. Specs and info leaked about the now official Kindle over the last week and they seemed pretty much dead on. It comes packing with the larger screen, auto-rotating screen, and finally supports PDF files fully with a native PDF reader. This larger Kindle also ups the storage capacity from 1,500 books on the Kindle 2 to 3,500 on the Kindle DX thanks to 3.3GB of on board memory. The pre-order is up now and will ship shortly if you’re willing to drop $489 on one.

More pics and info after the jump.

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback

Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots

Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images

Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging

More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books

Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns

Read-to-Me: With the new text-to-speech feature, Kindle can read every newspaper, magazine, blog, and book out loud to you, unless the book is disabled by the rights holder

Large Selection: Over 275,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available

Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise

Kindle DX

Introducing Kindle DX–Amazon’s Large Screen Addition to the Kindle Family of Wireless Reading Devices
Large Kindle DX Display and New Features Provide Enhanced Experience for Reading a Wide Range of Professional and Personal Documents
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May. 6, 2009– Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today introduced Amazon Kindle DX, the new purpose-built reading device that offers Kindle’s revolutionary wireless delivery and massive selection of content with a large 9.7-inch electronic paper display, built-in PDF reader, auto-rotate capability, and storage for up to 3,500 books. More than 275,000 books are now available in the Kindle Store, including 107 of 112 current New York Times Best Sellers. New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases are $9.99 unless marked otherwise. Top U.S. and international magazines and newspapers plus more than 1,500 blogs are also available. Kindle DX is available for pre-order starting today for $489 at http://amazon.com/kindleDX and will ship this summer.

“Personal and professional documents look so good on the big Kindle DX display that you’ll find yourself changing ink-toner cartridges less often,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Cookbooks, computer books, and textbooks – anything highly formatted – also shine on the Kindle DX. Carry all your documents and your whole library in one slender package.”

New Large Display

Kindle DX’s display has 2.5 times the surface area of Kindle’s 6-inch display. The larger electronic paper display with 16 shades of gray has more area for graphic-rich content such as professional and personal documents, newspapers and magazines, and textbooks. Kindle reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real ink and doesn’t use a backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays.

The New York Times Company and Washington Post Company are launching pilots with Kindle DX this summer. The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post will offer the Kindle DX at a reduced price to readers who live in areas where home-delivery is not available and who sign up for a long-term subscription to the Kindle edition of the newspapers.

“At The New York Times Company we are always seeking new ways for our millions of readers to have full and continuing access to our high-quality news and information,” said Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman, The New York Times Company and publisher, The New York Times. “The wireless delivery and new value-added features of the Kindle DX will provide our large, loyal audience, no matter where they live, with an exciting new way to interact with The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Additionally, by offering a subscription through the Kindle DX to readers who live outside of our delivery areas, we will extend our reach to our loyal readers who will be able to more readily enjoy their favorite newspapers. Meanwhile, we are continuing to work with Amazon to make The New York Times and The Boston Globe experiences on Kindle better than ever.”

Kindle DX’s large display offers an enhanced reading experience with another category of graphic-rich content—textbooks. With complex images, tables, charts, graphs, and equations, textbooks look best on a large display. Leading textbook publishers Cengage Learning, Pearson, and Wiley, together representing more than 60 percent of the U.S. higher education textbook market, will begin offering textbooks through the Kindle Store beginning this summer. Textbooks under the following brands will be available: Addison-Wesley, Allyn & Bacon, Benjamin Cummings, Longman & Prentice Hall (Pearson); Wadsworth, Brooks/Cole, Course Technology, Delmar, Heinle, Schirmer, South-Western (Cengage); and Wiley Higher Education.

Arizona State University, Case Western Reserve University, Princeton University, Reed College, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia will launch trial programs to make Kindle DX devices available to students this fall. The schools will distribute hundreds of Kindle DX devices to students spread across a broad range of academic disciplines. In addition to reading on a considerably larger screen, students will be able to take advantage of popular Kindle features such as the ability to take notes and highlight, search across their library, look up words in a built-in dictionary, and carry all of their books in a lightweight device.

“The Kindle DX holds enormous potential to influence the way students learn,” said Barbara R. Snyder, president of Case Western Reserve University. “We look forward to seeing how the device affects the participation of both students and faculty in the educational experience.”

New Built-In PDF Reader

Kindle DX features a built-in PDF reader using Adobe Reader Mobile technology for reading professional and personal documents. Like other types of documents on Kindle, customers simply email their PDF format documents to their Kindle email address or move them over using a USB connection. With a larger display and built-in PDF reader, Kindle DX customers can read professional and personal documents with more complex layouts without scrolling, panning, or zooming, and without re-flowing, which destroys the original structure of the document. Everything from annual reports with graphs to flight manuals with maps to musical scores can be viewed on a single, crisp screen with Kindle DX.

New Auto-Rotation

Kindle DX’s display content auto-rotates so users can read in portrait or landscape mode, or flip the device to read with either hand. Simply turn Kindle DX and immediately see full-width landscape views of maps, graphs, tables, images, and Web pages.

New 3.3 GB Memory Holds Up To 3,500 Books

With 3.3 GB of available memory, Kindle DX can hold up to 3,500 books, compared with 1,500 with Kindle. And because Amazon automatically backs up a copy of every Kindle book purchased, customers can wirelessly re-download titles from their library at any time.

Incredibly Thin

Kindle DX is just over a third of an inch thin, which is thinner than most magazines.

3G Wireless, No PC, No Hunting for Wi-Fi Hot Spots

Just like Kindle, Kindle DX customers automatically take advantage of Amazon Whispernet to wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, download or receive new content in less than 60 seconds, and read from their library—all without a PC, Wi-Fi hot spot, or syncing. Amazon still pays for the wireless connectivity on Kindle DX so books can be downloaded in less than 60 seconds—with no monthly fees, data plans, or service contracts.

Syncs With Kindle for iPhone and other Kindle Compatible Devices

Just like Kindle, Kindle DX uses Amazon Whispersync technology to automatically sync content across Kindle, Kindle DX, Kindle for iPhone, and other devices in the future. With Whispersync, customers can easily move from device to device and never lose their place in their reading.

Massive Selection of Books—Plus Newspapers, Magazines, and Blogs

The Kindle Store currently offers more than 275,000 books, including popular books like New York Times Bestsellers, New Releases, and fiction and nonfiction released in the past several years. Dozens of newspapers and magazines are also available for subscription or single-edition purchase. BusinessWeek and The New England Journal of Medicine are available in the Kindle Store starting today, and The Economist will be available soon. Subscriptions are auto-delivered wirelessly to Kindle overnight so that the latest edition is waiting for customers when they wake up. Over 1,500 blogs are available on Kindle and updated and downloaded wirelessly throughout the day.

Kindle DX includes all the other features Kindle customers enjoy every day, including:

Wirelessly send, receive, and read personal documents in a variety of formats such as Microsoft Word and PDF
Look up words instantly using the built-in 250,000 word New Oxford American Dictionary
Choose from six text sizes
Add bookmarks, notes, and highlights
Text-to-speech technology that converts words on a page to spoken word
Search Web, Wikipedia.org, Kindle Store, and your library of purchased content
No setup required—Kindle comes ready to use—no software to load or set up
Amazon Kindle is sold through Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

CrunchBase Information

Amazon

Amazon Kindle 2

Amazon Kindle

Information provided by CrunchBase

Third episode of Laptop Hunters: $1,500 and they still don’t buy Mac

Matt Burns — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 02:33:36 +0000

This episode of Laptop Hunters has been brought to you by Microsoft and Sony VAIO. Spoiler: the actors don’t buy a Mac, instead wander aimlessly around the dozens of PC models until finding a Blu-ray equipped Sony VAIO. Sorry to ruin the surprise. Video after the jump.

Adding commentary to these things is getting fairly tedious. The Mac attack wasn’t very egregious: “They’re kind of popular with this age,” eh? At least this model performed a bit better in standard benchmarks and it has Blu-Ray, one of the bigger draws for most people. Sadly, it’s not really a “full-HD” (1080p) laptop and it’s as big as a pizza box.

Here’s the product page in case you want to pick one up.

Barnes and Noble eReader coming soon? Could it be called the BNindle?

John Biggs — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:59:38 +0000

TheStreet has a juicy rumor that Barnes & Noble, a store where physical “books” in “paper” form are sold to “customers” who stand in line to pay with “cash” or “forms of credit” is working on an eBook reader, possibly in partnership with Verizon.

The rumor has all the makings of a real live product. They may offer book downloads over the air and come in a sexier format than the already smokin’ hot Kindle 2. All I can say to B&N is “Good luck, Sally, because you’re going to need it.”

You will agree that Amazon doesn’t have a first-mover advantage, a concept I believe is bogus. There have been ebook readers since the dawn of time. Instead, it has a first-winner advantage. Just as Twitter>Plurk>Yammer and iPod>Creative>Sony, Kindle will always do better than a BNindle and will, in all ways, do better then the unconnected ereaders that are bound to populate the stores in benighted areas. Amazon wrapped easy ordering in with a huge selection to create a package that the average consumer – and the average computer nerd – could easily understand. Sure, it has some fussiness about it – emailing PDFs to yourself to get them sent to your Kindle a huge pet peeve – but no matter what Barnes & Noble does, the Kindle still stands out as the ur-ereader.

Sony has tried to enter this space with multiple partners for years and while I agree that their products are fine if you’re a big old pirate, I doubt many of us have PDF version of the latest bestseller lying around. Just as iTunes changed the way the average consumer gets music onto their music player, the Kindle changes the way people interact with ereaders. Whereas the old music/book paradigm was, essentially:

1. Find a service that isn’t full of spyware
2. Search for songs/books of dubious quality
3. Worry the police will arrest your unborn babies
4. Download music/book for free
5. Install drivers
6. Reinstall Windows
7. Plug in MP3 player/reader
8. Drag music to player/reader
9. Eject player
10. Discover the music is ten minutes of a twenty second loop of Gwen Stefani singing about Harajuku Girls/Discover that the book is written in German
11. Repeat

The iTunes/Kindle paradigm is:
1. Buy device
2. Buy music, maybe rip a CD, download a book, whatever! Drink a nice glass of brandy, maybe?
3. Play music/Read book
4. Repeat

Which process do you think is more lucrative? This is not the say the BNindle won’t have an incredible ordering system with great hardware and amazing vibrate feature, but there can only be so many sheriffs in town, as Microsoft learned with the Zune, and the second paradigm isn’t easily copied once you’ve bought into a system – and most of the consumers of note, the guys who bought the Kindle 2 just so they could use their perfectly-working Kindle 1 to hold open the back door when they brought in the groceries, are already Kindle-men.

Amazon is a winner here. The BNindle will probably be an also-ran.

CrunchBase Information

Amazon Kindle 2

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Information provided by CrunchBase

Wendy’s asking you to “bid” on prizes

Dave Freeman — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:22:48 +0000

This may seem a little off topic for CrunchGear, but once you see the prize list, you’ll understand why we’re talking about it. Hamburger huckster Wendy’s is holding a contest of sorts, auctioning off a few different prizes each day. Again.

They did this last January and it seemed to be pretty popular.

There’s a few things of interest to gamers, including an Xbox 360 elite, an Ultimate Game Chair, Panasonic 50″ plasma, and a few other things coming up in the next few days. The premise is that as each item comes up for bid, it will start at the full retail price. People will click and try to be the first person to bid the item down to $0.99 Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that Wendy’s won’t actually expect you to pay $0.99 for any of the items that you might win.

General Mills Enters Tech News Space With Forced Acquisition of CrunchGear

John Biggs — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:48:23 +0000

Hello CrunchGear Readers!

On behalf of Kendall J. Powell and the entire General Mills team I’m proud to announce that CrunchGear, TechCrunch’s former tech blog, is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of General Mills and will feature both tech news as well as local news relating to our consumption of Big G cereal products including, but in no way limited to, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Boo Berry, Buc-Wheats, and Reese’s Puffs.

TechCrunch received $15,000 for the site as part of a trademark infringement lawsuit against the entire Crunch Network which will be renamed at a later date. All of the writers including Peter Ha, Devin, and Nicholas will remain and Doug has been made head of cereal testing.

With that, we welcome our General Mills managers and hope you enjoy the new directions CrunchGear is headed. Don’t forget to eat a great breakfast!

Google lays off 200

John Biggs — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:12:42 +0000

Google has cut 200 jobs in sales and marketing, a first for the search giant. According to VWag a tipster wrote:

A friend of mine in the San Francisco office’s AdWords division (who wants to remain nameless) was laid off this morning. She also said there were 200 people total. They are still on payroll for two months and have the opportunity to apply for other jobs within the company. If they don’t have another job at the end of the 60 days they get a severance package.

The official Goog blog says that the lay-offs are an effort to rethink some of their internal organizations, essentially cutting fat in a way that won’t tank their stock price and/or won’t run afoul of SEC rules. At least they’re not sending 5,000 jobs to Hyderabad.

Google and Apple have been dropping these tiny lay-off bombs while the rest of the world is shedding thousands of jobs. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few months – either it will be piddly lay-off after piddly lay-off or we’re going to see a big cut at some point. What think you? Is this it for Google or are things going downhill?

Free stuff Wednesday: Funkeys Computer Speakers

John Biggs — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:01:37 +0000

Hey, girls and boys! Do you have kids? Or are you a kid at heart? Or do you like free things? Then take these computer speakers off my hands. Funkeys are some sort of thing that kids like and these things unlock stuff on the Funkeys website.

You can win them by listening to our podcast today at 2:30pm Eastern/11:30am Pacific [we're doing it a little early] and finding out what nefarious thing we want you to do. We’ll let you listen to it and then we’ll pick a winner at noon tomorrow. Good luck!

R2-D2 translated (semi-NSFW)

Matt Burns — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:00:33 +0000

Ever wonder what the little droid was really saying? I mean, C-3PO translated sometimes but you know he was always putting a politicly correct spin on it. Highlights from Episode one are above and Episode 2 are after the break. These might not be safe for work, but they’re funny as hell.

via technabob and Neatorama

Hands on with Amazon Video on Demand for the Roku box

John Biggs — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:49:02 +0000

I did a quick video of Amazon Video on Demand on the Roku box and, as you can see, I really need to lose some weight. Otherwise, it’s a great service that really makes this tiny little box a real contender for a spot next to your TiVo and cable box in the TV shelf.

You can read a little more in this post but you get the gist.

The HTC G2 Magic spotted, Vodafone bound

Matt Burns — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:09:03 +0000

If we are to believe this Vodafone ad (and who are we to doubt the Internet), the European carrier will be the exclusive provider of HTC’s next Android phone, the Magic. The phone does somewhat resemble early spy shots so we could be looking at the real deal, folks.

We hear it comes packing with HSDPA, WiFi, GPS, and a 3.2 digicam. Perhaps Vodafone and HTC were planning a MWC09 announcement or even a CTIA reveal. After all, as it seems that most handheld manufacturers are announcing their first-gen Android handsets, we can think of no better time to announce HTC’s second go around at the OS.

Qualcomm invests in tiny phone company Modu

Guest Author — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:08:37 +0000

Calcalist is reporting (Hebrew only) that Modu has brought in another $7M in funding courtesy of Qualcomm which as part of the agreement will also manufacture the Modu "core". Modu has had a whirlwind of a year, first debuting to much fanfare at last year's Mobile World Congress, where we had a chance to sit with the company's CEO, Dov Moran, for a 1-on-1 for a demo. The company then went on to raise a whopping $100M round. Then in November Modu announced a 33%, 88-employee downsizing in November.

Netbooks ate 20% of regular notebook sales last year

John Biggs — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:05:29 +0000

BBG has an interesting bit about how netbooks nicked 20% off of standard laptop revenue even though there was a 1% increase in revenue. Why? Because foolish laptop manufacturers have been gunning for that sub-$999 price point for years now and now that they finally hit it they can’t bring it back up to sane levels thanks to sub-$500 netbooks.

When I worked at Laptop Magazine a few years ago, all the rage was sub-$1000 laptops. Everyone was talking about it and expecting a new renaissance of sales thanks to these Wal-mart notebooks. Sadly, they did too good a job. By selling low-cost, low-power notebooks, they basically cannabilzed their “big notebook” sales by convincing folks that once they had one laptop, they didn’t need another one.

Think about it: you have a year or two-year-old Dell. It runs XP Home. All is well. Then you think I’d like to upgrade and look for a laptop. A few netbooks out there actually run Vista fairly well, you buy one for $600 – half the price of the Dell – and ignore all the power limitations. You get a wonky little machine that barely runs Vista but seems to do everything you need it to do. You’re mildly miffed and can’t afford anything better so you’re stuck until next year. The manufacturers shot themselves in the foot.

To the ramparts, Apple apologists!

John Biggs — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:59:15 +0000

Dan “Fake Steve” Lyons appears on CNBC and basically takes down Jim Goldman, the fellow who believed everything that came out of Cupertino up to and just a little beyond the ultimate admission by Steve that he was really sick.

Dan has it right and, I’ll admit, we once fell into an earlier, more forgiving camp when it came to covering Apple. However, by thinking Apple could do no wrong we were doing you guys a disservice. While we love the products – they’re great creative tools and put all the good stuff I like to use in one pretty package – their behavior these past few weeks has been unconscionable. But who cares, right? It’s goofy old Apple, always doing something amazing!

WTF are up with all these super duper thin HDTVs?

Matt Burns — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:00:12 +0000

By raise of hands, who else thinks that all these anorexically thin HDTVs are dumb? LG’s latest set measures only 6.5mm thick and Sony’s isn’t that much more thick. (pictured)

Who the hell cares Though? Why is HDTV’s latest cockfight over TV thickness? This also applies to Blu-ray/DVD players too, btw.

I have never heard anyone complain that their flat screen is too thin? Most measure in around 1.5-2.5-inches and that’s fine with me. I have absolutely zero desire for a TV that’s measured in millimeters.

What are you suppose to do with it? Hang it on the wall and make it look like a poster? Generally, when teenagers grow into adults, the posters taped to the wall come down and are replaced with framed paintings. That frame gives the painting depth and character that simply taping the same picture on the wall cannot.

The same thing will happen if you hang an HDTV millimeters from the wall. It’s going to look like crap on the majority of walls. Unless you’re style runs along the same lines as Moby or your deco is modern techno-crap, an HDTV that has depth and character will look so much better.

This CES is sure to be full of ‘Thinnest ever!” and “Thin is in!” slogans, but I could care less. A flat screen that’s 3-inches deep has the same value to me as one that’s 3mm deep. This is one pissing match I could care less about. (that doesn’t sound right…)

CES Rumor: Samsung quietly releasing a 12-inch netbook to avoid Intel’s wrath

John Biggs — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:02:16 +0000

Samsung has been making moves to launch laptops here in the U.S. and one of their first may be a 12-inch netbook with a Via Nano chip, probably the NC20. However, they won’t display it publicly at CES for fear of Intel’s wrath. Here’s what seems to be happening:

Intel offers “guidelines” on how big a netbook can be and still run an Atom chip. The maximum seems to be 10 inches, small enough to look like a netbook. Because these low-powered chips disappoint so many buyers – think MacBook Air – putting them into anything that resembles a real laptop is tantamount to admitting that the chip isn’t powerful enough to handle regular work. Hence the moniker “netbook” and the consistently diminutive names like “nano” and “atom.”

Via’s Nano chip is equally underpowered (in a good way, not a bad way). They chose the chip because Intel guidelines state netbooks shouldn’t be bigger than 10 inches. It takes very little juice to run and as I’ve said before about the Air you honestly don’t expect these things to churn through spreadsheets and then do a little video editing before lunch. Samsung’s new netbook should be similar to the MSI netbook was saw earlier. The existence of this 12-incher does poke a hole in the wrath theory but could there be a more powerful chip coming down the pike to supply these “midbooks?”