Today Hitachi unveiled [JP] its newest Full HD camcorder, the Woo DZ-BD10H, which will be available in Japan from August 9th. The company plans to produce 6,000 units per month.

Here are the main specs:
- recording on 8cm Blu-ray discs (BD-R/RE) and DVD (DVD-R/RW/RAM)
- integrated HDD (30 GB) that can hold 4.5 hours of video in Full HD
- support of recording in AVCHD
- support of SD and SDHC cards
- 7 megapixel CMOS sensor
- 10x optical zoom
- ports: HDMI, USB, component
- 2.7-inch LCD display

The DZ-BD10H will be priced at $1,500 and is Japan-only as of now.

If you like the fuel-efficiency of a motorcycle and the comfort of a car, the Carver One might be what you’re looking for. The Carver One is a hybrid car/motorcycle that is compact and fuel-efficient. It only has three wheels and uses Dynamic Vehicle Control to bank the vehicle around turns. Just like if it was a bike and had only two wheels.

The body is 11.2 feet long, 4.3 feet wide, and 4.6 feet high, so I would image it would be easy to park on a small crowded street. The driver seat is said to be comfortable, but the optional backseat leaves much to be desired. The Carver’s speed maxes out at about 115mph and has a manual five speed transmission.

Drivers of the Carver One say it’s like driving a roller coaster — which I can understand since it banks around turns, much like roller coasters do. People have also said that it handles smoothly in varied weather conditions.

This one part car, one part motorcycle is currently only for sale in Europe for around $44,000. They are working on getting past all the regulations so they can release it in the US before 2010.

Some non-iPhone-related news for you! If you’ve ever used fluorescent bulbs, you know that they take a while to reach full brightness. This can be a bad thing in certain situations, like bathrooms. Sometimes you need the light fast and don’t want to wait around for it. Well, Panasonic came to the rescue with its announcement of the Pa-Look Fluorescent bulbs.

The new bulb is a hybrid and provides instant bulb brightness. The way it works is simple, a Quick Lamp(i.e. a normal bulb) is in the center of the fluorescent coil and comes on right away. Then once the coil reaches full brightness, the “Quick Lamp” shuts off. This way you can still have the energy savings, without sacrificing that satisfying “instant-on” feel. If the two lamps differ very much in color temperature, though, it could be weird.

Fans of the solar powered Solio chargers will be pleased to note that the new Magnesium model will now power your laptops iPods and other low-power goodies and the Hybrid has a dual charging method which includes solar and wall power. The Magnesium costs $199 and the Hybrid costs $79.99. You may now go back to your granola-making, hippie.

Product Page

It was bound to happen: the major studios are releasing videos in both formats and just letting the market shake things out — mostly in the direction of hybrid players. Ultimately, I think the question will become moot but until then, folks like Warner Bros (I Am Legend) and Universal (Charlie Wilson’s War) will release in both formats.

I think the biggest decider will be Toshiba’s move to sell HD DVD players for $149, a little more than the Coby DVD players you can get at Wal-Mart. Seed the market with those and Sony — or someone like HUMAX — will concede and release hybrids at about $200 and we’ll never have to think about this ever again.

Publishers say screw it, choose both in HD DVD vs Blu-ray war [Blorge]

Tesla motors, the company that gave us Roadster and EV1 super-fast all-electric cars, is planning a gas-electric hybrid soon. The car, called the Whitestar, should cost between $50,000 and $70,000 and will also come in an all-electric version. The car, called a REV (Range-extended Vehicle) will go considerably farther on one charge than the 150-200 mile range of the all-electric models.

Tesla to make gas-electric car [News.com.com.com]

I use both OSX (Tiger, thank you) and Windows (XP, thank you) but that doesn’t mean I’m simply indecisive. There are some things each OS does better, and one of the things OSX has going for it is its for the most part excellent UI. If you don’t have the motivation or, more likely, the scrilla to switch over to a Mac, maybe these programs will help put a shine on Windows’ rougher interface. Check ‘em out below.
Read More

our favorite MVNO, has come up with. While being a virtual network is hard, it gave Helio a distinction, which is now gone.

Those paid through May 7 are welcome to keep their cards, those paid from the 8th and forward will be issued refunds or credits. Sorry, kids. I hate bringing you the bad news.

Helio to Shut Down Hybrid [PhoneScoop]

starts turning its eyes towards NAND-based flash drives for portables instead of standard disc-based drives, Samsung has developed a hybrid that couples an 80-, 120-, or 160-GB standard hard disk with 128- to 256-MB NAND RAM in one physical drive. The flash-RAM portion acts as a super-buffer for read/write tasks; as information is pulled from the physical disc, it’s stored in the NAND, where it can be accessed without the physical discs need to spin constantly. Because the on-drive transfer is near instant, the NAND acts as a low-power, fast place for required information to “stand by” to be accessed, meaning the physical discs can be put to rest, saving precious battery power.

This next-step in drive evolution is meant to work with Microsoft’s ReadyDrive, a little-used component of Vista that makes for rapid booting and shutdown. The drive should give performance increases to any laptop, though, no matter what operating system it’s running, and should be available early summer for not much more than what drives sell for now.

Product

Hybrid Prepaid Arrives at Boost Mobile [Wireless Week]

British company New Media Enterprises says they’ve made a technical breakthrough to allow multi-layered DVD discs to be produced at only 150% the cost of current generation DVD discs. These multi-layered discs can have both Blu-ray and HD DVD layers on it, rendering the format wars pretty much moot from a media standpoint.

The company says they solved the problem of low yields, which means that of a certain number of discs made, many had to be thrown out. They also say that this patent doesn’t conflict with Warner Bros.’ patent for multiple technologies on a single disc. Warner patented the application, and New Media Enterprises patented the technology.

What does this mean to you? It means what whoever makes the better or cheaper players, Blu-ray or HD DVD, will be the one more consumers purchase.

New technology could nip DVD format war in the bud [Reuters]

Kia, the little car maker that might not, is launching a retooled Rio Pride with a hybrid engine. Not much information right now, but this high-tech dashboard shot makes it look like Luke’s land speeder.

It’s very interesting watching hybrids take off even in traditionally “fossil fuels or bust” areas. Anecdotally, the Toyota dealer down the street here in the heart of goomba Brooklyn has a 2/1 standard/hybrid ratio right now as evidence by the number of SUVs and sedans they park on the sidewalk and that I have to push the baby stroller around.

2007 Kia Rio (Pride) Hybrid/Rio Facelift (China) [CarSpyShots via Jalopnik]