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Though no screen under the keyboard (if I understood the ASUS article right). http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/01/04/lenovos-u1-is-a-netbook-with-removable-tablet/

Ah yes, greater variety in fart generator applications is really high on my list of features I want from a phone.

Out of curiosity, did Final Fantasy make it to Android?

Yes. Every NES, SNES (I think), and Genesis game is on Android via emulators. Here's a review of a NES emulator: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/26/quick-review-nesoid-nes-emulator-for-android/

I guess it's not legal, but if you're willing to go the emulator route you pay only $2 for thousands of NES games instead of the $9 I just spent on Final Fantasy on the iPhone.

Please re-read what I posted.

Reading distance is a function of the reader, its power, its sensitivity. It has nothing to do with the tag.

Any RIFD tag can be read at distances far greater than advertised.

The US State Department had no sooner stated that US passports could not be read at a distance of more than a foot when someone parked a van on a street and published their ability to read passport numbers at 30 feet as people walked down the street. http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/02/at-what-point-do-you-start-worrying-about-the-rfid-tag-in-your-passport/

There is no reason to suspect an implantable tag would not be similarly readable at distance.

It's de facto illegal to take photos pretty much anywhere in the EU. Unless you're the police, of course.

Having been a lead tester and Nintendo guru at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, two different owners, multiple identity crises), this is a natural trend with Nintendo. Development for the Nintendo 64 was nearly dead when the Nintendo GameCube came out. Development for the Nintendo GameCube was nearly dead when the Nintendo Wii came out. When Nintendo is the only company making games for their console, a new console is just around the corner.

If we have DEVOTED TASKS with known parameters, then robots will excel. Of course, throw in a unexpected change, and then it is anybodies guess. OTH, Humans do a good job of adapting to various conditions. Who knows, maybe down the road, we will send Wild Wendy to do the job and she will do JUST fine.

This prototype really show how high we can get with personal flight vehicles.

Some dudes run it on VNC from their iPhones...

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/04/25/world-of-warcraft-on-the-iphone-heralds-end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it/

Is that close enough?

By the way, how many suits has Apple launched against jailbreakers?

They may not have filed any lawsuits yet, but they have petitioned the DMCA rulemaking committee to declare it illegal.

I take it as a good gesture, though, that Apple is not actively discouraging jailbreaking. Now, unlocking, on the other hand...

"Apple has filed comments to the 2009 DMCA triennial rulemaking committee complaining about jailbreaking and asking that it be deemed illegal."

Not active enough for you?

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/01/02/woman-uses-tape-to-trick-biometric-airport-fingerprint-scan/

and the other one was just posted here on slashdot a few days ago - the woman switched prints from left to right hand

From now on, when officials notice circular scars or other shaped scars around fingertips, they will probably have the person undergo further testing.

However, their cost to check has now gone up by at least 2x, maybe even 10x - they need to manually inspect every person (you can't just check the negatives because if the faker happens to have passed through successfully in the past their 'new' prints will already be in the database).

And this is only one attack vector. We've already seen the korean woman last year who used a practical application of the gummy bear trick to fool the japanese too.

The thing to remember is that these systems will only get less effective as time goes by. All the hype when proposed about how great they are, for whatever intended purpose, represents the best they will ever be - the more familiarity people get with the systems, the more ways people will figure out how to circumvent them.

Kinda warms my freedom loving heart it does.

It was a bad decision on Amazon's part, but it was one they made good on in my opinion:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/04/big-amazon-will-give-you-back-your-copies-if-1984-annotations-wont-be-sent-into-the-chute/

I'm not keen on buying DRM'd e-books. But the fact is that in this case, Amazon showed itself to be capable of treating customers right, and of making the right reparations when standards slip.

how about duct taped to your bicycle helmet?
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/22/iphone-arider-futuristic-iphone-based-hmd-navigation-system-video/

They aren't out yet, but there are some android home phones coming.
NIMble Android desk phone
T-Mobile Android home phone

The Newport Aquarium (across the river from Cincinnati) has an interesting interactive display in the jellyfish exhibit. A 15' video of floating jellyfish is projected on the wall (just a plain white wall). You can bump the jellies with shadow gestures to make them change direction. It's intended to be completely non-contact, but little kids still end up pounding on the wall.

A nice mix of wow factor and secure hardware (except for the poor wall).

For the life of me, I can't remember what the system is called or find it with Google. The closest I can find is http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/05/14/microsoft-touchwall-can-inexpensively-turn-any-flat-surface-into-a-multi-touch-display/

I hope and kind of know that they will use this for non-cellphones like mp3 players and other gadgets. It is seriously stupid the amount of chargers that exist at home...

Actually, depending on the devices you have now and how they charge, you might actually be able to eliminate some of them.

Jut last week I bought a Kensington wall-charger that has four powered USB ports. I can charge my Motorolla phone, my Tom Tom, and two different generations of iPods at the same time.

If your gadgets all charge off 5V USB, you can have a lot of them charging from the same charger. It may not do everything, it actually does charge everything that I have that needs charging. For me, it was money well spent and fit exactly what I needed -- literally the day before I had said "what I really want is a wall charger with four USB ports", so when I found it in the store I bought it immediately.

Cheers

How about a 3x optical zoom lens?

Verizon Casio Exilim

Or move to Japan? A camera with a WVGA OLED
KDDI Casio Exilim CA004

Here's a different one for you that might work.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/30/pre-faltering-palm-laying-off-employees/

Palm didn't lay off workers. That was a rumor by some hack that's been spreading a lot of FUD about Palm lately. Maybe trying to grab some stock after causing a drop, who knows. Palm has a lot of Pre's and is doing better than the expectations of most analysts. Palm actually has 75 job openings listed hiring on for the Pre and WebOS areas. That's after they just hired in the past few days a few well known people from the home-brew scene.

The other link showed phone sales and traffic in different markets and the world in total. The Pre is doing pretty well for only being out ~4 months, being with a single and small carrier, and their app store still being in Beta.

The home-brew scene is busy, and Verizon is picking up the phone in January. Actually Verizon is supposidly getting a slightly updated phone (the rumors are just added disk space).

Don't buy the fud.

I guess Nintendo heard Apple talk about the magical 199$ price tag (warning: lots of photos). Look at around 1:51 PM ~ 1:52 PM:

1:51 PM: Greg Kumparak âoeWe learned something very important a few years back.â
1:51 PM: Greg Kumparak "Essentially, $199 is a magic spot."
1:52 PM: Greg Kumparak "When they dropped from $249 to $199, sales of the past iPod models almost doubled."

So if the same thing happens to Nintendo and the Wii, sales should double from now on until at least Christmas.

Get a Touchbook: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/03/02/touch-book-tablet-netbook-with-arm-cpu-10-hour-battery-detachable-screen/ It is already available and quite cheap.

Or This

Both Vista and Windows 7 were sold as pre-orders for a reduced cost. In fact, Windows 7 is doing better than Vista at pre-orders:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/15/in-8-hours-windows-7-pre-orders-overtake-vista-pre-orders/

The prisoners will be executed either way, might as well make them contribute some good to society to offset whatever they were sentenced to death for.

But I think it is safe to say 98% of the people on this planet do not label as 'bad' the crime of having a compatible organ and being near the police at the exact moment one of the rich and powerful people controlling them happens to need an organ to live.

That is the only 'crime' here. You also seem to forget they specifically said they only use people on death row in prison. That is a stated fact you can not deny.
If they were doing this to only 'bad' people it might have room for argument, but they have admitted it is NOT done to bad people, only death row criminals.
For the more dense people out there, that means speaking out against the government, not being 'bad'. True 'bad' criminals get hired by the govt., not arrested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_offences_that_attract_jail_terms_in_China

I bet you also think being 16 years old and playing WoW is a crime WELL worth being put to death for simply because some rich ass wanted a new lung.

Tethering, VOIP, and Google Voice alone would far outpace the iPhones selection of farts and beer glass pouring apps.

The iPhone has VOIP apps in the store (WiFi only, but there they are). You can control Google Voice via web app (remember kids, GV is not VOIP) or by native app on Cydia.

As for tethering, AT&T in theory does not sell it yet but all you have to do is download a file (read the update at the end) to the iPhone and boom, it's enabled in the U.S. - other carriers already offer it. Or again Cydia has "An App For That" but it's honestly way more of a pain to set up and use.

Hmmm.... now I understand the new military project from Apple! http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/08/12/yet-another-exploding-iphone/

Before i went to see it, i'd read that on IMDB, it was around 8/10. Now, it's higher:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/

!8.9! out of 10.

And, at Crunchgear, it's got some high remarks, too.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/08/17/district-9-loved-on-imdb-ranked-89-out-of-10/

I saw it at Metreon in SF, and when i got in, the line had about 200 people ahead of me. 5 minutes after i got into line, some 50 more were behind me, and this was 25 to 30 minutes before starting. After i seated, the auditorium was about 70% full. It has seats for maybe 600, IIRC, (based on the size of the imax one i'd seen Trek in at the same complex). By the time we were 5 minutes from start, it was pretty chock-full. (Yeh, and we had some 12 to 15 minutes of promotionals and trailers...)

After a few anatomic (funny yet gross, gross, yet funny) scenes and some limb damage, a couple walked out. Even tho it was dark, the people to either side of me exchanged glances with me. We smiled, like "Welll.... guess it's not for EVERYbody..."

But, i have to say, whenever i eat prawns, I'll probably ALWAYS think of this excellent film.

Unfortunately Sci fi is a genre that doesn't age well unless its done *really* well. Cheap sets, tacky costumes, poor technology (sorry , a wardrobe with flashing lights and some tapes spinning doesn't cut it in 2009) and bad acting end up making something made in the 70s or 80s almost comical now. One of the few exceptions I can think of is Space 1999 (not sure if the yanks ever got that) which I watched last year and though it looked a bit dated the effects somehow still worked and Martin Landau was/is a fscking good actor.

ROFL, while I generally agree with you-- Space: 1999 is your best example?! The best thing you can say about Space: 1999 now is that its opening credits inspired BSG's. (i.e. credits that contain clips from the episode you're about to see.) Every time the chick who could turn into things (Maya, I think?) turned into something, I nearly died laughing at the ridiculous costume/puppet/whatever.

The Eagle from Space: 1999, though, still holds up as an excellent spaceship model, and one of the most plausible ever put on TV.

Here's some better examples:

1) Buck Rogers from the 80s. Don't laugh. Other than the episodes that featured disco dancing, this show actually still works very well. The effects are definitely passable by modern standards.

2) Blake's 7. This one also holds together well when you remember that the crappy effects were crappy even when the series was originally aired. (That's important to remember, because the effects really are extremely crappy.) Also, Blake's 7 purposefully takes place in an extremely cluttered and busy version of "space", which can make it look like a bad 50s sci-fi movie at times, but I'm sure was done intentionally. (Look at the title screen: http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-content/uploads/blakes7.jpg they have like 7 planets in a single frame!)

3) The original Star Trek. The good thing about being decades ahead of your time is that when you're in re-runs, you still look pretty good. The worst offender in the old Star Trek is the miniskirts. The effects (done on film, as film effects technology were more perfected than video effects) still mostly pass muster, and there's very little dated about the scripts. Some scripts probably seemed *more* cheesy when they aired than they do now-- like the episode that featured space-hippies.

BTW for the importance of Star Trek's film effects, compare Star Trek effects with, say, Blake's 7 or Dr. Who from the same approximate era. The BBC, possibly to save money, insisted on doing all of their effects with video equipment, avoiding film. While they undoubtedly invented tons of new techniques in the process, the results were pretty pathetic.

Like this?

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/11/20/the-diy-3-penny-radio/

the 3 penny radio ;)

i'd like to thank Steve Ballmer for making himself available for this important breakthrough.

Steve says, "show yourself, human!"

I can't believe you got modded to "Insightful". If this was really insightful, it would reference how current UAV operators are dealing with
their job. They're actually having a hard time dealing with it because of the way it doesn't interrupt their otherwise normal life.

It's one thing to be uprooted and housed with a bunch of guys doing the same job. It's something else entirely to get up, go to work,
spike an Al Qaeda operative with a Hellfire (and assess results in realtime) and then drive back home like nothing happened.

Do your fucking homework first, eh?

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/08/09/pilots-of-predator-drones-suffering-ptsd/
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/004348.html

When I first saw the project, I thought that it was entirely too klunky

Eary Image

Where it's at now, however...

Current Prototype

Is looking much more impressive.

The iPhone is already free in Japan and nobody wants it:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/26/iphone-not-selling-well-in-japan-now-available-for-free/

One is what you describe, an iPod touch with a 7' - 9" screen, basically an oversized PDA. It might have an ARM cpu, run Linux or Android. Does any such device that actually exist?

It should soon: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/04/09/crunchtablet-hits-the-net-a-little-early/

Iphone has a higher markup percentage: http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/06/19/apple-only-spends-100-to-build-iphone-3g/

Yup, and I'd love to see how it manages an emergency stop!

Look at the Photo of the thing.
It has wheelie bars on the front and back that prevent it from tipping over on a hard stop.

development was well underway when Danger got bought by MS. That means it was likely cheaper to just continue doing what they were doing rather than scrap the work and start again using Microsoft's stuff.

Hm, if only it worked that way. But out there in Biznis land that kind of rationality rarely prevails in my experience. The "NIH" and "OMG ITZ NOT MS" factors rank higher than "faster, better, cheaper" (i.e. anything not MS).

Plus, executives are, often, ah, "incented" to choose the Microsoft solution in the face of any technical or common sense objection. (See: Windows 4 Warships, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc)

If you live in the what used to be a BellSouth territory, AT&T has to offer "naked" DSL as a requirement for the FCC letting them merge back with Bell. The phone monkeys may give you the run around about it but be firm & keep asking for managers if you get a moron.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/01/02/naked-dsl-from-att-now-available/

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070618-att-launches-10-dsl-it-hopes-no-one-signs-up-for.html

That is why the technically superior Zune was such a hit!

Nah, it's because Barack Obama uses them.

The pieces are finally starting to come together...

• Skynet was first introduced in a film staring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger was born on July 30th.
• On July 30th, 2007 (10 years after Skynet became aware), CrunchGear runs an article about MojoPac, a program that "Puts Your Desktop On A USB Drive". The very type of interface the DoD now sees as a threat. In the article they state that when you use MojoPac, "...the host computer is oblivious to anything going on."
• Foxnews reported the DoD attack on November 20th, 2008. On the same day, the music news magazine, named "Mojo" (following suit with the "MojoPac" software name), ran a snippet saying, "Gun's and Roses are currently previewing all the tracks from Chinese Democracy via their MySpace page." MySpace is an obvious front for Skynet to keep tabs on the younger generations that may pose a threat in the future.
• However, the Mojo article about "Chinese Democracy" was Skynet's way of mocking us in an ironic way that only Skynet finds funny. You see, Arnold Schwarzenegger visited China meeting with "700 Special Olympics athletes ... to focus world attention on the Special Olympics World Summer Games ... held in Shanghai in 2007." Here we see 2007 again, representing the 10 year anniversary of Skynet's sentience, along with Arnold, the celebrity that announced it's existance.

It's all so clear now.

I can't imagine that Nintendo didn't change the security, so the cat and mouse game will continue. Hopefully it won't end. Otherwise *gulp* I'll have to start developing for the iPhone. :(

Why not just develop for something that's actually open, so that you don't have to play cat-and-mouse games with DRM?

Apple really had nothing to do with the new touch screen technologies. The just happened to be in the right place at the right time as third party companies came about perfecting them. The only reason multi touch has become so prevalent now is because patents on them have expired so they are effectively free game. Apple can't hold onto it, and everyone else is free to exploit it.

I beg to differ.

More Apple FingerWorks Patents Surface
Apple wants you to control a touch panel or computer with almost anything
Multi-Touch Technology And Where It's Going Next...Oh And Apple Didn't Invent It Either!
...as of August 2008, [Elias and Westerman] still file patents for Apple, Inc.

How can I put Time Warner in their place? What data do I need to collect? Are there law firms I should contact with the data who would be likely to pursue a class action lawsuit? Paying to be abused like this is outrageous.

I'm tired of scientests refusing to admit the full implications of their work. It hold back society and fosters an atmosphere of complacence. There is no reason at all, if it can be used to control a prosthetic, it can't be used for telepresence, using my computer, driving my car or any thing else. Anything at all.

SomeFYI: NFM (NoFyckingMagic)

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/wild-charge-hands+on-really-does-charge-wirelessly-227215.php
http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/07/08/wildcharger-charges-wirelessly/
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/university-of-florida/3792-wireless-charging-station-video.htm

All electronic products I know of use DC operationally, AC is just for power distribution over distances and throughout the house/biz.

So, yes, presently all electronics (radio/tv ... phone/ipod) or their chargers have transformers and/or rectifiers the adjust AC-voltage levels and/or convert AC to DC electricity.

Anyway, home/biz with WCS could buy products in the future that weigh less, are smaller, cheaper, and use have far less wires/plugs in a mess.

Sorry, I think you missed my point. I wasn't really dissing the eye per say. In fact, I rather appreciate my own. I was only pointing out that biology tends to reach local optima at which point further improvements become impossible. Whereas the fields of engineering thrive on completely new ideas being added which break out of local optima.

Case in point, you pointed out that mammalian eyes focus by slight deformation rather than moving two lenses. Liquid lenses are now on the horizon, and they should offer similar capabilities. What takes billions of years to evolve can be used as a model for engineering with rapid integration.

It is likely that we will eventually become technologically capable of producing something brain-like. Once that happens, it is likely that we will be able to use what we've already learned as well as the models for how a brain can work that mother nature came up with to produce something every bit as capable.

This isn't to say that we'll produce something with the same power signature or that is as small any time soon. But, per my original point, once we do reach this phase of technology, it is highly likely that the new brain will be inferior in some (or many) features and superior in a few. However, the things that the artificial brain is worse at will decline in number over time. This is what has happened in virtually every scientific field and every technology over time. The only real issues I think we can take are whether Kurzweil is right that it will be exponential, and whether or not his timeline is within the bounds of reason.

tm

Here's a review with a pictures of the back of the unit.

I just posted a link above, reporting on the MB Air's shitty market performance to date. Here are a couple more.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/02/12/resellers-say-macbook-air-sales-arent-as-brisk-as-original-macbook/
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/165960/macbook-air-sales-deflated.html

I can't locate sales figures for the 12" PB G4, but I can state anecdotally that I saw many of them, with satisfied owners. A reasonably fierce following, too. Conversely, I have not seen a single MB Air nor do I know anyone, including all members of a Mac users' mailing list I am on, who owns one or even wants to. I don't think Apple chose the most profitable market segment here.