Steve Essell hates the new two-tone Apple designs — the aluminum and black iMac, the black, white and shiny metal iPhone and most of all, the white on brushed aluminum keyboards.
What did he do? He grabbed a can of white paint and sprayed the heck out of the Apple keyboard, finishing with the minimalist artifact seen above. Spectacular. Until the paint starts to wear off, that is. And yes, Essell can touch type, thank goodness.
Just One Colour [Essell/Flickr via Cult of Mac]
And I mean "fantastic" in the sense of "fantasy", not of "amazing" — some of these designs have a distinctly Dyson-like feel to them.
The designs are from a feature in a 1991 issue of the Japanese magazine Axis, found in a second-hand bookstore in Newtown, Australia by Apple fan Zac Davies. Being a dutiful member of the Mac community, he scanned each page and posted them all to Flickr.
What you see above what is called the "Time Band", which appears to be a kind of wrist-mounted Newton. Ugly, but certainly a hot item for the cyber-nerd. While the designs are fascinating, its actually more interesting that Apple used to make public its concept designs. Can you imagine this happening now, on Steve Jobs’ watch?
Apple concepts [Flickr/Zac Davies]
Whacky Apple concept designs from 1991 you’ve never seen before [MacTalk]
In a fit of editorial sobriety, reader Noel just sent us this handy “1 million devices sold” graphic above. The image demonstrates the speed (in terms of days) at which each competing handset achieved the magic milestone. What it leaves out is the footprint at launch which of course, affects the total population able to purchase the device. For example, the iPhone 3G launched in 21 countries simultaneously whereas the G1 launched in the US only. It’s also worth noting that the precision reflects that of the announcements made. For example, VZW announced that the Storm hit 1M “through January” which could be interpreted as January 31st or January 27th, the day of the announcement — and that’s just US sales. Still, the table is a valuable tool for the fanboy braggarts and budding marketeers amongst you. Data after the break.
[Thanks, Noel F.]
Continue reading Days to 1 million: the smartphone wars
Filed under: Cellphones
Days to 1 million: the smartphone wars originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Chris Harrison and Scott Hudson, from the Carnegie Mellon University, have come up with a way to fake some pretty convincing 3D using nothing but a standard, single webcam, so videoconferencers can actually look behind the people they are talking to.
This head-slappingly simple idea uses something that will be familiar to old-school video gamers — parallax. The video explains this very well, but for those of you who like to read, here’s how it works.
First, the software separates the subject (let’s say me, on a Skype call to my mother) from the background. It does this by either remembering the bits of the picture that don’t move and building the background up over time, or by simply taking a snap when I’m not there. Then the subject is reimposed on the background.
At the other end, the program tracks my mother’s head using face recognition software. When she moves her head, the layers in the image slide over each other to give the illusion of parallax and therefore 3D.
It’s ingenious, and we wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple bought this up, patented it and stuck it in iChat. After all, the software already runs on a Mac — look at the video.
Pseudo-3D Video Conferencing with a Generic Webcam [Chris Harrison. Thanks, Hesham!]
It’s a rumor, but it’s a good one. According to Russian website Photogenius, Olympus has a couple of chunky compact digicams lined up for launch, most probably at the PMA tradeshow in Las Vegas this coming March. Both will be based on the Micro Four Thirds standard, the Panasonic/Olympus double-team which promises tiny SLR cameras.
The "leaked" specs say that there will be the M-1, with a 3.2" LCD, a 12-45 ƒ2.4-3.5 lens that can shoot hi-def video up to 1080p, joined by the M-100 with a 14-70 ƒ3.5-5.6 lens. Interestingly, the M-100 is supposed to look just like the concept camera which Olympus showed at Photokina last September, the hot looking number pictured above.
From what we can tell, the cameras will have, despite their compact camera looks, interchangeable lenses, and there may be another lens announced soon after the cams — a 45-150 ƒ2.8-4 with the reassuringly accurate weight of 550 grams (19 Oz). As usual, we’ll have to wait and see, but if this thing works as good as it looks, Olympus could have a hit.
Camera format specifications Micro 4 / 3 from Olympus [Photogenius via Engadget]
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The global economic downturn and rising Yen have claimed another victim: the LCD partnership between Sony and Sharp. The joint venture to make and sell large LCD panels has now been pushed to March 2010 — the same date that Sharp’s new LCD factory in Sakai is still scheduled to open. So one way or another you’ll be able to snag the next generation Sharp- or Sony-branded LCD television assuming, a) the companies survive, and b) you still have a job. What, too pessimistic?
Sharp and Sony delay LCD joint venture, not that it matters originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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In a fiscal climate where profit margin reigns intensely supreme, we’ve got yet another dollop of bad news to heap upon the parfait of pain that is the $199 (after $50 mail in rebate) BlackBerry Storm. Research firm, iSuppli, estimates that the cost for the components and assembly of RIM’s BlackBerry Storm are just shy of $203 — an estimate that does not include software development and uh, bug fixing costs or those attributed to patent licensing, physical distribution, marketing or anything else in the product lifecycle. The most costly component is the $35 Qualcomm MSM7600 processor that gives the Storm its dual GSM / CDMA personality. Now, $203 isn’t that big of a spread compared to the per unit cost of a $175 8GB iPhone 3G, $169 BlackBerry Bold, or $144 T-Mobile G1. However, the lost prophets profits add up quickly when you’ve moved over a million units globally.
P.S. We’re not implying that RIM is losing money here (the price is obviously carrier subsidized), only that the Storm is likely less profitable than its peers. But without knowing what VZW pays on a per unit basis, we can’t say for sure who’s getting the fiscal-shaft.
Filed under: Cellphones
iSuppli: BlackBerry Storm costs $4 more than its purchase price to build originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The photo above is my wife at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas. The suitcase is open as she removes stuff. It was about six pounds overweight. In America today overweight baggage is priced like printer ink–outrageously!
I’m not sure if mortified is the right word, but she wasn’t exactly thrilled at airing her dirty laundry in public (literally) as the world passed by. Knowing her as I do this wasn’t going to happen again. Today the answer to her problems arrived in the mail.
Filed under: Cellphones
Nokia rests on laurels, launches 6700, 6303, and 2700 classic handsets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Remember that DARPA initiative from a few years back to create cyborg insects? With funding from the agency, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have managed to control a rhinoceros beetle via radio signals, demonstrated in a flight test shown on video at this week’s IEEE MEMS 2009 conference. A module placed on the arthropod uses six electrodes affixed to the brain and muscles to commandeer its free will. The device weighs 1.3g — much less than the 3g payload these guys can handle, and with enough wiggle room to attach sensors for surveillance. Ultimately, scientists say they want to use the beetle’s own sensors — namely, its eyes — to capture intel and its own body energy to power the apparatus. Keep an eye on this one, we expect it to play a major role in the impending robots vs. humans war.
[Thanks, Mimosa]
Cyborg beetles commandeered for test flight, laser beams not (yet) included originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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