Hasta La Gadget!

This is the Tactical Bail Out Gear Bag, and everyone should have one. The bag, originally designed for (and still in use by) the LAPD and US military, is now at v5.0, adding such niceties as polyester lining in the pockets to keep your iPod scratch-free, a wider strap and a few new colors (they’re all still black or drab, but at least there’s a choice of which dirty brown you buy).

Look at this thing. It has a pocket for everything, although you should probably write a list of what you put where so it doesn’t take you a half hour to relocate your keys. The bag also gets a little more civilian-friendly, with the long flashlight pocket being swapped out for one that will take “your emergency shaving kit and toothbrush”.

The wussification isn’t complete, though. You’ll still find a “hidden full size gun pocket”, a “Stinger/Surefire pocket” and “four accessory pockets for gun magazines, etc”.

The really great part is the price — just $20, down from $60. Forgive my enthusiasm, but I have a known weakness for bags, especially ones that look as useful as this. Will it work as a camera bag? I will be finding out…

Product page [LA Police Gear via Uncrate]

That Microsoft’s new PC ads are misleading is clear — comparing a fat, heavy, low-resolution HP laptop to a MacBook Pro just because it has the same 17” screen-size is obvious bunk. It’s like comparing me to Muhammad Ali because we have the same height (6’3”, if you care).

But we’re used to this sort of nonsense, usually when Steve Ballmer (the Prince Philip of the computer world) opens his mouth. What is surprising is that Apple has actually gone public with a rare reply. Speaking to Business Week, Apple’s Bill Evans said:

 

A PC is no bargain when it doesn’t do what you want. The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool. With its great designs and advanced software, nothing matches it at any price.

Ouch! Ouch? Not quite. Considering the strength of the argument, this is one lame reply. It starts strong, but then slips into rather wishy-washy talk of being “cool”, exactly the same point that Microsoft is trying to make in the ads.

Still, something must have stung Apple to provoke a single word being uttered to the press, which means that it a) hates Macs being called expensive or b) hates it when Microsoft plays the same game as Apple, directly insulting the competition (as in the Mac vs. PC ads, which have curiously dried up).

To be sure, this is of minor importance in the real world, but watching the two heavyweights of the consumer computer industry bitch-slapping each other in public is hugely entertaining. Forget Woz on Dancing with the Stars — I vote for Jobs and Ballmer to both be contestants on the next series of Survivor.

Mac vs. PC: What You Don’t Get for $699 [Business Week]

Photo: jeffmcneill/Flickr

If you’re looking to put an inline remote on your iPod, Griffin has one new way to do it — and it adds that oldest of old-school wireless music sources, FM radio.

Griffin’s Navigate plugs into the dock connector, bypassing the pesky requirement for chips that may or may not be DRM for headphones. This has another advantage — aside from piping the music, hot and steaming, to your headphones, the Navigate can also display track info in the OLED screen and give access to EQ, playlists and shuffle modes. And did we mention it has an FM radio? Try to stay awake at the back.

You might scoff — after all, this thing is bigger than an iPod Shuffle and it’s just a remote. But Griffin makes some good points, especially about restoring the tactile feedback of the clickwheel iPods to the Touch and iPhone. Apple has gone some way to addressing this with the clicky inline remote on the latest earbuds, but then you are limited to those same crappy earbuds. With Griffin’s widget you can plug in any cans you like.

All this and an FM radio for listening to ads interspersed with the occasional hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Available now, works with any recent iPod that has a dock connector, $60.

Product page [Griffin. Thanks, Evie!]

See Also:

• Hands-On with Griffin’s TuneBuds Mobile
• Griffin iTalk: Free Voice Recording for iPhone

Early this morning, Peter Sunde, co-founder of the Pirate Bay, glumly tweeted a “leaked” verdict, indicating that things didn’t look good for the four Swedish shipmates. Shortly after came the official word: Guilty.

After a decidedly entertaining trial replete with posturing, theatrics and serious cockiness, the four co-founders of the torrent site were found to have been accessories to copyright infringement, each face a year in prison, and must pay $3.5m in damages to Sony, Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures and others.

Although he could be going to jail soon, Sunde is still quick to make a joke:

Really, it’s a bit LOL. It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.

Ha? However, his casualness might be warranted, as the appeals process—which could bring the case all the way to the Swedish Supreme Court—is expected to stretch out for years. As for what will happen to the site? Sunde reassures:

Stay calm – Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing what so ever. This is just a theater for the media.

This hasn’t been the best week for pirates, really. [TheLocal —Thanks, Jonathan!]

Before phones show up at retail, they start showing up in totally random places in China — it’s basically a law of physics. And once that happens, they almost inevitably end up posted in a forum somewhere, and… well, you can gather where that leads. Chinese firm Ludle — which, according to its own description is in the business of “exploiting, producing and selling” — somehow came across a Pre (or possibly just an empty shell thereof), and a staff member took the time to do a quick set of comparo shots against a Centro and iPhone 3G. He notes that the Pre gets clogged with fingerprints as easily as the iPhone but handles scratching on the back a little better; the front is a different story, though, where the iPhone’s glass display wins. He goes on to say that the phone is currently in mass production (we’d certainly hope so), but what we don’t know is whether we’re looking at a CDMA version for Sprint or the GSM variant destined for sundry networks around the globe. We’ll take either, personally.

[Via PreThinking and TreoCentral]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Palm Pre finds a totally unofficial home in China originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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