Hasta La Gadget!

We understand that Sony has a long way to go in making up the losses it’s incurred by selling the PS3 at a loss — even if it was commanding the highest price in the industry the whole while — but if this latest word on manufacturing costs is correct, we’d say Sony has some room to get the console under that dastardly $400 mark. During an overseas call with investors over Sony’s Q1 financials, Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony’s CFO and Executive VP, apparently stated that manufacturing costs for the PS3 are down 70 percent, which is right “on schedule.” While there’s no official cost published by Sony, those in the know estimate the console originally cost around $800 to produce, and should be down to roughly $240 at this point. Maybe a holiday price cut is in the cards? Boy, we sure hope so. Either that, or he’s already spouting off the PS3 Slim‘s production cost, which is a win for everybody.

[Via Joystiq]

Filed under: Gaming

PS3 manufacturing costs down 70 percent? Strange, it doesn’t feel that way originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week in the App Store it may as well’ve been 1991: We’ve got Lollapalooza! Monkey Island! Novel self-help strategies! Glittery-clothed strippers! And last but not nearly least, everyone’s favorite defunct supermarket tabloid! The Golden Age of culture, people.

Weekly World News: Now is neither the time nor place to get into my deep appreciation of the WWN, and I feel their blurb says enough:

For over 30 years, the Weekly World News has been the World’s ONLY Reliable News Source. The Weekly World News bares the TRUTH about UFOs, aliens, monsters, Elvis’ whereabouts, cryptids, popular celebrities, and the mutant freaks that live among us.

Considering you can get the entire archives of the paper for free on Google Books, it seems dumb that this $1 app only gives you access to covers, though the add-your-own-face feature is pretty neat. Granted, this could have been a content ratings thing, because half of the dead magazine’s columnists were basically insane, or sexist, or some other terrible kind of “ist.” It’s part of the charm! [via Gawker]

Pocket Dancer: A 3D lady will dance a sad little dance while you spin her around with your finger and occasionally change the floor lighting. Fact: There is absolutely no way to use this without looking and feeling like a creep. One dollar!

Booyah Society : Pulling ourselves out of the slime, here’s the high concept app for the week: Booyah Society assigns arbitrary point values to day-to-day achievements, creatings a sort of WoW-ish self-help game, integrates with Twitter and Facebook. Despite how it sounds, it’s not at all pathetic or annoying; I can easily see how someone who already broadcasts their every action on social networks could get hooked on this. Free.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition: Diehard fans see Monkey Island titles as the zenith of 2D adventure gaming, while most people who grew up in the early 90s just remember them as being pretty fun. I’m guessing only one of those two groups will be willing to drop the full $8 on this, but to be fair to LucasArts, the game translates well to the iPhone and it’s pretty massive.

Lollapalooza: Sharing its concept and design with the excellent Coachella app from last year, this free download helps you find your way around the only legendary music festival ever to be ruined by the advent of txt speak.

This Week’s App News on Giz:

• TheXchange: Will This Porn iPhone App Survive the Apple Banhammer?

• iDisk iPhone App Lightning Review: Halfway There

• Soon We’ll Be Able to Search the App Store For More Than Exact Product Names

• Apple’s Chickenshit Approval Process Has Gone Too Far

• EA Bringing Madden, FIFA Franchises to the iPhone

• iPhone Owners Score Free MobileMe iDisk App

• Offender Locator Tracks Sex Offenders on Your iPhone

• iWet T-Shirts: Yet Another iPhone App That Makes Me Shake My Head in Shame

• GV Mobile Google Voice App Available For Free On The iPhone via Cydia

• Nissan Developing iPhone App to Monitor Electric Cars

• Apple Rejects Official Google Voice iPhone App

• Multiplayer Chess iPhone App Is Very Cool, But Probably Won’t Be a Bestseller

• GV Mobile Google Voice iPhone App Getting Booted From App Store for Usual Ridiculous Reasons

• Spotify iPhone App Kills Pandora, Last.FM, Slacker and iTunes in One Shot

• Weirdest Use of Spreadsheets I’ve Ever Heard

• Man, Don’t Choices Suck?

• Passion iPhone App Will Let You ‘See How Good You Are at Sex’

• Resident Evil 4 Brings More Re-Killing Zombies to the iPhone

• Top Three iPhone Apps: Weed, Booze, and Partial Nudity

• Apple Will Let iPhone Apps Augment Our Sad Little Realities in September With OS 3.1

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

One part gadget, one part art project, and 100% awesome, the Cybraphon is a MacBook powered, Arduino-based mechanical band housed in an antique wardrobe. Including an organ, cymbals, a motor-driven Indian Shruti box (played with 13 robotic servos, no less), and a gramophone, it relies on infrared motion detectors to sense when it has an audience. A number of factors, including the amount of attention it gets on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, help the device determine its “mood,” which in turn determines when the “band” plays, and what material it selects. According to one of the artist / inventors, the Cybraphon is a “tongue-in-cheek comment on people’s obsession with online celebrity. We modeled it on an insecure, egotistical band.” That’s our favorite kind! And you know, the thing doesn’t sound half bad. Check it out for yourself after the break.

Continue reading Video: Arduino-based ‘insecure, egotistical’ robot band

Filed under: Robots

Video: Arduino-based ‘insecure, egotistical’ robot band originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ariel Waldman contributes Movie Gadget Friday, where she highlights the lovable and lame gadgets from the world of cinema.

On our last episode of Movie Gadget Friday, we rode around the robotics-dependent world of Runaway. Traversing from robots-gone-wrong to “wire-tripping”-technology-junkies, this week jacks-in to the cyberpunk streets of LA in Strange Days. While lacking in computer gadgetry, there is no shortage of leather pants, grunge metal, huge cell phones and random rioting in this 1995 film. Keeping true to the times, we can’t get over how even the murderer commits crimes while managing to sport a fanny pack.

SQUID Receptor Rig

Short for Super-conducting Quantum Interference Device, the SQUID receptor rig consists of a two-part system: a lightweight, flexible mesh of electrodes and a recorder. The technology had originally been developed for the feds to replace body wires, but has since leaked onto the black market. The SQUID acts as a magnetic field measurement tool on a micro level. By placing the electrodes over your head and activating the recorder, your first-person audio-visual-sensory experience is recorded wirelessly, direct from the cerebral cortex onto a TDK 60-minute MiniDisc. The rig can also be hacked using a signal splitter and simstim attachment – allowing someone else to experience your experience in real-time. Optional accessories for the rig include a fanny pack for closely storing the recorder and various wigs for concealing your otherwise obvious surveillance of others.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to directly upload these recordings to the net, leaving room for inefficient, in-person, illegal “playback” dealings of MiniDiscs similar to buying and selling drugs. From sex to committing crimes, clients to the self-proclaimed “switchboard of souls” dealers are able to jack-in to a variety of illicit activities without leaving their home. More after the break.

Continue reading Movie Gadget Friday: Strange Days

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Movie Gadget Friday: Strange Days originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here at CNET, we’ve taken a skeptical eye toward the high-end market for Blu-ray players. When videophile experts like the Criterion Collection and Joe Kane extol the image quality of the PlayStation 3, it’s hard to see why anybody would spend more than $1,000 on a player. …