Not much has changed in the year since we last checked in with the Livescribe Pulse, the smartpen that captures and syncs your handwriting and audio back to your PC or Mac using a built-in infrared camera and mic. Today we get a new titanium color on the outside and bump from 2GB ($170) to 4GB ($200) within. There’s also a tease of an Application Store launch later this year. Oh boy, that’s exactly what’s been holding back the smartpen industry from replacing all those pesky laptops in collegiate lecture halls.
Looks like our tipsters were spot-on. The Scottsdale Arizona Microsoft Store is indeed opening on October 22nd as we heard, the first of many we expect to grace local strip malls across the country. “Be entertained,” “Be excited,” and “Be early” (doors open at 10AM), exclaim the ads in the Arizona Republic newspaper, to collect gift bags and concert tickets being given away to the first 1,000 visitors. And wow, Ashley Tisdale… we guess Tony Danza was busy that day.
What a difference two months make. It’s was late July when we first saw a render and spy shot of Motorola’s “other” Android devices, the Verizon-bound Droid, a.k.a. the Artist Formerly Known as Sholes. Boy Genius Report has been teasing the handset for the better part of the week, and now it’s giving us the full monty of the hardware, including its 5 megapixel autofocus camera on the back, and various Eclair-powered screens. Boy Genius himself notes that it’s the fastest Android device he’s used — thank goodness for an authentic OMAP3 — is “slightly” thicker than an iPhone 3GS, runs that Android 2.0 we’ve been hearing so much about, and includes a desktop cradle that turns the Droid into a glanceable display with weather and the like (sounds like a miniature Hub in a way, doesn’t it?). Anyhow, you want all to see the whole show? You know just where to click.
It’s been almost an entire year since we heard a peep from the good lads and ladies at Dane-Elec, but those very individuals have today informed us that a few USB 3.0 drives are on the way from its labs. ‘Course, we’d like to point out that it’s being a little ambitious with that whole “world’s first” thing, but given the youth of the format, we’ll take all the competition (and excitement) we can get. The outfit’s So SuperSpeed line of external drives will soon be taking on the US market, offering consumers up to 250MBps data transfers starting on December 11th. Sizes will range from 500GB to 2TB (in both 2.5- and 3.5-inch forms), and we’re told that the SSD options (80GB and 160GB) will indeed be Intel-branded under the hood. Looking for prices? Sure you are — they’re just past the break.
Details are scarce, since the official launch won’t happen until January 7 at CES next year, but Plastic Logic is looking to crash into the “pro” segment of the e-reader market (currently mostly occupied by the Kindle DX) with its upcoming QUE proReader. The unit uses E Ink Vizplex tech in a shatterproof display the size of a regular piece of paper at 8.5 x 11-inches, and has 3G wireless capabilities courtesy of AT&T and a business-centric ebook store at QUEreader.com which will be powered by Barnes & Noble. There’s also a touchscreen interface, but it’s unclear if that covers the entire display, or is something more akin to the leaked photos we’ve seen of the Barnes & Noble reader. The device is “less than 1/3-inch thick,” and can handle PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents, including tools for “interacting with and managing the content,” which sounds beyond the scope of most e-readers on the market currently. We’ll have to wait and see how useful the interface really is, and how much damage (if any) that touchscreen sensor does to readability, but a bit of diversification in the ebook space sounds like a good thing on paper. Full PR is after the break.
Livescribe has announced new Pulse smartpens, which digitally capture and sync handwriting and audio and make me wish I was still in college taking notes. Options now include 4GB and 2GB versions in a new titanium color. The $199.95 4GB model holds 400 hours of recorded audio, and will be compatible with Livescribe’s upcoming Application Store when it launches later this year; the 2GB model rings in at $169.95.
The company also unveiled the Pro-Pack bundle, aimed at business professionals. It includes the 4GB Pulse smartpen in an exclusive black color, an A5 starter notebook, a leather carrying case, handwriting-to-text conversion software, and the company’s Pro Charging Cradle, which looks like an ink well and charges the Pulse from a USB port or power outlet. The Pro-Pack bundle costs $249.95.
Plastic Logic is a dark horse in the ebook reader business, having shown off prototypes of a large, decent-looking capacitive touchscreen ebook reader. Today that reader gets a shiny black finish and an official name—Que.
Yes, they’re calling it the Que, not like “what” in Spanish, but like the letter Q, as in “queue.” It will have a letter-sized (8.5″ x 11″) screen that’s not only “shatterproof” but has a capacitive touch layer that does not appear to get in the way of the E Ink display. We saw this at the D conference back in July, and it looked great then—way better than Sony’s joke of an ebook touchscreen, and doesn’t require a stylus like IRex’s. Even so, Plastic Logic’s boss, Richard Archuleta, told me that the faint honeycomb you can see in the video we shot is now gone, too. It is, from what we can tell, the best ebook touchscreen out there.
Other features of the player include AT&T 3G and Wi-Fi, and the ability to sketch and play with documents. (See Blam’s video below for a general idea.) It will come in a sleek metallic black casing, like what would happen if a Naboo Cruiser went over to the Dark Side. The company is only showing off these teaser pics of the new look, though you can get a pretty good sense of the overall design by comparing the teaser pics with the prototype’s shape.
As nice as it is, Plastic says again and again that it is not going after the Kindle market. They promise to reveal, at CES in January, a comprehensive platform for mobile professionals, namely document management. The goal is to have this thing replace all of the pages that people print out when working away from their offices. Even though Barnes & Noble is a content partner, it seems reading pulp fiction on it will just be a side perk. As you can probably tell, this sort of pitch screams out that the as-yet-unannounced price will not be low. [Plastic Logic]
The relatively long-running beer TV commercials for Kirin featuring famous parents with their children (or famous children with their parents) have been rather shamelessly copycatted by Suntory this autumn for their Premium Malts brand.
In the latter, “Japanese Mick Jagger” Eikichi Yazawa stars with his daughter, (newly turned) singer Yoko. Kirin, on the other hand, focus a lot on actors and sports stars. Their approach is more documentary, with snippets of seemingly genuine conversation played under a famously nostalgic song. Suntory adopt a more snazzy and polished CM style, shot in a pseudo black-and-white (except for the golden frothy brew) and with ingratiating smiles from the star.
Admittedly, Suntory has used Yazawa (whose rather smug face adorns posters and TV ads for Sony too) and other celebrities for some time, but this more recent decision to create the parent-child scenario is clearly a rip-off.
Plastic Logic has given a name–but not a launch date–for its forthcoming e-reader.
The e-book reader, which can display electronic books as well as PDFs, PowerPoint, and other business documents, will be dubbed the Que, the company is announcing this week. Plastic Logic said it will show off the Que …
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
