Solid Alliance’s new earbuds are ‘crazy,’ ugly

So, you broke the bank (and several credit cards) picking up that uber-stylish Acronym GT-J14 earbud-friendly jacket only to find that no one even noticed? Or perhaps your Lady GaGa-approved beats couldn’t endure the Paris Is Burning-style bad craziness you put ’em through? Well, it looks like it’s time to sell a pint of plasma and use the cash for some psychedelic (and highly unfortunate) Crazy Earphones from Solid Alliance. Featuring a banana, a kitty paw print, sushi, or a Frankenstein’s monster-esque bolt affectation, we promise you that a pair of these will get you noticed. But not in the good way. Pre-order now for $22, shipping in December.

[Via Akihabara]

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Solid Alliance’s new earbuds are ‘crazy,’ ugly originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Barnes Noble Unveils Nook E-Reader

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It wasn’t exactly the best-kept secret in the industry. After months of rumors and a few proverbial cats let out of the bag the morning of by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Barnes & Noble yesterday made official its stab at the e-book market–The Nook.

The book giant’s Kindle killer is Android-based, as speculated, and features two screens (also rumored prior to release)–one a standard electronic ink display for reader and one color touch screen. The reader also features 3G connectivity via AT&T (good luck using it in New York) and Wi-Fi, which can be accessed in Barnes & Noble retail locations.

The reader will begin shipping the end of next month for $259. The first 10,000 customers who pre-order will receive a free copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point.

ReelDirector: Desktop Movie Editing on the iPhone

File this one under “sent from the future”. ReelDirector is a pretty full-featured movie editor, and its for the iPhone.

When I was at university in the 1990s, you edited on tape in a purpose built edit suite. It was slow, unintuitive and if you wanted to change a cut at the beginning of the film, you’d have to start over or lose quality to yet another generation of copying. Avid, a computer based, non-linear suite, was available, but cost tens of thousands, and I dreamed of the day I’d be able to edit my own computer.

Now, not only can you use a tiny pocket device to shoot video that’s arguably better than I got on a Hi8 camera, but you can now edit that video on the same device.

ReelDirector costs just $8, and lets you do pretty much all of what iMovie does on the desktop. You can trim and reorder clips, choose transitions (my favorite is the rather unfortunately-named “Wipe Bottom Soft”) and add titles. When you are done, it will render a movie, ready to be watched or shunted up to YouTube.

For you youngsters this might not seem that impressive, but for old-timers, who saw huge machines that couldn’t do this much just a few years ago, ReelDirector is a quite amazing demonstration of the march of technology.

Product page [Nexvio via Oh Gizmo]


Yamaha’s PDX-60 wireless iPod / iPhone dock adds yAired to the lexicon

Sony’s got its S-AIR, Yamaha has its yAired — so, what of it? The outfit famous for making just about everything from ATVs to wicked soundbars has today introduced a classy addition to the oversaturated iPod / iPhone sound system market: the PDX-60. Apple loyalists simply dock their media player in the wireless base and watch as the tunes are streamed effortlessly into the magical box on the other side. There’s also remote control capability for keeping tabs on that playlist whilst planted on the sofa, and the dock can even power on and off automatically with “yAired-enabled iPhones / iPods.” The music maker itself boasts a pair of 3.25-inch speakers and a digital amplifier of undisclosed wattage, and it’s available in black, gray, blue or pink for $299.95. So, any takers, or are you stickin’ with Bose?

Continue reading Yamaha’s PDX-60 wireless iPod / iPhone dock adds yAired to the lexicon

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Yamaha’s PDX-60 wireless iPod / iPhone dock adds yAired to the lexicon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Raytheon deploying Android-powered RATS on battlefields in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Raytheon deploying Android-powered RATS on battlefields in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Android, Android everywhere. Android, Android in my hair. In my Nook and in my car, in my netbook and in my… wait, Afghanistan? It seems defense contractor Raytheon, creators of the famous “pain ray“, have launched a device called RATS: the Raytheon Android Tactical System. It allows soldiers to mark other soldiers and even UAVs as “buddies,” then track their position in real time on a map, even picking up streaming video coming from above — sort of like Latitude but putting a whole new spin on stalking. No word on how soldiers like their new devices so far, but once a Twitter app is added we’re sure they won’t shut up about it.

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Raytheon deploying Android-powered RATS on battlefields in Afghanistan and Pakistan originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hands-On With the International Kindle and Its Surprise Web Access

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Two days after launch, Amazon’s international Kindle has started to show up on doorsteps around the world, including mine. For those outside the United States, the Kindle has until now been a curiosity. Now it’s a way for English speakers everywhere to get quick and cheap access to otherwise hard-to-find books. On Monday, we summed up the problems with the rather contemptuous attitude Amazon has shown with the “international” Kindle. Today we take a look at how the actual hardware shapes up.

When I first opened the package (with its cute “Once upon a time” tagline), I tried to peel the sticker off the screen, giving instructions on charging and switching on. This was, of course, the e-ink screen, a novelty in these parts. But of course, y’all across the pond have known that for a couple years already. On to the differences.

The first moan we had was about the power adapter. The Kindle ships internationally with a U.S. plug. This is in fact a USB wall-wart, and could easily be swapped out. The included USB cable, of course, works fine anywhere. Result: Not as bad as we thought, especially for me, as I have a U.S./E.U. adapter always in the wall for testing products from the States.

Next up, wireless. The new machine’s full name is “Kindle with U.S. and International Wireless”, and it uses a GSM cellular radio which works pretty much everywhere in the world. Service is provided by AT&T with a roaming agreement, something that means U.S. travelers have to pay extra for content to be delivered when they are away from home. It also means that, as we previously complained, many users don’t get the web browsing features. This turns out to be only half true, as we shall discover in a moment

The connection is supposed to be 3G, but it was dead slow. I bought David Byrne’s new book, The Bicycle Diaries, and it took a couple of minutes to arrive, despite being just 4.4 MB. Still, these are e-books, so there’s no real hurry.

The big surprise is that web browsing does work. Or at least, you can visit one and only one site. This is not Amazon.com (although you can of course browse the Kindle Store from the device). It is Wikipedia. If you were to choose just one web site to visit, it would probably be Wikipedia, and even without pictures it is very useful. There’s just one problem: You can only visit http://en.m.wikipedia.org/. Want to access the Spanish version, in Spain? Tough.

Am I pleased to have it? Hell yes. I do almost all my reading on my iPod Touch these days, so the Kindle’s bigger, sharper screen and longer battery life are welcome. I’d love to have a real web browser in there, along with PDF support, but the ability to have instant access to thousands of books in my own language is worth the price on its own. Oh, and the leather case (bought separately), is nice, too.

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Photo credit: Charlie Sorrel


Windows 7 breaks Amazon UK pre-order volume record, ousts Harry Potter

Take it from us, your London-based sleuths, when anything sells faster than Harry Potter books or DVDs in the UK, it’s scorching hot. Case in point is Microsoft’s Vista successor, which has sold so well that it has beaten the Amazon UK pre-order record previously held by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In fact, Windows 7 was able to tally up more sales in the first 8 hours of pre-order availability than Vista was able to collect altogether. Now that’s what we call an upgrade.

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Windows 7 breaks Amazon UK pre-order volume record, ousts Harry Potter originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM shows off its Mali mobile processors with impressive 3D demos, also bowling (video)

ARM shows off its Mali mobile processors with impressive 3D demos, also bowling (video)

It’s been a long time since ARM last bragged about its Mali line of high-end mobile processors, telling us back in March how the 200 and 400 models were going to bring high-def 3D performance to tiny gadgets. Finally we have some videos to go with the hype, two demonstrations showing the phone’s admittedly impressive polygon-shuffling tech. The demos feature the lower-end Mali-200 rendering everything at 720p, playing some simple videos and also handling a rather complex 3D contact navigation system that looks both flashy and painful to use. ARM says “play a game of bowling like never before and you’ll get hooked by the magic of Mali.” Click on through already, and prepare to be hooked.

Continue reading ARM shows off its Mali mobile processors with impressive 3D demos, also bowling (video)

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ARM shows off its Mali mobile processors with impressive 3D demos, also bowling (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Geek Squad visa application approved, Best Buy opening stores in UK

We know you’re worried about what could happen; we saw that Liam Neeson movie too, the one where the daughter goes abroad and gets kidnapped and only after killing 351 people does he get her back. Taking trips to Europe can be risky, but our Best Buy is old enough and responsible and can take care of itself, so we’re okay with it taking a trip to the UK next year… even though we don’t know exactly where it’ll be landing. It’s been talking about going for so long it’d be a shame to say no now. Yes, it’ll be packing its blue shirts and yellow name tags so everyone will know what it is, and once it gets there sometime next year we’re sure it’ll call and tell us which franchise location will be first. So until then just try not to worry — and maybe sign it up for some self defense classes or something.

[Thanks, Adam]

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Geek Squad visa application approved, Best Buy opening stores in UK originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lazer Bike Helmet Turns You Into a Space Pilot

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I know we’ve been bringing a lot of news about bike lights, and I had promised myself I’d stop for a while. That was until I saw the Lazer Urbanize, a helmet with integrated lamps that not only has the word Lazer in its name (made even more awesome by using a “z”), but that looks as if it was styled by Tron, with the influence of the original 1980s Cylons and Buck Rogers thrown in. In short, it is the coolest helmet ever.

The Urbanize can be had without lights, too, but where’s the fun in that? Front and back LEDs are integrated, although sadly they don’t scan and pulse, KITT-style, and as you’d guess from the battery requirement of a CR2032 cell, this isn’t going to light your way on a night trail ride, but keeping the lamps up top means good visibility for the drivers around you.

And while style is certainly important, the helmet is really there to protect your melon, after all. To this end it has Lazer’s Rollsys adjustment technology, which lets you roll a knob up top and adjust all the internal strapping at once. It might not be suited for the summer, with the closed-shell design it could get hot, but in the winter, whilst pretending to play Tron’s Light Cycles game, it looks fantastic.

$100, or $80 without the lights

Product page [Lazer via Urban Velo]

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