Hasta La Gadget!

Domino runs are fun and all, but they’re a real pain to set up. Hours or days are spent lining up the little plastic bricks, painstaking work which is all over in a few seconds, an orgasmic explosion of tumbling tiles. It is spectacular, but somehow leaves you with an empty feeling inside.

What if there were a way to make setting it up as much fun as knocking it down? Unless you are on a very slow connection, you will have seen the picture above and now be way ahead of me. The Auto Domino Building Truck is a toy truck which drops dominos out of its rear end, lining them up in neat rows, ready to tumble.

200 dominoes sit in a rather long and top-heavy hopper. As the AA batteries power the lorry forward, it lays the bricks one by one, tick-tack, onto the floor behind it. You can choose a straight line (boring) or a curve by locking in the truck’s steering. I like to imagine toppling the first domino when the little truck is only half-way through its job and then watching as it panics, trying to outrun the cascade as it inevitably rushes forward, one tiny falling tombstone at a time.

As it says on the vehicle’s side: Action domino wonderful! $25.

Product page [Brando via BBG]

If there’s a printer on your network, Print Magic should be able to put it to good use, churning out photos, Web pages, and whatever text you choose to copy. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-10407317-233.html” class=”origPostedBlog”iPhone Atlas/a/p

Much to Ballmer’s chagrin, Windows Mobile 7 is still a rather nebulous thing, but it’s getting a wee bit clearer thanks to some bits and bytes extracted from the LinkedIn profiles of current and former Microsofties and Motorolites, the latter group indicating the company that brought you the Droid is also rather committed to Microsoft’s theoretical new hotness. Various experience line-items reveal that the OS will support Silverlight (natch), will have a new navigation app, and will include much better game support along with some sort of Zune integration — finally. Now, any guesses on how many people will lose their jobs for being so open about what those positions entail?

LinkedIn profiles reveal Windows Mobile 7 clues, folks with really great people skills originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink MobileTechWorld  |  Microsoft Kitchen  | Email this | Comments

It’s Nokia Capital Market Day again which means that the boys from Espoo are fawning over investors and giving them a reason to stick around in 2010. And you know what? It sure sounds promising for gadget nerds. Why the optimism? Easy: Nokia is hell-bent on redefining the user experience of its Symbian devices. To quote CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, “In 2010, we will drive user experience improvements, and the progress we make will take the Symbian user interface to a new level.” To bolster this proclamation, the very first bullet point listed under Nokia’s Devices and Services operational priorities is “improve our user experience” — something that would thrill us to no end if it happens.

The revamped Symbian UI is set to deliver on two “major product milestones” in the first and second halves of the year. Nokia will also deliver its first Maemo 6 “mobile computer” in the second half of 2010 flanked by a significantly increased proportion of “touch and/or QWERTY devices” in its smartphone portfolio. It’s worth noting that all the discussion is around Symbian, just a single mention of Maemo and its “iconic user experience” in the forward looking press release. Developers will be happy to hear that Nokia will also continue to scale services geographically while continuing to enhance its developer tools like QT4.6 announced yesterday. Financially speaking, Nokia expects to see the erosion of its average selling price slowed compared to recent years. That’s good as Nokia attempts to grow its margins. However, while Nokia expects mobile device volumes to be up approximately 10% in 2010 across the industry, it sees its own mobile device volume market share as flat in 2010, compared to 2009.

Be clear on this though: our incredibly frustrating S60 5th user experience was by far the biggest complaint we had when reviewing Nokia’s flagship N97 — having the most bullet points on a list of features is not what it takes to lure consumers anymore (if ever). If Nokia can better the best in class experiences carved out by Apple, Palm, and HTC with its Sense UI then consumer mindshare, and our hearts, will follow.

[Original image via Vladstudio]

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia promises to take “Symbian user interface to a new level” in 2010, Maemo 6 in 2H originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Nokia  | Email this | Comments

From now until Christmas, we’ll be giving away one prize a day on Crave (except for weekends and holidays). Today’s prize: a $500 gift card from Newegg.com.