Jun 28
With Toshiba, Asus, Panasonic, Nvidia, Samsung, and Archos on hand, there were plenty of examples of both traditional Netbooks and touchscreen PCs on hand, including a few on our most-wanted list.
Jun 28
TxTStopper announces cellphone jammer for your car, Microsoft too busy texting and driving to notice
Posted in: Microsoft, Today's Chili, video
Texting while driving is some pretty dangerous bloodsport. Knowing that still isn’t going to change the behavior of an insolent teen. So why not take matters into your own hands, parents, and install a mini cellphone jammer in the family car? TxtStopper, a professionally installed 12 volt device, will apparently shut down all communications on any US cellphones operating in the car — yes, including the non-driving passengers — when the car is on and in gear. Unfortunately, TxtStopper’s site chooses to prey on consumer fears rather than offer up any real technical details so we’ll just trust them that it works as advertised, ok? For $200, maybe not.
As an aside, the image above was grabbed from Microsoft’s promotional video for its new Windows Live Messenger beta. A touch irresponsible to be promoting its mobile Messaging app for smartphones in this way don’t you think? Skip ahead to the 1 minute 55 second mark of the embedded video if you need an outlet for your Monday morning angst.
[Thanks, Max]
TxTStopper announces cellphone jammer for your car, Microsoft too busy texting and driving to notice originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jun 28
The lens is the most important part of your camera. It controls everything about the light that hits the sensor short of the length of the shutter speed. It is much better to put a great lens on a cheap camera than the other way around, something which goes frustratingly unheeded: just check a few photo forums to see people sticking crappy kit lenses onto Nikon D700s and Canon 5D MkIIs.
That’s not to say that Samyang’s range of lenses for Samsung’s mirrorless NX-series are bad. Without testing we won’t know for sure, but experience says that own-brand lenses are best, followed by those from top-tier third party makers like Sigma.
Three lenses are being ported to the Samsung mount. An 8mm ƒ3.5, a 14mm ƒ2.8 and an 85mm ƒ1.4. Of these, the 8mm would seem to be the most interesting. It will come in at around 12mm (35mm equivalent) on the NX APS-C sensor, and usually the main point with a fisheye is impact rather than absolute quality. The price has not yet been announced but the lens can be had for as little as $350 in other mounts.
The 85mm, on the other hand, is a flat-out portrait lens and goes for around $400. In this case, quality needs to be high. If Samyang manages this, then the ƒ1.4 lens will be an absolute bargain.
Tempted? Think twice. There is one huge drawback when using the lenses on a modern camera: No autofocus. This will probably be fine for the fisheye, but try that with the insanely shallow depth-of-field that an 85mm ƒ1.4 will give you and you’ll learn a thing or two about manual focussing and just how wobbly your hands really are.
Product page [Samyang via BJP]
See Also:
- Zero to Hero: Five New NX Lenses Put Samsung in the Game
- Do Mirrorless Cameras Spell the Death of DSLRs?
- Sony's NEX Mirrorless Cameras Are the Smallest in the World …
Jun 28
This article was written on January 17, 2008 by CyberNet.
While people have criticized that OpenID’s have security weaknesses and may be vulnerable to phishing attacks, more and more sites are starting to use them. Case in point… Yahoo! Yahoo just announced support for OpenID which is huge. In case you’re not familiar with it, OpenID is a decentralized single sign-on system meaning with one OpenID, you can sign into multiple sites. This system is great for those of us who get sick of creating a new account for every site that we use on the web. Remembering multiple usernames and passwords can get tedious, and OpenID solves these issues.
According to Yahoo’s announcement, this new option will be available in public beta starting on January 30th – less than two weeks away. The fact that Yahoo joined on is huge – doing so tripled the number of OpenID accounts to 368 million! It’s clear that the project is gaining popularity all around which is great because the more people that use it, the better chance it has of becoming mainstream. Aside from Yahoo, other major sites like America Online, Orange, Live Journal, Zoomr, and others have already joined in on the project. In all, it’s estimated that there are more than 9,000 OpenID compliant sites.
From the sounds of it, Yahoo intends to get involved more deeply with the OpenID project. Speaking to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Raj Patel, Yahoo’s director of membership and registration said, “This is just the first step in working with OpenID.” Arrington said that Patel would not confirm if Yahoo would end up becoming a “relying party” which means that users with third party OpenIDs could log into Yahoo. All that was said was that Yahoo’s goal was to move in that direction.
Yahoo conveniently has a page setup where you can learn more about OpenID and take a tour. Check that out here.
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- Zoho Now Accepts Google & Yahoo LoginsPublic SMF 2.0 Beta DownloadVidoop Replaces Passwords with ImagesMake Your Mouse Wrap AroundMy Yahoo Leaves Beta, Old Version Retires Soon
Jun 28
Apple sells 1.7 million iPhone 4s through Saturday, June 26
Posted in: Apple, AppleIphone, iPhone, retail, sales, stats, Today's Chili
There you have it. 600,000 pre-orders have turned into 1.7 million iPhone 4 sales through this Saturday. The Sunday transactions haven’t even been tallied up yet, but Steve and company already have another reason to look smug. That total eclipses the 3GS’ already phenomenal 1 million units sold over a weekend, and stands pretty much head and shoulders above any other launch the mobile world has yet seen.
Continue reading Apple sells 1.7 million iPhone 4s through Saturday, June 26
Apple sells 1.7 million iPhone 4s through Saturday, June 26 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun 28
Best Buy Connect mobile broadband service launching soon
Posted in: BestBuy, exclusive, mobile broadband, MobileBroadband, Today's Chili
We’ve been hearing wind of a new mobile broadband service coming next month from Best Buy for a few days now, and it looks like the company went ahead and spilled the beans in its own Sunday flyer. The service offers a variety of tiers ranging from a contract-free 250MB per month for $30 all the way up to 5GB monthly on a 24 month contract for $60 a month. Interestingly, 5GB monthly contract-free costs the same $60 monthly — you just get the $35 activation fee waived. At this point we don’t know what the hardware looks like, but we’re told Sprint is providing those bits and bytes wirelessly and that this new service will work with 4G. The employee news image after the break indicates that Connect will be launching on July 11 in all but 75 of the company’s stores. Sometimes living out in the country is a drag.
Update: We got a note from Shaun indicating that there will actually not be any modems offered by Best Buy for this service, rather it will only be offered on GOBI-equipped laptops. Additionally, Shaun indicates the service will not work with 4G, but that’s contrary to some earlier intel we received, so hopefully BBY goes ahead and clarifies all this soon enough.
[Thanks, Jameil and Tyler]
Continue reading Best Buy Connect mobile broadband service launching soon
Best Buy Connect mobile broadband service launching soon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun 28
Continuing the trend for making difficult books more accessible (see Drucker in a high school girl baseball team context!), the last few months have seen renewed interest in author Osamu Dazai’s work.
Dazai wrote several rather dour novels, the kind of things that literature fans (such as me!) really enjoy but are unlikely to be read by most younger consumers. An alcoholic himself, Dazai chronicled self-destruction and decline, most famously with the disappearing Japanese aristocracy, and eventually he did the customarily Japanese writer thing (a la Kawabata, Mishima and Akutagawa) and killed himself in 1948.
So far a touch esoteric. However, make a movie with a good-looking actor in the lead, stick his picture on the cover and you get renewed popularity. No Longer Human (人間失格, Ningen shikkaku) got exactly this treatment this year, plus a manga version in 2009. The film starred Johnny’s pin-up Toma Ikuta and only just finished its run in Tokyo cinemas after a whooping sixteen weeks on release. Last year also saw an award-winning film adaptation of another of his novels, Villon’s Wife, starring Takako Matsu.
[Shochu pic via Mutusinpou.co.jp]
Getting in on the act is DAZAI, a new limited edition shochu made by a local tourism retailer in the author’s home province of Aomori. Well, what better way to celebrate a man who liked a drink (or a few) — and we already know from samurai like Ryoma how successful this kind of merchandising can be.
In the same way, a Marxist book like Kani Kosen (The Crab Factory Ship) by Takiji Kobayashi was updated as manga, became a film last year, and even the original itself (despite being written in a very difficult vernacular) began selling well. Not simply a publishing fad, this trend is based on a genuine need for this kind of content. But where has it all come from? No doubt the uncertainty about the economy — not helped by an extremely clamorous and scaremongering media — has contributed to make consumers seek out darker material.
Jun 28
The Case: Another Beautiful Moleskine-Like iPad Case
Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, ipad, Today's Chili
Those waiting on the popular and good-looking Dodo iPad case, the high school cheerleader of tablet-carriers, might instead consider the equally pretty The Case from Pad & Quill. Similar to the Dodo case in design, it is clearly inspired by the Moleskine notebook, with its faux-leather cover. Then things start to get different.
The Dodo has a bamboo frame inside the card cover, and The Case is fashioned from Baltic Birch, routed to within 1/20,000th inch of its life and then stuck with rubber bumpers to keep the iPad snug inside. It also has cutouts around the edge so you can reach the iPad’s buttons and holes.
The Case also ditches the Moleskine elastic band in favor of a press-stud closing strap like that found on a Filofax, and adds an ingenious way to get the iPad back out. Instead of just holding the case upside-down and shaking, a red-ribbon book-marker lies underneath the iPad. Pulling on the exposed end lifts the tablet from its case.
You can also buy a smaller version for your iPhone from the Milwaukee-based company. This will cost you $40, and the iPad version is $55, $5 more than the Dodo, and will rise to $65 sometime in the future. Because they are hand-made, these cases too have a waiting period, although it is just 2-3 weeks compared to the 4-6 weeks for the Dodo. That could all change now The Case has made its way into these pages.
The Case [Pad & Quill. Thanks, Brian!]
See Also:
- Moleskine-Shaped, Bamboo iPad Case
- Kindle Case from Moleskine Mixes Paper and E-Ink
- Leather Cases Turn iPad into a Book
Jun 28
iPad arcade cabinet brings April Fools’ joke to life (video)
Posted in: Apple, apple ipad, AppleIpad, gaming, hack, hacking, homebrew, ipad, mod, modding, Today's Chili, video
Nope, this isn’t the first iPad mod you’ll have seen, but it’s likely to be the biggest crowd pleaser yet. Inspired by the iCade cabinet — an April Fools’ joke that had most of us asking where we could buy one — this really real arcade cabinet integrates Apple’s slate, hooks it up to a set of old school controls, and lets users go to town with such old timer classics as Mr. Do! It’s still in prototype form, hence the boxy exterior, but the action on screen is looking as good as you’d expect. See it on video after the break.
Continue reading iPad arcade cabinet brings April Fools’ joke to life (video)
iPad arcade cabinet brings April Fools’ joke to life (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 07:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jun 28
Acer’s updated Predator gaming desktop swoops down from the trees to decapitate the competition
Posted in: CoreI7, intel, NVIDIA, Today's Chili
When launched back in 2008, Acer’s Predator desktop was a mean gaming rig — and we don’t just mean because it had a tendency to actually set things on fire. We’re pretty sure the new, just announced revision of the desktop won’t suffer the same ailment, a non-customizable update that sports a 2.8GHz Core i7 930 CPU, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 GPU, 1.5TB of storage, 12GB of DDR3 RAM, and an asking price of one buck under $2,000. That’s a solid deal, and the new black and orange case design looks solid too, every bit as loud as old orange and black one. It’s just perfect for showing your opponents just how serious you are about your gaming, though we’re thinking it might have been even more popular if the Stanley Cup had gone the other way.
Acer’s updated Predator gaming desktop swoops down from the trees to decapitate the competition originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 07:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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