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Oct 20

Lifestyle Retail gets the Ping Pong bug

Posted in: LIFESTYLE / FASHION, retail, Today's Chili

On a recent passing visit through some innovative retail locations in Aoyama we again popped into the new Francfranc store, with its bizarre stuffed animal zoo and stylish interior.

We also couldn’t help noticing the table tennis newly set up outside! FrancFranc have temporarily installed a designer table made out of stone that anyone with a ball and paddle can use. Certainly a good way to keep the kids amused while Mom looks for some new cups in the store.

There is a net around the table (to stop rogues balls hitting cars and passing pedestrians, no doubt) but sadly no one was actually trying out table when we were there.

francfranc-aoyama-store-table-tennis-2

Oct 20

Joby tempts the argonauts with Switchback headlamp / lantern

Posted in: hands-on, light, Today's Chili

Call us crazy, but we’re guessing that the Joby you knew last year will look nothing like the Joby that we see this time next year. Once famous for crafting flexible tripods for simple point and shoot cameras, the outfit has branched out quite significantly since. Case in point: the Switchback. Joby’s still relying on its flexible mount expertise by including a tripod with this here lighting instrument, but it’s the device itself that steals the show. The water resistant Switchback is a two-piece product; there’s a headlamp that can be worn around your dome, and it can be shoved into a lantern container for those sit-around-the-campfire moments. The light itself has a central white beam with two power levels, and it’s surrounded by a foursome of Cree LEDs that shine blue or red (and can be toggled with a button press). Joby throws a pair of AA batteries in for good measure, and in our testing, we found it sufficient enough for backyard gatherings and the like. The lantern apparatus has a clip on the bottom in order to affix the aforesaid tripod, but in practice we found it fairly simple to tip over when not wrapped around a tree limb. At any rate, it’s on sale today for $59.95 for those looking to hit the forests in the near future.

Gallery: Joby Switchback headlamp / lantern

Joby tempts the argonauts with Switchback headlamp / lantern originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 20

Samsung plotting a single platform to connect TVs and phones

Posted in: hdtv, samsung, Television, Today's Chili, TV

Samsung’s mad, monied quest to “free the TV apps” may not stop at your couch — the electronics manufacturer says it’s looking to loop in cell phones as well. “We plan to have a single platform for Samsung TV and phones,” a VP told Reuters, without providing further details. We have to wonder if it might cross swords with the Media Hub video-on-demand software the company’s pushing in the tablet and smartphone space. No word on when we’ll find out.

Samsung plotting a single platform to connect TVs and phones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 20

Apple TV hacked to run weather app

Posted in: Apple, apple tv, hack, Hacks, ios, jailbreak, mod, mods, Software, Today's Chili

Well, that didn’t take long. Greenpois0n jailbroke the new Apple TV just yesterday, and PwnageTool 4.1 this afternoon, and we’ve already got what appears to be the first custom software successfully running on the device. As you can see, it’s a simple weather app, designed by a tiny software firm called nitoTV, but it’s a harbinger of things to come when developers get cracking on the Apple TV in earnest. See a picture of nitoTV’s custom launcher after the break, while your subconscious frantically tries to figure out what the four cities in the above pic could possibly have in common.

Continue reading Apple TV hacked to run weather app

Apple TV hacked to run weather app originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 20

This May Help Your Firefox Memory Leak

Posted in: Hacks, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on March 26, 2006 by CyberNet.

Now, this is by no means a REAL fix for the Firefox memory leak, but it certainly does appear to help it quite a bit. This little fix will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, and as a result it will take up less than 10MB of memory while minimized. So far, from my experiences with using this today, when you maximize Firefox it will obviously increase the memory usage. However, it does not seem to go back up to the insane amount that it was at before minimizing it. For example, Firefox was at 180MB of memory usage and then I minimized it and after a few seconds I maximized it. After maximizing it and continuing on my routine business it appeared to only have gone up to 60MB. This seems to be a good solution for me right now since I frequently maximize and minimize Firefox anyways.

Now I know many people will say that Firefox will take longer to maximize since it will be located on the hard drive, but I haven’t noticed ANY delays. It is able to redraw itself just as quickly as if it was located in the ram (in my experience). Okay, now here are the few simple steps:

Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
Now select True and then press Enter.
Restart Firefox.

See how quick and painless that was? At any rate you can always go back and delete the same setting that you just created if you start to experience any issues. I have also set the browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers value to 0 because that will prevent Firefox from caching pages for the back button. This is also supposed to free up some memory that gets stolen.

Update:

Martin has informed me that this fix also works for Thunderbird. I am not a Thunderbird user so I didn’t realize this. After thinking about it I realized it “should” also work for Netscape, Mozilla, and SeaMonkey. Also, this fix is only for Windows machines (sorry Mac users).

Firefox 3 Memory Leaks Status Update

CyberNotes: Firefox 2.0 Memory Leaks

Reducing Your Memory Usage In Firefox

CyberNotes: Minimizing Firefox Memory Leaks

Oct 20

Apple’s ‘Back to the Mac’ event roundup

Posted in: Apple, roundup, Today's Chili

Oh dear, you missed it? Don’t fret, we’ve got links for you. So many links. Apple was short on surprises at its intimate “Back to the Mac” event today, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some interesting nuggets. Mac OS X Lion and MacBook Air lead the pack, but we find it’s the little things that count, and they count even more in bullet point form. It’s science!

The liveblog

Live from Apple’s ‘Back to the Mac’ event

Hands-on coverage

Product announcements

Apple’s ‘Back to the Mac’ event roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 20

Super Twario goes where Tweetdeck fears to tread: Game Center (video)

Posted in: Apple, AppStore, ios, iPhone, Software, Today's Chili, twitter, video

As if the up-to-the-minute reports on your friends, family, and @davidgewirtz weren’t enough, Super Twario for iOS is available right now at the App Store. Your $2 purchase turns reading and replying tweets into a game, as you interact, arcade style, with your friends’ avatars and your co-workers’ interminable pics of their entrees. If that weren’t enough, all your stats and achievements are sent to the Game Center, so you can find out whether or not you are, indeed, the biggest twit in your clique. See it in action after the break.

Continue reading Super Twario goes where Tweetdeck fears to tread: Game Center (video)

Super Twario goes where Tweetdeck fears to tread: Game Center (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 20

Panasonic’s DMR-BF200 stuffs hard drive and Blu-ray burner into one tiny, magical box

Posted in: blu-ray, dvr, Japan, japanese, Panasonic, Today's Chili

And this, friends, is why Japan is a marvelous place. Panasonic has just removed the wraps from its new DIGA DMR-BF200, which is being hailed as the planet’s smallest Blu-ray recorder. For all intents and purposes, this is simply an external hard drive with a slot-loading Blu-ray burner baked in, but there’s plenty more on the inside to pay attention to. It’ll stream DLNA content, interface with your other VIERA Link equipment, output content via HDMI and even access acTVila (a Japanese video-on-demand service). Users can also toss in an SD card for watching flicks stored on more portable media, and most anything housed on the 320GB internal hard drive can be toasted on BD-R/RE for playback elsewhere. It should be noted, however, that neither BDXL nor Blu-ray 3D are supported, but those still keenly interested can find it on November 15th for ¥70,000 ($861) in black or white.

Panasonic’s DMR-BF200 stuffs hard drive and Blu-ray burner into one tiny, magical box originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 21:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 20

HTC HD7 review

Posted in: HTC, Microsoft, review, snapdragon, Today's Chili, video, windows phone, windows phone 7, WindowsPhone, WindowsPhone7, Wp7, xbox live, XboxLive, zune

The screen that just keeps on going meets the OS that refuses to fit on a single display. Yes, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, like Windows Mobile 6.5 and Android before it, is getting treated with a 4.3-inch display from HTC for its launch party. The aptly titled HD7 is, by virtue of Microsoft’s stringent hardware requirements, mostly just a stretched-out version of its WP7 contemporaries: it offers the standard 800 x 480 res, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, 576MB of RAM, and a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a 720p movie mode. So what sets it apart? HTC will have you believe its Hub enhances the buttery smooth WP7 software, while outside the shell there’s a handy kickstand for landscape lounging and you do of course benefit from an enlarged canvas for your finger inputs. Join us after the break to discover how much that matters in day-to-day use, along with the rest of our thoughts on the HTC HD7.

This review is primarily of the HTC HD7 hardware. Check out our full review of Windows Phone 7 for our thoughts on the OS.

Gallery: HTC HD7 review