Since they’re free of preservatives, Android updates tend to get pretty stale pretty quickly. As such, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 has definitely lost its best flavor, but here comes a refresh. The long-promised 2.3.3 Gingerbread update is now available, but only if you’re pocketing a carrier-free phone. To apply the update — which also includes WiFi and USB tethering, improved Facebook integration, and some fancy new widgets — you’ll need a USB cable and the company’s PC software, meaning this one is far from OTA. When will a cable-free update come along? SE regrets to inform that it “cannot give you an exact date for when the update will be available for you.” What’s another few weeks… or months?
Update: Mike wrote in to let us know that Sony Ericsson is backing off again, now saying that information about the X10 update “was a bit too premature.” Shocking, we know.
Windows users can finally view RAW photos taken with their six year old Minolta Maxxum 7D
Photographers who use Windows machines can rejoice. The Microsoft Camera Codec Pack adds support for RAW image viewing to Windows Explorer. You can now look at images from over 200 different cameras right there on your computer, without having to open then in a RAW photo editing application first.
Most new cameras from the major brands are supported. Pretty much everything from Nikon and Canon will work (although not the Nikon D3100 or D5100), along with a few Leicas (M8, M9 and a couple of D-Lux compacts), some Panasonic, Sony’s and Olympus models and even cameras from Minolta (even the Maxxum 7D from 2005 is supported!)
The pack also lets you edit images, including JPG, TIFF and PNG formats. This takes care of everything from your high-end SLR to your cellphone camera.
Windows users can go grab the codec pack now. Rumors that Microsoft will soon be adding support for faxes and telegrams are unfounded.
It’s not hard to get us excited about a post at CScout Japan, especially not when it involves sampling an ice cold beer on a sweltering hot day! Beverage manufacturer Kirin has introduced their new “Ice Plus Beer” which pretty much does exactly what it says on the can, cold beer designed to be poured over ice. Hitting the shelves today, the new beer from Kirin seems to be generating quite some chatter, especially as they have been pushing out their social marketing campaign, tweeting “cold jokes” and 100 different “hidden” commercials.
Consuming beer with ice may make the beer connoisseur shiver, however the manufacturers have touted that the Ice Plus Beer has been specifically designed to be poured over ice to enrich the taste and enhance the aroma. After sampling it, surprisingly the advertisements aren’t far off and it does seem to taste better over ice than consumed straight from the can (however it did take three or four to verify it!). There is no escaping that it still is a cheap and cheerful Kirin beer taste though, all be it a colder one. As with many Japanese products that have to compete with other seasonal items, the packaging is interestingly designed also. On the back of the beer can itself is a nice pop-art style 4-frame comic that illustrates how to enjoy the product, complete with swooning girl over alcoholic male. The convenience stores didn’t miss a trick either, a nice tie in offering a discount “Ice Cup” with the each Ice Plus Beer, to help the thirsty consumer enjoy it as soon as they step out the shop and drive sales during the humid months.
The marketing build up has been well thought out also, punning on the ability of the beer to “Cool Japan” and some self-effacing tweet gags that run on the phrase “samui” (cold) which refers to a bad joke. They did however miss a trick not tying it into Coll Biz though, anyone who has seen a drunken salary man in Tokyo on a weekday night knows the comedic potential there! On the product’s own homepage is also a secret collection of 100 short (approximately 30-60 second) and humorous commercials featuring the cartoon characters to advertise Ice Beer Plus, further drawing the consumer into the brand.
Seasonal products are big business in Japan with a particularly competitive FMCG (fast moving commercial goods) market. Pepsi and Kitkat for example, are constantly coming out with new flavors to keep the public’s appetite satiated, and on the shelves in the convenience store we purchased this beer in, we also spotted a new Pepsi “Caribbean Gold, White Sapote” flavored drink….although we did have to Google white sapote before we knew what it was!
Remember when InterDigital aired its grievances with Nokia before the International Trade Commission several years ago, alleging Espoo infringed a few of its 3G patents? Well, what’s old is new again, and the company’s filed another complaint with the ITC against the Finnish phone maker, Huawei, and ZTE, too. This time around, the hammer’s been forged from seven patents for various WCDMA and CDMA2000 technologies allegedly found in those companies’ phones, broadband dongles, and tablets. Reuters reports that, should the federal agency take up InterDigital’s cause, Huawei and Nokia will fight the good fight, and we imagine that ZTE won’t be rolling over, either. Of course, the ITC has 30 days to start an investigation, so we’ll know within a month if InterDigital’s latest IP fishing expedition has a shot to yield a bounty as big as it’s gotten before.
At last, you can get rid of those last few dirty, dusty paper books
Picture this. You have wholly converted to e-books. The very thought of buying another bundle of paper fills you with revulsion, and all your reading is done on an e-reader or a tablet. But one problem remains. You have a stack of old, out-of-print books which you still love, but which are taking up space. Worse, you can’t even buy digital versions as it would seem that their publishers hate money. What can you do?
The answer is to scan them yourself. You can do this with cameras and home-brewed software, or you could use the new Plustek OpticBook 3800. It’s a flatbed scanner specifically designed for scanning books. The scanning bed has a very thin bezel so you can scan almost all the way to the spine, and a thick foam lid liner combined with correction software eliminates the curved, distorted text and shadows you’d normally get.
The OpticBook also comes with a slew of software packages designed to do OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and turn your scanned pages into searchable PDFs.
Specs-wise, the scanner can go up to 1,200dpi, but if you let it run at a more-than-adequate-for-the-screen 300dpi, it’ll scan an A4 page in seven seconds.
You probably won’t want to go through entire novels, but for cookbooks and other reference materials, a searchable archive is ideal. And if you have books that are literally falling apart through use and cannot be replaced, you should probably do something about that. Windows only, available now for $300.
Remember when we first encountered the ASUS Wavi just before CES? Well now the wireless streaming device that looks to get your TV and your PC in sync has moseyed on through the FCC, and in the process, confirmed a few of our suspicions. The duo will allow you to stream content in full 1080p via a 5GHz band and at distances of up to 25 meters (about 80 feet) — of course, with a clear line of sight between the two. Not to be forgotten is the Xtion 3D depth camera, which provides a more expensive Kinect-esque experience, that will round out the trifecta for what we hope will be even more embarrassing dance-offs. At any rate, keep your eyes peeled for this tandem, as they should be on shelves in no time.
Today we have proof that game publishers in Japan either don’t keep up with the news, or just don’t care. Proof of this comes in the form of Namco deciding it’s a good idea to ship 3DS games with save games that you cannot delete. It was only a month ago that Capcom caused uproar […]
After six months of knuckle-crunching losses, LG can finally wind the window down and turn the radio on to Seoul FM. The electronics giant just reported a net profit of ₩108 billion ($100 million) in the last quarter, primarily thanks to sales of LED and Cinema 3D TVs. Its handset subsidiary, which has been pushing into the Android high end with devices like the Optimus 2X, is still bleeding cash — but losses were halved compared to last quarter, so perhaps the wound is finally scabbing over. Meanwhile, the LG Home Appliance Company posted “record-high” sales, but it’ll have to Thinq even harder in future because profits were held back by higher material costs, currency fluctuations and greater competition. Definitely too soon for cruise control.
We reported back in September 2010 that Apple was gearing up to purchase Polar Rose, a Swedish company doing some pretty interesting things with facial recognition-based technologies. Polar Rose is also the company behind the Recognizr app, which detects people on live video. It’s been almost a year, and we’re now getting more of an idea […]
So, you’ve finally accepted the reality that smartphones aren’t a passing fad, but you’re no less concerned that the special tech-hater in your life might get hip that you’ve abandoned reading books for flinging unhappy fowl. You’re further concerned that you won’t have space in your skinny jeans for both a wallet and an iPhone. Well, it sounds like Twelve South’s BookBook iPhone 4 case has you and your ridiculous smartphone-conversion anxiety covered. The little leather-bound sleeve not only masks your iPhone in what looks like a miniature Bible binding, but also acts as host to your wallet’s contents. If you’re looking to fool folks into thinking you’re really reading a tiny tome titled BookBook, the case can be yours for $60 at the source link. Full PR after the break.
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