Hasta La Gadget!

It didn’t seem like quite an official release day for the new iPod Touch, but yesterday was the day users started to receive their units in the mail. We even got our hands on one as well, but iFixit ended up gutting the device to see what was on the inside. They didn’t find too many surprises, but they noted that the device’s repairability was unsurprisingly lacking.

iFixit noted that a lot of the components are soldered together, which would obviously require a very difficult or very expensive repair if anything breaks. They also discovered that the new iPod Touch has no external screws, which may not be too surprising, but the combination of clips and adhesive makes it a little more difficult to open the device up. And while the iPhone 5 included a stronger home button, Apple sadly left that out in the newest iPod Touch, using the weaker rubber membrane of yore.

One unfortunate surprise that they found, though, was that most of the cables that are connected to the logic board run over the top and connect on the bottom, which may not sound like a huge deal, but it makes it really difficult to disconnect any of the cables or remove the logic board itself.

However, taking out the battery actually proved to be the easiest tasks of the teardown. It’s glued to the rear shell, but the notches all around the battery make it easy to pry out. This is certainly a good sign, since battery repairs are fairly common. Overall, iFixit it gave the iPod Touch a low repairability score of 3/10.

iPod Touch 5th generation gets full teardown is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Here at CTIA’s MobileCon in San Diego, me and colleague Chris Velazco got to sit down with RIM’s Jeff Gadway for some extended BlackBerry 10 hands-on and feature demo time. We shot the uncut video above of the newest OS out of Waterloo doing its thing for over six minutes, and then he handed it over to us to poke and prod on our own for some quality time.

What we found was a mobile OS that has a lot of charm, and that actually felt pretty far along in terms of its level of completion (as you can see above, it can go continuously for quite a while without showing signs of pre-release jitters). I’d heard plenty about RIM’s gesture-based navigation “Flow,” but it’s hard to grasp the sense of rhythm you fall into with it until you’ve actually put it through its paces. Likewise, the camera features, including the ability to select better frames for individual faces and components of a shot, feel amazing in practice, and they have a clear use value instead of seeming like novelty gimmicks.

BB10′s predictive keyboard is also an extremely impressive feature. Gadway told us that engineering actually spent a lot of time getting the satisfying click sound just right, and worked to make sure that the keyboard was both responsive to key taps that occur in rapid succession and even overlap. It even learns, identifying commonly mis-typed letters and adjusting the hit zone for those keys over time so that if someone is consistently hitting R when they mean E, for instance, eventually BB10 will anticipate which they actually meant to hit, even if where they’re physically tapping doesn’t change.

Another big star of the BlackBerry 10 keyboard is its predictive capabilities. These shone in our tests, offering next word suggestions above certain keys before anything’s even typed. It’s actually a little frightening how well it can work, and could be good fodder for a linguistics graduate thesis in my opinion. Natasha has a good run down of specific features, if you’re looking for more detail about any in particular.

There are still some big questions about the OS, around search for example. We asked about how it’ll work across the OS and web, but Gadway said that part still isn’t being talked about outside the company. I also noticed some sluggishness when it came to loading the BB10 web browsers, and Gadway ran into some problems getting the camera app to load, though those essentially seemed to work themselves out.

Long story short, this is a mobile OS that can and does impress, and when RIM says it offers a fundamentally different approach to mobile computing than other options already available, that’s not just blowing smoke. Nor is it merely the PlayBook experience ported to a phone; it’s substantially better than its tablet precursor, in my opinion. But at the same time, webOS was also an impressive, unique platform that won a lot of early fans in the tech world, and we all know how that story ended. RIM is obviously in a very different position vis-a-vis the smartphone industry than was HP, however, so BlackBerry 10′s fate is far from a foregone conclusion.

You know how it is for those of us who live in temperate countries. There are times when winter or fall arrives, and we just for some strange reason feel unnaturally depressed, simply because of the change in weather. Don’t we wish that the summer sun would remain there perpetually so that we can enjoy long days? Well, the $99.95 Light Therapy Visor is said to be the ideal visor to deliver the right kind of therapeutic light in order to counteract the effects of fatigue, jet lag, and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). It will work differently from that of static devices which requires one to stare into a lamp, as the Light Therapy Visor is not only lightweight but portable as well. You might look rather silly wearing this unit on your head though, but on the other hand, at least it is nigh portable that you can use it just about anywhere.

A trio of white and a similar number of red LEDs will be able to emit 800 and 80 lux respectively, delivering daylight spectrum light in just the right amount that is recommended by the National Institute of Health. This is known as light therapy, where it will block the release of the sleep hormone melatonin, and has been clinically proven to result in increased energy and alertness. It is said that one should wear the Light Therapy Visor anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes in the morning for optimal results, and you can also opt to alternate between white and red light therapy with a single press of a button. Each purchase comes with a travel pouch, and make sure you have a three AAA batteries handy at all times just in case it runs out of juice.

[ Light Therapy Visor copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

TopThat is part of a category of applications that I like to label “ego-driven apps”, and for example, Foursquare is one of them. TopThat was launched in public beta back in August 2012 and today, it is making its official public debut.

The underlying concept is very simple: TopThat allows members to compete and judge 1-on-1 or group-based competitions.
(more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: DeviantART online drawing app muro to feature Redraw, Facebook IPO: Price Range Set Between $28 and $35 Per Share ,

The new iPod touch is out, so naturally it’s already been cracked open for a look at its guts. The verdict? Tightly packed goodness, according to iFixit. More »