Jan 10

Apple Drops Official US iPhone 3GS Price to $49

Posted in: Apple, iPhone, iphone 3g, Today's Chili

iPhone 3GS

There’s no way it can be pure coincidence that Apple decided to drop the price of its iPhone 3GS the day before Verizon’s rumored iPhone announcement. So, for those of you who have waited patiently to buy an iPhone at a reasonable price on AT&T, now is your time to grab this offer. The 8GB iPhone 3GS starts at $49 with with a two-year AT&T plan — 50 percent less than its original price. This happens a week after AT&T dropped it to $49.

That being said, this is the 3GS, not the iPhone 4, so you’re still not getting the best iPhone out there. It does, however, start at $150 less than the iPhone 4. You may want to wait until after tomorrow’s announcement to see what Verizon has up its sleeves, though.

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Jan 09

iPhone Screen Protectors Without the Bubbles

Posted in: iPhone, Today's Chili

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The greatest problem plaguing our modern world? Poorly applied iPhone screen protectors, of course. Thankfully, New Jersey-based startup Kioky has a solution–its Screen Care Pro back. The company’s “perfect fit technology” ships with the above plastic applicator, which centers the screen guard perfectly on your iPhone.
The pack ships in four different varieties–clear, matte, privacy, and mirror. The product is set for launch later this month for $25. At launch, it’ll only be available for iPhone customers. 

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Jan 08

AVN: Pink Visual Delivers More-Than-FaceTime

Posted in: iPhone, Today's Chili

facetimegirl.jpgSo what should we call this: WholeBodyTime? There are various other things I could put in front of “Time,” but you get the picture. At the AVN trade show here in Las Vegas, porn company Pink Visual showed off their altogether obvious application for Apple’s FaceTime video chat: getting 15 minutes to tell a pretty girl to do, well, whatever it is you want her to do.

Don’t worry, Pink Visual isn’t iPhone-specific. The company is considering working with Android video chat apps as well, Pink Visual CEO Allison Vivas said, although she didn’t sound convinced that Qik was currently up to the strain.
Pink Visual isn’t going to sell its live chat as a service. Since it requires one lady per person per conversation, it’s pretty expensive to run. (And obviously, you don’t have as big a potential pool of workers as you do with traditional chat lines, because they have to look like porn stars, too.) Instead, Pink will give away “chat with a porn star” as a prize for loyal subscribers to their mobile video services. The longer you’re a member (and thank goodness that sentence had an “a” in it, eh?), the more chances you’ll have to win.
All of this is one of Pink’s ways of countering piracy in the porn industry. By offering incentives for loyalty, Pink hopes to maintain a regular base of paying customers. When they get the system up and running, they’ll have 5-10 girls chatting at any given time, Vivas said.
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Jan 08

iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry Users Like Different Porn

Posted in: BlackBerry, iPhone, Today's Chili

Users of the iPhone, iPad, Android phones and BlackBerries prefer different kinds of porn, Pink Visual CEO Allison Vivas said at the AVN trade show here in Las Vegas.

Pink Visual is a leader in mobile streaming of adult content, so they have a lot of analytics on who is watching what kind of dirty videos, when. And guess what? Details after the jump, because the details aren’t family friendly.
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Jan 08

Xi3: Tiny Modular Desktop

Posted in: desktops, mod, Today's Chili

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The xi3 made a big splash on the show room floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center yesterday–it’s definitely one of those product you’ve got to see to fully appreciate. The above unit was the first model I saw. It was strapped to the rear of a flat screen monitor, which dwarfed it by comparison.
The thing is tiny–palm-sized, in fact–far small than other compact desktops like Apple’s Mac Mini and Dell Zino HD. And unlike those systems, the xi3 is designed to be highly customizable–the “last system you’ll ever need,” says its manufacturer.
The system’s innards are divided into three sections–for RAM and two I/O boards, making it easy to quickly swap out components. The tiny system is also extremely efficient, using less than 20 watts to run.
The xi3 is arriving early this year, starting at $850 for a base unit.
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Jan 06

Skype to Acquire Qik for $150 Million?

Posted in: mobile, skype, Today's Chili

Thumbnail image for skype_logo_.pngSkype has just announced that “it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Qik,” according to the Qik blog. Qik allows users to stream and shoot video from their smartphones.

There’s talk that it will be bought for $100 million, then we heard $150 million — we’re really not sure just yet. Either way, it will probably be for a big chunk of change.

Skype has already reached out to Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users by introducing mobile video calling for those devices. The acquisition of Qik could help Skype reel in more of the mobile videoconferencing market. According to Qik’s blog, the company had a huge year in 2010. It started the year with 600,000 users and ended with 5 million users, which is undoubtedly thanks to its partnerships with companies including Sprint, T-Mobile, Nokia, HTC, and Samsung.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, Skype said the deal will add video “recording, sharing and storing capabilities to Skype’s product portfolio.”

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Jan 06

Toshiba’s Tablet: Up Close

Posted in: tablet, Today's Chili, Toshiba

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One more tablet to look at before the CES showroom floor opens up this morning (that’s right, we’ve still got another hour before the show technically opens). This one’s from Toshiba. And it’s so new that it technically doesn’t have a name. Toshiba was just calling it the Toshiba Tablet. We like that simplicity. Go with it, Toshiba.
The slate is going to run Google’s Android Honeycomb, which means that it most likely won’t be out until the spring, but the company says it’s gunning for a release in the “first half” of 2011 (the unit we saw was running Froyo, which, after checking out Motorola’s entry, looks downright ancient).
It features a 10-inch screen with a 1280-by-800 resolution and slots for USB, HDMI, and mini USB, as well as an SD card slot for expanding memory. Like pretty much every non-iPad tablet these days, it has front- and rear-facing cameras (at 2MP and 5MP, respectively).
More shots, after the jump
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Jan 05

AT&T Launching 12 Android, 20 4G Devices in 2011

Posted in: att, Today's Chili
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Lots of big numbers from AT&T today at the company’s CES press conference. Two of the more impressive ones came directly from the telecom giant’s CEO, Ralph de la Vega: 12 and 20. Twelve is the number of Android devices the company will be offering in 2011. Twenty is the number of 4G devices the company will be offering in that same time period.
AT&T is set to roll out its 4G LTE network in the middle of the year. The 20 phones include Android and Windows Phone handsets, as well as at least one from Apple (iPhone 4G?, iPad 4G?). The Motorola Atrix and HTC Inspire 4G will be the first 4G handsets for the new network.
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Jan 05

Cinemin Slice: iPad Dock Meets Pico Projector

Posted in: ipad, projector, Today's Chili

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WowWee had at least one surprise up its sleeve at this year’s CES. The company last night showed off the Cinemin Slice, an iPad speaker dock that features a rear pico projector.


The Slice can project images up to 60 inches, with a viewable range of up to 125 inches. It projects at 16 ANSI lumens. Images are projected in a WVGA resolution at a 16:9 aspect ratio and a 100:1 contrast ratio. It features a 90 hinge and manual focus.

The 30-pin dock lets you plug in and charge your iPad, iPod, or iPhone. There’s also a Mini-HDMI and AV ports for plugging in other media players and a VGA port for computers.

The Cinemin Slice is coming later this month and is available now for pre-order from WowWee. It’ll run you around $430.

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Jan 05

LG Intros Glasses-Free Mobile 3D Display

Posted in: LG, Today's Chili

Move over, Nintendo’s baby-eye-frying 3DS. LG today announced that it’s also getting into the glasses-free mobile 3D device game. The company didn’t actually reveal a product, so much as so off a new 4.3-inch 3D display that will be used in future devices.

The WVGA touchscreen measures 480-by-900 pixels. LG calls its 4.3 inches “the optimum screen size for watching 3D on a mobile device.” Here’s the info behind the technology:

LG’s 3D display uses an applied parallax barrier technology, which delivers a series of light-blocking slits attached to the front of the LCD panel. The slits, or barriers, ensure that the left and right eyes see different images, creating an illusion of depth and a thoroughly convincing 3D effect.

Working closely with LG Display, LG has also drastically reduced crosstalk. The new display has straighter, more upright barriers that are very precisely aligned to the LCD panel. This technological advance not only means smoother, brighter, crosstalk-free images, but also a wider viewing angle than on previous parallax displays.

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