Hasta La Gadget!

The $180 Zi8 comes in three colors and is capable of capturing 1080p video.

(Credit: Kodak)

Over the last few years, as the pocket camcorder market has taken off, pioneer Flip Video has narrowly hung onto the lead it built by offering models with arguably superior designs and slightly better …

Here’s a shot of a purple amethyst stone I carry around. It’s about the size of two golf balls side-by-side and is blue on one side and white on the other. In low light conditions, the blue side is almost black, but in light it becomes radiant.

The photo is taken similar to that of the marble shots from awhile back. I put the rock right up to the lens and snapped the shot. Kind of a neat abstract result, don’t you think?

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It’s no secret that Sony’s motion controllers were in the works for quite a long time before finally being unveiled at E3 2009. Still, it’s fun to look back into the past and see how the whole project evolved. Our buddies at Joystiq have cleverly dug up some slides from a 2001 Richard Marks presentation which describes, among other things, a game called Misho the Witch — which made use of a ball-and-stick controller to train a virtual pet — much in the vein of Sony’s just unveiled EyePet. Some other ideas being tossed around were an X-Men branded game based on “superhero properties” and one based around the Teletubbies. Remember them? Yes, this presentation is that old. Oh, the olden days. There’s no evidence that any of these ideas went too far beyond the talking-phase, but we’ll have to wait and see for sure when the PS3 Motion Controller debuts next year. One more shot after the break.

Continue reading Sony’s early plans for motion controllers involved superheroes, magic, and… Teletubbies?

Filed under: Gaming

Sony’s early plans for motion controllers involved superheroes, magic, and… Teletubbies? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s got a lot of problems when it comes to overheating iPod batteries — not only is the situation potentially dangerous, every move Cupertino makes is subject to sensational misinterpretation. Take today’s Times UK story this morning about 11-year-old Ellie Stanborough, whose iPod touch blew itself up last month: when her father Ken contacted Apple for a refund, it seems he got a little bit of a runaround, but was eventually sent a settlement agreement offering a full refund if the family agreed to keep the deal confidential. That’s actually totally standard practice when companies settle out-of-warranty claims, but since the agreement was written by lawyers, it contained a bunch of vaguely threatening language about how breaking confidentiality might result in Apple relentlessly suing everyone until Liverpool itself goes bankrupt and the populace is forced to resort to cannibalism and network television. Cue hysterical media coverage.

Now, it’s no secret that lithium-ion batteries like those used in the iPod have a long history of overheating and exploding, and Apple’s certainly had large-scale problems with defective cells — the first-gen iPod nano has been recalled in Korea and Japan, for example. It’s also obvious that the sheer number of iPods sold means there are more exploding iPods than anything else — and while we’re sure some accountant at Apple has a spreadsheet showing the exact failure rate is acceptable, all we’ve got right now is story after story of these things blowing up with zero context. So here’s our suggestion to Apple: maybe instead of having lawyers draft individual settlement agreements full of impenetrable and scary legalese for each and every jilted iPod owner out there, why not simply fess up to the problem, let people know exactly how common it is and how to avoid it, and provide a dead-simple replacement option for people who’ve had their iPods go up in smoke? That would put everyone at ease, and make these types of stories much less likely to blow up in a media feeding frenzy. Or, you know, do nothing because overwhelming market share inevitably leads to arrogant laziness — your call.

[Via TUAW]

Exploding iPod blows up in Apple’s face originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re looking for a deal on a smartphone and are stuck signed up with Verizon, this may be your chance. According to Boy Genius Report, the carrier has cut most of its smartphone prices to $99 or under (with a two-year contract and after rebates, naturally).

There are some good ones in the bunch, such as the much-improved BlackBerry Storm, the Windows Mobile-based Samsung Omnia, and the powerful-if-inconsistent HTC Touch Pro. All three now cost just $99 with a two-year contract, which is several hundred dollars less than before in some cases. The only ones above $99 are the BlackBerry Tour and the Samsung Saga. (The HTC Ozone and BlackBerry Curve 8330 remain at $49 and are both great deals, incidentally.)

All this does is bring Verizon’s pricing in line with the $99 iPhone 3G on AT&T–at least while we wait for the Storm 2 and other new handsets to reach Verizon stores. But we all win as a result, so who cares why Verizon did it?