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Japan's HRP-4C "cybernetic human" is designed for entertainment.

(Credit: AIST)

All eyes were on the stunning solar eclipse this week, but the Japanese were mesmerized by a new star on the catwalk.

Fashion designer Yumi Katsura showed her latest wedding dresses in Osaka including a gown sported by the government’s newly developed “cybernetic human,” the HRP-4C, which Crave first told you about in March.

4C slowly shimmied down the 10-meter catwalk to the beat of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” She turned to look at attendees and said, “I’ve put on a wedding dress for the first time. I’m very happy today to wear this dress by Yumi Katsura.”

At a photo op later on, the blushing bride stood next to Katsura and blinked at photographers snapping her picture. Check it out in the video below.

Organizers were billing the event as the first of its kind in the world, and I can’t recall another example of a humanoid robot showing off wedding apparel in a fashion show.

It also demonstrated how the Japanese continue to nurture a playful spirit in their approach to robotics. While other countries are building Terminator-style killing machines, Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) created 4C to work in the “entertainment industry.” Perhaps a dubious use of funds by a deeply indebted state, the project was announced with the admission that “(1) robots walking on two feet only have little commercial value, (2) the unit price is very high, and (3) if it falls, it may be seriously damaged.”

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Originally posted at Far-flung Tech

We’ve been following LG’s 240Hz LH90 series of LED-backlit HDTVs since they were launched alongside oodles of internet-connected rivals at CES, and now — at long last — the 1080p trio is shipping to US soil. The sets, which are the first-ever to boast THX certification, also feature an ambient light sensor, 2,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 240Hz dejudder technology and a super glossy bezel. If you’re jonesing to get one in your abode, you can cruise over to your nearest electronics dealer and part ways with $3,199.95 (55-inch), $2,399.95 (47-inch), or $1,899.95 (42-inch).

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

LG’s THX-certified LH90 LCD HDTVs now shipping in US originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chart showing mobile devices visiting Wired.com

Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch are the overwhelming favorites for mobile access to Wired.com.

Color us surprised.

While we knew that our readers use and are interested in iPhones, we weren’t prepared for just how drastically the logfile numbers skewed towards Apple’s mobile platform. Taken together, the iPhone and iPod Touch represent 91.6% of the mobile devices accessing Wired.com during June, 2009.

The next closest runner-up, the T-Mobile G1, commands just 1.6% of the mobile device total (based on number of visits to Wired.com), and the Nintendo Wii — bizarrely — is the fourth most popule “mobile” device, with 0.7% of our site visits. (We assume that our logfile analysis software, Omniture, is just confused about how mobile the Wii really is.) The RIM BlackBerry 9000 and Palm Pre also have about 0.7% of total visits.

Grouping by manufacturer gives a slightly different picture: Apple, as before, holds 91.6%, but Nokia comes in second, with 1.7% of the total visits. T-Mobile has 1.6%, while RIM takes 1.5% and HTC 0.9%.

We know from previous logfile analyses that Wired.com readers are more likely to use Macs and Firefox than the general population. But when it comes to mobile access to Wired.com, the massive skew towards iPhones is a little surprising.

One reason is surely that our site is poorly optimized for most mobile devices, so phones that render websites pretty much as desktop browsers do — like the iPhone — are more likely to work well with Wired.com. If your phone doesn’t render ordinary websites well, you’re not likely to come here often.

Also, with 40 million iPhones and iPod Touches in the world, there are a lot of people using them to browse the web.

And as previous studies have suggested, people are much more likely to browse the web on an iPhone than on other smartphones, even if those other phones have comparably featured browsers. That’s probably due to the iPhone’s super-easy (or dumbed-down, depending on your point of view) interface. For instance, Nokia’s latest S60-based phones, like the E71 and the N79, have browsers capable of rendering web pages faithfully. But the interface is clunkier: It just takes more steps to scroll, zoom, and click on links than it does on the iPhone.

The result is plain: Far more people actually use the iPhone’s browser, at least when it comes to visiting Wired.com.

GameStop let us in on its final July summer sale offer. Now through July 26, GameStop customers will receive a free Wii game with the purchase of a Nintendo Wii console!

When you purchase a Wii console, you can choose among the following Wii game titles during checkout:

Animal Crossing: City Folk
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Escitebots: Trick Racing
Wario Land: Shake It
Wii Music
Mad World
Mario & Sonic: Olympic Games
Sonic Unleashed
Don King Boxing
My Fitness Coach
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party
Shaun White Snowboarding

Hopefully this deal just made your summer a whole lot better!

The iPod Classic may be an endangered species.

(Credit: Apple)

If you’ve read the stories on Apple’s latest earnings, you may have noticed that Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer took the time to break out the sales of each model in the iPod franchise, which is seeing year-over-year declines for the first time in its history. In her piece, our own Erica Ogg wrote:

“During the third quarter, Apple sold 10.2 million iPods, compared with 11 million a year ago. It turns out that the shifting appeal of the Shuffle, Nano, and Classic model iPods are to blame. But Apple apparently saw this coming.” She then goes on to quote Oppenheimer, who says those declining sales are “the reason we developed the iPod Touch. We expect our traditional MP3 players to decline over time as we cannibalize ourselves with iPod Touch and iPhone.”

As rumors continue to circulate that Apple will introduce new iPod models this fall (as it traditionally has), the big question is whether the iPod Classic becomes the odd iPod out. In a recent MP3 Insider podcast, CNET editor Donald Bell points out that orders for new Samsung hard drives that would go into an updated Classic appear to be nonexistent, according to Ars Technica and Apple Insider. And shortly after the earnings were posted, TechCrunch writer MG Seigler asked whether the iPod as we know it is dying.

The prevailing bet among iPod followers is that the Classic may stick around for a little while, but it probably won’t be upgraded and will be quietly put out to pasture.

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Originally posted at Fully Equipped