Casio Puzzle watch: Awful pretty »
It may not do much – it’s basically a feature watch with stopwatch, alarm, and 24-hour time – but it’s nicely designed. This Casio, called the Poptone Cubic Puzzle Watch, comes in blue or black and has buttons stacked up, Tetris-style, on the bottom. The watch is available for $89 on good old TokyoFlash. Might be good for your “Back to the ’80s” party this Halloween.
The Chumby One: More powerful, less cushy »
The original Chumby was soft, cuddly, and cute. The new Chumby One is uptight, all-business, and commercial. I hate it. The draw to the original Chumby was that there was nothing like it on the market two years ago. You could load it up with all sorts of pre-made widgets like YouTube, weather, news, or one you made thanks to the open source design. Sure, the upcoming One still has the original capabilities if not more thanks to the upgraded 454MHz CPU, but it doesn’t have the same unique factor. Not only was the functions innovative two years ago, but the design was as well. The pillow-like design had character and style. It was something you wouldn’t see at Target. But the new One model is made out of cold, lifeless plastic and will look right at home next to clock radios and cordless phones at Walmart – if it ever reaches that distribution channel of course. But anyway, the new model is expected to run $100 when it drops in a month or two.
Touching: All Rumors Point To The End Of Keys/Buttons »
Anyone who has followed Apple news/rumors/patents over the past couple of years has probably noticed a certain trend emerging: Apple seems to be slowly shifting its entire line of products to touch-based computing. That is to say, it’s moving its products away from buttons and keys, towards manipulation through a touchscreen interface. While obviously, MacBook trackpads have used some level of touch for a long time, this trend really started with the iPhone, which presented the first excellent use of multi-touch in a consumer device. From there, Apple slowly began adding multi-touch support to the aforementioned notebook trackpads, to the point where they all now feature it. And then of course, there’s the iPod touch, which is an iPod with multi-touch support.
CrunchDeals: Garmin nuvi 850 for $165 »
Amazon’s taken $35 off the Garmin nuvi 850 GPS system, from $200 down to $165 (today only) with free shipping. The nuvi 850 features a 4.3-inch touchscreen, voice recognition, and a built-in FM transmitter. Other goodies include optional traffic information via MSN, microSD expansion slot, MP3 player and photo viewer, and direct address transfer from Google Maps through the GPS unit’s USB port. So all in all, nothing terribly fancy except that voice recognition stuff if you think you’d use that on a regular basis. Garmin nuvi 850 [Amazon]
Pre faltering, Palm laying off employees? »
When your smartphone drops from $249 to $79 over a summer , you have to wonder what’s going on. Two rumors are circulating this AM, one that Palm is laying off folks , perhaps in the Windows Mobile team. The estimated sales for the Pre topped out at 375,000 at the end of August and they went from $299 ($199 after rebate) to about $79 in about eleven weeks. While this might be normal for a feature phone – the subsidy kicks in once they’re sure that the early adopters who simply must have the LG Chocolate have had their fix – this isn’t good for a smartphone that was supposed to be the lead invasion force for a new WebOS smartphone renaissance. Finally, Palm has finally backed off over iTunes Syncing. The latest WebOS update doesn’t sync with iTunes and won’t be syncing with iTunes any time soon. After using brute force and then running to the USB standards body, the company may have finally given up . The end of Palm will come quickly this time. They’ve been idling for too long – since about 2004, in fact – and if they can’t push through their first year with at least some modicum of success it’s over.
Hands-on with the BlackBerry TiVo app »
TiVo finally got with the program and released its first BlackBerry app this morning. The good news is that it seems to work as advertised, but let’s just say that it’s a pretty basic app and is just made for scheduling recordings. You can’t remotely control your TiVo or stream any content from it, but this app is a good start. It’s easy to use and gets the job done
Sanyo rolls out portable $10,000 projector with 6,000 lumens brightness »
Good for Sanyo Japan that the word “portable” isn’t really strictly defined in the projector space. Because I have no idea why the company calls its new projector, the LP-XM150 announced today [press release in English], portable: The thing weighs 9.7kg. Last month, Sanyo presented a device that somehow deserved the name , as the LP-XU106 weighs just 4kg. But anyway, the LP-XM150 has some good specs at least: 6,500 lumens brightness (which Sanyo says is the highest in this weight class), 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 1,204
Daily Crunch: It Came From Burbank Edition »
Paperboy: The Movie is actually a better idea than Hollywood’s had in years Strange CPU monitor is not a tumor Disney to put an end to those pesky “paper” books Funambol: open source mobile cloud sync (with contest!) VholdR ups its ContourHD action-cam up to 1080p
Hands-on with the HP Envy 13 »
We’ll have more on this little gem this week but I present to you the HP Envy 13 , the first netbook I’d actually consider buying. It hit 2813 on Geekbench, lasted about three hours on one charge, and is smaller and lighter than a MacBook. Best of all it runs Windows 7 Professional like a champ and has HP’s instant-on technology for quick media and communications applications. Hot, hot stuff. Click through for a gallery and expect a review on Friday.
The iPhone App and Daniel Johnston »
Fans of Daniel Johnston, rejoice! There is now a beautifully cell-shaded, tilt-controlled puzzle game just for you. “Hi, How Are You?” features images and music from the man himself, enclosed in a iPhone app that proves to actually be an entertaining game. The surreal, carefree experience perfectly captures Johnston , while still loosely adhering to the laws of physics. You get to run around as several of the indie icon’s bizarre creations, post your achievements to Facebook, even defeat Satan. Better grab it while it’s hot .