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BlackBerry
Xbox 360
New Official Xbox 360 Controller Spotted
Over at a German games convention going on now, IGN has come across a new Xbox 360 controller by Microsoft. Apparently it looks pretty much identical to the old one (pictured here) but includes an entirely redesigned directional pad (which makes sense, because the current d-pad isn't so good). Here's what IGN had to say about the play experience: More »
Palm treo pro
Palm Treo Pro Official
This week's best kept secret just got official: The Palm Treo Pro is a Centro-sized Windows Mobile 6.1 phone (whither Palm OS?) with tri-band 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS with a 320x320 touchscreen, exactly like the recent Treo 800w. Powering the show is a 400MHz processor and 128MB of RAM. And yep, the proprietary Palm connector is ditched for micro-USB. Hurray for standards. They're selling it unlocked through the online store for $549 in the fall. [Palm]
Cgi
The woman above is not real. I mean, she was real once, when real actress Emily O’Brien provided Image Metrics (you know their work from GTAIV) with 35 facial poses in front of a pair of digital cameras. From there, O’Brien was dismissed so the animators could go to work. Apparently "ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real." And the results—while not always perfect—are pretty extraordinary. Here's Emily's "interview":
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Emily Isn't Real, But Would You Have Guessed?
The woman above is not real. I mean, she was real once, when real actress Emily O’Brien provided Image Metrics (you know their work from GTAIV) with 35 facial poses in front of a pair of digital cameras. From there, O’Brien was dismissed so the animators could go to work. Apparently "ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real." And the results—while not always perfect—are pretty extraordinary. Here's Emily's "interview":
More »
HDTVs
Mitsubishi 40mm-thin HDTV Panels Sport External WHDI Wireless Tuner, BD Player
While there have been several other ultra-thin TVs to cheat on size by moving some of the set's guts into an external box, we're starting to see a few of the biggies taking advantage of the newly-codified WHDI spec to beam the signal from the external box to the screen wirelessly. Details are somewhat thin on these new concept Mitsubushi panels, which are 40mm (a hair over 1.5 inches) thick and should reach manufacturing before the year is up. But their use of WHDI (like these Sharp sets before them) to link the panel to the external tuner box adds an interesting twist to this trend. More »
Architecture
Real Sim City Comes to Life in the Desert
Yesterday's images of the almost-finished Burj Dubai blew our minds with its scale and grandiosity. Today, reader David Hobcote zooms out his Canon 1Ds Mark III on board a Bell heli to show us the current state of some of Dubai's new landmarks, including the stunning New Atlantis Hotel and the first house constructed on one of The World's artificial islands. Yes, it looks like a new Sim City running in a PlayStation 3. More »
Cellphones
Samsung Omnia Comes With Marching Band and Semi-Naked Dancers so It Must Be Good
Here's a viral video of the Samsung Omnia. I'm not sure if a troupe of minuscule, badly rotoscoped Vegas dancers and an orchestra will send the message home, but whatever works for the people who announced their alleged iPhone-wannabe on the worst day possible is good enough for us. [YouTube- Thanks Jack!]
Lighting
Kurage Fiber-Optic Chandelier Adjusts Brightness By Tweaking its Curves
This chandelier-ish lighting design, dubbed Kurage3, allows you to change its level of illumination by changing how curved a shape it makes. Simple science really: If you make it curve past the critical angle for the 1.5-mm fiber-optic, instead of shooting through the tube of glass, the light from an LED light source leaks out at the corners. It's a messy, organic-looking light fitting, which is how fiber-optic lighting should be, or so it feels to me... that way it'd fit into my organic-looking, messy home. It's from Schemata Studio, but there's no info on whether you'll be able to buy it for real. [Yanko Design]
htc diamond
HTC Diamond's Hidden Multitouch Revealed
If you're reading the back of the HTC Diamond's box, it doesn't show some little child laughing with glee as he pinches in and out of webpages or draws with two fingers at once, in fact, it doesn't even list multitouch as a feature at all. But just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. When using the program NavDbgTool, HTC's secret weapon is uncovered—the entire front case supports tandem touching: More »
Camcorders
Tropical Storm Fay from International Space Station Video Camera
The International Space Station was passing at exactly the right time and angle to take this beautiful travelling shot of tropical storm Fay, which is now increasing force over Florida threatening to become a hurricane and close the Kennedy Space Center. From space, everything looks so calm and harmless. And nobody can hear you scream, which is a plus unless you are the moron who decided to kite surf in Miami using the storm winds, logically crashing against a wall (the following video may be too strong for the sensibilities of some readers). More »
Intel
Intel Spills More Beans on Nehalem Microarchitecture at IDF
At the Intel Developers Forum Intel itself is turning the spotlight on the upcoming Nehalem chip microarchitecture. The chips will have integrated memory controllers built directly into the processor, as we mentioned before, which will allow three-times faster memory read-write speeds than previous generations. More »
Cases
Speck SeeThru iPhone 3G Hard Case is its Own Movie-Viewing Stand
Speck's See Thru Hard Shell case for the iPhone 3G is one of the few cases I've seen that makes me go "Oh, interesting" instead of "bah, nonsense." Firstly because it's simple, just snapping in two polycarbonate parts around the sides and rear of the phone, with rubberized grips so it doesn't slip out of your mitts. Secondly, when you've snapped it in two, one half remains snugly on the phone while the other half acts as a stand, perfect for impromptu movie viewing. And that's just neat. It's in a variety of colors for $30. [Product page via Slipperybrick]
mower
The electric-sheep lawnmower may have tickled your fancy, but this Muwi concept mower from designer Yuli Sung will have you scratching your head. The concept's roughly the same as the sheep: It automatically assesses the grassy areas, and then cuts the lawn without supervision required. Cunningly, it grabs the grass cuttings inside where they won't lie around setting off people's hay fever. But then it does something strange... it compacts the cuttings into toys. Scratching yet? The second image makes it clearer.
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Muwi Concept Lawnmower Turns Waste Grass into Playthings
The electric-sheep lawnmower may have tickled your fancy, but this Muwi concept mower from designer Yuli Sung will have you scratching your head. The concept's roughly the same as the sheep: It automatically assesses the grassy areas, and then cuts the lawn without supervision required. Cunningly, it grabs the grass cuttings inside where they won't lie around setting off people's hay fever. But then it does something strange... it compacts the cuttings into toys. Scratching yet? The second image makes it clearer.
More »
Intel
Info on Intel's Dual-Core Atom 330 Processor Hits Internets
Last we'd heard about dual-core version of Intel's tiny Atom processor it was delayed through supply problems... but now info on Intel's Atom 330 dual-core has arrived. It's a desktop chip, with a 533MHz frontside bus and based on the 45nm process, though there's no info on its clock speeds yet. It'll be compatible with Intel's upcoming D945GCLF2 mini-ITX motherboard, a 945GX chipset/GMA 950 graphics chip board due in September, which is presumably when the 330 hits the streets too. As yet there's no news on a mobile version, bearing the letter N in its numeric title. [Reghardware]
Apple
iPhone Copy and Paste Between Applications Is Here, But Not from Apple
At last, iPhone copy and paste between applications is here. However, it doesn't come from Apple, but from MagicPad developer Zac White. Cali Lewis, the ever-smiling presenter at GeekBrief, got the scoop on his new OpenClip open-source framework, which will enable any developer to implement copy and paste between applications without violating Apple's developer agreement. More »
PCs
Fujitsu's iMac-Alike FMV Desktop Gets Upgrade, Bigger 19-Inch Version
We'd already drawn comparisons between Fujitsu's all-in one FMV F-A50 desktop PC and the design aesthetic of the iMac, and now Fujitsu have upgraded the range and added a 19-inch version to the range. The F-B70T even features a bigger "chin" beneath the 1440 x 900 screen, alongside a Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 running at 2.26GHz, with 2GB RAM, a 500GB hard-drive, integrated TV Tuner, webcam and wi-fi. The smaller 16-inch F-B50 has an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T8100 ticking over at 2.1GHz with a 320GB hard-drive, and looks much the same as the original A50. There's no data yet on pricing or availability. [Akihabaranews]
Intel
Mystery Intel Tablet is Panasonic Toughbook for Medical Types
That mystery tablet PC that appeared at the end of Intel's presentation at IDF last night is no classmate, or super-powered Speak&Spell either: It's a Panasonic Toughbook-alike tablet. More specifically it's a "Mobile Clinical Assistant" device, aimed at doctors and nurses who are under an increasing burden of digital data and imagery nowadays, though there's not much more info available than that fact yet. Shucks... and there we were hoping for something a little more Classmate-y. [Ubergizmo]
Microsoft sidewinder
I don't know who's designing Microsoft's gaming hardware after their brief hiatus from the market, but they're insane, in the best possible way—they've actually got some inspired, unique form factors, besides a huge Vader hard-on. The first Sidewinder keyboard ever, the X6, has a macro/numberpad that'll dock on either side and takes the number of macros up to 90, plus it has gaming usuals like adjustable backlighting. The X5 mouse is a slightly less swank version of the previous Sidewinder.
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Gaming on the Death Star: Microsoft Sidewinder X6 Keyboard With Switchable Keypad and X5 Mouse
I don't know who's designing Microsoft's gaming hardware after their brief hiatus from the market, but they're insane, in the best possible way—they've actually got some inspired, unique form factors, besides a huge Vader hard-on. The first Sidewinder keyboard ever, the X6, has a macro/numberpad that'll dock on either side and takes the number of macros up to 90, plus it has gaming usuals like adjustable backlighting. The X5 mouse is a slightly less swank version of the previous Sidewinder.
More »
