Kindle Touch compared to Nook Simple Touch, Kobo Touch, and Kindle 4 - Marco's review.
So the Little Printer is cute, tiny, adorable and if you are looking for something that prints from your iPhone and in a strip (see the video for the use case they have in mind), looks pretty much perfect. Too bad it won't be available until after the holiday season :)
Wonder how much the ink replacement costs..... Either way, I'm definitely bookmarking this to check out when it appears in 2012.
Shawn Blanc has his Jawbone UP Review online.
[...] By this time the Apple store I was at the day before is open again and so I call them and, LUCK! they have them. I speed over and am able to buy a medium-size UP. They only had black available, which was fine by me because that's the color I prefer.
The first new Windows Phone 7 Phones from the Nokia / Microsoft partnership (started 8 months ago) poked their heads up at Nokia World.... the phones are the Lumia 710 and 800.
The 710 is a "... colorful and affordable [...] no-nonsense smartphone that brings the Lumia experience to more people around the world". I read that to be that it's a lower end more affordable phone. The 800 is "stunningly social" and has "vivid colors".
See the press release for full specs, or this macrumors link for more details.
Words cannot express how awesome looking the Nest Learning Thermostat looks. Assuming it full fills it's promise, I'm all in. Sadly the store is down right now so I can't plunk down $250 for a pre-order. You can find out more at this gigaom article.
Remember the Lytro? That camera that you can focus with after the fact? Well, it's now for sale, $399 for an 8G model, $499 for a 16G. Interesting (revolutionary? odd?) format as you can see in the images on the camera page. Still, I was expecting a pro level cost for something the size of a truck when this came out, the fact it looks like a real consumer product and under $500? Amazing.
I'm really interested to see how this works in real life (as with all things). The 8G model will store 350 images, my math is fuzzy so you'll have to figure the megapixels, as the details page says it's 11 "Megarays", which I assume sort of translate to MP.
I can't wait till some pro folks get their paws on this one.
Shawn Blanc has the Diary of a TouchPad Owner, all about buying and setting up the new webOS machine.
9:58 AM: I drive in to the Best Buy parking lot, and there is no line. As I am parking I see a manager walk out of the store and wave his arms in the air with a "come on in" motion. About a dozen folks all get out of their cars and begin walking toward the door. I think to myself how amazing it is that all these people are here for the TouchPad. Though once we all got into the store, only two of us were looking for TouchPads.
It's not all sarcastic, it's actually a decent look at the new iPad competitor.
RIM Unveils BlackBerry OS 7.0 as well as 2 new handsets, the Bold 9900 and 9930.
BlackBerry OS 7.0 comes as part of two new phones announced by Research In Motion, namely the BlackBerry 9900 and 9930, which are classic-style BlackBerry devices (complete with keyboard), but this time with a touch screen. They also sport a 1.2Ghz processor, support for NFC, and something RIM calls a Liquid Graphics touch screen. This screen has a 640×480 resolution on a 2.8" diagonal - so an impressive 287ppi. It also does HD video.
Doesn't sound like a huge improvement over BB OS7, but good to hear things are moving forward, and that they are focusing on the handsets that they are good at and not the (less than well recieved) touchscreen handsets.
I am not a fan of blogging every bit that comes out of CES (lots of other sites do that far better than I can), however I had to post this from Notion Ink as well as the Adam hands on that Aryk sent me.
Aryk sent over a link to some details of Notion Ink's Adam tablet's hardware.
Andy I has a nice Samsung Galaxy Tab review.
A few weeks later, when Apple showed off the awesome firepower of their fully armed and operational iPad, it was as if a million potential competitors cried out "Of course, the unit we demonstrated was just a concept device" and were silenced.
So it looks like the rumored Playstation Phone is in fact, real. Doesn't mean it's not a silly idea of course, but you never know what'll happen until you throw it against the wall and see if it sticks ya know?
Well, not the same as the iPhone unlocker, but ChevronWP7, the Windows Phone 7 unlocker will let you sideload applications.
I have to say the video is very cool, this is a iPod Nano-like device, powered by Android, which does some pretty cool things. I'm not sure if this is "what the nano should have been", but if you go by the feature tick list, it definitely wins. We'll see what happens when it actually hits the market though.
Just pointed to this from PeeJay, seems that RIM has introduced a BlackBerry tablet. Looks interesting for sure....
Via iPhoneInCanada.ca - SaskTel Launches New 3G+ Wireless Network. I'm not sure exactly what the "+" in "3G+" is, but I assume it means "faster". It's available in limited areas (the data availability, not voice service I presume), and they have a rollout schedule linked). Phone support is limited at the moment to a couple of blackberries, nokias, but will soon also support various models of the Samsung Galaxy (Android based).
Research in Motion Launches 'Torch' Smartphone and BlackBerry 6 OS. I wasn't overly impressed with the video of the BB OS6, and I'm beyond the need for a physical keyboard, but the phone looks pretty nice. Much better than the old blue brick I used to have to carry around for sure! I like the social and communications features for sure, and I know that for people the BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) is a huge selling point, especially if you have friends with BBM as well. The os (there's a preview video on the linked page) is OK, it looks a bit like the iPhone OS, but without some of the "soul", though that might be the rendering in the video.
I tried to make a table as awesome as this when I was about 15 with my dad, but it was supposed to be a full block of resin with the electronics embedded in it, but the thing was just going to be too heavy. This though, is very cool.
Finally important questions are answered: Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter hits the US in September for $299, via TUAW.
Not exactly "ready for consumers", but the New Handheld Computer is 100% open source software (yay) and a low price (double-yay).
Amazing how technology moves... now the Atom-Z processor for cellphones can run a high end game from not that many years ago (or is it?) at at 100 fps. Wow. Not sure how much of that is a) game age b) skill of iD Software in making a scalable game that will recompile for almost any processor or c) holy crap processors are getting faster and smaller!
Sounds like the new hotness is The HTC HD2 from T-Mobile. Short story is it's a chunk of sexy hardware (iPhone-esque), running a sexified android Windows mobile.
Some more info and video at Engadget, Gizmodo, or you can check out the official site. Looks nice, though not sure how YAABH (Yet Another Android Based Handset) will do against the iPhone. Also the Gizmodo review is titled "A Tragedy", but I'd be interested in ya'lls take.
Update: OMG apparently I'm an idiot. I was told last night about this and that it was android based, but actually reading the articles now it's Windows Mobile based (not WinMob7PhS based, but Wince 6.x based). Oh my.
Update2: The one I was actually thinking of was the HTC EVO 4G, which is actually the Android powered one :)
Heard on TWiT this morning that the Neato XV-11 from Roomba is the new hotness (in a very boring way) in that it's a Roomba that cleans in a back and forth line instead of the drunken circles that the normal Roomba's do.
Warning, any male geek who was born in the 1970-1985 (or so) date range clicking on the link to the 24" AT-AT Toy may experience the uncanny urge to yell out "WANT!" and then immediately call over their friends to see it and gush.
BTW, my birthday's coming up in another 9 months or so..... just sayin'.
This video of Lego Augmented Reality makes me want to visit this store in IL.
TUAW points to an SD card reader for the iPhone that may be a boom for photographers. I had a USB photo adapter for the original iPod, which was great to have 60G of backup space for images, and while the iPhone even with 32G of space in it isn't going to maintain a "real" photographer for an intensive shoot, but an amateur or enthusiast to back up their RAW and JPGs for a weekend trip so you don't have to lug a laptop around? Looks good. Not bad for $50 at least.
Via Aryk: The true "size" of a gadget can be calculated now through the Full Gadget Ratio. This looks correct to me.
Andy Ihnatko has a great set on flickr of the Google Nexus One vs. iPhone 3GS vs. D200 to show just where each phone falls down, and what they do well and poorly. A nice comparison and commentary.
Parrot.com just announced at CES a quadricopter controlled wirelessly from an iPhone.
[...] a quadricopter piloted with an iPhone or iPod touch, which allows users to fly in a real-world environment while simultaneously playing a video game from the device's screen.
OK seriously, I want one of these things, assuming the flight distance or battery life isn't ridiculously short or there is some other insanely silly restriction (like a really high price). The auto-takeoff and landing feature fixes the issue with other micro-copters that they are amazingly hard to land (hell, hard to fly, impossible to land), and the view from the copter shown on the iPod/iPhone fixes the "which way do I turn to go left?" issue. Heck, this'll be a great new world of peeping toms fun helicopter gaming!
To up the tablet rumor ante, seems that MS will up the Apple ante with an HP tablet, possibly announced during the Ballmer keynote at CES today. This was posted here almost four months ago with the story about the HP Courier with the great video of it's use helping a designer work on a new project.
Guess this is where we (might) see if the promise in the video has been fullfilled! Maybe keep an eye on #ces or watch the live keynote stream (6:30pm PST), though I'll update this story if anything interesting happens.
This all said, until the (rumored) Apple Tablet/Slate/MagicDeviceThatDoesEverything is shown at the (rumored) media event on the (rumored) date of Jan 26, I don't think anyone is going to be buying anything, just in case the (rumored) tablet is as awesome as it's (rumored) rumored to be!
As someone struggling with getting my media to my TV in a concise and simple manner, devices and programs like Boxee have caught my attention. Couple of bits of news in that respect.
None of these boxes avoid the need for either tuner cards (if you're into recording TV) or a digital tuner (if you have digital / HD cable).
Speaking of tablets (sorry people-who-don't-care-anymore) 9to5 Mac points to Hearst's eReader and it's uber-coolness. I'm not sure if the bending is that important if it doesn't roll up (though I guess it'd help with not breaking it if it's in your bag or carry-on luggage), but the rest of it looks pretty awesome. Put in full color PDF reading, syncable through wireless or tethered 3G and I'm there.... (unless Apple has one that has the neural implant capabilities that are clearly indicated as it having through the chip shipment reports in Taiwan going up .... ;)
You'll get to see it at CES.
OK, I'm not sure if after watching this unboxing video of the Nokia N900 is epically cool, or possibly the most annoy thing in the world. I'd go with "cool"!
Boy Genius Report has a Motorola Droid Preview. You'll remember the Droid from the "iDon't" commercial that came out bashing (or at least poking) at the iPhone and what it does and doesn't do. The preview version of the Droid phone runs Android 2.0, has a nice looking screen, and some nice speed. Check out the full review for the details.
PC Pro has a BlackBerry Storm 2 review. I tried my brother-in-law's BB Storm 1 and was not impressed at all. It sounds like some of the issues have been resolved, but we'll see how that goes as more reviews come out.
Right now, and please don't take this as me being a Mac/iPhone fanboy, the iPhone is going to be hard to catch, as the thing that is best about the iPhone is the feel of it. I've played with the Pre, the Android, and the Storm, and none match the smoothness and feel of some of the simple operations like scrolling and panning that the iPhone has got perfectly, and have since version 1.
This is probably why it survived it's original incarnation with no 3G, no apps, no cut and paste, and all the other detractors. If the UI is smooth and scrolling and flipping through options feels like it should, it's really hard to use another phone where the scrolling or moving of your fingers on the screen feel slightly laggy or "off". Also the ecosystem built up around the iPhone with the app store makes it a force to be reckoned with.
That said, the Blackberry is firmly entrenched in the business world, and that is something that the iPhone will have trouble making inroads with, though I'm seeing more and more business people carrying iPhones walking around.
Crackberry has some renderings of what they claim is a for real BlackBerry Watch. Does no one remember the complete fail that Microsoft Spot Watch was? It really sounds like something that seems like a good idea, but in reality, isn't. Who knows, they might be able to pull it off. Course, with minimal input possibilities, and the fact you'd probably be carrying your blackberry with you anyway....
Photos and details of the Barnes and Noble's E-Reader, to be revealed next week (oops). It's a black and white reader (a la the kindle) but with (wait for it...) multi-touch like the iPhone.
The camera nerds will probably drool over the newly announced Leica M9, and balk at the price. Still, full frame sensor, classic range-finder body, compatibility with what people claim to be the best lenses in the world, etc etc. Anyone got a few months of mortgage payments spare that they can give me to buy one? Pretty please?
More details and pricing ($7k!!!) here.
Update: Hands on preview over at DPreview.
The latest from Canon has appeared. Check out the Canon EOS 7D at DPReview. Updated are the viewfinder (100% @ 1.0x magnification), integrated speedlight control, 18mp sensor, 8fps, 24fps full HD movie mode, DIGIC 4 (that's one better than DIGIC 3), and other bits. See the link for way more details.
For those wanting some more options in the iPhone GPS department, a new player has come in with the iGO My way™ 2009 app, priced at $79 and coming in a North America and two European version (west and east). The app looks really good actually, with 3D buildings showing up on the 3rd person view map. This may or may not be another contender in the Navigon (here for real), TomTom (I want the stand but there's no official word on release dates) and AT&T (ugh, monthly fees) and G-Map (sketchy reviews). YouTube video of the app in operation is here.
Competition is good however!