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Daily Crunch: Vision

Posted: 12 Jan 2012 01:00 AM PST

Hands On: The Nintendo Wii U

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 06:32 PM PST

wiiu1

One of the first things I was told when I ducked into one of Nintendo’s suites to play with the Wii U was what they wouldn’t tell me. Price, release date, technical specs, games in development — all of these were taboo topics that would be (and were) met with a gentle dismissal if I broached the subject.

Great. With that load lifted, I picked up the Wii U controller and dove in.

Holding the Wii U controller is your hand is… unusual. It’s been historically rare to see a controller that maintains such a considerable distance between the user’s hands (save for some funky Japanese one-offs), but it’s not so large as to be awkward.

It’s also surprisingly light, but again, not so light as to feel chintzy. Nintendo seems to have nailed a very tricky balance between size and weight, as well they should considering how critical the controller is to the new experiences they hope to deliver.

The controller’s built-in gyroscopes were very responsive when we played Battle Mii (more on that later), and the buttons had nice movement though I prefer clickier buttons myself.

Then of course, there’s that screen. The 6.2-inch display was bright, and registered input quickly and accurately even without the included stylus. I caught glimpses of ghosting when switching camera angles during a Zelda demo scene, but as the Nintendo reps in the room kept repeating, none of this was final hardware so we’ll see if that little issue persists after launch.

The Nintendo representatives in the room repeatedly referred to the Wii U as providing a second window for gaming as opposed to offering just a second screen. The controller and TV screens can work independently of each other, and that really sunk in during a demo in which a camera navigated some Japanese streets. While the television showed us video of the camera moving forward, I could use the Wii U controller to look above, below, and behind the camera as it chugged along

I played a few short demo games with the reps in the room, the first of which was Chase Mii. Essentially a Mario-themed game of tag, one player held the Wii U remote and got both a top-down and a third-person view of themselves on the map while players wielding Wii remotes tried to catch him. Battle Mii on the other hand pitted Wiimote-toting players again a UFO piloted by the player with the Wii U controller, who had to use the screen as a viewfinder and physically move in order to aim.

Though the games were basic (and may never officially hit consoles), they did the job by illustrating just how fun that bring another screen into the mix can be. Giving different players different experiences isn’t exactly new territory for Nintendo — games that took advantage of GBA/Gamecube cable come to mind — but the concept seems so much more refined, so much richer now.

The console itself is nondescript, and I have a feeling that was done on purpose. I’ve always gotten the vibe from Nintendo that the style or glamor of their hardware is secondary to their gaming experiences, and it almost feels like the Wii U was designed to blend into the background while players do their thing.

Nintendo has already revealed a few specifications at E3 2011 — multi-core IBM Power-based processor, AMD Radeon-based GPU, 1080p support — but none of that really clicked until I fiddled with the lighting effects during the previously mentioned Zelda demo. Don’t be fooled by its plain appearance, because the Wii U can really push some polygons.

As much as I like the Wii U, it isn’t as though Nintendo doesn’t have some obstacles to surmount. At this stage, the Wii U is a blank canvas. There’s incredible potential here for developers to create truly novel and engaging gameplay experiences, but will they? I’m sure many will, but the problem looming on the horizon is how many developers will look at the Wii U and slap some third-rate title together in order to generate some short term revenue.

Next time you’re in a big box electronics store, check out the discount games bin. I’ll bet you five internet dollars that cheap, lousy Wii games outnumber all the others. They might even have their own bin, for that matter. One of Nintendo’s biggest hurdles will be in keeping the crap-to-cool game ratio from skewing toward the former; hardly an easy task, but one that could make the entire Wii U-owning experience one to covet.



Watch The TechCrunch Gadgets Live CES Podcast!

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 03:55 PM PST

Update: It’s over! Thanks for watching. We’ll put the video up there ^ as soon as it’s done processeing.

It’s 4 o’ clock in Las Vegas at CES 2012, and you know that that means: it’s time for the second of our daily live podcasts straight from our stage in the Grand Concourse. We’ve got demos, interviews, and giveaways. You can win just by tweeting, or if you’re in the area, by dropping by and entering in person. Or both, why not?

We’re all footsore, throatsore, and after a day of hard CES action we’re probably an eyesore, but you should join us anyway. The show starts at 4, so get ready.

Giveaways, you say? We’re giving away a Dropcam HD, a pair of Striivs, a couple Xhibt (sic) iPad cases, and a few accessories that let you attach your phone or tablet to things. I don’t know what to call them. And in between giveaways we’ll be showing an interview with 50 Cent from earlier, and getting a demo of Makerbot’s latest making device.

I have to go get on stage. Quick, tune in!



50 Cent Weighs In: Waterproof Phones And Fighting Poverty

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 02:04 PM PST

fifty

50 Cent took the stage with our very own Matt Burns to talk about his line of SMS headphones, but that’s not all he felt like chatting about. In between giveaways, the tech-savvy musician/businessman took a moment to talk about some of the cool things to be seen at CES as well his stance on philanthropy.

Among other things, he seemed to be quite enamored with HzO’s impressive waterproofing technology, which we got a glimpse of in action last night at ShowStoppers. He even revealed that he talked to HzO about the potential of teaming up to create waterproof headsets, though that’s not all he’d like to see getting the waterproof treatment.

“We should be waterproofing telephones,” Mr. Cent said. I’m right there with him, though I guess he didn’t see the Galaxy S II survive getting dunked in a drink last night.

Interestingly, when asked what he’d like to be remembered for, he said that he hoped word of his non-entertainment endeavors would live on. He’s definitely got a bit of a humanitarian streak — sales of his energy drink benefit the UN World Food Programme — but he also thinks that the onus to solve crucial issues like poverty should fall on businesses and entrepreneurs too. Mr. Cent (as Matt calls him) has long claimed that contributing “1% of business” to charitable organizations could alleviate extreme poverty around the world, but he noted one big tech name in particular during his time on the stage.

“Google is a baby, it’s only ten years old,” he said. “If that model was implemented there, we’d have a lot of money to solve some issues.”



U.S. PC Shipments Slip 6 Percent In Q4, While Apple’s Jump 21 Percent

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 01:54 PM PST

Dell-XPS-13---3

The PC industry is in decline. Or hadn’t you noticed? According to Gartner, PC shipments in the U.S slipped 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. (Microsoft also warned earlier this week that Q4 PC shipments were down). The only bright spot seems to be Apple, which grew shipments in the U.S. an estimated 20.7 percent.  That makes Apple The No. 3 PC maker in the U.S.

HP and Dell are No. 1 and No. 2 respectively. They still command twice Apple’s 11.6 percent market share, with 23.1 percent share for HP and 22.4 percent share for Dell. But Apple is the only PC manufacturer in the top 5 that is growing. Halo effect, anyone?  Or maybe it’s the stores. The only PC manufacturer which grew faster in the U.S than Apple was Lenovo, which grew 40 percent. But it didn’t sell enough PCs in the U.S. to crack the top 5.

Worldiwde, PC shipments fell an estimated 1.4 percent worldwide. Apple didn’t make it into the top 5 worldwide  HP was still No. 1, but saw a 16 percent decline. Lenovo came in No. 2, with 23 percent growth. Dell is No. 3 worldwide. And Asus (No. 5) also saw strong growth in shipments of 20.5 percent.

The three tables below from Gartner are for quarterly shipments in the U.S., worldwide, and full-year shipments worldwide:
Table 2
Preliminary United States PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q11 (Units)


Company

4Q11 Shipments

4Q11 Market Share (%)

4Q10 Shipments

4Q10 Market Share (%)

4Q11-4Q10 Growth (%)

HP 4,137,833 23.1 5,598,619 29.4 -26.1
Dell 4,020,549 22.4 4,210,000 22.1 -4.5
Apple 2,074,800 11.6 1,718,400 9.0 20.7
Toshiba 1,925,100 10.7 1,968,091 10.3 -2.2
Acer Group 1,756,838 9.8 1,982,477 10.4 -11.4
Others 4,014,644 22.4 3,583,418 18.8 12.0
Total 17,929,764 100.0 19,061,005 100.0 -5.9

Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablets such as the iPad.

Source: Gartner (January 2012)

Table 1
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q11 (Units)


Company

4Q11 Shipments

4Q11 Market Share (%)

4Q10 Shipments

4Q10 Market Share (%)

4Q11-4Q10 Growth (%)

HP 14,712,266 16.0 17,554,181 18.8 -16.2
Lenovo 12,931,136 14.0 10,516,772 11.3 23.0
Dell 11,633,880 12.6 10,796,317 11.6 7.8
Acer Group 9,823,214 10.7 12,043,606 12.9 -18.4
Asus 6,243,118 6.8 5,180,913 5.5 20.5
Others 36,827,666 40.0 37,358,786 40.0 -1.4
Total 92,171,280 100.0 93,450,575 100.0 -1.4

Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablets such as the iPad.

Source: Gartner (January 2012)

Table 3
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2011 (Units)


Company

2011 Shipments

2011 Market Share (%)

2010 Shipments

2010 Market Share (%)

2011-2010 Growth (%)

HP

60,554,726

17.2

62,741,274

17.9

-3.5

Lenovo

45,703,863

13.0

38,180,444

10.9

19.7

Dell

42,864,759

12.1

42,119,272

12.0

1.8

Acer Group

39,415,381

11.2

48,758,542

13.9

-19.2

ASUS

20,768,465

5.9

18,902,723

5.4

9.9

Others

143,499,792

40.7

140,198,078

40.0

2.4

Total

352,806,984

100.0

350,900,332

100.0

0.5

Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablets such as the iPad.

Source: Gartner (January 2012)



Vuzix: SMART Glasses Explained

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 12:25 PM PST

vuzix-smart-glasses-ces-2012

The story about Vuzix’s new AR/holographic enabled concept glasses broke last week, but I had a chance to catch up with Clark Dever from Vuzix (with my rouge TechCrunch ghetto cam) for a brief video explanation and demo of the technology.

The short of it is that it involves some highfalutin’ technolgy to get the displays to accurately display into the lens material. Their displays were quite clear and the demo devices show that accurately. Additionally, the displays will ultimately be able to work with a series of wearable gyroscopes for truly “hands on” interface interaction.



Live At CES: 50 Cent Talks About His New Headphone Line And The Business Of Music

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 12:07 PM PST

fifty

You can view our interview with 50 Cent live at CES today at Noon Pacific/3pm Eastern. Why Fiddy and why at CES? Because the musician is now moving into electronics, following Dr. Dre with his Beats line and, in another sense, the ease with which smaller companies (and individuals) can actually build and market interesting hardware.

His new headphones, Street And Sync By 50, are characterized by their built-in Kleer wireless technology and wild colors.

Update: The live stream is over, but our live team is getting ready to hit the show floor once again! Click here to see what we’re up to.



OnLive Viewer Hits Google TV, Full Gaming Capability Potentially On The Way

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 11:20 AM PST

Onlive-Logo

Google TV needs content. Onlive has content. The match is perfect.

Starting today, the Onlive Viewer app is available for downloading via Google TV’s Android Market. This app allows anyone to view gamers hacking away at OnLive games. Note, the app doesn’t bring gaming capabilities to Google TV, but OnLive expects to add that functionality later down the road.

The OnLive Viewer App allows is a mishmash of gaming excitement. The Arena, where most of the action takes place, allows for viewing of OnLive’s vast gaming library. Simply select a thumbnail preview and you’re transported to that person’s game. Watch that player live or die by the sword. Thankfully for the gamer, voice communication is not enabled but viewers can congratulate the gamer with a thumbs

OnLive hopes to eventually to bring fulling gaming capability to Google TV down the road. This is their standard operating procedure: test the waters with the viewer app to judge interest. OnLive might be the killer app that Google TV desperately needs.



Why Samsung Is The Next Apple

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 10:40 AM PST

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For most of the ten years I’ve been coming to CES, every presentation, every booth, has had one goal: to create an ecosystem in order to encourage consumer to lock in. Year after year, presentation after presentation, someone has come out to show how the phone will connect to the fridge which, in turn, will connect to the TV. And year after year, they failed.

Until now.

Samsung, and to some extent the other vendors, have finally cracked it. For most of the past few years they’ve watched as Apple ran circles around them in terms of media sharing and remote control. Obviously Apple’s systems have been limited to iPod/iTunes/iPad/Mac but Samsung, a major player in both the white goods and the mobile markets, can now have it all.

First, some numbers.

Samsung is number one in TVs for the sixth year in a row, selling approximately two TVs a second in November. While a minority of those TVs have been what Samsung is calling Smart TVs, all new TVs in 2012 will include boxless interactive television, which means a few things. First, it means Google and Apple are in trouble. Two TVs per second definitely beats any performance metrics for Google’s platform and, more important, Samsung has headed off Apple at the living room media pass.

Then consider Samsung’s lead in cellphone sales. While many would argue that Samsung specializes in meh and me-too, 60 million cellphones sold in 2011 can’t be a fluke. This isn’t about Android or iOS or Windows Phone – it’s about Samsung making and selling millions of phones to millions of people. Samsung is mercenary. They’re happy to use anyone’s OS as long as it puts phones into boxes and boxes into shopping bags.

So you have two superlatives: biggest phone manufacturer and biggest TV manufacturer. Add in some tablets, some washing machines, and some acceptable software and you have a real and vibrant ecosystem. The next year will bring plenty of efforts to bring streaming media into the home, but the guy who is already there will win.

Before the iPod, there were plenty of small players in the MP3 player market but no one manufacturer had any real numbers. The market was perceived as too small. Now we have next-gen TVs. As people begin to understand the value of the Samsung Smart TV in its fourth generation and, in honesty, most of the early smart TV efforts by all major players were pretty bad, they’ll be happy to plop down a few hundred for a TV that can evolve every year with the addition of an upgrade package that ups the processing power and adds features.

These new TVs are, obviously, “consumer electronics” devices so they’re rarely upgraded and rarely considered obsolete. Like bankruptcy, you shop for a TV gradually then suddenly. You live with the same TV until the kids start wanting to watch Tangled in HD or you see Grey’s Anatomy: The Musical in living 3D at a friend’s house. That’s why Apple has never made a TV: There’s no way to sell a new one every year.

Samsung’s success isn’t a sure thing. Incumbents rarely survive the revolutionary tidal wave of Apple’s design team and if history is any guide when/if the “real” Apple TV appears all of Samsung’s hard work will be forgotten as accolades roll in for Apple’s amazing (and I’m just guessing) retina display screen, built-in coffee-maker, and Scent-Surround smell emitters. However, if your Samsung phone and tablet can talk to your Samsung Smart TV and your Samsung aquarium pump, you may be inclined to stay in a single family when it comes to CE choices.

Apple could do this as will, and they are trying. But it will be difficult at best and “just a hobby” at worst. Samsung makes TVs. They make everything – the screen, the PCBs, and the case. Apple will be outsourcing their manufacture and they won’t be able to compete on price, especially when they’re buying panels from Samsung.

Can Apple beat other CE manufacturers at this game? Sure. They’ve done similar things before. But Samsung and Sony and LG have plenty of time to sell TVs and at two a second, Apple will have quite a bit of catching up to do.



Riding The Bull At CES 2012

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 10:00 AM PST

Jordan was wrong. Oh how she was wrong. She thought that being a native Texan she could beat me, a manly man on a mechanical bull. Neither of us had ever rode one of these fictitious creatures so we hopped on one while browsing the wares at Pepcom’s Digital Experience.

These mini tradeshows are popular at CES. They bring together just venders and press where CES mixes in salesmen, marketing types and general weirdoes. But you have to entertain the press. We tend to have short attention spans hence gimmicks like the cowboy theme and mechanical bulls. I like it. And I won.



Watch Us Live From The CES 2012 Floor!

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 09:18 AM PST

Yesterday was awesome. We hit up LG, Samsung, and Sony to name a few and had a helluva good time doing it. But today is a different day, a different hall and a bevy of new companies and booths. So grab some popcorn — seriously, go now because you only have a few minutes before we’re on — and get ready to come on a crazy journey with us.

Oh, and if you want to ask us some questions or participate in any way, just tweet to @TechCrunch using the #CEScrunch hash tag. We’ll try to answer any questions you have in real-time, and if you want to see more of a certain thing or booth we’re totally open to suggestions.

We’ll be live at 9:15 Pacific, and we’ll stay with you until the end of the day. No one is bringing CES to you this way, so we hope you enjoy.



TC/Gadgets Interview: Up Close With The Lytro

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 09:13 AM PST

Screen Shot 2012-01-11 at 9.12.13 AM

Yesterday we had the opportunity to play with the world’s first mass-market light-field camera, the Lytro. VP of Marketing Kira Wampler ran us through its paces as we learned how the camera grabs not only the color and intensity but the direction of light coming in from a scene.

The product is still in its infancy and it will soon receive a cool upgrade that will allow Lytro users to extrapolate 3D scenes from standard Lytro pictures. The device is already replacing a room full of cameras and electronics, said Wampler, and now the mini Lytro can replace bulky dual-lens 3D cameras.



Panasonic Shows Cloud-Based “Smart Vegetable Garden” Device For Home Use

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 07:15 AM PST

panasonic cloud vegetable

Panasonic isn’t just making TVs, phones, or cameras, they are also producing household appliances. One such appliance has recently been introduced by Japanese business daily The Nikkei, and it’s probably the first cloud-based device for growing fruit and vegetables at home out there.

Four leaf vegetables can be grown in one so-called “Smart Vegetable Garden” (which is sized at 100x50x30cm) at the same time, with Panasonic claiming that owners can expect to harvest them in about 40 days – 30% less than using conventional methods. Apart from saving time, the device also integrates a cloud-based management system to track growth, for example by automatically screening the level of water and nutrients, or the temperature.

According to Panasonic, the device is not only safe for use within the kitchen but also outdoors (it’s also possible to connect multiple units).

The company plans to start selling the devices in Japan in the next fiscal year. One unit will cost a whopping US$7,800, but alternatively, buyers can opt for a US$180 monthly lease plan that includes the cloud-based management service. The device will also be bundled with home solar energy systems Panasonic is selling on the Japanese market.

Sorry for the small picture – Panasonic hasn’t included the Smart Vegetable Garden on its Japanese website for home appliances yet.