CrunchGear |  |
- The Isostick Makes A Mockery Of Optical Disk Hegemony
- Pixeet: Full Panorama Photos With Almost Any Phone
- Toshiba-Fujitsu IS12T: World’s First Windows Mango Cell Phone Up And Close (Video)
- Polaroid’s Z340 Isn’t Quite The Gaga-Inspired Beauty We Saw At CES
- Motorola CEO: Droid Bionic Will Launch In September
- Motorola Mobility Beats The Street, Shipped 440k Xoom Tablets, 4.4M Smartphones In Q2
- British Court Orders ISP To Block Filesharing Website In Potential Landmark Ruling
- Is This The iPhone 5?
- Logitech Loses Big On Google TV, Revue Price Cut From $250 To $99
- Motorola Triumph’s Camera Issues Are Way Worse Than A Little Screen Flickering
- The Netbook Lives! Asus Launches Product Page For The MeeGo Eee PC X101 Netbook
- Video: When Roombas And Baby Ducks Mate, A Khepera Swarm Robot Is Born
| The Isostick Makes A Mockery Of Optical Disk Hegemony Posted: 29 Jul 2011 03:30 AM PDT In the old days, you used to have to put something called “optical media” into a “DVD drive” to install software and operating systems. Those days are long over thanks to an odd little USB key called the Isostick. Although the project doesn’t officially exist – it’s almost funded on Kickstarter – the IsoStick promises to allow you to load any ISO disk image from any computer just as if it were loading it from an optical disk. Why would you want to do this? Well, some computers can’t boot directly from a USB thumbdrive and the IsoStick solves this by masquerading as an optical drive first and a thumb drive second. Almost any PC will boot from an optical disk, which makes the Isostick so useful. You can write multiple ISOs onto the FAT32 drive and a special selector lets you pick which one to load. This means you could keep multiple install images on one USB drive and install them as needed. Write the creators:
$225 gets you a 32GB stick and some stickers while the cheapest model costs $125 for 8GB. If you’re unsure what you’d do with this, you’re probably not the target market but they’ve had $21,000 in pledges (out of a target of $25,000) so far, so it’s likely this has always been an itch that needed scratching.        
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| Pixeet: Full Panorama Photos With Almost Any Phone Posted: 29 Jul 2011 02:14 AM PDT Pixeet is a full, floor-to-ceiling panorama lens that works with almost any phone. It currently only supports iPhone but it will soon support Android and Blackberry devices as well. How does it work? Well, you stick the lens right on the device and scan the room or space from left to right. The aluminum and glass lens picks up a full 360-degree panorama and then lets you post it to Pixeet’s own servers. The lens will also work with other devices like digital cameras and webcams. It uses a magnetic ring that sticks to the device and holds the lens in place. There are plenty of these on the market but I think the more widespread compatibility is key here. The lens costs $50.        
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| Toshiba-Fujitsu IS12T: World’s First Windows Mango Cell Phone Up And Close (Video) Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:46 PM PDT Two days ago, Toshiba-Fujtsu in Japan took the wraps of the IS12T, the world’s first world's first phone running Windows Phone 7.5 (aka Mango). We were quick in giving you the first specs, but we now have a video that shows the 1 Ghz Qualcomm CPU-powered device in action – plus some more detailed specs. First, here are the main specs (in more detail), as announced [JP] by the provider of the IS12T in Japan, local mobile carrier KDDI:
Second, our friends at Diginfonews in Tokyo have shot this professional video (in English) that shows the IS12T in action:         
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| Polaroid’s Z340 Isn’t Quite The Gaga-Inspired Beauty We Saw At CES Posted: 28 Jul 2011 05:17 PM PDT Back at CES, we spent a long time waiting for Lady Gaga to show up (again) and introduce her new product line, a collaboration with Polaroid called Grey Label. The camera sunglasses and Bluetooth printer didn’t exactly blow our socks off, but the GL30 camera prototype sure did. It was beautiful. Of course, no matter how much I bugged Polaroid, I never got word one about availability or what have you. And then this thing turns up! Now, I’m not convinced this is the same product we saw at CES. A relative of that product, perhaps, but not the real thing. I refuse to believe that they’d throw away a perfectly good design like that, one associated with Gaga herself. So what is this? The Z340, which ePhotozine previews here, has similarities with the prototype GL30, but I’m not digging the differences. Gone is the shiny veneer and bellows motif. Gone are the (slightly impractical, I’m guessing) controls under the LCD. The shots show an interface that isn’t particularly lovable, and although I don’t want to bash it too much without trying it, that forest of buttons doesn’t look like a lot of fun. I down with Zink, but this isn’t something I’d like to carry around with me. Polaroid hasn’t gotten back to me, and we weren’t invited to the hands-on party (sniff), so until we hear about the fate of the actual GL30, it’s anybody’s guess how this thing fits in. All we know is it costs £229.99 (around $375) and it’ll be available in December.        
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| Motorola CEO: Droid Bionic Will Launch In September Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:01 PM PDT After six… Wait, let's make that seven months of uncertainty, we might finally have something solid to work with. Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha said in an interview with CNET that the Droid Bionic will land in September. Just so we're clear, that's nine months after the phone was announced at CES, five months after rumors circulated of its cancellation, and four months after Motorola promised it would arrive this summer via tweet. In other words, this thing better pack one helluva punch. And from the looks of its specs, that's just what it'll do. The Droid Bionic runs Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread on top of a dual-core TI OMAP 4430 1GHz processor, with a stellar 4.3-inch qHD touchscreen display with 960 x 540 pixels of resolution. Oh, and the 8-megapixel LED flash-equipped rear-camera shouldn't hurt either. It's worth noting that, as most of us already know, the iPhone 5 should launch in September. The fact that Motorola feels comfortable launching the Bionic alongside one of the best selling smartphone lines in history says quite a bit about just how sweet this Android handset could be. Now it's all about how patient we can be. Hey September: get here now!        
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| Motorola Mobility Beats The Street, Shipped 440k Xoom Tablets, 4.4M Smartphones In Q2 Posted: 28 Jul 2011 02:36 PM PDT Motorola Mobility just released its Q2 earnings and it’s loaded with fun stats. First off, the company posted $3.3 billion in net revenue with non-GAAP earnings of nine cents a share. That’s up 28% over last year’s second quarter and beats the Wall Street’s estimate of just six cents a share. The company also realized a GAAP net loss of $56 million compared to a net earnings of $80 million in 2010. Over that time period Motorola Mobility managed to ship 11 million devices including 4.4 million smartphones and 440,000 Xoom Android tablets. That’s up from 8.3 total devices last year . Part of this growth came from the Latin America and China markets where revenue grew 40% and sales more than doubled from the previous year. Note, the company reported shipments rather than sales to consumers. Sanjay Jha, chairman and CEO of Motorola Mobility, stated regarding growth “With a focus on profitable growth and delivering differentiated LTE smartphones and tablets, we expect to achieve profitability in Mobile Devices in the fourth quarter and for the full year 2011.” The company’s wireless division’s net revenue’s grew a whooping 41% over last year to $2.4 billion, partially lead by the Droid product family and International expansion. Motorola made a big push with Sprint during Q2 and announced plans to launch 10 devices on the carrier including the carrier’s first international phone and a new iDEN Android smartphone. The company also credits part of the growth from new home entertainment devices such as Motorola Televation IPTV and Medios Xperience. That sector of the company grew 2% over last year and end with net revenues at $907 million. This report also clears the air concerning the much debated Motorola Xoom. Analysts couldn’t agree on a shipment estimate and most simply stated they were disappointing. Motorola is now saying it shipped (read: shipped, not sold) 440k Xooms during the second quarter. Apple previously stated that they sold 4.69 million iPads during the same time period, outselling the original Honeycomb tablet by at least a factor of ten. Moving to Q3 Motorola Mobility is predicting a non-GAAP earnings of zero to ten cents a share with Wall Street expecting the company to report a 24 cents a share profit on $3.37 billion in revenue. Then for Q4 Motorola Mobility is expecting 47 cents a share on a revenue of $3.84 billion. The market didn’t like what it saw and Motorola Mobility took a hit in after hours trading.        
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| British Court Orders ISP To Block Filesharing Website In Potential Landmark Ruling Posted: 28 Jul 2011 02:20 PM PDT The issues of censorship, net neutrality, and file sharing will be kicking for years to come, and the necessity of making the relevant laws agree internationally will be by no means a small part of the conflict. But those laws have to be reasonable and scalable to begin with. Today brings a development from the UK, where a judge has determined that BT must use its Cleanfeed censorship technology, intended for blocking child pornography, to prevent its subscribers from accessing the file sharing website Newzbin2. It seems that even the Pirate Bay defense (moving your servers to a secret cave) will be ineffective in this case. As I wrote before regarding the need for an alternative DNS: when lobbyists and short-sighted legislators start cutting off certain sources at whatever choke point seems convenient, that’s nothing short of a slippery slope. The very nature of the suit is suspect to begin with. In the introduction to the ruling, it is stated: In these circumstances, the Studios contend that the only way in which they can obtain effective relief to prevent, or at least reduce the scale of, these infringements of their copyrights is by means of an order against BT (and thereafter the other ISPs) of the kind now sought. While this is likely boilerplate in part, the idea that this is the only way they can “obtain effective relief” is only acceptable to the laziest of investigators. It’s a sign of the times that such a large and influential organization can not only contend that with a straight face, but have it pass without comment in a judge’s written opinion. The abuse of a tool made for a very specific and justified purpose shows just how unscrupulous the MPA is in their actions. Cleanfeed, administrated by the Internet Watch Foundation, works to “minimise the availability of… child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world” — it’s a scalpel, not a mallet. But The MPA specifically requests it be used as a means to prevent access to content of their choosing. If they were serious about doing things right, they would be reaching across the aisle, or whatever it is you reach across in the UK (the gap?), to come up with long-lasting and correct adjustments to law and enforcement capabilities. Of course, the legislation we’ve seen on our side of the pond isn’t exactly promising — but at least they haven’t started lobbying for pirates to be entrapped on “To Catch A Predator.” Anxious to please the court, the MPA also magnanimously acknowledged the existence of DNS, IP, and DPI based methods of detecting and intercepting these rogue packets. Even if the websites they ask to be blocked could be proven to be in violation of law (a fine point considering the nature of NZBs, which, like torrents, do not and cannot in themselves contain copyrighted material), why is it left to monolithic private entities like the MPA to make that determination? The goal of this lawsuit is ostensibly to reduce losses from piracy. The MPA (Europe, America, or other) maybe stupid, but it’s not that stupid. They know as soon as they cut off one head, two more will appear to take its place. They know that even if they were to shut down the top 20 providers of quasi-illegal content like torrents, it wouldn’t affect the numbers one iota. This operation, like most of their legal operations, is to determine the extent to which they can turn private grievances into public ones. They’re just flexing their muscles. I don’t want to seem unduly harsh on the judge, one Honorable Mr Justice Arnold; his opinion is quite thoroughly researched and a great number of precedents and existing European law are cited. Unfortunately his judgment simply leans in the direction of the plaintiffs. For instance, on the important but subtle issue of whether it is Newzbin2 or the BT subscriber who is doing the infringement, he simply rejects the idea that the subscribers are the first and final infringers. It’s not an ignorant conclusion (like a few we’ve seen stateside), just an unfortunate one that increases overall liability and muddies the issue: Once it is concluded, as I have, that the users are using BT’s service to infringe copyright, then it follows that the operators [of Newzbin2] are too… The operators make the works available in such a way that users can access them over BT’s network (among others). In my judgment that is sufficient to constitute use of BT’s service to infringe. In other words, according to this judgment, every ISP is liable for the actions of every website or service accessed by their subscribers. Apparently it is sufficient to show that a user is using a service in a way that is illegal. Certainly there’s the aspect of the issue that the vast majority of the content on Newzbin2 is copyrighted material. But it’d be incredibly easy for them to upload 10 public domain items for every copyrighted one, immediately invalidating the statistical analysis cited by the MPA. “If users prefer copyrighted files, what business is that of ours?” Newzbin2 might reasonably ask. “We provide a service that tracks these files, that’s all, and charge for the oversight of our editors, who are not concerned with the nature of the content they organize.” BT actually objects on grounds like these, first with the objection that if the judge grants this injunction, the plaintiffs will immediately seek duplicate injunctions against other ISPs and other sites. To this the judge says that while that may be the case, it’s not material to this case. Hard to argue with that, strictly speaking, as this guy is clearly guided by the letter of the law here, but a lack of concern for precedent is partially what got us into this mess in the first place. BT also contends that the block will be ineffective, saying the users will easily circumvent the Cleanfeed block or whatever is put in place. The judge acknowledges that the tools and expertise to circumvent the system are readily available, but says: “Even assuming that they all have the ability to acquire such expertise, it does not follow that they will all wish to expend the time and effort required.” Really, now. That’s a bit optimistic, in my opinion. The objection is substantial: the injunction sought would be ineffective. Dismissing it by saying these technically proficient people won’t bother with that trivial changes necessary to get around these restrictions is just pigheaded, and he drinks the plaintiffs’ expert kool-aid in accepting that the shutdown of The Pirate Bay was an effective measure. The evidence supporting this position is of the flimsiest quality, while the burden of proving that all the infringers have the ability, desire, and time to circumvent the measures weighs heavily on BT. BT and the MPA will reconvene in court in October to work out how the nuts and bolts of how blocking will work. Newzbin2 has responded to the ruling, but they don’t really bring anything new to the case. BT is not appealing the decision, and who can blame them? The comments of Peter Bradwell, from digital rights organization Open Rights Group, ring disturbingly utopian in this age of lowered expectations from the powers that be: If the goal is boosting creators’ ability to make money from their work then we need to abandon these technologically naive measures, focus on genuine market reforms, and satisfy unmet consumer demand. He continued: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us – and the world will live as one.” Here is the full ruling:        
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| Posted: 28 Jul 2011 02:11 PM PDT iPhone fans, start drooling. Skeptics, have your grains of salt at the ready. An iPhone 5 — or at least something closely fitting the rumored description of the iPhone 5 — has just been spotted… on a train, of all places.
The shot up above (and the ever-so-slightly-different one below) comes from 9to5Mac, who received them from a tipster who claims to have spotted the device on his way home from work. Alas, these two just-too-far-away glimpses are as good as it gets for now. While most news reporter-types out there would run through a pack of angry charging bulls and scale a building covered in butter for a shot of the iPhone 5, the tipster seems to have practiced at least a bit of caution in their undercover photography session. The person holding the device was supposedly being quite cautious to keep it at least partially covered, masking the Apple logo behind their fingers throughout. Fortunately, their eyes worked a bit better than their camera. Here’s what they had to share about the purported prototype:
Could this be the real deal? It’s plausible. The iPhone 5 is said to be coming in just over a month (sometime in September), which means there absolutely are iPhone 5s out there, right this second, being field tested. Apple can install as many cell towers on their campus as they want, but it’s nearly impossible to release a phone without testing its signal attenuation and performance in the real world. After Antennagate, you can bet that Apple is going to make damned sure that the iPhone 5 has rock solid signal performance. With that said, think back to the lost iPhone 4 prototype. At first glance, it looked just like an iPhone 3GS — because Apple had disguised it as one. A special case was made just to mask the new hardware as something not worth a second glance. Would Apple really let an iPhone 5 prototype lurk about in public in the nude? Maybe in the back of a blacked out van — but on what looks to be something like CalTrain? Doubtful. Also doubtful: where the heck is the camera flash? While my geek side would love for this to be an iPhone 5, my skeptic side is saying it’s a 3GS shot from a strange angle. What say you? Real? Photoshop? Just a really fancy fake from China? Weigh in down in the comments.        
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| Logitech Loses Big On Google TV, Revue Price Cut From $250 To $99 Posted: 28 Jul 2011 09:57 AM PDT I’ll just say it: Google TV is sinking and taking its crew down with her. The service promised to bring new life to HDTVs when it launched last October. But it didn’t. Big media made sure of it by blocking access to their online streaming, seemingly taking away Google TV’s most novel feature. Without online streaming, Google TV’s awesome search tool is crippled and the system is just an overpriced DLNA client and Netflix streamer. Logitech somewhat signaled the end of the platform’s life today but slashing the price of the Revue unit down to $100. This comes just months after the CEO stated with its 2010 Q4 earnings that they are enthusiastic about Google TV even with just 5 million in sales during last the last holiday season. Today’s price cut states loud and clear that Google TV is on its last legs and one of its launch partners is trying everything to get rid of back inventory. Google TV launched as a typical Google product. I called it half-baked as it felt like a beta product. Then back in May, Google demo’d the next-gen version at I/O and promised that it would be out sometime within the summer. I also spoke to the Google TV team earlier this year and when asked about the Android Market, they indicated it would be out by the end of the year. Both of those items are confirmed for a summer launch within Logitech’s financial statement and couldn’t come at a better time. The Revue is bleeding Logitech dry. Logitech posted its Q1 financials today and the company’s Google TV unit was a popular discussion point mainly because of its dismal performance. The company as a whole posted a net loss of $30M, caused in part by the Revue. Apparently the company saw more returns than sales of the Revue during the first quarter, which prompted today’s price cut from $249 to $99. Deeper within the report, Logitech notes that the massive Revue price cut cost the company some $34 million, but will better position the unit within the market and hopefully help with the 13% increase of on-hand inventory caused by unsold Revues. Logitech took a risk with Google by being one of two Google TV launch partners. As the other partner, Sony launched a Google TV HDTV and Blu-ray player at the same time as the Revue and continued to show support for the platform with a huge Google TV display booth at CES. All three products had a fair amount of hype before they launched, but then big media quickly killed the buzz by restricting access to all the online viewing locations. Google TV promised the world and delivered it. The world just wasn’t ready. The original intent of Google TV sitting between a cable box and your TV to serve as a universal search tool and online streamer is genius. It was never supposed to replace cable. It worked as advertised until big media pulled back their cards. So here’s Google TV, sitting here as an irrelevant product, crippled by the very source of content it was trying to promote all while Logitech is in the corner rocking back and forth with its head between its knees.        
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| Motorola Triumph’s Camera Issues Are Way Worse Than A Little Screen Flickering Posted: 28 Jul 2011 09:23 AM PDT The Motorola Triumph is off to a rough start. A flickering screen issue, while annoying, isn't all that bad when compared with what new Triumph owners are complaining about now: Apparently the handset’s 5-megapixel autofocus camera forgot how to autofocus. We figured this may be a settings issue, but it seems that most people are experiencing the blurry cam problem right out of the box. Some have even exchanged the faulty unit for a fresh one, only to have the same problem. My gut tells me that this has nothing to do with hardware, since autofocus is generally a software-controlled feature. A similar issue plagued the original Motorola Droid in its early days, with a software patch clearing it up just a few weeks post-launch. But wait, there’s more! Other Triumph owners are complaining that while their pictures are mostly in focus, they’ve got a nasty yellow/green tint to them. One user reported that they tweaked settings a number of times, and also reset the phone to factory settings, and still couldn't get the green blob out of the pic. (See that box used in the picture up above? Notice the funky green blob in the center? Yeah, that box was completely white.) The Triumph was Virgin Mobile's summer beast. With solid specs and a $300-off-contract price tag, we expected this pre-paid handset to launch with guns blazing. Unfortunately, these hiccups have caused a not-so-triumphant debut. Having similar issues? Drop a comment below and let us know. [Thanks, zebramall!]        
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| The Netbook Lives! Asus Launches Product Page For The MeeGo Eee PC X101 Netbook Posted: 28 Jul 2011 06:21 AM PDT Asus’s next-gen netbook, the MeeGo-running Eee PC X101, is nearing launch and just earned its very own product page on the company’s website. This notebook, and its slightly more bloated brother, the Windows-ifed X101H, are nearing launch and ready to usher netbooks into a new age of prosperity. Netbooks aren’t dead. As much as some feel that they hurt the personal computer cause, consumers seemingly have no issue trading computing power for portability. The little notebooks hit the big time several years back and would probably still be a hot ticket if it weren’t for the iPad. The Asus Eee PC X101 made the rounds at industry tradeshows the last few months. Asus is understandably proud of the slender MeeGo netbook. It’s expected to hit the market sometime this month for only $200 with the Windows version running an extra bill. Slashgear points out that the X101 runs a 1.5GHz Intel Atom Oak Trail platform that supports 802.11 b/g/n, dual USB ports, and 1GB of RAM. Meego is loaded on a 8GB SSD and runs on a 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 display. The MeeGo OS should solve the lackluster performance aspect that plagued netbooks previously. The system is built for low-power computing platforms, which should make a difference. Asus defined the netbook space the first time around and, if the netbook market is going to get a revival, it will come from the Asus tent with the X101 at the podium.        
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| Video: When Roombas And Baby Ducks Mate, A Khepera Swarm Robot Is Born Posted: 28 Jul 2011 06:17 AM PDT So, this is cool: The Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems lab has built these things called Khepera swarm robots. Though they look like little Roombas, they haven’t quite learned how to pick up crumbs yet. They're actually a part of grad student Edward Macdonald's Masters thesis and just recently learned a couple new tricks. Their first feat was to spell out the word GRITS (for Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems), and now they've moved on to forming a landing pad for a quadrocopter. They grow up so fast, don't they? Anyways, in the video below you can see these little cutie-bots walk in a line behind the leader robot (which reminds me of baby ducks), and create a formation fit to land a quadrocopter on. Enjoy!  [via Engadget]        
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