CrunchGear |  |
- Japanese Service Lets You Stick Your Head On A Doll’s Body
- Skype Adds Video Calling Support For 17 More Android Smartphones
- Debaser: Satoru Iwata Apologizes For The 3DS Price Drop
- Daily Crunch: Graph
- Why Pay For A Lion Boot Disk? Use This App To Make Your Own
- HTC Explains Android Bootloader Unlock Process, Warranty-Voiding Tool Coming Later This Month
- The Beautiful Internet
- Harvesting Energy From Radio Signals: Two New Devices From Japan (Video)
- Clearwire Adopts LTE, Not Ditching WiMax Just Yet
- “GameBox For Facebook” Tunnels Facebook Games To The iPad
- Tesla’s Q2 Earnings: Steady As She Goes
- Augmented Reality Provides Glimpse At A United Korea
- Facebook “Don’t Share This” Button Makes Brief Appearance In Netflix iOS App
- Hitachi To Stop Producing TVs By Year-End
- Nissan Leaf Companion App Is Now Available For Android, BlackBerry
- Samsung Postpones Australian Galaxy Tab 10.1 Media Launch Event
- Qualcomm Overhauls The Snapdragon Brand, Ditches The Confusing Chipset Names
- Sony Releases Another Nonsense Teaser Video For Its Upcoming Tablets
- Livescribe Connect Now Supports Content Sharing With Microsoft OneNote, Google Sites
| Japanese Service Lets You Stick Your Head On A Doll’s Body Posted: 04 Aug 2011 04:57 AM PDT  Danny Choo, culture hound based in Tokyo, visited a service called CloneFactory where he had his head scanned, printed, and stuck onto the body of a Storm Trooper. The service uses multiple DSLRs to take snapshots of your head, render it in 3D, and then print it out in plaster using a 3D printer. Hair, make-up, and coloring are added and then your head is stuck on a little plastic doll. You can then take said doll home and, I presume, stare at it until it starts to move. The service costs 138,000 yen and is popular with new brides who want to capture their hairstyle and make-up in miniature before the big day. The heads are so detailed that they’re scary and I suppose there is some possibility for misuse if your doll falls into the wrong hands.
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| Skype Adds Video Calling Support For 17 More Android Smartphones Posted: 04 Aug 2011 02:44 AM PDT  At the end of June 2011, Skype added the ability to make one-to-one video calls over both WiFi and 3G connections to its Android application. However, very few handsets were supported at the time, but now the company has released an update that brings two-way video calling to 17 more smartphones, including the HTC Desire and Desire HD, the Samsung Galaxy S and S II and Sony Ericsson Xperia devices. As usual, you can download the updated Skype 2.1 for Android app from the Android Market or point your browser to Skype.com/m from your phone. Once installed, you can have video calls from your Android phone with your Skype contacts on iPhone, Mac, Windows PCs and even a number of TVs. The full list of supported phones can be found here. If you’re using a phone that runs Android 2.2 (Froyo) or above, Skype says you should be able to enable video calling in your settings. If you can’t find it, that probably means you’re out of luck. Besides, if your phone runs Froyo you’ll only be able to use the back camera of the device anyway.
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| Debaser: Satoru Iwata Apologizes For The 3DS Price Drop Posted: 04 Aug 2011 02:35 AM PDT  While I haven’t heard any popular outcry regarding the Nintendo 3DS price drop – a quiet that, is, in a way, the most interesting part of the entire affair – Nintendo has decided that it’s time to explain itself to the early adopters. Satoru Iwata, CEO of the company, stated that the move was, in fact, unprecedented, but Nintendo had some very good reasons for cutting the 3DS price:
You can read the whole note below but Nintendo clearly believes that the lack of 3DS content is a developer issue. While this could be the case, I think there may also be a bit of console fatigue, especially with the upcoming launch of the Wii U and, to a lesser extent, the release of the Playstation Vita. Regardless, we now return to your regularly scheduled CEO groveling session:
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| Posted: 04 Aug 2011 01:00 AM PDT  Here are some of yesterday’s stories from TechCrunch Gadgets:
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| Why Pay For A Lion Boot Disk? Use This App To Make Your Own Posted: 03 Aug 2011 06:06 PM PDT  When Lion was released, we linked to a page detailing how to create your own bootable Lion drive. But if you absolutely must have a GUI and don’t want to go mucking around in the app package, you might find this little tool useful. Lion Diskmaker is a simple app that extracts the necessary items from an embryonic Lion install (i.e. the package you downloaded from the Mac App Store) and writes them to a USB drive or DVD. That’s it! A single-serving app I’m sure many will find helpful. All you need is a four-gig removable volume (SD card, thumbdrive, DVD) and a ready-to-install copy of Lion. Don’t forget to thank the author by donating or at least following. [via Doobybrain]
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| HTC Explains Android Bootloader Unlock Process, Warranty-Voiding Tool Coming Later This Month Posted: 03 Aug 2011 04:04 PM PDT  It's been a few months now since HTC CEO Peter Chou announced that the company will no longer be locking bootloaders on their devices, and enthusiasts have had nothing to show for it. Many of HTC's recent devices are still locked up tight, prompting many to wonder when they would deliver on their promise. Thanks to an updated Facebook post and a well-timed tweet, though, we now have the answers we've been waiting for. The process will begin with a web tool (due out later this month) through which you register an account and waive all liability in the event things go horribly wrong. That’s right folks, since unlocking the bootloader gives you a much greater level of control over how the device operates, you can kiss parts (or all) of your warranty goodbye. Once that's done, you connect the Android device in question to computer with the SDK installed, and you'll receive a "device identifier token" which gets plugged into the web tool to generate a unique unlock code. Sounds simple enough, right? The first devices that are set to benefit from the unlocking treatment are the global version of the HTC Sensation, followed buy T-Mobile's version of the device and the Sprint Evo 3D. Since unlocking the bootloader is one the of the first steps to running a custom ROM and really having some fun with your Android device, it's heartening to see them focus on getting newer hardware opened up. Hopefully the floodgates will soon open, and we can start messing with our HTC toys with reckless abandon.
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| Posted: 03 Aug 2011 03:55 PM PDT  If there is one thing I could say about most websites, it is that they are ugly. I mean really. Just atrocious. There are generally so many things going wrong that we have all had to completely reconfigure our expectations just to exist in this noisy, cluttered, pixelated world. It’s difficult to stretch one’s mind far enough to even imagine what the web would look like with the clarity and dynamic layouts of our favorite print magazines. It’s as if we’ve lived on gruel so long that the idea of a fine steak is no longer real to us. But the days of the ugly internet might be coming to an end. Because of a few factors, some technical, some more cultural, you might actually be able to look at a website in two or three years and think “yes, that looks good — by normal standards.” DemandThe web long ago became “mainstream,” but people have always sandboxed it, so to speak, not classing it among traditionally reliable news sources or judging it by the standards of traditionally well-made media. And so, for good reason, it has been neither expected nor pressured to meet the journalistic standards of a national newspaper or the layout standards of a print magazine. Instead, it has been a place where you can find everything that doesn’t go into those media institutions, and the price you paid was in the deliberation of its execution. Good design was collateral damage directly attributable to the quickness of the draw – regrettable, but well within acceptable limits, considering the benefits of instant access, commenting, and so on. Many people, especially among those under 30, use the internet as their sole news and media source, and as early adopters, they considered the sacrifices worthwhile. The grit of a newspaper or the creative layout of a product spread in a fashion rag have been considered luxuries over and above the content itself. People happily browse the web through a tiny, inadequate window like an iPhone (pathetically, the best mobile browsing experience) showing a single paragraph at a time, or one figure, or a photo so small that none but the coarsest features can be discerned. But that perspective is shrinking in importance as traditional media come to terms with big-boy internet distribution. Now that the New Yorker and the like are coming to tablets and the web in something other than rushed, truncated form, people are demanding that they be as good or better than their print brethren. Uptake and distribution is approaching the point where people will no longer be okay with a long single column of text, flanked by increasingly disruptive and desperate ads or voids where they once were. There is also the huge uptick in e-book sales, and although there have been some initial efforts to match electronic editions with print, improve readability, and so on, there’s still an enormous amount of room for improvement. And the reading of e-books on LCD screens is only tolerated because the alternative is buying a second device. Or a book. So, the consumers are ready to want this. Are the content providers ready to make it happen? ContentYes. This section will be short. There has been a lot of cross-pollination from the print world over the last couple years, spurred perhaps by the early e-readers, for which, it was promised in 2007, we would shortly have a grand selection of fully-realized newspapers and magazines. It seems that task was a bit more than the media companies were capable of. Tablets have proven an effective cage-rattler as well, since the growing desire for natural, print-like interaction has grown beyond the media companies’ ability to provide it. They’re catching up now, gradually cordoning off staff and sequestering cash for the sole purpose of making their stuff look good. There’s a race on to be the first newspaper or magazine with a million subscriptions or some such, and a big part of that is effectively transferring the experience of the magazine to the web or an app. Early entrants with tablet-native interfaces, like Project and The Daily, are having mixed success, but the New Yorker seems to be thriving (admittedly, its sparse layout requires much less in the way of adaptation, which has allowed it to migrate quickly and intact) and AOL is jumping in as well. Dreams of international distribution at microscopic cost (compared to, say, a major newspaper’s global army of printers, drivers, billing agents, etc.) are making these initial millions seem like down payments on money trees. The media companies are ready to move beyond the same layouts, fonts, and embeds they’ve used for the last ten or fifteen years. Is the technology there to let them do it? TechnologyThere’s something to be said for modifying your own reading or viewing environment, but I believe that there is almost no chance right now of someone creating something for web consumption that will be seen by the consumer the same way it was seen by the creator. Fortunately, we are leaving the era when this is necessarily true, a confusing transitional era with a jumble of conflicting standards: which color space? which non-serif? which filtering method? We’re not quite to the next phase, but there are two heralds of this approaching golden age (please, please be approaching). The first is resolution. With screen size more or less a matter of taste (there are options for practically every single diagonal measure from three to thirty inches), what matters is quality, and in particular for design: resolution. I very nearly switched to the iPhone 4 solely because of the screen. The benefits of increased resolution (and, eventually, resolution independence) are too obvious to list, but there’s one in particular I want to call attention to: text rendering. Look at the text on your screen. Now look at a printed page. Now back to your screen. Sadly, this text doesn’t look like the text on the printed page. But if this screen had quadruple the resolution it does, it could vastly improve clarity by minimizing aliasing and mooting questionably effective sub-pixel font smoothing (a blown-up example is at the head of this article). I had an angry moment with Firefox a little while back when I found it used some awful font rendering technique that made every sentence look like a tiny parade of hairy, misty spiders. Some readjustment later and it is much better, but out of curiosity I checked a few other people’s versions of the same page, and found they all looked different from mine. The native smoothing, browser, magnification, and ClearType settings rendered every letter different on every screen. The visual idiosyncrasies so endearing in letter press are not so welcome here. Even the best sites and content creators out there are afflicted by this, because it’s not really something they can control. As resolution goes up, clarity goes up. The need for font smoothing is eliminated because the letters are clear and bright, with sharp edges and no grey or multicolored falloff. The need for precise, controlled layout and visual supervision also becomes greater. Which is why good editors, and good standards, are so important. The second thing that makes this possible is agreement on those standards. HTML5 is a nice, big step in this direction, with geometric, flexible rendering of many items, every pixel accounted for and affected systematically. It’s not a magic bullet, obviously, but once we’ve weaned the great unwashed from their IE6 (or Netscape Communicator 4, in my dad’s case (until last year!)) and moved on to modern browsers on processors that can handle on-the-fly rendering of visual effects and so on (which would otherwise have to be displayed as video, Flash, etc.), the doors fly wide open.
What matters most is the ability of a content creator to control the end user’s experience. It’s nice to be able to adjust that experience yourself, but good design doesn’t want or need adjustment, and is in fact harmed by it. If a designer can be confident that this is how something will look when presented to the consumer, they can design it well. Today, they are unable to know that with anything near the certainty with which, say, the layout designer of Vogue does, holding as he or she does despotic sway over every element, typeface, flourish, margin, DPI, and hue. Within two or three years web designers will be able to say it with total certainty — with the normal exceptions common to print and outlier “hardware” (i.e. vision) such as large type versions, legacy devices, and so on. Even the most fastidious typesetter can’t guarantee that readers will have their glasses. The ability to securely and reliably provide fonts, video, rich interactive elements, naturally flowing text, and other aspects of advanced layouts means that more traditionally-trained layout artists and designers, who have been stymied by poor adherence to standards in the past, will soon be able to craft to their hearts’ content. And at that point, I think, we as conscientious consumers will be able to better judge a book by its cover, knowing that the means available to web and content designers are far less restrictive than they once were, and “if a Muse cannot run when she is unfetter'd, 'tis a sign she has but little speed,” as Dryden has it. Taste, triumphantNow that consumers want to buy it, creators want to make it, and technology wants to accommodate it, beautifully-designed content will begin to actually bubble its way to the top. The more nicely-designed site may win in a rivalry these days — despite the fact that services these days are so simple that practically every menu and button is superfluous — but there aren’t many sites I would say are an actual pleasure to read, as I find many printed magazines are, or a pleasure to use, as a well-turned device is. I’m sure there are plenty of examples of standout design, but standing out from this crowd is a dubious honor. Our own redesign, for instance (which went live somewhat after I drafted this article) is a good example of a striking, web-oriented design — and as much as I like it (I do), I’d be lying if I said it was beautiful the way, say, this page is beautiful: It’s going to take time, of course, and money. The time will be to bring readers up to date with technological standards they tend to ignore. The money will be because this increase in quality won’t be due to improved processor or transfer speeds (like, say, the increase in quality of streaming movies and music), it will be due to much hard work done by designers and editors. Just as movies have gotten more expensive and labor-intensive as their production values have gone up, so will websites and services require more than lip service to good design. Subtlety and taste haven’t been a priority on the web partially because of the novelty and mercuriality of the the medium. With a new set of standards that comprise the necessary tools for good design, companies that are willing to invest the time and effort required, and a consumer base that might just be able to see the difference, that could be changing.
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| Harvesting Energy From Radio Signals: Two New Devices From Japan (Video) Posted: 03 Aug 2011 03:29 PM PDT  Gleaning electricity from radio signals isn’t super-efficient (or a new concept), but it’s possible technically. Two companies from Japan have recently come up with new devices that can do just that: one is harvesting energy from cell phone signals, the other uses a rectifying antenna (Rectenna) to produce energy. First, a device [JP] recently announced by Tokyo Electron Device can pick up radio signals from cell phones in the 800MHz band and convert them into electricity (800MHz is the frequency used in handsets in Japan). The company says that users can expect to get up to 2.5 milliamperes of charge (stored in a small lithium-ion battery). The device collects signals from other wireless gadgets, too, and it can provide a few more minutes of run time when built into tablets and notebooks (which is better than nothing). Tokyo Electron markets it as “green” product and cooperated with US company Powercast in its development. We don’t have media for that device but a professional video shot of the next one, a newly developed Rectenna coming from Tokyo-based Nihon Dengyo Kosaku. The device (pictured above) itself has two main selling points: it’s thin (12mm for collecting Wi-Fi signals and 30mm for digital terrestrial broadcast waves) and needs just 50µW of power to start. Nihon Dengyo says that their rectenna can glean power in the micro-watt range from Wi-Fi signals at a distance of around 10cm, enough to power sensors, for example. The device can be used both inside and outside of buildings. Here’s a video (shot by Diginfonews in Tokyo, in English) that provides more insight:
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| Clearwire Adopts LTE, Not Ditching WiMax Just Yet Posted: 03 Aug 2011 02:58 PM PDT  Wow. Clearwire has just dropped a bit of a bombshell today, so I'll spare you my usual theatrics: the operators of the nation's first 4G network, having sensed the momentum that its LTE rival is gaining, has announced that they will add "LTE Advanced-ready" technology to its previously WiMax-only 4G service. Of course Clearwire is quick to reassert their commitment to their existing WiMax network (and customers), but with Clearwire CTO Dr. John Saw referring to their execution of LTE as the "future of mobile broadband", one can certainly smell the change in the air. Their LTE rollout is supposed to center around major urban areas in their existing WiMax markets, in an effort to meet high demand for 4G service. Don't expect their LTE offerings to go live any time soon, though: they're still waiting on some much-need funding before their implementation plans come to fruition. Hopefully, it happens sooner rather than later — with LTE Advanced potentially offering "peak download mobile speeds of at least 100 Mbps", it should be able to satiate even the hungriest of data fiends whenever it lights up. It's definitely a big (and potentially very gainful) leap for Clearwire. They and partner company Sprint stand to pick up quite a bit of market share by offering more competitive 4G performance, all while flying under the banner of "the nation's first 4G network." The fact that the same 4G branding will continue for the foreseeable future actually strikes at the heart of a deeper question: does it really matter if LTE is better than WiMax? Most customers, as much as I love them, will see 4G and decline to press the issue any further; the rest of us network nerds will continue to argue about real v. advertised data speeds, while Mr. Joe On-the-go will benefit all the same.
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| “GameBox For Facebook” Tunnels Facebook Games To The iPad Posted: 03 Aug 2011 02:55 PM PDT  Love them or hate them, one thing holds true of Facebook games: they're crazy addictive. So addictive, in fact, that full-grown adults are having trouble pulling themselves away from the social network, all because of a few virtual strawberries. Luckily, a new iPad app has emerged that will let you play some of your favorite Facebook games outside where the sun shines, instead of in your musty, dark, virtual-fruit-filled room. It's called GameBox. For now, only two games have made their way into the GameBox app: Digital Chocolate’s Army Attack, and Zynga’s CityVille. More games are on the way though, promises the app’s developer. And don't worry that things will look different on the iPad — everything about the user interface remains completely the same as it looks on Facebook. So, how does it all work? Voodoo and sorcery. More accurately, it seems like all of the actual flash rendering is happening up in the cloud, with the GameBox app relaying things back and forth — sort of like a considerably less intense OnLive. With that being the case, we’d hope that the developer got some sort of permission from Zynga and co. before setting this thing free — with place-shifting technology like this being something of a legal grey area, it seems like a quick way to get a fancy new cease-and-desist letter dropped in your mailbox. The GameBox for Facebook app is currently listed for $2.99 in the Apple App Store.
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| Tesla’s Q2 Earnings: Steady As She Goes Posted: 03 Aug 2011 02:53 PM PDT  Tesla has released their shareholder statement for Q2 2011, and while it doesn’t make for the most exciting reading, it’s at least full of fairly good news. They’ve been on cruise control for quite a while now, if you will, designing and testing their Model S sedan, but there are plenty of pitfalls that could have afflicted the process, techniques and technologies that could have failed to pan out, and cost overruns that could have piled up. But no, things are going as expected and barring any major upsets, they should have the Model S rolling out in mid-2012 as planned. Here are a few Q2 takeaways from the letter:
And that’s that. The full letter, with cost and sales breakdowns, can be read here (PDF), and more information, including a link to the investors’ conference call and Q&A, can be found at their investor relations page. Basically we’re not going to hear much news until the production Model S starts hitting car mags (we’ll try to get one too), the Model X gets leaked or previewed, and the RAV4 gets priced and dated — all of which will be happening in 2012, most likely. That means a few more quiet quarters. With so many pre-orders for the Model S, they’re sure to have plenty of revenue as soon as they start charging their customers — with a few hundred million dollars locked down for the next few years, they’re feeling confident and I’m guessing their investors are as well.
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| Augmented Reality Provides Glimpse At A United Korea Posted: 03 Aug 2011 11:47 AM PDT  While the idea of a reunited Korea is one that never dies, it’s also one that seems rather unlikely in the short term. Well thanks to the work of augmented reality artist Mark Skwarek, tourists and South Korean nationals are afforded a glimpse of what was, and someday may be. Mark’s Layar-powered Korean Unification Project “tries to heal the scars left by years of conflict in the Korean peninsula by removing the Korean Demilitarized Zone [DMZ] and returning it to its natural state before Korea was divided.” Smartphone and tablet users can go to one of two (for now) viewing locations and fire up the application for a look around. They’ll be treated to images of a landscape that, thanks to its use of erasAR, erases the signs of separation (think barriers, walls, weapons, the works) between the two countries. That it only works at a few locations along the North/South border is lamentable, but it’s a truly novel idea. I imagine (or at least hope) that it will get a lot of mileage out of the younger set, not because of any particular political leanings but because it illustrates a part of history that otherwise wouldn’t have existed outside of textbooks. At the very least, I hope it inspires some intrepid youth to write some decent alternate history fiction. In case you aren’t due to fly out to South Korea any time soon, here’s a video that should approximate the experience:
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| Facebook “Don’t Share This” Button Makes Brief Appearance In Netflix iOS App Posted: 03 Aug 2011 10:44 AM PDT  Now this is what we call weird. It would be one thing if Netflix accidentally activated its (currently illegal) Facebook "Share" button. But it's looking like Netflix accidentally posted a "Don't Share This" Facebook button. Curious? Entirely. Let's delve deeper. So there are a few pieces of key information we need to evaluate in our investigation here. One happens to be a little law from back in 1988 called the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which makes it illegal to share someone's video rental information. The law came about after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental history was leaked to a newspaper by someone at his video store. This was back when movies were all on these things called video tapes, not Blu-Rays. Anyways, the law made a bit more sense back then than it does now. We "share" things more often than people in the 80's could come up with ridiculous hair styles. With Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google +, and whatever other new social network has sprouted up in the last five minutes, people are now sharing what they want when they want. Except for their Netflix choices, of course. It's unclear whether or not the law actually includes Netflix and its service based on the language. The law calls out to "video tape service providers," not "video streaming/DVD rental services." In any case, Netflix is treading lightly, launching Facebook integration in Canada and Latin America where the U.S. Congress can't get involved. Just a week or so ago, Netflix promised those two regions would have a Facebook button "before our next earnings report," or in three months. In that case, Netflix is definitely working on how its Facebook integration will work even as we blog. Like every other site and service that implements Facebook, a button is expected. It'll probably either be a "Like" button, a "Share" button, or both. So then what is the deal with this "Don't Share This" button? Seriously. It was discovered by the site iSmashPhone, which reports that this "Don't Share This" button popped up on both the iPad and iPhone Netflix app (though only an iPad screen grab was provided). I really have no idea what this is about. It's no longer popping up in either app, so it's tough to investigate what happens when it's tapped. My only guess is a bit far-fetched, but maybe Netflix is protecting itself as it builds in Facebook. Accidental posts and activations happen all the time when companies make adjustments to their sites, and since a nasty antiquated law could cost the company up to $2,500 in penalties per each violation, Netflix may be using a "Don't Share This" button just in case something like this accidental posting were to happen. In truth, it doesn't really matter what Netflix puts on their Facebook button unless this stupid VPPA law gets thrown into the trash. That's where Pop Vox and Representative Bob Goodlatte (pronounced "good lat" as in "cat," not "good latte" as in "this latte is delicious") come into play. Goodlatte proposed an amendment to the VPPA, impressively in under 70 words, stating that video rental histories can be shared as long as the consumer gives consent over the web. The amendment is titled H.R. 2471 and was filed on July 8. The mysterious "Don't Share This" button may be in preparation for the passing of this amendment, even though it seems to assert the VPPA more than fight it. H.R. 2471 is currently awaiting a vote in the House Judiciary Committee that could send it right back to the House floor. So far, there's no telling how this'll pan out. But if Facebook is the missing link in your Netflix experience, Pop Vox can help. It's a new start-up based out of Washington D.C. and it works by crowd sourcing the public's responses to certain proposed bills and amendments, including H.R. 2471, through social networks and its own site. In other words, Pop Vox makes commenting on legislation as easy as commenting on TechCrunch. So far H.R. 2471 hasn't gotten much traction on Pop Vox, but Netflix CEO Reed Hastings hopes that somehow, some way the amendment will pass. “The VPPA discourages us from launching our Facebook integration domestically,” wrote Hastings in a letter to shareholders. “Under the VPPA, it is ambiguous when and how a user can give permission for his or her video viewing data to be shared. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a simple clarification, H.R. 2471, which says when and how a user can give such permission. We're hoping H.R. 2471 passes, enabling us to offer our Facebook integration to our U.S. subscribers who desire it.” We're hoping the same thing, Hastings. Just make sure you switch that button back to "Share" before it goes live.
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| Hitachi To Stop Producing TVs By Year-End Posted: 03 Aug 2011 10:38 AM PDT  After Pioneer decided to shut down its TV business in 2009, Hitachi yesterday announced they are ready to stop producing and outsourcing all production of TVs to makers in Taiwan and other Asian countries. And even though Hitachi said they will continue selling TVs in the future, this sounds very much like a long goodbye. The move isn’t a big surprise, as it’s notoriously difficult to make money with TVs. Many of the big electronics makers have been struggling to bring their TV business into the black recently, i.e. Sony or market leader Samsung (Hitachi expects to lose money on that segment in the current fiscal year, too). The company has just one flat panel production plant left in Japan, which it plans to close by year-end, according to reports in Japanese media. It’s good timing to drop out of the TV business, five months after the March 11 earthquake in Japan (which hurt Hitachi’s sales), the switch in Japan from analog to digital TV broadcasting two weeks ago (which triggered a massive demand for new TVs that’s now ending), and five days after the company announced a 97% year-on-year drop in net profit for the quarter through June.
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| Nissan Leaf Companion App Is Now Available For Android, BlackBerry Posted: 03 Aug 2011 09:22 AM PDT  Nissan Leaf owners, take note. The Leaf companion app is now available in both Android and BlackBerry flavors. These smartphone apps follow the steps of the iOS version that launched alongside the Leaf earlier this year. All the key features are here: battery level meter, charging schedule, estimated range, and climate control functions. The apps themselves are free to download, owning a Leaf is not required. But they understandably need a Leaf to properly function. Still, perspective buyers or curious onlookers can download and explore the apps for free. I looked at the Leaf iOS app during my time with the Leaf. It’s a fine app, granting owners access to the key functions of the Leaf from afar. The only notable missing function is the ability to toggle the car’s locks.
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| Samsung Postpones Australian Galaxy Tab 10.1 Media Launch Event Posted: 03 Aug 2011 07:26 AM PDT  The drama continues: Samsung has officially postponed the Australian media launch event for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The media launch event was originally scheduled for next week on August 11, 2011. That’s not going to happen and also means the GalTab 10.1 probably won’t launch on that day either. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the tablet itself is canceled, though. Samsung issued a statement yesterday and spoke with Gizmodo Australia in which they stressed the GalTab 10.1 will launch in Australia within “the near future.” But its exact launch date isn’t known at this time.
Samsung reached an agreement with Apple where it will not release nor advertise the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 in Australia. But Samsung found a workaround and planned on releasing what they called a variant of the tablet instead. But that might not happen at all now as that move is clearly against the good faith of the agreement. A Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The release concerning the media launch doesn’t state that the event nor the tablet has been completely shelved. It simply states that a new data for the media launch event will be announced as soon as its set. Maybe there was a conflict at the venue. Apple might have booked it for an iPad event.
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| Qualcomm Overhauls The Snapdragon Brand, Ditches The Confusing Chipset Names Posted: 03 Aug 2011 06:58 AM PDT  If you’ve got any smartphone made in the last year or so that isn’t made by Apple or Samsung, chances are preeeetty good that it’s powered by one of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipsets. Now, as for the chances that you could actually name which Snapdragon chipset it has… yeah, pretty much zilch. The problem: outside of the overarching “Snapdragon” brand, Qualcomm hasn’t done the best job in differentiating which chipset is which. MSM8260? MSM855T? MSM8930? OMGWTFBBQ? I do this for my job, and I still wouldn’t be able to tell you which one is which without a cheat sheet. This morning, Qualcomm is announcing a bit of an overhaul involving the Snapdragon brand. It should make things a bit less confusing. In a nutshell, they’re moving away from the nearly impossible to remember model numbers and toward a tiered system. They’ll have four tiers (or “Systems” as they call them) to begin with: S1, S2, S3, and S4. The higher the number, the better the specs. S1, for example, is for “Mass Market” phones — things on the lower end of what Qualcomm powers (anything 1Ghz or below). Things like the HTC Status, or the Droid Incredible. S2 is for “High Performance Smart Phones & Tablets” (up to 1.4 Ghz) like the HTC Thunderbolt, while S3 is for the current highest-end stuff (up to 1.5Ghz) like the EVO 3D. S4 encapsulates everything between 1.6 Ghz and 2.5 Ghz — which, as you may know, doesn’t actually include anything just yet. The first devices in this range won’t start hitting the shelves until next year at the earliest. Interestingly, Qualcomm notes that an S2 device will always be considered an S2 device — S2 won’t become S1, S3 won’t become S2, etc. As I’m understanding it, it sounds like Qualcomm plans to just keep adding new System tiers as time goes on. Man, S10 is going to be ridiculous. Qualcomm will almost certainly still have big ol’ ugly model numbers in some way or another for the mega geeks among us to differentiate between similar chipsets — they just won’t expect anyone to actually remember them. Here’s a look at what’s changed: Old and Busted: New Hotness:
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| Sony Releases Another Nonsense Teaser Video For Its Upcoming Tablets Posted: 03 Aug 2011 06:57 AM PDT  I mean, come on. These videos show the upcoming Sony S1 and S2 tablets for about 4 seconds total. It’s just more of the Rube Goldberg foolishness shown in previous teaser videos. I want to see the tablets. But if you don’t; if you want to see a silly, but still fun, Rube Goldberg machine, click through for the embedded video.
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| Livescribe Connect Now Supports Content Sharing With Microsoft OneNote, Google Sites Posted: 03 Aug 2011 06:01 AM PDT  Livescribe took to the press wires today to announce two big additions to its Livescribe Connect service. Users of the Livescribe Connect for Echo and Pulse smartpens may now share content with Microsoft OneNote and Google Sites. Using one of the company’s smartpens, anything wrote in ink on their special paper can by shared online through various social and productivity services. Livescribe Connect launched back in May and was a big step towards relevancy for the digital pen as it made sharing content so much easier. The two new services join the already-supported platforms of Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, Google Docs and iOS devices and shows that the company is committed to bringing new feature sets to the platform. As John explained back in May, all a user has to do is physically write anything then drawn an underscore followed by a command like “Twitter” or an email address. Then simply select what content you want to share on the pad of paper, and once the pen is synced with the computer over USB, the pre-selected content is automagically sent to the desired service or address. OneNote and Google Sites fit well within the Connect’s user base. Livescribe Connect allows users to send and audio recordings direct to OneNote, which was built by Microsoft to be a sort of digital notebook for such content. Google Sites is a collaborative building tool and capable of adding content from other Google services and now Livescribe Connect. Livescribe Connect is still seemingly limited by the smartpens requirement of a physical link for sharing. It’s a novel idea and ultimately allows for sharing of written content, but a wireless link, even Bluetooth, would broaden its appeal with increased functionality.
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