CrunchGear |  |
- WD TV Live Media Streamer Skips Internal Storage For Spotify
- The Nintendo 3DS: Soon Available In Ice White And Misty Pink
- Best Buy Slashes The 7-inch HTC Flyer Android Tablet Down To $99
- Daily Crunch: Genius
- TCTV: Reflections On Steve Jobs And His Legacy
- Statement by Apple’s Board of Directors On The Death Of Steve Jobs
- Nokia and Monster To Team Up For New Headphones?
- Electric Aircraft Competition Wraps, With $1.35M Prize For Plane That Out-Economizes A Prius
- DRM-Curious? You Can Create An UltraViolet Account Now
- Buckyballs? So Passé
- Microsoft Doubles Down On Media, Reveals New Xbox Content Partners
- New Garmin GPS Watch Has Shed Its Girth
- Verizon And Microsoft Partner Up For Live TV On The Xbox 360
- Sony Wins The Internet Today With The PS3 Ad Spot Michael
- Bose’s Series 2 Bluetooth Headset Packs 2 Mics, Hefty Price Tag
- Report: HP, Dell Ultrabooks On Tap For Late 2011, Early 2012 Release
- Eucalyptus Systems, Nebula and Virtual Bridges Join Linux Foundation
| WD TV Live Media Streamer Skips Internal Storage For Spotify Posted: 06 Oct 2011 06:56 AM PDT  Western Digital is getting a lot of mileage out of their WD TV media players, and that trend continues today with the announcement of their new WD TV Live box. Unlike its big brother, the WD TV Live is strictly a streamer, but it has a reason to boast: it’s the first WD product to ship with Spotify support The WD TV Live doesn’t have any internal storage to speak of, but it does sport 2 USB ports for all of you who carry thumb drives full of illicit TV shows. Once it’s set up on a wireless network or an ethernet connection, the WD TV Live can access media from computers on your home network, or from content partners like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Pandora. It’s got enough horsepower to playback video content at 1080p, and supports a boatload of media formats from the mundane (like AVIs) to the more obscure (hello MKV!). Ardent Spotify fans need not worry about missing out here. The WD TV Live supports a majority of Spotify features, like managing playlists, sharing songs, and subscribing to friends and fellow music lovers with good taste. With companies like Microsoft looking to own the living room with their new media initiatives, it makes it harder and harder for boxes like the WD TV Live to pick up any steam. Still, its price point is sure to help: at $99, the WD TV Live is an inexpensive way to start streaming with minimal headaches. It’s set to appear in Western Digital’s online store shortly, and it shouldn’t be long before it hits your electronics retailer of choice.
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| The Nintendo 3DS: Soon Available In Ice White And Misty Pink Posted: 06 Oct 2011 06:43 AM PDT  Somewhere, deep within the Nintendo machine, an executive and his like-minded cohorts had a solution to the 3DS debacle. They had the answer to Nintendo’s problems. They were going to simultaneously spur sales and increase awareness. The plan involved an ingenious idea of creating new games rather than reviving old, worn-out franchises. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Nintendo is releasing another colored version of the 3DS — because that will help.
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| Best Buy Slashes The 7-inch HTC Flyer Android Tablet Down To $99 Posted: 06 Oct 2011 06:06 AM PDT  Oh my. Tablet prices are in a free fall. The HTC Flyer is only $99 at Best Buy right now. The price seems isolated to Best Buy right now so it’s likely the price drop is not from HTC but rather Best Buy. The website is sold out but your local stores still might have some. You know what to do: drop everything and head down to your Best Buy. This is an awesome deal and hopefully a sign that manufacturers and retailers are finally getting aggressive. HP started the fire sale trend by dropping the TouchPad down to $99. Even with a dead OS, the TouchPad was an amazing deal for $99. HP and retailers sold out within hours. The HTC Flyer might be a slightly smaller tab, but it rocks a proven Android release and is built quite nice. It’s a steal at $99. RIM also recently cut the price of its tablet, the PlayBook, to $300. But it’s still overpriced. Amazon got it right with the $200 Kindle Fire. Consumers need a low enough price that the purchase feels like a deal. Non-iPad tablets are going to be treading water until they’re priced right. It’s unrealistic to expect $99 mainstream tablets, but prices still need to drop to a more competitive level. As liliputing points out, the Best Buy Flyer sale might have been an accident but it’s also a great deal worth pursuing. Drop everything and head down to your local Best Buy emporium and tell the blue-shirted shopkeeps to bring forward your Flyer without haste. HTC Corp, (TAIEX: 2498) produces smartphones running the Android and Windows Phone 7 operating systems for themselves and as an OEM to other manufacturers. Since launching its own brand in late 2006, the company has introduced dozens of HTC-branded products around the world. The company recently introduced the HTC diamond to compete with Apple’s iPhone. Founded in 1997 by Cher Wang, Chairwoman, and Peter Chou, President and CEO, HTC made its name as the company behind many of the...
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| Posted: 06 Oct 2011 03:00 AM PDT  Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets:
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| TCTV: Reflections On Steve Jobs And His Legacy Posted: 05 Oct 2011 08:18 PM PDT It’s been a hard night and Erick and I thought it would be fitting to reflect a bit on Steve Jobs and his legacy. We’re both understandably crushed by the news but rather than look back we wanted to look forward, forward to what comes next in a world without one of its greatest thinkers. Steve Jobs is important to us because the gifts he gave mankind are innumerable. He gave us the gifts of elegance, of clarity, of drive. He gave us computers that spawned industries, phones that paid millions of salaries. He made it so I can Facetime from the road with my children before they go to bed and not have to worry about connection issues, downloads, fiddling. The stuff he made just works. Call him prickly. Call his products overpriced and underpowered. Call Apple a toymaker, not serious, not real. But remember that everything Steve Jobs touched was a masterpiece of engineering in a world where “just OK” is increasingly the norm. His products outsell almost anything else by an order of magnitude. He’s not being praised here because millions of people are bewitched and ignorant. He’s being praised because millions of people see the future as he did: a place where things get increasingly better, where we are more connected, better informed, and generally happier. There’s a reason the old Apple logo was a human and a computer smiling at each other. That smile is primordial. It’s the smile of a worker with his best tools. It’s the smile of a thinker over her favorite book. It’s the smile of a man, alone in a hotel room, watching his daughter read Cinderella to her dolls.
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| Statement by Apple’s Board of Directors On The Death Of Steve Jobs Posted: 05 Oct 2011 04:41 PM PDT  Steven Paul Jobs was 56. He died today after publicly fighting advanced pancreatic cancer since 2004. He, along with co-founder Steve Wozniak, built one of the most “commercially successful” personal computers and founded Pixar animation studios. The Apple Board of Directors wrote:
You can share remembrances with Apple at rememberingsteve@apple.com. Here is a post from the eve of his stepping down as CEO.
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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| Nokia and Monster To Team Up For New Headphones? Posted: 05 Oct 2011 04:15 PM PDT  It wasn’t that long ago that HTC partnered up with Beats Audio to give their phones a boost in the audio department, and now it seems Nokia may be contemplating something similar. A newly leaked pair of images popped up earlier today, and they reveal what may be the first Nokia-Monster phone accessory. Given Monster’s history, it’s really no surprise that the first product to surface would be a pair of headphones. Dubbed the Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset (try saying that three times fast), the images sent to PocketNow depict an electric blue pair of portable cans that seem to lack cables. There’s a solid chance that if real, the Purity HDs will be run off of a Bluetooth connection, but sometimes headphone manufacturers leave unwieldy cables out of their press shots. With Nokia World just around the corner, more specifics are sure to surface before too long. While it seems doubtful that the partnership could ever reach an HTC/Beats level of cooperation, it still seems like quite a coup for Nokia. I daresay it’s been a long time since the Finnish phone giant was considered cool, so co-branding a product with a known entity like Monster could be a step toward generating some street cred. Then again, the idea could also backfire terribly. Monster Cable is best known to many for peddling overpriced cables, and that ultimately may not sit well with some of Nokia’s customers. We’ll have to wait and see how things play out, but here’s a quick word of advice for Nokia: it doesn’t matter how awesome your new headphones are if your new Windows Phones aren’t up to snuff. Keep those priorities straight, that’s all I’m saying.
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| Electric Aircraft Competition Wraps, With $1.35M Prize For Plane That Out-Economizes A Prius Posted: 05 Oct 2011 04:00 PM PDT  A little more than a year ago, we posted about the possibilities of electric aircraft. At the time, we also mentioned an upcoming competition that would test the mettle of these flying batteries: the CAFE Green Flight Challenge. It’s a NASA event (and purse), sponsored by Google, which like the X-Prize aims to fund innovation through competition. Entrants would have to fly 200 miles in under two hours, while using less than a gallon of fuel (or equivalent energy) per passenger. Tough terms, but 10 teams put their designs in flight in a quiet, efficient battle for the $1.35 million prize. The competition just wrapped last week, and the winners were revealed at an expo in Mountain View on Monday. The team taking home the big prize was Pipistral’s Taurus G-4. The four-seater more than doubled the required 100 passenger MPGe, traveling the 200 mile test distance with the electrical equivalent of just over over one gallon of gas, and at an average speed of over 100MPH as well. Here they are holding up their “very large check”: The runner-up was e-Genius, a two-seater that hit 375 PMPGe. It received $120,000, plus a bonus prize for being the quietest: at takeoff, they recorded only around 60 decibels. That’s probably about as loud as me typing this. Joe Parrish, NASA’s acting CTO, said that the $1.6 million in funding used to create the competition had generated over $4 million in spending by teams and their sponsors. The winning team, from Penn State, vowed to reserve $100,000 of their prize money for a future competition for supersonic electric aircraft. Elon Musk, who has evinced interest in creating such a fantastic conveyance, is no doubt pleased at this development. [via GizMag; photos: NASA]
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| DRM-Curious? You Can Create An UltraViolet Account Now Posted: 05 Oct 2011 02:38 PM PDT  You may remember the “one DRM to rule them all” we heard about last year, UltraViolet. It’s essentially a DRM scheme that all the heavy hitters are getting behind, from device makers to content creators to distributors. Everyone, that is, except for one 800-pound media gorilla: Apple. The last we heard of it was over a year ago, with nary a peep since then except the odd mention here or there and a more official debut at CES. But it seems that the sleeping giant wakes, as they’ve opened up registration for UltraViolet accounts. I’ve gone ahead and made one so you don’t have to if you just want to see what it looks like in there. No, not a lot going on. It’s basically an empty shell at the moment; no one knows what UltraViolet is, and no one has any devices that support it — or if they do, they don’t care. Until more of the system is up and running, the functions and limitations will remain somewhat obscure. I’m not enthused by the design, but we’ll give them some time to tweak it before laying into them. One thing to note is the constant use of “our” instead of “your.” That doesn’t mean them as in UltraViolet, but you as in you and your family and friends. The sharing of rights and permissions will be a key part of the scheme, though whether anyone will want to spend any time configuring “rights lockers” is doubtful. As soon as we start seeing devices and services that support UltraViolet, we’ll give them a spin on the new management platform. If you’re interested in poking around the FAQ or want to be ready when the first devices and movies hit (early 2012, supposedly), register for your own account here.
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| Posted: 05 Oct 2011 12:04 PM PDT  Just in time for the Ides of October, ThinkGeek brings us magnetic BuckyCubes, small, 4mm cubes that slide and slip together to create unique shapes. The kit comes with 125 rare earth magnets that can be combined and organized into various shapes. ThinkGeek already sells BuckyBalls but coupled with these cubes you can be truly a God among Buckyfans. The come with a small carrying case and cost $24.99. Note: Do not eat or snort BuckyCubes. BuckyCubes are not alive. BuckyCubes cannot replace human contact.
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| Microsoft Doubles Down On Media, Reveals New Xbox Content Partners Posted: 05 Oct 2011 11:51 AM PDT  You already know about Verizon bringing live TV to the Xbox 360, but it turns out that was just the tip of Microsoft’s great big television-related iceberg. In an effort to transform the television experience, Microsoft has struck deals with nearly 40 entertainment providers to start injecting more media into their gaming platform. The full list of companies that Microsoft has forged alliances with is a veritable Who’s Who of the entertainment industry. Here’s a quick breakdown of Microsoft’s new stateside “entertainment partners,” and what we know about their new Xbox offerings.
These companies join Microsoft’s existing line up of partners, like AT&T, ESPN, Netflix, and Hulu Plus. International readers shouldn’t fret at the sight of all this US content, because Microsoft has also struck agreements with more worldly sources of entertainment like the BBC (UK), Canal+ (France/Spain), MediaSet (Italy), and SBS On Demand (Australia). Check out the full list here to see if your favorite international media outlet made the cut. In truth, a lot of the particulars are still up in the air at this point, but one thing is clear: Microsoft is dead serious about making the Xbox 360 the platform to beat.
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| New Garmin GPS Watch Has Shed Its Girth Posted: 05 Oct 2011 10:29 AM PDT  It’s interesting to chart the size and shape of fitness watches over the years. The first Garmins looked like protein bars melted to your wrist by this new one, the Forerunner 910XT, looks as svelte and lithe as the marathoners who will probably wear it. The 910XT costs about $400 and will be available next week. The new model supports Garmin’s Connect online service as well as their clever Virtual Racer feature that pits you against a ghost runner. It’s good for swimming, biking (with the appropriate add-ons), and running. Optional bike mounts allow you to slap it to your handlebars and then take it off when it’s time to swim. The 910X adds vibration alerts for hands and ear-free operation. Sadly it looks like you’ve got limited battery life on this thing – about 20 hours – so you’ll need to charge it on long trips.
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| Verizon And Microsoft Partner Up For Live TV On The Xbox 360 Posted: 05 Oct 2011 09:20 AM PDT  Good news, FiOS fans! Verizon and Microsoft have announced today that they have struck an agreement to bring live HD television channels to your Xbox 360 without any additional hardware. Now, don’t expect to get Verizon’s full channel lineup on your console just yet — according to their just-released statement, Verizon will only be bringing “a selection of popular live TV channels to the Xbox 360.” So far, Verizon has 26 channels on deck, including MTV, Spike, Food Network, Comedy Central, HBO, CNN and Nickelodeon. Even cooler is the fact that Verizon’s FiOS application will have full support for the Kinect, so you can finally put the remote down and flick through channels from the comfort of your couch. I’m not sure how many people will embrace the added physical movement needed to channel surf, but the true couch-lovers can always stick to a controller. The offer will only be open to FiOS TV and internet customers who have active Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, but that seems to be it as far as eligibility requirements go. Sorry folks: as AllThingsD succinctly put it yesterday, this isn’t a “tool for cable cord cutters.” Verizon and Microsoft have yet to make any official statement on a launch window aside from saying it’s due out by the holidays. Bloomberg reported last month that Comcast was engaging in similar talks with Microsoft, so hopefully the FiOS-deprived among us aren’t left out in the cold for too long. Update: Comcast has jumped on board Microsoft’s new TV initiative, but is only providing access to their On-Demand service as opposed to live television. Developing…
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| Sony Wins The Internet Today With The PS3 Ad Spot Michael Posted: 05 Oct 2011 08:06 AM PDT  Love or hate gaming, this Sony advert properly captures the very essence of video games. It’s about the experiences. It’s about the memories. Video games allow a person to, even briefly, become someone else, and enter their life and see a different world. Link, Ghost, and Gordon Freeman all become part of a gamer’s narrative with just as much consequence as Tom Sawyer or The Hardy Boys. Sure, this particular video spot is for Sony and the Playstation 3, but it portrays the vast draw to gaming in general. Good job, Sony. You won the Internet today. Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video game consoles, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets.
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| Bose’s Series 2 Bluetooth Headset Packs 2 Mics, Hefty Price Tag Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:55 AM PDT  Looks like Bose is taking another swing at phone accessories because the company has just revealed their new Series 2 Bluetooth headset. So what exactly does Bose bring to the party this time? Aside from the basics, like A2DP streaming and multiple ear tips in the box, the Series 2 has a few new tricks up its sleeves. The Series 2 packs a two-microphone configuration meant to reduce background noise, and Bose’s new Adaptive Audio Adjustment technology. Bose claims that thanks to AAA, the headset will be able to adjust its output in different environments. Taking a quiet call at a fancy restaurant would mean a lower volume level so as not to blow out your eardrum, while the Series 2 would crank up the sound while at a loud party. Perhaps the best thing about the Bose Series 2 is that it finally comes in left and right ear versions. That’s right — their original model was specifically designed to go in a user’s right ear, so auditory lefties were forced to find an alternative. At $149, its price eclipses a lot of its competition, but hey — what else is new for Bose? The big question is if the Series 2 will perform well enough to justify the price tag. The Series 2 headset is already live in Bose’s online store, and I’d expect to see it in certain brick-and-mortar retailers before too long.
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| Report: HP, Dell Ultrabooks On Tap For Late 2011, Early 2012 Release Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:44 AM PDT  Ultrabooks are set to light the notebook market ablaze, but the two largest PC makers are arriving fashionably late. A Digitimes report collaborates earlier rumors that HP and Dell do not plan on releasing ultrabooks anytime soon. This puts Acer, Asus, Toshiba and Lenovo in particularly prime positions to stake claim in what could become a pivotal market. But they better get while the getting is good. You can bet that HP and Dell are going to eventually bust through the ultrabook wall Kool-Aid man-style. The Digitimes report puts HP releasing its first ultrabook at the end of 2011 while Dell will do so in the first quarter of 2012. Reportedly, Dell will use CES 2012 to announce its expected 14-inch model. HP will presumably announce additional models at CES, as well. The delayed launch is rather smart. The first crop of ultrabooks hitting in the coming weeks are built on Intel’s current Sandy Bridge CPU architecture, which while plenty powerful, do not feature the advance power management found in the upcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs. HP and Dell are likely waiting Intel launches the new CPU platform later this year as well as watching the public’s reception of the first batch of ultrabooks. The average consumer should probably take the hint and wait as well. Dell develops, manufactures, and sells personal computers and other computer-related products including servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals and televisions.
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| Eucalyptus Systems, Nebula and Virtual Bridges Join Linux Foundation Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:30 AM PDT  The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux, is adding three new companies to its membership list: Eucalyptus Systems, Nebula and Virtual Bridges. These companies “are important additions to The Linux Foundation membership,” according to The Linux Foundation’s vice president of marketing and developer programs Amanda McPherson. “The enterprise IT environment is growing more complex and Linux is helping users and vendors innovate within it. We are excited to collaborate with these companies to advance that work.” Eucalyptus Systems — lead by Marten Mickos, former CEO of MySQL AB — provides self-hosted Infrastructure-as-a-Service clouds using commodity Linux servers. Mickos was one of the keynote speakers at the 2011 LinuxCon North America, where he observed that we, the Linux community, must strive to ensure that no one closes that which we have opened. Clearly his company’s involvement with the Linux Foundation is an effort to put his money where his mouth is. “Open source has gone from disrupting the old to innovating the new — and Linux and open source hypervisors form the main building blocks of the cloud,” said Mickos. “As pioneers of infrastructure-as-a-service software, Eucalyptus’ membership in The Linux Foundation will keep us close to technology development that is vital for the advancement of new innovations in cloud computing.” Nebula is developing a Linux-based hardware appliance for large private cloud computing infrastructures; and Virtual Bridges provide a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution. As more and more companies strive to develop “cloud” solutions, it’s clear that Linux and free software provide the best building blocks, as Mickos observed. A neutral arbiter like the Linux Foundation is an important element in the longevity of Linux. I’d expect to see even more companies pledging support to Linux and the Linux Foundation in the not-too-distant future.
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