Best New Technology

Posted Mar 26th 2008 10:42AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Peripherals

Some fairly fantastic homegrown controllers have graced our eyes before, but seriously, we have no idea how a human brain could actually keep track of all the possibilities on this one. Regrettably, we have no idea how many square inches (feet?) this thing encompasses, but the aptly-dubbed Ambassador was reportedly built with arcade buttons, an aluminum top panel and a wooden case with the sole purpose of controlling Ableton Live music software. Of course, a custom driver had to be created just to take everything in, and quite frankly, we’re not too sure this thing was actually hand built as opposed to being ganked from a UFO’s control hub.

[Via MAKE]

“Tank” may be a strong word, but Om Malik points out that SiRF Technology, which is a maker of GPS chips, is letting go some of its workforce and he feels that SiRF is a bellwether of the GPS industry. As he puts it, SiRF is the “canary in the GPS coal mine” and the GPS end-device makers may follow. For years now, GPS has been the single best-selling electronics category.

I agree with Malik who makes the point that GPS-only devices will go by the wayside as GPS functionality is integrated into other devices, particularly cell phones. I hope that Dash is looking to the future as they have an interesting and potentially very useful product.

Posted Mar 26th 2008 7:59AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: cellphones, Networking

var The board of directors has agreed to split Motorola into two independent, publicly-traded companies. The new entities will be called Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions. The Mobile Devices business will focus on the design, manufacturing, and sales of mobile handsets and accessories globally. The Broadband & Mobility Solutions business covers Moto’s enterprise, government, public safety, and home and networks business. Greg Brown, Motorola’s president and CEO, says the reason for the split is easy, “Creating two industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus - as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders.” Right, weren’t those the reasons for the Palm split? The matter is of course subject to regulatory approvals, but Motorola hopes that the transaction is complete “in 2009.”

P.S. We’re not sure whether this is a sad or happy Moto logo day. Regardless, we went with sad until we see signs of a turnaround.

[Thanks, Matt E.]

3G reviews the Sony Ericsson W580i and writes, “The W580i harbours a standard mid-range two-megapixel camera, woefully deprived of autofocus, Macro focus for close-ups and any type of flash. You can muck around with white balance, shoots modes and effects, but really it won’t mask the average picture quality blighted by soft focus around the fringes. Similarly video capture shoots in a judder-tastic but YouTube fit 176×144 pixel resolution.”

Read more about the Sony Ericsson W580.

Take a look at the curtain above. You are probably thinking - on a perfectly sunny day, perhaps the tree behind cast its shadow over the curtain, giving it the beautiful breezy look, right? Wrong. Take a look at the picture below.

The image in the curtain is actually made out of plain old ASCII characters! Designed by a dutch artist genius Nieke Sybrandy, they are unfortunately not yet available for sale.

Via Engadget.

The Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini is an incredibly lightweight and small, portable USB 2.0 External Hard Drive. What follows are pictures of the unboxing and my initial thoughts on this product.

The un-openable blister-pack notwithstanding, the Maxtor is cleanly packaged, and carries only the essentials inside: Drive, Manual, and Cord. As you can see by looking at the comparison pictures below, the first comparing it to the trackpad on my MacBook Pro, and the second comparing it to the Airport Extreme, which is the same size as the mac mini, this is an incredibly portable hard drive. I could easily see myself taking this on trips to keep my Time Machine backups going.

The biggest con to the OneTouch Mini is the way it plugs in. The cord is split into two USB plugs, one for power, one for data transfer. This was a huge problem on my MacBook Pro, for two reasons. First of all, I only have two USB ports on my MacBook Pro, and second, they are on opposite sides of the computer. This is the case with many computers, and so I could easily see it being very annoying as there would be no more USB ports and a wire going around, across, or in front of your laptop.

Overall, at first glance I would have given the drive at least a 9 out of 10, but the USB cord thing really could be an issue. My first glance rating is a 7 out of 10. This would not be a good drive for someone who uses their computer on a desk most of the day, but it is superb for traveling folks.

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NCSoft is already a customer of Epic Games and has used the Unreal Engine to great success with their MMO Lineage II. The company also have another Unreal-powered game called Exteel, which is heading to release in the near future.

With the relationship already bearing fruit, NCSoft has decided to use Unreal Engine 3 in two brand new MMO titles that have yet to be announced. Young-muk Choi, lead programmer at Development Unit, NCSoft, commented:

Unreal Engine 3 has a well structured rendering pipeline, and its graphical quality is superb thanks to advanced lighting and shadowing systems … Tools within the Unreal Editor empower us to instantly produce and optimize our outputs, and we especially love how the engine enables designers to easily prototype concepts without the need for programming.

Jay Wilbur, vice president of Epic Games, also commented, saying:

NCsoft pioneered online game development using Unreal Engine, as evidenced by Lineage II, one of the most commercially successful and enduringly popular online games in history … We are thrilled to take this next step with NCsoft, and are fully committed to supporting their projects. We expect to be completely wowed by what they do with our latest technology.

NCSoft has certainly used the Unreal Engine to its advantage, and it makes sense for the company to continue the relationship. It now has staff well-versed in the toolset and what the engine is capable of, meaning development time is sped up. Thankfully, the Unreal Engine continues to go from strength-to-strength in both performance and feature set, making the decision to continue its use a very easy one in many ways.

Read more at GameDaily.

Toshiba T400PK 4GB mp3 player

Hold out the palm of your hand and accept the freedom to experience your music, your photos, and your video everywhere you go. Toshibas T400 Gigabeat#174 portable media player delivers 4GB of storage space#32#151#32a 1,000 song or 4,000 photo capacity#32#151#32in a sophisticated brushed black metal alloy body. The 2.4 LCD screen gives you an ideal viewing area for both navigating your audio and video collection#32#151#32with the aid of the PlusPadtrade#32#151#32and viewing your favorite photos and video. Sixteen hours of audio and 5 hours of video playback battery life mean that your new T400 will keep up with your demand for the ultimate in audio and video experience.

Technorati Tags: Toshiba

Posted Mar 25th 2008 1:41PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Robots

Back in November, we knew things weren’t looking up for the twin Mars rovers, but it seems that both Spirit and Opportunity will still be doing their respective thangs after a letter foreshadowing their doom was rescinded. Reportedly, the entity was tasked to slash $4 million from the project’s budget just yesterday, which would have forced Spirit into hibernation and limited Opportunity’s opportunities by mandating that commands be sent up every other day (versus everyday now). As it stands, NASA has issued a confirmation that neither creature will be affected, but given the apparent belt-tightening, we’re curious as to whether Scarecrow will still see liftoff next year.

[Via Physorg]

Samsung has unveiled the AnyCall Haptic phone line (SCH-W420 / SPH-W4200). These touch screen phones feature a 16:9 ratio 3.2 inch LCD screen, DMB, a 2MP shooter and Bluetooth 2.0. The estimated price tag is between $700-$800.
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