GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Microsoft’s attempt to be hip and cool in mobile is a bust. The company has decided to stop introducing new Kin-branded phones and will scrap the device’sEuropean launch. Instead it plans to integrate Kin into its existing Windows 7 Phone team.

Microsoft will continue Kin sales in the U.S., says the company in a statement.

The move comes just two months after Microsoft introduced two phones under a new brand called Kin. The phones, called Kin One and Kin Two, were built with social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter at their core. Manufactured by Sharp for Microsoft, and available exclusively on Verizon Wireless, the phones were targeted at teens and social networking addicts.

But, from the start, Kin devices seemed doomed. The phones got tepid reviews and were plagued by reports of extremely poor sales.

Here are four reasons why we think the Kin failed:

Fuzzy Kin OS Creates Confusion

Microsoft has been pouring resources into beefing up Windows Mobile and seems poised to introduce Windows Phone 7 in time for holiday season this year. But in a surprise move, Kin made its debut in April running a flavor of the new operating system.

Kin’s OS isn’t exactly Windows 7 Phone but it’s not entirely a new operating system either, Microsoft executives attempted to explain. Call it a fork in the road of Windows Phone 7, they said at launch.

Kin had features such as easy sharing and automated backup that didn’t seem part of the announced Windows Phone 7 OS. In turn, that confused mobile phone enthusiasts. Now Microsoft seems to realize how splitting its OS brand could be a problem.

Microsoft executive Roz Ho who headed the Kin project will “oversee” her team’s move into the Windows Phone 7 fold, and then move to another role in the company, says Engadget.

Expensive for not a complete smartphone

The Kin isn’t a smartphone but it sure had a monthly cellphone plan priced like one.

The Palm-sized Kin One, which had 2.7-inch screen cost $50 with a two-year Verizon contract, while the Kin Two with its 3.5-inch display cost $100. A few weeks later, Verizon dropped the price on the two phones to $80 and $30 respectively.

Sounds cheap right? Not really. The fine print is in the monthly cellphone plan for the device. All Kin phones require a data plan. That means a $70 per month minimum on the bill.

That’s a lot of money for someone flipping burgers at McDonalds for their summer job to be handing over to a cellphone company.

If only Microsoft had offered all those social networking features on the Kin without requiring a data plan, Kin might have had a better shot at survival.

No apps, no games

Though Kin forced a data plan on its users, the devices are not really smartphones.

Kin phones have a browser and can access social networking sites through widgets. But Microsoft crippled the overall functionality of the device by not allowing apps or games on the phone.

That means users ended up paying for a smartphone but getting an amped-up feature phone instead.

Consumers, even teens are smarter than that. Many just gave the Kin a pass.

Lack of the cool factor

Kin made a bold move into an extremely competitive cellphone market. But the devices lacked the cool factor and never really made it clear why a user would want a Kin over a Motorola Cliq or a HTC Hero.

Microsoft’s marketing of the Kin seemed to make it worse. The company focused on projecting a faux hipster vibe for the product.

Kin would be a device that would make it easy to share photos, videos and access social networking feeds, promised Microsoft’s ads.

However, almost every smartphone today can do that and at times better than the Kin. At launch, Kin’s Twitter client, for instance, was half baked. Users couldn’t view @ replies, search or post photos. Similarly, Facebook features were limited to showing or posting status updates, though you can post photos.

What Microsoft failed to drive home were the truly innovative features of the phone — mainly the automated cloud backup. The Kin backs up the entire device including photos, videos, message history and call log into a free online storage area that can be accessed from any browser–all without the user doing anything to trigger it. It’s a feature that can come in handy when the phone is dead or missing.

But you wouldn’t have known that from Microsoft’s Kin ads.

Photo: Kin One and Kin Two (Jon Snyder/Wired.com)

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

<< previous image | next image >>

The fabric of the future won’t be just plain chiffon, silk or cotton. Instead electroluminescent material, microprocessors and LEDs may be woven together with clothing fibers to create smart textiles.

“Clothing can be considered a second skin and by implementing technology in it, you are bringing it into your intimate space,” says Nicky Assmann, an e-textile designer whose work was part of a recent exhibition in the Netherlands. “You are not just carrying technology like a laptop or an iPhone, but wearing it constantly.”

The exhibition, Pretty Smart Textiles, which closed last week, gave a glimpse into what happens when technology meets fashion. Among the exhibits: a dress made entirely of circuit boards that generate music, a garment that uses its wearer’s heartbeat and other sounds from the body and remixes them into music, and a trench coat that reads fabric punch cards and tells stories.

Electronic textiles are outgrowing their geeky reputation, says Melissa Coleman, who with Dorith Sjardijn curated the exhibition.

“The open source hardware movement has allowed for quicker and easier development of electronics and made it accessible to artists and designers,” says Coleman. “The result is that smart textile applications have become more interesting conceptually and aesthetically.”

The exhibition featured 16 works and seven interactive samples.

Most of the artists who showed their work were women. “Electronic textiles appeal more to women than men,” says Sjardijn. “Women who are already in technology find it a nice way to combine the stuff that they find appealing with the more clinical world of technology and programming.”

A Musical Circuit Dress

A dress with 35 old circuit boards stitched together is not for everyone. But Nicky Assmann, who built the dress over a four-month period, says she chose circuit boards as the fabric for her dress because she liked their look.

“There’s a certain aesthetic about them — they have many details and are very systematic, like a grid or a city map,” she says.

The circuit dress is not just clothing but also a musical instrument. The dress is based on the idea of circuit bending, which involves deliberately short-circuiting electronic musical devices to get unexpected noise.

Twelve coils are incorporated into the dress, each of which is played by connecting to one another through copper finger plates. The musical composition results as the fingers explore the dress. There are two speakers on the front of the dress, and the entire dress runs on batteries.

The straps on the dress are made from electric cables that are are used for rewiring the circuit-bended board from the back to the coils to the front. “It’s very functional,” says Assmann, since it solved the problem of where to leave the wires.

Overall, the dress weighs about 20 pounds. Assmann says if she’s practicing for a performance, she can’t wear the dress for more than hour because the straps hurt her shoulders.

Ultimately, the idea of the musical circuit dress is to display what many people consider ugly when it comes to technology: the innards of a device with its circuit boards, the wires and the chips. Assmann, an artist who’s studying for her graduate degree in Music at the Royal Conservatory and Academy in The Hague, says the circuit dress put an aesthetic that’s normally hidden out in the front.

“The unwearability of the dress defines its performance,” says Assmann.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Sony is recalling 535,000 Vaio notebooks because they may get so hot that the cases will bend and warp. The F-series and C-Series Vaios have been sold into various markets around the world: Japan, Asia, Europe and the US, although so far Sony has only received 39 reports of overheating problems, says the Wall Street Journal.

Pretty much any modern notebook gets to hot to be called a laptop, but the “temperature-control defect” in affected machines is letting them get hot enough to “cause skin burns.”

Oddly, despite the recall, this appears to be a software issue which can be fixed with a download. According to Hiroyuki Kachi of the WSJ, a simple software fix will take care of everything, but for those not willing to do it themselves, Sony will arrange pickup for affected units.

This isn’t the first time Soiny has recalled computers for overheating issues. Just Google Sony Recall Overheat and you’ll get results all the way back to 2006.

To see if you’re affected, head over to Sony’s diagnostic page and check your serial number (found on the barcoded sticker on the bottom or rear of your machine). If you are, grab the BIOS firmware update and you should be running cool again in no time.

Important Notification for the Sony VAIO F11 and CW2 Series [Sony]

Photo: By tjriley82/Flickr

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

With the iPhone 4, flashlight apps just got a whole lot more useful. Apps like “Dazzling Flashlight 4g” from Cramzy will fire up the new iPhone flash to light your way.

Previously, these apps would do little more than light up the screen in solid white. Some added “features” such as color, strobing and other jazzy effects. The thing is, when most of use an iPhone to light the way to the bathroom in the early hours, we just keep hitting the home button and navigate by whatever photons the unlock screen can provide.

Now the inevitable iPhone 4 versions are seeping into the App Store, and they light up the flash on the back of the handset. This is brighter than the screen (in some cases you can still choose to illuminate the screen, too), but you’ll still have to sleepily find the app before you stumble through your dark apartment.

More interesting is that these apps show us that Apple has provided developers with tools to control the external lamp. As on-axis flash is all but useless for straight photography, I’m hoping that somebody makes a strobing photo and video app that allows for some cool, stuttering image effects.

Dazzling Flashlight 4g [Cramzy via TUAW]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

For several years, Denise Carlevato has studied millions of mouse clicks and keystrokes made by anonymous computer users from all over the world. Her objective: to make Microsoft Office better fit the way millions of people work.

Months before Microsoft rolled out the latest version of its productivity suite, Office 2010, 9 million people downloaded its beta version to test the software and provide feedback. As part of the program, Microsoft collected 2 million comments from beta testers. An additional 600 people participated in Microsoft’s Virtual Research Lab, where Carlevato and her colleagues could observe how people were using new features.

In a sense, it was a massive, controlled crowdsourcing project. That’s just what you have to do to cater to as broad an audience as possible, says Carlevato, who has worked as a Microsoft usability engineer for 10 years.

“We do our darnedest to make sure the features we put into our product are the things people ask for,” Carlevato told Wired.com. “We know from watching them work that they really need it.”

Though some tech observers have predicted Microsoft’s downfall after falling behind in the smartphone game and being one-upped by Apple in market capitalization, many agree that reports of the software titan’s inevitable demise are greatly exaggerated. Microsoft as a whole remains hugely profitable, and Office has consistently been the most lucrative part of Microsoft’s business, raking in billions of dollars each quarter, even exceeding sales of Windows.

And although Google offers a competitive productivity suite, Google Docs, for free, Microsoft still has a major advantage: 67 percent of U.S. online consumers regularly use Office, while only 4 percent use Google Docs, according to Forrester Research.

“In some ways, the ‘Office versus Google Docs’ debate doesnt merit a lot of consideration — its still no competition,” said J.P. Gownder, a Forrester analyst. “In terms of usage and penetration, Google Docs remains a failure – so far, anyway.”

But staying in the lead with productivity software isn’t easy, and to retain the loyalty of millions, Microsoft goes to great lengths to determine what customers want. For Office 2010 beta, Microsoft included a feature called “Send a Smile,” a comment box for testers to submit feedback and suggestions for improvement. Of the 2 million Send a Smile comments, 81,000 included the senders’ e-mail addresses so the engineers working to improve Office could follow up with them.

To analyze the Send a Smile feedback, Microsoft built a database and programmed algorithms to classify and tag comments under certain categories, while filtering out biased feedback and useless drivel. From that point, researchers manually read every single comment to determine necessary tweaks and additions to Office.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

It’s only been a few days since the launch of iPhone 4, and there have already been an alarming number of stories of people dropping their iPhones from heights small or large, and shattering the back panel of the phone. Luckily for them (and you), there’s a simple solution: sugru.

Instructables has a video and instructions for how to apply four small bits of a material called sugru to the corners of your phone to make it much more drop-friendly. Sugru is a silicon modeling clay that adheres to almost anything, and in this case can be used to make your iPhone sturdier, bouncier and much better at handling the moment when you get out of your car with your phone on your lap and fling your brand new iPhone onto the street. Even for non-droppers, the sugru keeps the iPhone from rubbing against whatever surface it’s sitting on, which will do wonders to keep it from getting scuffed and scratched.

Sugru corners for your iPhone will cost just under $10 for materials, and only a few minutes of time to put together. It’s not the most attractive of solutions (the sugru corners look a little like clown noses, which I can only assume would be another viable way to protect your iPhone), but it’s much better-looking than a shattered iPhone.

(Photo: Courtesy Instructables)

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

iWork, Apple’s productivity suite of applications that is available on Mac OS and the iPad, is coming to the iPhone very soon.

Rumors of iWork coming to the iPhone started when Apple, in one of its support documents for the iPhone, used a screenshot that showed a menu saying “open in Keynote.” That image was quickly replaced, but the rumor mill kept churning. ipodnn found a few fuzzy screenshots of iWork, but those were somewhat less than convincing.

A whole lot more convincing is the Pages walkthrough that 9 to 5 Mac posted, complete with 12 screenshots of various parts of the Pages interface. For the most part, it’s just a shrunken version of Pages: same wood-like toolbar, same document navigation and menus, same basic interaction. But there were a few new things, like wireless syncing of documents across your iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches.

Pair the fantastic screen (and new Bluetooth keyboard capabilities) with a full-featured application like Pages, and the iPhone is a viable productivity device. At least, as long as you can resist playing Doodle Jump.

(Photo Courtesy 9 to 5 Mac)

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The HTC Evo has competition. Samsung has introduced its first 4G handset, called the Samsung Epic, on Sprint’s network. The Epic will be the second 4G smartphone on Sprint, following the Evo 4G’s debut earlier this month.

The Epic 4G will have a 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard. Inside, the device packs a 1GHz ‘Hummingbird’ processor from Samsung, and two cameras: a five megapixel camera to shoot movies and photos and a front-facing VGA camera (0.3 megapixels) for video chat. The phone will run Google’s Android 2.1 operating system.

Samsung’s 4G phone is up against some strong rivals. The HTC Evo 4G has become the best-selling device on Sprint’s network. Meanwhile, Apple launched its latest iPhone, the iPhone 4, last week. Though the iPhone 4 runs on AT&T’s 3G overloaded network, the device has some features such as video chat and a luminous, high-resolution display that is drawing in customers. Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s in the three days since the device’s launch.

The Epic is part of a new family of Android smartphones called Galaxy S from Samsung. The Galaxy S phones feature 4-inch screens, run Android and integrate social networking feeds from Twitter and Facebook, plus e-mail messages, calendars and contacts, into a single screen.

Sprint did not reveal pricing or availability for the Epic 4G.

When it comes to 4G services, Sprint is ahead of other wireless service providers in the U.S. Sprint’s 4G network is currently available in 36 cities. Sprint claims its 4G service can deliver up to 10 times higher speeds than existing 3G networks. Major areas such as San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. will get 4G connectivity later this year, says Sprint.

Verizon is testing its 4G ‘LTE’ network this year and expects to start rolling it out next year. AT&T is likely to start trials of its 4G service next year.

Not surprisingly, Sprint is pressing its advantage with 4G handsets.

Samsung’s Epic is largely comparable to the HTC Evo in its hardware, but it lags behind in a few areas. The Evo has a 8-megapixel camera, compared to the Epic’s 5-megapixel. The Evo can provide wireless access for up to eight devices as part of its hotspot capability, while the Epic an support only up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices simultaneously.

But Samsung hopes to offer content that will put the Epic ahead. For instance, over the next few months, Epic users will have access to the Samsung Media Hub, a video store with movies and TV available for purchase or rental, says Samsung. A 4G network should help make downloads much faster, says the company.

The phone will also have a service called ‘AllShare’ to wirelessly exchange music, pictures and video with other devices. For business users, the phone supports push email, integrated calendar and Exchange ActiveSync.

Samsung and Sprint say the Epic will be upgraded to the latest flavor of Android, Android 2.2 ‘Froyo.’

As for other cellphone service providers, Samsung isn’t neglecting them. In the next few weeks, Samsung plans to offer Fascinate, a 3G phone running Android 2.1 OS on Verizon and Vibrant, an Android smartphone on T-Mobile’s network.

Top Photo: Samsung Epic 4G/Samsung

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The Pogoplug got an update this week that will let you, with an e-mail from any computer or mobile device, print a document on any printer you have connected with a Pogoplug.

The Pogoplug’s simplest use is for accessing your stored files over the Internet. The $130 device plugs into your Ethernet connection, and has a USB port – plug in a hard drive or a USB drive, and the Pogoplug puts all those files on the web for you to access via the Pogoplug site or the company’s iPhone and Android apps. You can also e-mail files to your Pogoplug – if you’ve got a file on another computer, you can e-mail it straight onto your hard drive instead of attempting any of the other, universally obnoxious options for getting a file to your computer.

The latest Pogoplug update lets you connect a printer to the Pogoplug, instead of just a hard drive. That means that any printer with a USB port can get connected to the internet, and you can print something just by e-mailing it. Need to print from your iPad or cell phone? Now you can.

HP announced the same feature a few weeks ago, but you’ll need to buy a new HP printer in order to print by e-mail. Pogoplug supports all HP printers and all Epson printers made since 2005 right out of the box, with more likely coming.

More and more companies are likely to adopt this same kind of feature, and printing’s going to get a lot more convenient, no matter your location or device of choice. As the world goes mobile, printing’s catching up, one funny-looking pink device at a time.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Cisco announced this afternoon that in 2011 it will be launching an Android-based tablet, named the Cius, aimed squarely at the business market.

Cisco has always been an enterprise-focused company, and the Cius is its shot at bringing businesses on board the tablet bandwagon. Video conferencing, the product which Cisco is perhaps best known for, is front and center both literally and figuratively – there’s a 720p-capable cameras on the front of the Cius, in addition to the 5 megapixel camera on the back.

In an effort to get the Cius into briefcases and suitcases all over the world, the 7-inch device weighs only 1.15 pounds. The Cius will ship with 3G capability, WiFi, eight-hour battery life, HD audio and video out, and tight integration with all of Cisco’s other business applications as well as the huge Android market.

There’s no word yet on what the device will cost, but it promises to make Android a little more business-friendly and to make getting things done on the road a little easier . Even if it won’t have all the great entertainment of the iPad, maybe that’s a good thing for business users.

(Photo: Courtesy Cisco)

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Following the The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg reports that Verizon is launching an iPhone early next year.

Bloomberg cites multiple anonymous sources who claim Verizon will begin carrying the iPhone in January 2011, ending AT&T’s exclusive partnership with Apple.

Bloomberg’s report follows The Wall Street Journal’s article in May, which claimed that Apple is scheduled to produce CDMA iPhones this September. CDMA is the standard used by Verizon iPhones.

Technology publications and analysts have speculated about a Verizon iPhone for years, but the stipulations of Apple’s exclusive contract with AT&T remain unconfirmed. However, it’s notable that two mainstream news outlets are now claiming a Verizon iPhone is due soon.

In response to Verizon iPhone rumors in May, AT&T said during an investor conference that the company was not intimidated by a Verizon iPhone because discounted family and business plans would make it difficult for subscribers to transition multiple devices to a new carrier.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Avoid dead camera batteries by putting a strip of solar panels on your camera strap. Simple, and rather clever, right? That’s exactly what Weng Jie’s Solar Camera Strap does, although in coming up with the design he forgot an important point: you can’t charge batteries while they are in the camera.

While some cameras come with charging docks or have their chargers built in so you just have to plug in a cable, most require a separate charger into which you pop the battery: a far better solution which doesn’t put your camera out of action as it juices up. Weng’s device runs the power generated by the strap into the camera’s DC-in socket via cable. This would let you use the camera as long as the light is bright, but there’d be no buffer if the Sun were to dip behind a cloud (there are a pair of batteries within the strap, but that’s not really ideal).

Still, those are mere details. Give me a way to use my camera all day without having to worry about running out of power and you’d have my cash. If you ever sell this strap, Weng, get in touch. And please, please make it in a darker color so it doesn’t pick up my neck-dirt.

Power Around My Neck [Yanko]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Walk into any toy store and you’ll see a “laptop” “computer”, a plastic clamshell that has all of the design cues of a notebook: keyboard, screen, some ports and switches, but none of the power. It’s cheap enough to buy for (and disappoint) a kid, but it isn’t of course a real computer. It probably has a few built in games and that’s it.

The Ebay $37 laptop is almost that same machine, although it looks even more like the computers it pretends to be. It runs Windows CE on a 300 MHz ARM VIA processor with 128kb RAM and a whopping 2GB storage. The huge bezel around the tiny 7-inch 800 x 480 screen has space for a pair of speakers either side, and you even get an ethernet jack and a couple USB ports (take that, iPad) along with Wi-Fi. You can also slot-in an SD card.

What’s the catch (apart from the extraordinarily underpowered internals)? There appears to be none. These are factory seconds or items which have failed quality control tests. They may or may not come with original packaging, and they ship from Hong Kong. Sound risky? C’mon. They’re $37. What do you expect? It’s almost worth it just for the AC adapter (9 volts, if you care).

If you run into Nicholas Negroponte and he’s still trying to make his $100 OLPC, point him to this, okay?

7″ Mini Laptop Netbook Computer Notebook WIFI WindowsCE [Ebay via Netbook News. Thanks, Sascha!]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Amazon continues its electronic march across the e-book world with Kindle for Android, which joins Kindle apps for iOS, BlackBerry, Mac and PC.

Like the other Kindle flavors, the Android version will keep your reading organized and synchronized across all your devices via Whispersync, let you make and view annotations and buy titles from the Kindle store. Also like the other version, the Android Kindle app is free to download (find it in the Android Market). What you don’t yet get are the audio and video extras announced for iOS devices yesterday.

The actual hardware Kindle certainly kick-started the mainstream e-book market, but it looks more and more like that was its main reason for existing. Amazon, as we know, makes its money on selling books, not selling Kindles, and the relentless push to make its e-book library available anywhere shows the business plan clearly. It doesn’t hurt that the Kindle’s catalog stands at around 600,000 titles, making it the one of the best-stocked stores around. Kindle for Android will work on any device running Android 1.6 or better.

Kindle for Android [Amazon. Thanks, Kinley!]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Sometime my email brings me nothing but endless useless PR pitches, offers to talk with an “expert” on iPad cases or just the usual offers to help export $6 million worth of Viagra from Nigeria. I live through these for the occasional Perfect Storm, a product that makes my gadget-sense tingle, something which not only ticks, but tickles every box on my emotional gee-gaw checklist. Today is such a day.

The product is, obviously, a power-strip. It is also from Quirky, the community-driven product makers that seem to hit almost as many product home-runs as Apple. Third, it is a product that I actually need. So much so that I ordered one before writing a word of this post.

Pivot Power is a flexible power-strip, its jointed sections rotating around one another to accommodate six plugs. Sure, you may have a 6-plug strip already, but how many gadgets can you actually plug in? My 8-plug strip is full with just five items, most of which cover up an adjacent socket. The caterpillar-like Pivot-Power lets you twist to fit and therefore fill every electrical orifice.

The strip is on pre-sale for $23, rising to $25. When all 960 orders have been taken, the production lines will roll and the strips will be cranked out, and a big chunk of the profits will go to the main designers and “influencers” of the Quirky community. I’m number 405 in line.

Pivot Power [Quirky. Thanks, Tiffany!]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

A purportedly leaked slideshow reveals what may be Microsoft’s game plan for Windows 8. Giving a strong nod to Apple, highlight features teased in the presentation include a Windows app store and instant-on bootup.

Italian Windows blog Windowsette posted the presentation watermarked “Microsoft Confidential.” One slide explicitly mentions Apple’s consumer strategy: a high-quality, easy-to-use user interface that feeds brand loyalty.

“Apple brand is known for high quality, uncomplicated, ‘It just works,’” a slide reads (see above). “This is something people will pay for!”

Microsoft declined to comment on the presentation’s authenticity.

Though the unconfirmed slides explicitly mention Apple’s strategy, Microsoft is still far ahead of the Cupertino, California company in the desktop OS space. Research firms estimate that Windows dominates over 90 percent of the desktop OS market share. Additionally, Microsoft recently announced it sold 150 million licenses of Windows 7 in eight months.

If real, the presentation would suggest that a key part of Microsoft’s strategy to secure its lead with Windows is to replicate Apple’s successful App Store model. One slide (below) reveals plans for Windows 8 to introduce “Windows Store,” an app store for purchasing and downloading Windows applications.

The slides also allude to a one-second bootup reminiscent of the iPad’s instant-on capability.

“Windows 8 PCs turn on fast, nearly instantly in some cases, and are ready to work without any long or unexpected delays,” one slide says.

Windows enthusiast blog Microsoft Kitchen has collected all the slides and believes they are “the real deal.” For a blow-by-blow analysis, visit Stephen Chapman’s writeup.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Despite last week’s flurry of bad press surrounding the iPhone 4’s antenna, Steve Jobs is still in a chatty mood about his company’s newest handset. His latest personal e-mail to a customer relates to minerals used to create the iPhone 4 and other Apple products.

In an e-mail to Jobs on Sunday evening, Wired.com reader Derick Rhodes inquired about whether Apple was using “conflict-free” materials to create the iPhone 4. Jobs shot back a reply an hour later stating that Apple was doing what it could.

Hi Steve,

I’d planned to buy a new iPhone tomorrow – my first upgrade since buying the very first version on the first day of its release – but I’m hesitant without knowing Apple’s position on sourcing the minerals in its products.

Are you currently making any effort to source conflict-free minerals? In particular, I’m concerned that Apple is getting tantalum, tungsten, tin, and gold from Eastern Congo through its suppliers.

Looking forward to your response,
Derick

Jobs’ reply:

Yes. We require all of our suppliers to certify in writing that they use conflict few materials. But honestly there is no way for them to be sure. Until someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it’s a very difficult problem.

Sent from my iPhone

Rhodes was inspired to write the e-mail after reading a recent New York Times piece detailing the horrific warfare in the Congo, which sells minerals to the suppliers who create components for cellphones, computers and gaming devices. Grass-roots campaigns have dubbed minerals from such origins as “conflict minerals.”

Jobs has been known to occasionally respond to customers’ e-mails, though in recent months the CEO has sent at least one e-mail each week. Many of these e-mails make their way to blogs. Some social media experts told Wired.com that they believe Jobs’ casual replies have evolved into a PR strategy as a means for the CEO to communicate with the world.

Jobs’ e-mail to Rhodes contains a typo conflict “few” rather than conflict free presumably because he typed it with his iPhone. Wired.com was able to verify the authenticity of the letter.

Rhodes said he felt grateful about receiving an e-mail from the famous CEO.

“I thought it was really cool,” he said. “His e-mails are really concise, so I really appreciate the thought he put into it.”

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

An astonishing new device is set to shake up the world of cycling, and to make the road a safer place. The bicycle accessory is called the “Electric Sound Bell” and comes from a forward-thinking company called QBell. It mounts on your handlebars and – at the push of a button – it will sing out a warning to pedestrians and other road users, enabling them to smilingly get out of your way as you slowly pedal through town.

This miraculous invention requires just 2 AA batteries to do its work, and the four different “ringtones” can be trilled at any of three volume levels. We recommend starting low so as not to startle strolling citizens, as at full volume it is capable of a swoon-inducing 110 dB. It is even waterproof, to keep you safe in a passing shower.

The price? Just $24. Who would have thought such a revolutionary product could be sold for so little?

Electric Sound Bell [KJ Global via Oh Gizmo!]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Apple has sold an almost ridiculous 1.7 million iPhone 4 handsets in its opening weekend, running Thursday through Saturday. This breaks every prediction we saw last week, and almost triples the 600,000 pre-orders reported by Apple just a week before the new iPhone went on sale.

“This is the most successful product launch in Apples history,” said Steve Jobs in an Apple press release. Even so, pre-ordering glitches and flat-out supply shortages kept Apple from selling even more. Jobs again: “Even so, we apologize to those customers who were turned away because we did not have enough supply.”

The customer pays $200 (16GB) or $300 (32GB) for an iPhone 4, but Apple gets more than that from AT&T. To find out how much, lets take the prices from the few countries where the handsets are sold unlocked – France, Canada and the the UK. Converted into US dollars, we get the following:

Taking into account that all Apple products get more expensive as they cross the Atlantic, we’ll be conservative and use the Canadian prices. Taking the mean of the two prices (and rounding them) we get US$670. Let’s multiply that by 1.7 million to get Apple’s total sales for the weekend (not counting the newly discounted iPhone 3G or the still-hot iPad). The number? $1,139,000,000, or well over a billion dollars. Not a bad start.

iPhone 4 Sales Top 1.7 Million [Apple]

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

What does an AT-AT do when it’s not advancing over the icy wastes of Hoth or crushing trees and blasting stupid teddy-bears on the forest moon of Endor? Why, it chases dogs, sniffs fire-hydrants and drops dog-eggs on the sidewalk, just like any other four-legged pet, of course.

This fantastic video by Patrick Boivin, entitled AT-AT Day Afternoon, shows a day in the life of a pet AT-AT. It’s a little too full of schoolboy humor, but the Jabba gag is priceless. Best of all, it’s only a minute long, so you have no excuse not to quickly brighten your day. I wish my brother’s toy AT-AT had been this much fun, instead of just collecting dust and filling up the toy-box.

AT-AT Day Afternoon [YouTube via Geekologie]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The lens is the most important part of your camera. It controls everything about the light that hits the sensor short of the length of the shutter speed. It is much better to put a great lens on a cheap camera than the other way around, something which goes frustratingly unheeded: just check a few photo forums to see people sticking crappy kit lenses onto Nikon D700s and Canon 5D MkIIs.

That’s not to say that Samyang’s range of lenses for Samsung’s mirrorless NX-series are bad. Without testing we won’t know for sure, but experience says that own-brand lenses are best, followed by those from top-tier third party makers like Sigma.

Three lenses are being ported to the Samsung mount. An 8mm 3.5, a 14mm 2.8 and an 85mm 1.4. Of these, the 8mm would seem to be the most interesting. It will come in at around 12mm (35mm equivalent) on the NX APS-C sensor, and usually the main point with a fisheye is impact rather than absolute quality. The price has not yet been announced but the lens can be had for as little as $350 in other mounts.

The 85mm, on the other hand, is a flat-out portrait lens and goes for around $400. In this case, quality needs to be high. If Samyang manages this, then the 1.4 lens will be an absolute bargain.

Tempted? Think twice. There is one huge drawback when using the lenses on a modern camera: No autofocus. This will probably be fine for the fisheye, but try that with the insanely shallow depth-of-field that an 85mm 1.4 will give you and you’ll learn a thing or two about manual focussing and just how wobbly your hands really are.

Product page [Samyang via BJP]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Those waiting on the popular and good-looking Dodo iPad case, the high school cheerleader of tablet-carriers, might instead consider the equally pretty The Case from Pad & Quill. Similar to the Dodo case in design, it is clearly inspired by the Moleskine notebook, with its faux-leather cover. Then things start to get different.

The Dodo has a bamboo frame inside the card cover, and The Case is fashioned from Baltic Birch, routed to within 1/20,000th inch of its life and then stuck with rubber bumpers to keep the iPad snug inside. It also has cutouts around the edge so you can reach the iPad’s buttons and holes.

The Case also ditches the Moleskine elastic band in favor of a press-stud closing strap like that found on a Filofax, and adds an ingenious way to get the iPad back out. Instead of just holding the case upside-down and shaking, a red-ribbon book-marker lies underneath the iPad. Pulling on the exposed end lifts the tablet from its case.

You can also buy a smaller version for your iPhone from the Milwaukee-based company. This will cost you $40, and the iPad version is $55, $5 more than the Dodo, and will rise to $65 sometime in the future. Because they are hand-made, these cases too have a waiting period, although it is just 2-3 weeks compared to the 4-6 weeks for the Dodo. That could all change now The Case has made its way into these pages.

The Case [Pad & Quill. Thanks, Brian!]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Amazon has added audio and video to its iPhone and iPad Kindle applications. Several titles are already in the store and give you popover additions to the words and pictures already in the e-books.

The new multimedia books get their own section: Kindle Editions with Audio-Video, which is rather sparsely populated right now. The international store contains just seven books, most of which are Rick Steves’ travel guides (plus a cookbook and Knitting for Dummies), while Technologizer reports that the US store currently lists 13 titles. Presumably more are on the way.

This marks a big leap over Apple’s own e-reader software, iBooks, which currently has just words and pictures. IBooks may have a nicer UI, but Kindle has the catalog, and often the lower prices: these new books come in at $13.79 in the international store, and at the regular $10 price-point in the US.

Of course, these versions won’t work on the Kindle hardware: even if they did they’d max out the 2GB storage pretty fast. As it is, these big files are only downloadable over Wi-Fi on the iOS devices.

Cookbooks, travel guides and how-to titles all clearly benefit from added video and audio. Let’s just hope that Amazon doesn’t decide to bulk up simple novels with these extra Megabytes, too, unless it is to add a fully synced audiobook version so you can switch back and forth between words and speech. That would be pretty sweet.

Kindle Editions with Audio-Video [Amazon via Technologizer]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The iPad is less than three months old, and already programmers have whipped up 9,000 apps for the fancy tablet. But, just as with the iPhone, there’s a problem: It’s hard to navigate the App Store for quality wares because it’s just too crowded.

Right before the iPad launched and after it came out, we rounded up some apps we found intriguing. After diving into this media-savvy device, we’ve added a few more apps we consider to be gems, ranging from a web browser that’s better than Safari to a sheet music reader that teaches you piano.

Reeder

The makers of Reeder borrowed heavily from the interface of Apple’s built-in Photos app, but we’re sure Steve Jobs doesn’t mind. This apps makes news-reading look darn gorgeous — something that newspapers still haven’t figured out how to do — and it offers one of those experiences that reminds you why you bought an iPad in the first place.

Reeder displays all your RSS feeds in an albumlike interface; each feed gets its own rectangular tile. Pinch outward on a feed and it launches its list of headlines on the left and the article in a right-hand window. Pinch inward to close the feed and go back to your main menu.

Here’s how good it is: Both Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel and I love it, and we mostly read tech news RSS feeds for our jobs. (See Sorrel’s gushy review of Reeder for a closer look.) Yes, it even makes reading news for work more fun. ($5, download)

Top photo: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Oscar, a three-old British cat, has joined the rarefied ranks of bionic animals. After a horrifying accident chopped off his hind legs, Oscar has gotten a second lease on life through two bionic leg implants.

Oscar lost his legs to a combine harvester last October. With heavy blood loss and bits of missing flesh, he needed to draw on his nine lives to make it. And he found help from veterinary surgeon Noel Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick and his colleagues drilled metal holes into what remained of Oscar’s legs and attached special implants, reports ABC’s Good Morning America. Eventually, Oscar’s skin is expected to over the implants so the prosthetic attachment will become a part of his body.

Right now, Oscar has round pegs at the end of his hind legs. But if everything goes according to plan, those will be replaced by more real looking “paws.”

So far, it seems to have worked great.

As you can see in the video, Oscar is doing a great job walking with his prosthetic legs. His gait isn’t perfect but he seems to be working on it and compensating for the bionic legs. And Oscar even climbs on a pack of paper towels.

Oscar isn’t entirely out of the woods yet. He will be closely watched for the next six months to make sure he doesn’t develop sores or infection.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews