In case you missed the last Game with Fame featuring Dream Theater, you’ll get another chance to play Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge on Sunday against The Bravery’s frontman Sam Endicott and keyboardist John Conway. Not sure why the others won’t be participating, but you may be able to get in a game of Halo 3 as well. Jump in this Sunday from 2-4pm PST. Gamertags: TheBraveryJ TheBraveryA → Read More
We first covered the rather different advertising campaign for Microsoft’s iPod wannabe MP3 player the Zune in November. Enamored perhaps by the surrealism presented in the original campaign, Microsoft has sponsored a project called Zune-Arts, which created the above ad for the Zune. According to Wired earlier this week, the site is dedicated to creating “pieces of art, content with viral potential, instead of just a [regular] 30-second commercial.” Microsoft’s Robert Schaltenbrand said that the campaign is part of Microsoft’s push to target “the cultural core, the key influencers in society that pay attention to this kind of art,” presumably so they’ll buy Zunes. Each clip created for the project revolves around the concept of sharing, which apparently is the Zune’s main selling point. Regular TechCrunch commenter Fake Steve Ballmer claims that Microsoft has “finally cracked the cool thing” but I can’t help that think that this would be way cooler under the influence of one of a variety of drugs*, as opposed to it being appealing to a broader spectrum of key influencers. Does this make you want to go out and buy a Zune? *TechCrunch does not condone the taking of illicit substances, description for graphical demonstration purposes only → Read More
When TV goes totally digital in 2009, Grandma is going to be stuck with TVs that don’t get any of her stories. The remedy is this little DTT900 box, which will sell for about $60. This is a $20 premium over the $40 coupon households can request from the federal government and that gets you a digital-to-analog converter, remote, and build-in V-CHIP and close captioning, ensuring she doesn’t miss a minute of Price is Right. It has composite and RF-in and is basically puts that old RCA on life-support long enough to finally convince Grammy to get a plasma and a PS3, because Ninety Nine Nights will totally kick her ass. → Read More
The format war is over, kids. It’s going to be a Blu-Ray/HD DVD world whether we like it or not and getting one or the other right now is probably a bad idea. Witness the BF200 from LG, arriving now for $999. Here’s my take: While pure play devices might pop up in consoles — as they have — and some low-cost devices — as they have — these are basically a way to convince users in the 18-34 age bracket to buy Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs. Once each disc type reaches critical mass — AKA once those users get girlfriends and buy When Harry Met Sally in Blu Ray and/or HD DVD — expect dual players like the BF200 to lead the day. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. The BF200 is Blu-Ray Live ready, with a proper patch, and should be shipping right now. LG apparently “sat out” Black Friday, as they told us today at a presentation at their HQ in New Jersey, which is probably why you didn’t see these for $9.99 with a purchase of a hot dog at the Sears concession stand. → Read More
Some of my worst retail memories are of moments spent at CompUSA. Bad prices. Bad selection. Customer anti-service. Don’t even think about returns. Walking into a CompUSA store is just about the polar opposite of walking into, say, an Apple store. Well, it’s in the deadpool now. They’re closing all of their remaining 103 stores. The upside of all of this is that the stores will likely be selling all their stuff at big discounts. Have a particularly egregious story to share about CompUSA? Tell me all about it. You’ll feel better after the purge. → Read More
Are these not some sexy-looking headphones? I have just recently been looking for a decent pair of wireless wired headphones with decent battery life, good sound, and a reasonable price tag. Guess I’ll have to settle for two out of three, because these things cost $250. But look at them. They look like they could play games themselves, they’re so professional. They come with an amp/hub that provides the base for their operation, and there’s a detachable microphone with noise canceling built in. The cans are Dolby Digital certified and the MixAmp does the mixing, as you might expect. I’d sure like to get my hands on a pair of these! Now let’s just hope Astro Gaming takes the hint. I’ll be watching my mailbox. Astro Gaming [via QJ Gadgets] → Read More
It’s a good month for customers, at least if you believe what you read. In another triumph of savvy consumers over corporate retardation, Activison (now Activision-Blizzard, of course) will be correcting that minor oversight by which Wii owners only got mono sound in a music-based game. “We recently became aware that some consumers have not been able to enjoy the full audio output in the Nintendo Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock,” said an Activision spokesman. Somebody give this guy a high five. They’ve decided to do a new pressing of the game and send out the corrected discs free of charge to anybody who wants one (and owns the original, of course.) So keep an eye out for a follow-up, kids, and maybe you too will finally be able to live out your “Freebird” fantasies with both channels. Guitar Hero 3 Wii Mono Sound to be Remedied with Free Remastered Game Discs [Shack News] → Read More
If you’re the kind of DJ who likes to dual-wield iPods or keep your vinyl on your MacBook, maybe you should take a look at this thing. It’s got a huge amount of features, ports for USB stuff, and space for you to put your own 2.5″ drive in. It has to be PATA, formatted for FAT32, but whatever. Judging from the sheer number of buttons, dials, and toggles on the top of the thing, you can do just about anything to your mp3 or wave files. It’s also got a tight little LCD screen and a proprietary music management program. Actually, I could do without that last one. Denon DJ DN-HS5500 → Read More
Umm, Google? Did we do something to deserve the coals or lack there of that you’ve sent to CG’s HQ? The ladies over at Sugar have gotten their well-manicured paws on an ultra-thin 2GB flash memory drive encased in a brown and powder blue leather case. Not that we even need any more USB drives or anything, but it would have been nice to know you cared. Jerks. Google Gives the Gift of Sleek Storage This Christmas [geeksugar] → Read More
A big thank you to everybody for filling our tips at crunchgear dot com inbox with wonderful, unique, and newsworthy items. Here are five that we just couldn’t get to this week. Subject: Mannequins order Hello,This is Marcus Brown from California and i will like to know if you do produce Mannequins?i will order them to my new company in Ghana.i will like you to email me back if you have so that i will tell you the specifications of the Mannequins i will order.Also include the payment method you accept for your orders.i have a freight company who will come to your location to pick them to my location after payment have been done.Hope to hear from you soon and have a wonderful day MARCUS BROWN → Read More
What can I say, Oregon is a hotbed of talent. Heh. Granted, Dakine was started in Hawai’i, but Hood River is now home to Dakine’s HQ and for good reason. It’s centrally located to Mt. Hood, the Pacific is a few hours away and the kiteboarding capital of the world, Columbia Gorge, is right in their backyard. So is it any wonder that they make top of the line gear? Whether you’re taking a day trip to the mountain for a hike, hitting the freshly powdered slopes or jumping on a plane they’ve got you covered. Here are a few packs that are sure to keep your gadgets out of harms way. → Read More
In the great war between the Rebellion and the evil Empire, there were casualties on both sides that cannot be counted. Suffice it to say that each contender made a mark on the other, swapping lightsaber wounds for blaster scars, neither willing to admit defeat until the final moment when a penitent Darth Vader threw a merciless Emperor down a plasma-filled reactor shaft. That’s not to say there weren’t wastes of other things, as well. X-Wing fighters were turned into interstellar scrap, Death Stars became debris fields, and AT-AT walkers were shown to not be as invincible as once thought. This model, by Dimitri Kaliviotis is an excellent example of just such ruin, and is one of the coolest things I’ve seen this year. Abandoned Refuge [Starship Modeler, vis Star Wars Blog] → Read More
I’d think this was a joke, except for the USPTO entry. Fark has lodged a trademark application for the term “Not Safe For Work.” According to this USPTO entry, Fark wants sole rights over NSFW in the following areas: Entertainment Services namely providing a website featuring photographic, audio, video and prose presentations featuring comedic captions regarding current events and online discussions and/or reviews of web materials of an adult nature; Entertainment services, namely, providing a web site featuring musical performances, musical videos, related film clips, photographs, and other multimedia materials; Entertainment services, namely, providing on-line reviews of photogrpahs and /or web postings of an adult nature As Trademork points out, it might be a little difficult to protect and enforce this mark given its already widespread usage, including a range of other websites the use the term (and the NSFW abbreviation) in their title. NSFW has also become a common term used widely to the point that it even has its own Dictionary entry. → Read More
Looking for that special gift for the lady in your life? Or maybe your ready to tell the lady in your life that you’ve been following (but doesn’t know you exist) how much she means to you. Or maybe you really like pink and you want to give a little to a worthy cause. Whatever the case, consider the Komen Milano from Mobile Edge. It’s made of faux pink crocodile and 10% of the $129.99 purchase price will go to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer charity. → Read More
Askmen.com got their top 10 hottest tech women of 2007 all wrong when they failed to include geeksugar, in my honest opinion. Anyhoo, geeksugar put together a gift guide for the geeky girl in your life and you should probably pay attention since we all know you’re scrambling around trying to figure out what her cup size is and whether she likes edible panties. To each his own, but these are some sure fire ways to score brownie points with the little lady. Geeksugar does a great job covering the basics from condoms for the BB Pearl to a fashionable Kodak camera wallet to a Mango Tango Faux Croc Laptop Bag. Check it out and you’ll thank her later. Trust me. geeksugar’s Gift Guide: Great Gadgets for Girlfriends [Geeksugar] → Read More
http://cdn.channel.aol.com/aolexd_widgets/aolwidget_9.swf The Wachowski Brothers who are soon to be Wachowski brother and sister have teamed up to bring the 1960s anime onto the big screen and it’s making me trip out. That’s like being on acid. Not that I know what that’s like, but I’d imagine that’s what life is like when you’re on it. Holy crap this movie is going to rock. If you have no idea what Speed Racer is then you seriously need to educate yourself by going here. → Read More
Just a quick note, sportsfans. Today Woot is having a Woot-off! We do love our Woot-offs here at the Gear, and you should, too. Go get some good stuff! woot dot com → Read More
Hey, the first dual-core Celeron processors are coming. How in the hell do you like that? Two cores?? Now I’ve seen it all. They’ll be here on January 20th. I hope it’s not too cold out that day because I’d hate to be shivering at the ribbon cutting or the inauguration or the parade or whatever’s going to be happening in Boston when these new dual-core Celeron chips arrive. Two cores!! The first model out of the chute will be the seductive E1200. It’ll be running at 1.6GHz with an 800MHz front side bus and 512KB of L2 cache and priced at $53 (in thousand-unit orders). Intel to release Celeron E1000 on January 20 [DigiTimes] → Read More
What’s the best way to deal with having way too many cables running around, tripping you, so that you fall and crunch your teeth together in a bone-jarring bite? Why, make them into one, giant cable, of course! Or so thinks the monsters at Monster Cable, who have put together the Cable•It (their dot, not mine) cable clutter management system. It’s a tube that you run all of your favorite cables through, and has ports along the side to let them out at the appropriate destinations. Genius! And because it’s monster cable, you know it’ll cost them $2 to make, but of course they’ll sell the piece of plastic tubing for $20! Get yours today! Monster Cable Cable•It [Product page] → Read More
We opened up nominations for the upcoming Crunchies Awards a week ago. In that week, over 13,000 nominations have been cast, for thousands of startups and products. Nominations stay open until midnight December 12. At that time, we’ll take a day or two to tally the results, remove any spam and fraudulent votes, and the top five nominees in each category will go up for a general vote. The winners will be announced on January 18 at a ceremony at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. Remember that some of the awards are specific to new 2007 products startups. Others (most of them) are more general and aren’t tied to the launch date of the company. Tickets will be made available soon. The theater holds nearly 1,000 people, and there will be a big party afterwards. The competition would not be possible without our sponsors. Thanks to Sun Microsystems Business Analytics, Microsoft and Charles River Ventures for sponsoring the Crunchies. Contact us if you’re interested to sponsor an award or other part of the evening festivities. If you are a startup and want to encourage your users to nominate you, blog and website badges are available here. And rememeber that this is not solely a TechCrunch effort. We are partnering with GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb and VentureBeat on this as well. → Read More
