We’ve been excited about Nvidia’s Tegra chipset making its way to mobile handsets for as long as they’ve been showing off their prototypes – which, to be clear, is quite a while. They’ve managed to jam a beast of a computer down into a itty-bitty chip and sink the power requirements down to less than one watt, all while keeping the thing cheap. In other words, straight ridiculous computing power (games, HD video output) on a handset that lasts, as Nvidia puts it, “days and days”. We’d heard whispers from Nvidia’s crew back at CES that this thing ought to make its mobile debut in Q4, but we had a hard time getting an official statement on the matter. Looks like it has become a sure thing since: in an interview with The Street, Nvidia’s GM of mobile Mike Rayfield fessed up that one of the big five manufacturers should launch a Tegra phone by the end of this year. We aren’t going to take a stab at which of the big five we’re talking about here, but we can make educated guesses as to which platform it’ll run. Last we heard, Tegra played friendly with Windows CE Embedded, Windows Mobile, and Android. If you see us around, pardon the shade of blue that has conquered our faces; we’re not going to stop holding our breath until we get a Samsung-made, Android-based Tegra phone. UPDATE: Looks like our own Peter Ha of CrunchGear nailed out this information in an interview with Nvidia last week. Not only that, but he took it one step further, getting pricing/carrier information; expect Tegra phones to launch in Q4 on AT&T/T-Mobile for right around the $199 price point. → Read More
NEW ROTATION STYLE! MAGIC RUBIK SHAPE BREAKTHROUGH IQ RUMBIK GAME REGGULAR SQUARE CUBE!
The Irregular Magic IQ Cube, the new rotation style, the new format in each face, the new Rubik shape! It is a Break-through of the Traditional IQ Rubik game that is Good Training for your Brain IQ & EQ!! If you are still struggling with the traditional Rubik, just try this new Brain Training Cube. See whether you can make it from an 3D Irregular Geometric Item to be a Regular 3D Square Cube.
The Mole, as Ars affectionately refers to its gaming industry insider, has once again struck with a ‘rumor’ detailing Microsoft and Sony’s plans for their respective consoles this year. In case you’re super busy this Monday morning, I’ll break it down for you real quick. Expect to see bigger hard drives in the Xbox 360 and a slimmed down version of the PS3. → Read More
A lot of people know that hunger is a major problem in Africa, but few people ever think about it, let alone do anything about it. One Twitter account claims to be trying to spread the message with the use of very straight-forward tweets pretending to be from a starving African.
The tweets range from “hungry,” to “really, really hungry,” to “belly. distending,” and variations on those. Whoever is in charge the the account writes in its bio, “Social commentary illuminating the startling gap between the haves and the have nots.” But is this just poor taste? Apparently the 300-some people that follow the account don’t think so. → Read More
CrunchGear, at the movies! Peter’s been talking pretty much non-stop about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for the past few days, and it brings me great joy to say that, despite the horrendous reviews—this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever read—it’s well on its way to becoming the worst reviewed $400 million movie ever. The movie has been in theaters for five days now and it’s already halfway to the $400 million mark. → Read More
Are you into our President? Prove it by carrying this Obama 2GB flash drive from Active Media Products. You’d be pretty hard-pressed to say that this was anything other than a cynical marketing ploy, but whatevs, it’s the POTUS! → Read More
I don’t typically cover apps or widgets that send e-coupons to my cellular phone very often or at all, but I kind of dig the Green Perks app from T-Mobile. It’s the Oregonian in me, I swear. So, what is Green Perks and why should I download it onto my T-Mobile device? That’s what you’re asking yourself, right? Well, it’s meant to send e-coupons from Green Perks partners who offer environmentally conscious products and/or services. Said partners include Method, Jamba Juice, Volcom, Roxy and Quiksilver. Quiksilver, for example, has a collection of Eco Friendly threads. Volcom also carries a line of 100 percent organic cotton duds under the V-Co.logical collection. So, yeah, those coupons might come in handy if you’re out shopping as they’re the POS type. Green Perks is just another facet in the Mobilize initiative from T-Mobile to help their customers be a little more green and eco-friendly. Check it out at T-Mobile Mobilize. → Read More
Looks like Samsung’s getting into the 11.6-inch netbook game with the upcoming N510. An 11.6-inch screen means a 1366×768 resolution, which in turn means that the machine ought to be able to play HD content, which in turn (in turn) means it’s going to need some extra oomph. And it’ll get just that by using the NVIDIA Ion platform. → Read More
Over the weekend, YouTube launched a new channel dubbed Reporters’ Center, which it hopes will prove to be a good way to educate existing and aspiring citizen journalists on how to report news in ‘the digital age’. The new resource will feature a host of top journalists and media experts sharing instructional videos with tips and advice for better reporting.
So far, there are 34 videos uploaded to the channel, featuring people like Facebook Marketing Director Randi Zuckerberg providing 8 tips on how to maximize distribution of your YouTube video on the social network her brother famously co-created. → Read More
Formerly known as iSwing, Toyota‘s single-seat personal mobility cars gained worldwide attention back in 2005 when TIME magazine called it one of the ”coolest inventions” of that year. But now Toyota has decided to update the vehicle (by reworking the 4-wheel car into a 3-wheel “chair”), give it a new name (i-Real) and let the Central Japan International Airport near Nagoya test a total of four units on a daily basis. → Read More
In a move that should have been done years ago, the top mobile phone suppliers of Europe have all signed an agreement that micro-USB will be the standard phone charging port. Soon consumers will not have to fret over charging cables as all the phones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Motorola, RIM, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and even Apple sold in Europe will all charge via micro-USB. We’re just curious if Apple is going to finally retire the Dock Connector from the iPhone or produce some sort of micro-USB adapter to comply with this agreement. → Read More
Vodafone, the world’s largest cellular operator, is thinking about buying T-Mobile UK, making the giant even bigger. The plan is under scrutiny right now as it would essentially create a massive Euro-monopoly on the cellular front. Vodafone declined to comment. But people familiar with the situation said the company was examining the case for making an offer for T-Mobile UK, or setting up a joint venture. In February, Vodafone and Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong conglomerate, announced plans to combine their Australian mobile businesses. → Read More
Not only does Google want to organize all the world’s information, it also wants to make all that information available to everyone in the world. For the majority of the world’s population, that means making it available on a cell phone, and not a fancy iPhone or Android with a Web browser either. I’m talking about $10 cell phones with not much more than voice and SMS capabilities. If Google can reach people, especially in developing nations, with SMS, it can reach everyone with a cell phone.
In Africa, it is launching a suite of SMS services today, including SMS search, Q&A-style tips, and an SMS-based marketplace. The first country to get these services is Uganda. → Read More
Wee Scott Campbell of Aberdeen, Scotland is 13 years old and sent us an email last week asking if he could write for us. What he lacks in physical age he makes up for in chutzpah. And so, much to my surprise, I wake up this morning to discover young Campbell on BBC comparing an iPod to a Walkman with his mum and generally impressing the heck out of us.
The bairn writes:
My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day.
He had told me it was big, but I hadn’t realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.
When I saw it for the first time, its colour also struck me. Nowadays gadgets come in a rainbow of colours but this was only one shade – a bland grey.
So it’s not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing choice of music player. If I was browsing in a shop maybe I would have chosen something else.
From a practical point of view, the Walkman is rather cumbersome, and it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets. It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.
There has been no shortage of talk about the apparent demise of Userplane, the text, voice and video chat software provider that was acquired by AOL in August 2006 for around $40 million (the exact price was never disclosed).
Venturebeat ran a story on the property last May, citing sources and Userplane clients as saying the service had been “neglected if not abandoned by AOL”. Yet this morning, I exchanged some e-mails with Darin Ohlandt, General Manager of Userplane, and he responded to the rumors saying they are definitely not shutting down and will continue to offer the existing chat and IM services to third-party sites.
However, some writing on the wall suggests he may not be painting a complete picture of what is going on. → Read More
As Twitter becomes the default conversation spot on the Web, we’re going to start to see tools which combine site-specific conversations with Twitter. One example is Tweetboard, which creates a Twitter-powered forum for any site. Once a site adds the Tweetboard code to their site, a site-wide tab appears which allows visitors to have forum discussions by simply logging into Twitter (via OAuth). All the conversations are threaded, and comments appear on Twitter as well, potentially drawing in a larger audience into the specific conversation.
One of the difficulties of following a conversation on Twitter itself is that replies to particular threads aren’t threaded together. On Tweetboard, all the discussions are threaded and nested together, similar to what you’d find on FriendFeed or Facebook. Site publishers can choose to set up a Tweetboard using their personal Twitter accounts or create a new one specific to each Tweetboard. → Read More
Supposedly, the The Pirate Bay guys were found guilty in their recent trial in Sweden, and, supposedly, they got sentenced to a year in prison and had to pay $4.5 million in damages.
But back in the parallel universe which happens to be the real world, they’ve appealed the verdict and could probably keep doing so for the next few years. So in the meantime they need to keep busy, and what better way to do this than start a new user driven video portal to take on YouTube, called, predictably, Video Bay, allowing users to post and share video clips without having to worry about copyright violations. Seems reasonable. It’s not like they need to attract any more legal interest or anything. → Read More
The pictures of the Sony Walkman in this BBC Magazine article made me feel strangely nostalgic – the actual text of the article made me laugh out loud. The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to trade his iPod for a Walkman for a week, and he recounts his experiences with the device, which was launched 30 years ago this week.
Campbell, apart from being amazed at the blandly colored portable music player, correctly points out that the Walkman is much bigger, heavier and generally more clunky than the digital media players he’s accustomed to seeing within his social circle.
On the upside, he writes, the ‘monstrous box’ comes with a ‘handy belt clip screwed on to the back’.
